In the news 29Nov with my commentaries. Har har.

Tolls to rise on 5 M'sian highways next year

(KUALA LUMPUR) Toll rates on five Malaysian highways will rise next year, following the government's decision that it can no longer afford annual subsidies to the private highway operators, news reports said yesterday.

If the tolls were not raised, the government would have to pay the five highway concessionaires about RM2 billion (S$852 million) in compensation under concession agreements between the government and the operators, newspapers quoted Works Minister S Samy Vellu as saying.

Mr Samy said that the increase in rates for the five highways - most of them major roads used by daily commuters from Kuala Lumpur's suburbs into the city - will be determined after a study by his ministry, the New Straits Times and The Star newspapers reported.

Malaysia's 17 highway concessionaires operate various motorways crisscrossing Malaysia, covering more than 1,000 km.

Works Ministry officials were not immediately reachable for details on the hikes.

Mr Samy's press aide could not be reached on his mobile phone. - AP

What this means:

Of the basket [cases, some] of highway projects we have, some were really bad decisions and are therefore not sustainable. That’s why you have to tax the profitable ones higher to balance the loss of the unprofitable ones. So the people are paying for the government’s bad planning.

If you think about it, those who live in Klang Valley really get screwed. There is no way you can get away with NOT using tolled roads because Samy (and the powers he represent) has basically obstructed all the major in/outlets with toll booths- remember the [short lived] controversy about tolled roads being built to ease congestion but instead caused more traffic jams by acting as bottlenecks?

Let’s hope there are no petrol price increases next year.
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Got this quote from Straits Times doing media monitoring. Thought it was poignant.

“Most Americans are reluctant internationalists. They realize they have to be involved beyond the boundaries imposed by two great oceans. But they don't really like it, as they think there is trouble out there.

Americans, he says, are tired of being afraid, unloved and unwanted in the world.

“After 9/11, in our anger and our fear, we presented a snarling face to the world. That’s not the traditional face that Americans put to the world. We put the face of optimism and opportunity and enthusiasm. And I for one want to return to that kind of face.

-Richard Armitage, former Secretary of State.

Josie and I went to the CD shop some weeks back. I got her this CD by Tony Bennett and friends as her birthday present. She liked it so much because it has such happy songs. We wondered why it is so that people are much happier in decades past. I read an article once that said in the 50s/60s, America (and the rest of the world) was optimistic about the future- one that could only get better. How stark that is from what we think of the future today.

But really, having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I can feel that Americans are a more optimistic and idealistic lot than the old world citizenry.