SUBSIDY

A story adapted from comments of a well known blogger..

A man called Maha owns a farm which can produce 10 apples every day. He has 5 workers to operate the farm. Each of them eats 1 apple daily and it is enough to keep them operating the farm normally. The remaining 4 apples, the landlord sells them at RM10 each and he earns RM40.He uses the RM25 to improve the farm operation and facilities. He gives RM2.00 to each of his workers and he keeps the remaining RM5.00 as profit. Day by day, the farm is well developed and all of the 5 workers are happy with the money they can save.

When Maha passed away and there is a new landlord, Abdul comes to continue the farm operation. He says to the workers:” We need to improve the farm quality and redefine our way of thinking. From now on all of you only need to pay RM1.00 for each apple you eat. It is very cheap as the price is RM10 each outside the farm.”The workers have no choice but to pay RM1.00 for the apple they eat daily. Their earning decrease from RM2.00 to RM1.00 per person. As usual, Abdul sells the 4 apples and he gets RM40. He uses RM25 for farm improvement and pays RM10 to his 5 workers. He gets RM5.00 as profit. On top of that, he gets another RM5.00 from the apples that he sells to his workers. In total, he gets RM10 as profit every day.

Soon, the apple price increases to RM20 each. The new landlord gets a higher profit as he gets RM80 for the 4 apples he sells daily. Then, he decides to give the farming improvement contract to one of his close friend, Samy.Samy says:”Apple cost naik, improvement cost also misti naik.”So, the farm improvement cost increases from RM25 to RM50.In actual, the improvement only cost RM30. The remaining RM20, Abdul and Samy share evenly among themselves.
Let’s calculate how much Abdul gets daily:
RM10 (from farm improvement cost)
RM20 (Net profit by selling 4 apples: [Gross profit, RM80] - [Improvement cost, RM50] - [Wages RM10] = RM20)
RM5 (from selling apples to his workers)

In total, Abdul gets RM35 daily compare to RM10 initially when he takes over the farm from Maha. His profit increases RM25 and the workers are still getting RM1.00 daily per person.The greedy Abdul does not want to stop there. One day, he says to his fellow workers:” You see ah, the current market price for one apple is RM20 and you are only paying RM1. See how lucky you are! I have to SUBSIDY RM19.00 for each of the apple you buy and total I need to SUBSIDY RM95.00. This will greatly burden the farm and we might get bankrupt if we continue like this. In order to avoid bankruptcy, I need to increase the apple price that you buy from RM1.00 to RM1.50 and I will bear the remaining RM18.50 per apple as my subsidy to you all. ”

So, greedy Abdul adds RM2.50 to his current profit and the number becomes RM37.50.

Sounds familiar with what the story ?

The RM95 subsidy never existed in the first place and so was the RM52 billion fuel subsidy generously “given” by the government.

Interesting rite :p

What's really overrated ?

In different perspectives, everything can be overrated. Standards and norms are just a simple measurements to define something being overrated. For me, most of the things in life are overrated. Maybe I'm just another step closer to nirvana and being a true Buddhist, I'd started to look at things in a different perspective and differ myself in applying normal standards.

There are few things that are overrated, in my opinion. Firstly, is the global oil price. How could, in a few years time, the oil price could rise a few folds, exponentially ? When you heard about the depletion of the resources as the main factor, think again ... Why don't they increased it in accordance to availability of it few years ago ? Were scientists and researchers on oil & gas field much more stupid back then and couldn't predict about the availability of oil ? Or maybe some giant oil sucking monster suddenly evolve from a cockroach and start sucking up all the oil ? Or maybe it's a job of speculation to push the oil price few folds ? For every reasons that possibly exist, the current oil price definitely is overrated, or overpriced. And due to that, our overrated ruling government increased the fuel price at a rate of 40% to starve the pitiful citizens.

Relationship is another overrated aspect in life. When you're in a relationship, you'd start to overrate everything that involves around you, all the stupid dates with stupid meanings like first time eating ice-cream and will be followed up with monthly ice-cream anniversary. Then you'd start to think that your partner is somehow a superman or superwoman and later on got disappointed with them due to their inability, as not everyone is a romantic over achiever like me :P Then you'd argue on the small small issues that are not important at all like how he uses the toilet or how her small habits annoy you; small things make complicated..

And also, facebook is overrated too. It's full of spam with all the nonsense applications that need you to forward to every of your friends (spam your friends(any tom dick and harry you add in face book)) in order to fully utilize the application. Then, you'd start cam-whoring to put some best pictures of yourself on the profile so that you could be auctioned for the highest price in one of the nonsense application.

But what's really really overrated ? The word "OVERRATED" is the most overrated thing in the entire universe. For all the nonsense that I'd wrote above to exaggerate all the things I think being overrated, it would not be overrated if I never overrate it. Just like when you tell stories about how superior the kungfu master on top of the hill is; story telling is about exaggerating the facts and making something common dramatic, so that it will be overrated. Blogging is a part of it.

p/s: I actually like the Growing Gifts application in facebook :P For some overrated reasons of course :)