Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Big Mac Index

The Economist's Big Mac index is a fun way to keep track of relative purchasing power parity. Though the index has its weaknesses, its still a reliable rough guide to what your currency could buy. The cost of a Big Mac, representing the cost of producing one will somehow include rental, distribution and transportation costs, cost of ingredients, wages, advertising, etc. Hence you could be earning less effectively but you could be buying a lot more in reality.

Malaysia is supposed the second cheapest place on the index followed by China. Is this a reflection of competitiveness? Or a reflection of how many "things are subsidised" in that country? We all know the answer.

The Economist's Big Mac Index


Now, let's do a Big Mac index of our own but this time use the cost of buying a car - I bet you we'd rank second from the top, just below Singapore compared to the rest of the world. How in the world do we get to be one of the most expensive place on earth to buy a car??? Again, we all should know the answer.

What's really pathetic is when you divide the cost of a car with the average wage earned per country - I am bloody sure we would be NUMBER ONE in most unaffordable list.

7 comments:

K H said...

Ironically enough, we are the largest car market (passenger cars) in ASEAN...

Ooi Beng Hooi said...

What can be observed is that we have more highways built in recent years than developing infrastructure for public transport and this encouraged more private vehicles on the roads.

Government that cares about the people should put more priority in public transport. Malaysians are spending too much of their incomes on private transport

farulg said...

Car prices in Malaysia are high and realistically there's nothing any of us can do about it. You have far more options to increase your income than to reduce the price of a car...

SalvadorDali said...

farulq,

what do u mean there is nothing we can do???? its not like a BP oil spill la...

a) abolish all APs
b) abolish all car import duties
c) allow Proton and Perodua to sink or swim on its own, I mean come on, they are no longer less than 10 years old

but u may be right that we cannot do anything about it, ... no one has the political will or intellectual might or change leadership qualities.

k3nNy Ch@i =P said...

How could this be possible? As a student in the US, I earn the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in the US, but the price of McD is well below $4-5. In Malaysia we can't even afford to buy a set of McD with the minimum wage of RM4 for part-timers. Oppss, do we even have a minimum wage policy? Don't think the Big Mac index can be applied here in Malaysia or any ASEAN countries, because there are too much "loopholes", means if you know your way, you can definitely get things cheaper than usual. Of course on average, if we don't buy McD, there are always other cheaper alternatives.

Smurf said...

Spot on Dali...
However, APs are required to feed some very "important" people in the country... how ironic...taking from the people to feed a bunch of hellbound maggots.

Born2Reign said...

We can do several things:
1) Register to vote NOW (no-brainer) - shocking to note that in one church sermon, Hannah Yeoh asked how many law-abiding church-goer have not registered for voting - nearly half of the room!!!

2) Abolish all subsidies at one go! AND abolish all APs at one go too! Rafidah has cried for Maha-tahi, done all the wayang kulit, and still AP stays.

3) Stop this naive thinking that govt cares for the people. No govt cares for the people, just as no employee cares for the Board of Directors. There is this thing call limitation of authority and accountability. Malaysians love big govt to raise their kids, build their houses, plan their future, etc, when govt should be kept as small as possible.
Today our MACC can question and kill, police shoot to kill, IGP threaten to pull out all police DiRaja if his police is questioned, PM gets commissions, etc...big govt you want, big govt you get.

4) Ban all racial parties.