After almost six months without a price hike in fuel, the government raised the prices by 8 rupees. Mind you, during the last 6 months, fuel prices worldwide went up by USD6 per barrel, reaching a record high of USD72 per barrel. SEVENTY TWO DOLLARS!!

Now everyone seems to be complaining of the price hike. And the JVP and JHU are screaming that "the common man" was being hit. They want more subsidies for fuel. This was after the price of fuel was kept artificially stable because we had a presidential election in December and the PC elections in April.

We spent USD180 million on fuel subsidies in 2004 ALONE. Thank god for the fucking tsunami, or we wouldn't have any money left. The country was heading for a FISCAL FUCKING CRISIS. In fact I would like to send a BIG fucking thank you to all the people that suffered any form from the tsunami, for being part of the economic resurgence of Sri Lanka. Its fine upstanding people like you that made it possible for our tax collectors to walk off with Rs 24 BILLION. Will you please stand up and take a bow.

So we want more subsidies. Lots more. But do we actually realise where the money is going to come from? Its not like the money fairy (no Elton John, not you) is going to show up with a bag of cash and hand it to us. The money has to come from somewhere. And where it comes from is the people. The taxes we pay (minus what gets stolen), the aid we get to build the country. The EPF, and ETF which successive governments have considered their own personal plunder box. THOSE are the ones that are sacrificed to the god of Subsidies.

And this money is paid for IMPORTS! So none of it actually stays IN the country. It goes straight out the door to the oil sheiks in the MidEast so they can have more Sri Lankan maids to fuck.

So who really pays? Who pays for the infrastructure development that didn't happen because the cash was spent on fuel? Now note that most infrastructure development doesn't happen in Colombo. We already have our roads (such as they are). We have the cars to drive on those roads. Probably more cars than in the rest of the island put together. The infreastructure development that doesn't happen is the stuff that should happen in the less developed areas of the country. The villages that have no power, or water, or proper roads. The villages that lack what Colombo people take for granted.

And lets look at where the subsidy goes. The subsidy goes where the most fuel is used. It goes to the place with the most number of cars. The place where people would hop in a car to go 100 meters to the local supermarket. The place where we would have a serious smog problem if we didn't have a convenient sea breaze that blows the smoke into the country, causing all kinds of bronchial disease, for 12 hours and out to the sea, where it causes acid rain, for another 12. Where is that place? Colombo.

All the subsidies that are given do NOT go to the poor. They go to the guys in Colombo. Lets do the math. Lets assume that a bus and a BMW uses 1 liter to travel 15 km (take the average km/l of the bus and the bimmer, add the two, divide by two). Assume also that the bus carries 40 passengers one kilometer, and the BMW carries 5 (you gotta have your comfort). They both get the same subsidy per liter. Which means that the person in the car gets a higher portion of the subsidy than the person in the bus. Now it may be possible to argue that the person in the bus pays less per kilometer than the passenger in the BMW. But the bus passenger taken as an average pays a lot more per kilometer than the guy who rides in the BMW, when you take it as a portion of fuel used.

So what's the point? The subsidies that the JVP and the JHU are screaming about, which are supposedly to be used to help the poor man, are a sham. The money comes from the outstations in the form of undone development, and is used to pay for the travellers in Colombo. And the man who travels alone by private vehicle gets more subsidy than the poor schmuck who travels jampacked in a bus.

Maybe the Jeppo and the JHUththo should stop fucking around and rioting in the universities and actually get an EDUCATION there instead.

Thank you for listening, now go and spend some of your subsidy.