Premonition

I was doing my research on Sri Lanka's unemployed for my Economics team project when I just decided to pop into the Malaysian Department of Statistics. Noticed something.. CPI up by 2.03% to 105.4 points compared to 103.3 in the same period last year (Jan-September).

Notable increases were recorded in the main groups with high weights namely Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages ( + 2.8 per cent ); Transport ( + 2.7 per cent ) and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels ( + 1.3 per cent ). Other increases in indices were Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco ( + 7.3 per cent ); Restaurants & Hotels ( + 3.2 per cent ); Education ( + 1.9 per cent ); Health ( + 1.6 per cent ); Furnishings, Household Equipment & Routine Household Maintenance ( + 1.1 per cent ); Recreation Services & Culture ( + 1.1 per cent ) and Miscellaneous Goods & Services ( + 0.6 per cent ).

The three main groups, Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages; Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels and Transport together accounted for 84.3 per cent of the overall increase recorded for the current period.

The 2.8 per cent increase in the index for Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages was the result of increases for Food At Home ( + 2.8 per cent ); Food Away From Home ( + 2.9 per cent ) and Coffee, Tea, Cocoa & Non-Alcoholic Beverages ( + 2.1 per cent ). Among the subgroups of Food At Home which showed increases during this period were:

Vegetables 6.7 %
Food Products n.e.c. 3.5%
Fish & Seafood 3.3 %
Milk, Cheese & Eggs 3.0 %
Meat 2.5 %
Rice, Bread & Other Cereals 1.4 %
Oils and Fats 1.2 %
Sugar, Jam, Honey, Chocolate & Confectionery 0.9 %
Fruits 0.6 %

Uh-oh, well I don't quite understand how the government has managed to place inflation at 3.2% in January. Well if inflation last year was estimated at 3.8%.. it's probably safe to say it's gone up past 4% at the current point of time.

4%! Disposable income is shrinking lo people. 1-month FD 3% ROI only. Shafie Apdal doesn't have to introduce stricter price controls..but Zeti tolonglah naikkan interest rate biar semua orang happy la. Aku pun sakit hati nih.

Oh something interesting.

Cucumber	(+) 7.4 %
Onion, big	(+) 7.4 %
Carrots	(+) 6.9 %
Bread Wholemeal	(+) 5.0 %
Spanish mackerel (fish)	(+) 3.6 %
Watermelon	(+) 3.5 %
Red snapper (fish)	(+) 3.4 %
Condensed milk	(+) 1.7 %
Chicken	(+) 1.3 %

Tomatoes	(-) 9.5 %
Red chillies	(-) 6.6 %
Lady’s fingers	(-) 6.0 %
Spinach	(-) 5.4 %
French beans	(-) 4.6 %
Kailan	(-) 4.4 %
Water spinach	(-) 4.0 %
Choy sum	(-) 2.7 %

Data for prices this month. Table from Department of Statistics.

Wei, drink less teh tarik, eat less chicken rice, stop getting rabbits as your pets, and eat less steam fish. Then substitute watermelons as your pencuci mulut with tomatoes. Both also got juice in them, can lah.. and everyone become naughty boys and girls huh, don't want to eat vegetables, see now what happen? choysum, kailan, water spinach, french beans, etc all turun harga. Means what? Even God (unless you are an Atheist) wants you to eat vegetables, but not cucumber, you people lazy to chew is it?!