Economic Worries
When the price of petrol first went up in June, I coped. As a single professional living in the not-so-expensive Kota Kinabalu, I just forked out an extra RM30 to get a full tank. When it started to cost more to buy Devondale milk (from RM4.60 to RM6.20), I started getting worried, not for myself, but for those who have several mouths to feed on a small pay. When CNN brought me over to the United States through my TV screen to see multi billion dollar bailouts, I still kept my chin up.
But tonight as I sit here on my couch at home, I have a lousy feeling that something bad is going to happen to the country. TV3 reported that up to 50,000 government contract workers may see their contracts terminated by year end (thats two months from now) because there may not be enough money in the coffers. Minutes later, the business segment reported that the KLCI is now at 891 points. Earlier in the day, I received an email from a concerned friend, who suggested that we should keep whatever cash we have, settle loans and not to take fresh loans as we are heading into a recession.
When the 1997 financial crisis happened, I wasn’t alarmed. Maybe because I was 24, had just started working that same year and felt my fate was best left to the country’s leaders. Today, all I see on TV are parliamentarians bickering over the dumbest things instead of cracking their heads to find a solution, or at least cushion the impact. I dont know about you, but for the first time in my adult life, I feel helpless. At an age when I should be breaking free to explore new opportunities, all I see is a black wall. It used to be so, so, so far away. That wall is now smack in my face. I feel like a 4-year-old all over again. A 4-year-old who needs her mummy and her papa to hold her hand and tell her everything will be all right when she has a fever. Today, I feel like I’ve been “orphaned” by the very people voted in to be the country’s caretakers.
