If you read this to the tune of Jump Around by House of Pain, I don't blame you, this head bopping ex-clubber is also doing that. It also shows my age. Yes, that song has been around since 1992.
So, what am I rambling about here? A Malaysian Minister for Economy made comments, one of which got some boxer shorts in a twist. He said that some of the unsavoury practices by sellers, selling at a higher price is because we Malaysian consumers encourages them. How? By continuing to buy even though the price was sold at a higher price. He was commenting on the price of chicken.
Contrary to my friends' opinions I must agree with him. We Malaysians are not a discerning lot. We don't really shop around. When we look at tips to save money or to better manage finances, we notice that in the West they would recommend shopping around for the best prices for fuel, energy and so forth. Shopping around for fuel and energy is alien to Malaysians as the prices are fixed and it's the same whichever petrol kiosk one goes to. And we only have a single supplier for energy. But we can still shop around for the best prices. My father loves Milo chocolate drink (some will argue it's not all chocolate, but I digress), so he will shop around for the best prices and offer. We should all do the same.
If we were to be more observant, there are price differences for chicken for different outlets. Some supermarkets even sell it at a premium price. And his advice is we should pressure outlets to lower their prices by not buying their goods if the prices are unreasonable.
I am not the most discerning of people neither am I very observant, but even then, I could still detect if prices are higher or lower for certain goods. Sometimes just for the sake of convenience (read it as laziness), we just get everything from one place instead of going around for the best prices. In such instances one shouldn't be complaining if one were to spend more for less.
I have dwelled on the subject of high production costs in my earlier posts https://www.lonjak-kan.com/post/on-the-moo-trail and https://www.lonjak-kan.com/post/no-eggs, so I will not touch on the subject any further. But I would like the government, whether local, state or federal to allow residences to embark on farming, any form of farming. Be it fish, poultry, vegetables and even herbs. Why? I remember when I was small when there was nothing to watch on television (Malaysian TV only had 2 channels in the 70s), there was this programme known as Rancangan Buku Hijau (literal translation Green Book) where there were various tips shared on growing our own private garden or rearing fish and so forth.
In every corner in Malaysia, there will always be abandoned or empty lots or abandoned buildings. Such areas can be made good by doing some form of activity. I know that there are some housing areas that encourages community farming. And I was enthralled by the idea when I first noticed it on MasterChef Australia. This is the perfect way to reduce the cost of living, reducing expenditure, by embarking on our own agriculture venture, albeit a micro mini one. It can either be a commercial venture, a shared one or even barter trading.
There needs to be alternative source of food. Prices are sky high now that there is very little left to make ends meet, much less to break even. If we were to embark on such, being more price sensitive, shopping around, we may be able to weed out these unscrupulous traders. These days we have the Social Media as our medium, used as an effective tool, we can share prices so reasonably priced traders will get the support they deserve while we run poorly behaved traders into the ground. We can then in turn force the distributors and suppliers to bring their price down if they are making ridiculous margin at our expense.
If one were to venture into my Letters section, one will notice that I have written on this subject previously published in the New Straits Times.
These are some of the articles collected on the internet on the subject by the Minister for Economy.
Various ministries do issue a price list of goods. I believe it's time for us to issue our own price list, comparing prices from one supermarket to another, one shop to another, one outlet to another. If we already have it please share it folks, if we don't have it let's do something about it.
I use this as a photo for my post, while this may be good for the consumers in the short term, this may put operators out of a business because the production costs also need to be addressed. This is just a very short-term solution. In the longer term, it is necessary for the market forces to dictate prices without any government intervention. Someone somewhere will buck the trend and sell at cheaper prices leading others later to follow suit. One of the areas to look at to manage production costs are lower energy costs that will encourage automation and the use of technology, lower water tariffs, lower annual assessments, incentives for research and development that will encourage production and use of alternative animal feed. Lower costs should then encourage more participation in the industry that will lead to lower consumer prices in the longer term.
The government should consider intervening strategically instead of operationally.
![Joie de vivre [zhwaduh-vee-vruh]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/98d927_9bd54ac5248843daac7bd16909b74bda~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_216,h_216,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_auto/98d927_9bd54ac5248843daac7bd16909b74bda~mv2.png)
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