What goes down when everything goes up?

First of all, this question was posted by hui wenn, the cute little godsister of mine. The latest increase in fuel price by 78 cents had awaken quite a demon...public fury. My dad was seen with a strained eyebrow when I chatted with him on the webcam. He was there lecturing me all the consequences of fuel price hike such as how it used to cost 5 cents for a bowl of mee during his school boy days. Well, I guess certain things that had gone up wont come back down again(except of course your savings!!!)...fuel price, electricity bill, toll, our favourite roti canai, nasi lemak and teh tarik will cost us alot more from now onwards. I can start to see a M-shaped society. At both ends of the 'M' are the hardcore poor ones on the left and the filthy rich ones at the other end. The middle class are gradually slipping into oblivion. A person who earns 3000 bucks in KL with a family of 4 barely making ends meet says it all about the situation. In germany an average worker earns about 2000 euros a month which is roughly 10000 bucks in Malaysian ringgit and can afford to own a reasonable VW car. For your information, a BMW 3 series only cost about 10K euros. The petrol price is about 1.50 to 2 euros per litre but life seems to go on well here. Germany is a oil importing country but they seem to manage inflation so well. What is wrong with Malaysia then? Who should we blame then? Is this the goverment's fault for mismanagement of petroleum money or the over reliance of the people on fuel subsidy? Before we start blaming people, lets take a look at ourselves first. Every household now owns at least a car if not more than 2. The cars they own to be honest is not fully utilised as they should. The dad drives to work with a car. Mum drives another and in some families the son drives another to college. Each car is driven by a single person and the car can fit 5 person. The norm now is to drive a car eventhough the shop is only few minutes walk away. We all know where the problems lie...the question is can we change it? Don't complain about fuel price when you are responsible to it!!!