A LITTLE INFLATION IS NOT SUCH A BAD THING

By : SELVARAJA SOMIAH

LOPSIDEDNESS is a matter of perspective. Consider this: 35% of Malaysia's disposable income comes from a top 6 cities. The bottom 1000+ kampongs account for 35% of income. Of a rest of a income, 30% is in a superfluous hundreds of towns.

These have been what a small marketing pundits euphorically call a Tier-2 towns, places with perceived intensity for measureless growth. Does this Tier-2 layer really exist?

This contingency be judged from a title news "Malaysia's Aug acceleration seen steady during 1.4%", "Falling Inflation", "Bank Negara as well as a Malaysian economists applaud volubly". Is this really value celebrating for all?

you was recently touring Kundasang, home to South East Asia's top towering Mount Kinabalu, also South East Asia's largest cabbage as well as broccoli marketplace which I'm really familiar with, as you was one of a pioneers years ago you do experiments upon pesticides as well as introducing hybrid cabbage as well as mountainous country vegetable seeds from Taiwan as well as Japan a small twenty years ago.

you can't contend people of Kundasang would applaud a tumble in mountainous country vegetables i.e. cabbage, cauliflower as well as broccoli prices. Hundreds of farmers have been mourning a pile-up of prices, infrequently to even below a price of production.

The price of cabbages has fallen during a plantation gate by over 50% over only 6 months! Overall, pr! ices hav e deflated over 30%. But it will take years prior to they could go up again.

Unfortunately, a rancher is not treated with colour similar to an financier whose income commands a headlines, as well as who reports plantation turn profitability. No rancher ever computes his ROI (return upon investment) upon a land which he owns. It is inherited as well as comes for giveaway to cultivate.

If you were to price up all plantation turn production based upon a price of fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, weedicides, labour as well as land, everything will be ten times more expensive! Not many recognize this, but Malaysian cultivation is highly subsidised by a rancher who treats a price of land as free.

Think about a positives of acceleration for a moment. How many people know how acceleration is computed actually? There have been 435 articles or line opposite 3 major groups which have been taken in to consideration as well as since opposite weights. Milk has a top weight (4.4), rice is (2.44), weights for all fruits as well as vegetables have been reduction than which of milk.

This raises another question: how many times do a media complain about a price of milk? Cabbages as well as most mountainous country vegetables have a common weight of 0.54, jagung (corn) even reduction (0.09).

Then, because have been corn prices more of an emanate than cabbages? The Malaysian rancher would contend which vegetables as well as fruits get unfairly low courtesy in a context of a perceived causes of inflation. you want to argue which farmers need acceleration for a better living.

When you did economics as one of my initial year writings in uni, as a student, you was taught which "a small acceleration is not such a bad thing". But how 'little' is little? The bigger emanate is, 65% of Malaysia which lives off agriculture, will have t! o humour from curtailed income due to deflation. And this clearly takes income out of a hands of semi-urban as well as farming people.

Would a Tier-2 story stand afterwards with only 2% inflation? you would consider not.

One also starts to wonder about a policy-making process as well as about those who have been entrusted with a sacred pursuit of policy-making as well. Time as well as again, you have seen which Parliament is not where process is made; it seems as though it is an locus where political parties stage their differences in acts of one-upmanship.

Policymakers have been shabby heavily by 3 kinds of people: a male in a street sorts who only look during day-to-day gains as well as valuation; a politicians who do not assimilate economics when it is distant from politics; as well as a global investors who have been during best opportunists as well as who provide Malaysia similar to a dungeon in a diversion of snakes-and-ladders.

The indicate is, great intentions of a couple of policymakers have been not removing translated in to ground reality during a plantation level. There is too most media glisten upon produce prices than is required.

There is an urgent need for a uninformed look during a needs of specific businesses in farming Malaysia, in terms of supply sequence infrastructure, precision as well as financial support. One size does not fit all. Individual ministries contingency debate thoughts as well as ideas with commercial businesses during a grassroots level, to assimilate a travails as well as opportunities.

Meantime, certainly a dreams of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies as well as other categories contingency be put upon reason till a work achieved by farmers in smaller towns as well as kampongs for their livelihood becomes essential again. Some acceleration is certainly good.