Category: Rants

Random Discourse – Wage “Shock Therapy”

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Former National Wages Council [NWC] chairman, Professor Lim Chong Yah, stirred up controversy since he made a wage reform proposal at a public lecture calling for a 50% increase in wages for the low-income (those earning below S$1500) over three years, and a freeze in wages for high-income earners (those earning S$15000 or more). So-called “labour chief” Lim Swee Say took issue with the proposal, saying that productivity and wages go hand in hand. He said the “labour movement” is concerned that not addressing the issue of productivity will lead to a “no-win situation”. Lim Swee Say also said that if wage increases outstrip productivity gains, companies may cut jobs or move out of Singapore and there may also be structural unemployment.

Netizens definitely have good reasons to call Lim Swee Say the ‘talk cock minister’. First of all, I don’t see how Lim Swee Say’s pay (and that of his colleagues) goes hand in hand with productivity. Perhaps the only way to measure his productivity would be how many great games he managed at the golf course, or how fast and how often he can regurgitate the same stuff we have grown tired of listening to. In fact, how to measure the productivity of a CEO or someone in high management who make decisions which affects the fate of a company? Maybe a good CEO would be the one who lose the least money or the quickest in retrenching staff to stay profitable. As for the bad CEO, how fast he can screw a number of companies thrice over and still get millions in severance and bonuses would be the measure of his productivity.

Isn’t is absurd that companies won’t blink an eye paying a CEO millions in severance and bonus after getting screwed but our so-called “labour chief” is concerned that raising the pay of just low-wage workers may cause them to move out? In my opinion, low-wage workers are often those who are not as academically qualified and also older with less job mobility. In many cases, unless they grow a few more arms or get a sudden boost in vitality, they are unlikely to be “cheaperer, fasterer or betterer” than their foreign counterparts. In some cases, it might not even be possible to employ technology to increase their productivity. When Lim Swee Say said that companies may move out of Singapore because of wage increase for these people, I would like him to name the companies which still employ large numbers of low value-add, low-tech workers in Singapore. These companies deserved an award for not leaving Singapore when most started doing so to China or some other parts of South East Asia since 1998! All the more so if their work force aren’t already dominated by foreigners by now! I would be surprise that any low-tech, labour intensive company would still find Singapore attractive and competitive cheap enough to set up shop here. Assuming that it is true companies are attracted to Singapore for cheap labour, then the question would be why such a policy is still pursued knowing that in the long run we could never outpace competitors like our neighbours or even China. Didn’t the People’s Action Party [PAP] government, which claimed to have the foresight and the best talents this country have to offer, already think of that?!

That’s not mentioning that relocating a company is not an easy decision to make, because it’s not as easy as just firing all the workers here and switching off the lights in the office. Don’t even talk about moving out of Singapore when moving an office between 2 building within the CBD in Singapore can cost over a million dollars. That’s just the cost of building the infrastructure in a new office, employing the services of movers and the cost of demolishing the old office to pre-lease conditions. When moving to a new country, almost everything is built from scratch which means when a company decides to move, there will be more than one factor. Perhaps wages would be the last straw that broke the camel’s back, but it won’t be the only one.

Next, while it maybe true that some companies may cut jobs, for e.g. local SMEs that runs cleaning services, many of these are similarly employing large number of foreign workers, or old folks with low CPF contributions. I am not surprised if a lot of these companies have under-bid for their contracts and in return exploit their workers to stay in the black. Don’t forget that these companies can’t go anywhere and while it might be possible that they could wind down if their revenue cannot keep up with cost, the services they rendered are still required and another company may pick up the slack and these workers will still find jobs. If a low-wage Singaporean is unable to get a job, that is simply because companies drunk on employing cheap foreign workers have taken the easy way out because the government has let in one too many.

Even if it may be possible for some employers to employ technology to increase productivity, that will still cost money. New technology also require training to use and maintain, and they often require replacement or upgrades several years down the road which might mean another cycle of re-training and more cost. Granted, the government may provide grants to fund the training, but the cost and maintenance of the technology, and the purported wage increment that will come with the re-training of the workers are all borne by the companies themselves. What the National Trade Union Congress [NTUC] is doing is simply “sugar-coating the bitter medicine for the companies to swallow”. But there’s no guarantee that companies will bite unless there is good incentives to do so. A lot of what Lim Swee Say is saying may sound logical when we consider the bigger picture and not just the low income group, but to use that as a response with regard to those earning less than S$1500 a month makes really no sense at all. If it doesn’t show his complete lack of understanding as to what Professor Lim is proposing, he is simply – talking cock [講鳥話].

Then there is this Lui Tuck Yew who talked about the need to look at the ideas carefully and understand not just the benefits but the consequences. Wasn’t this the same chap who said that raising taxi fares – through extending the surcharge hours – would make taxi drivers work harder? I quote:

“Rationale behaviour would be such that the driver would pick the best time to drive the taxi. And for him, the best time is in a sense the gains, the revenue he could derive as a result. And hence with the peak period in the past stopping at 8pm, there was a lot of feedback on the difficulty of getting a taxi, including call bookings and hence that was one of the main reasons why the taxi companies, starting with ComfortDelGro decided on the need to extend the peak surcharge period.”

Tuck Yew, seriously! As a matter of personal experience, my employer pays $60 in allowance to work more than 2 hours and less than 4 hours on weekends or a public holiday, but will only pay us a maximum of $80 when we work 4 hours or more. Thus, we generally try to finish everything slightly more than 2 hours and not more. That actually increases productivity so none of us will game the system by working a full 8 hours on weekends. Consider this, if the company pays us a fixed hourly rate up to 8 hours, do you think we will try and keep things sweet and short? Why just make $60 for 2 hours when we can make $240 by taking it slow? Simply put, wouldn’t it be more common sense to just eliminate the surcharges so the cabbies stop gaming the system? How absurd it is for Lui Tuck Yew to believe that making commuters pay more will make the taxi drivers work, but raising wages for the low-income would have consequences (which I believe to be negative and possibly dire)? Really, if taxi drivers can afford to take a break because the pay isn’t right then they are already making enough to go around! Why are we rewarding their bad behaviour when we should punish it? But of course, even my ass knows the real objective was never to alleviate the taxi problem, but simply to keep cabbies happy so they continue to rent the cabs and keep the cab companies profitable!

While I am not against the idea of increasing productivity, I am sick and tired of the constant drumming of this message. I find it utterly ridiculous to only suppress the wage component when the other components of a company’s operating costs (i.e. rental, utilities and transportation) costs are left unchecked. After all, we do not see similar value add when landlords raise rents during lease renewals nor an improvement in service from transport operators when fares are increased. What value-add is there when rentals and fares (or even utilities charges) goes up? Are landlords going to replace the old air conditioners with more efficient power saving ones, or even throw in a free renovation when we renew our lease? Similarly, transport operators expects us to pay more fares while we get the same squeezy bus running on the same route with no value add. And what is the general excuse given to justify that? To fight inflation! Well done, fight inflation by contributing to inflation!

But to raise wages to fight inflation – no way. Because our Deputy Prime Minister Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in July 2008 that “a rise in wages without a corresponding increase in productivity would only fuel inflationary pressures”

Duh?! No wonder a friend made the following comment recently:

When they have done nothing of worth and continue being paid salaries unfathomable by most of their countrymen, all they can do is to give excuses and dumb ass explanations… it is unavoidable.

That about summarises my thoughts about the present government too. While I previously did not begrudge the government for the pay scale, that is on the condition that the ministers do their work dutifully for the best benefits of the people. Keep this up, and my vote will be decided before the polls are called in 2016. Perhaps, we need stick the spurs deeper into their hides because obviously we didn’t stick it deep enough in GE 2011.

Random Discourse – Underage Prostitution

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Excerpts from the Statutes

Sexual penetration of minor under 16
376A. – (1) Any person (A) who –
(a) penetrates, with A’s penis, the vagina, anus or mouth, as the case may be, of a person under 16 years of age (B);
(b) sexually penetrates, with a part of A’s body (other than A’s penis) or anything else, the vagina or anus, as the case may be, of a person under 16 years of age (B);
(c) causes a man under 16 years of age (B) to penetrate, with B’s penis, the vagina, anus or mouth, as the case may be, of another person including A; or
(d) causes a person under 16 years of age (B) to sexually penetrate, with a part of B’s body (other than B’s penis) or anything else, the vagina or anus, as the case may be, of any person including A or B, with or without B’s consent, shall be guilty of an offence.

~ * ~

Commercial sex with minor under 18
376B. – (1) Any person who obtains for consideration the sexual services of a person, who is under 18 years of age, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years, or with fine, or with both.
(2) Any person who communicates with another person for the purpose of obtaining for consideration, the sexual services of a person who is under 18 years of age, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years, or with fine, or with both.

It is some times interesting to read the Statutes and the wording of the law. A friend pointed out that at times it is quite absurd because when you look at Sections 376A and 376B. It simply means if you have sex with a 17-year old girl, you walk the thin line between having committed an offence or not. It all depends on whether you paid her for it.

That brings me to the matter of the 48 men who were charged for sex with a 17-year old “freelance prostitute”. I doubt many of those who are guilty know that the Penal Code was amended not long ago in October 2007 which increased the age of “legal prostitution” from 16 to 18. In fact, how many are aware that there was even an amendment back then? All I can recall from that period was that furore about Section 377A, and everything else was drowned out amidst all that noise. I wasn’t aware of this change had a friend not pointed out to me that the changes were mooted in 2005.

Had the men been aware of the amendment, it would still have been an issue because the pimp (or OKT, aka Or Kui Tow) “marketed” the girl as 18-year old. The girl also failed to inform her customers that she was below 18. A colleague of mine joked that this was as good as ‘mis-labeling a product’. (On the matter of jokes, another friend joked that the pimp is more pro-Singaporean in his “employment practices” than our SMEs and MNCs. Yet another mentioned that the pimp is a champion entrepreneur. After all, he allegedly “sampled” his girls for a mere $50 while the other clowns paid $450 or more for the same. Where else can you get to test something at a low cost and then rent it out at a huge margin?)

Jokes aside, there is a legal doctrine known as ‘Willful Blindness‘ – i.e. there is a duty to check whether the person representing something to you is telling the truth – which means it is unlikely that the Court will accept the men’s argument that their ignorance should not render them liable for this offence.

Even so, I must point out that it is difficult for the men to verify the girl’s age. Consider this, these freelance prostitutes usually operate under a different name so that they are not easily identified by their friends or relatives. For e.g. if “Tan Lian Hway” operates by the moniker “Mimi”, would she have shown her customers her identity card to prove she is above 18 and thus reveal her real name? Common sense tells me that even if she is 30-year old, she would still have given a myriad of excuses to avoid verification, simply to protect her true identity. (I am also puzzled as to why the prosecution refused to reveal her identity. Unless I am mistaken, isn’t she no longer a minor since she is above 16-year old? That’s not mentioning that if one searched hard enough, they will come across certainly websites which flout the law and reveal her identity for all those who are interested anyway.)


Juerg Buergin


R D Suhartono

Simply put, even though the men are considered offenders under the word of the law, they are also victims. I failed to understand why the papers had selectively picked on and humiliated some of them – in particular the ex-principal of Pei Chin and Howard Shaw – and shamed them publicly. There were so far 48 men charged but these two basically occupied the front page of the papers (at least on the evening Chinese tabloids such as Shin Ming) for at least 2 days. Meanwhile, very little is said about the foreigners, for e.g. the Indonesian who was allowed to leave Singapore allegedly for his marriage ceremony and the ex-UBS banker. Personally, I find it unacceptable that Indonesian was even allowed to leave in view of the fact that two foreigners who are indicted for assaulting a taxi-driver had jumped bail recently. Now contrast that with Taiwan which almost immediately impounded Makiyo and her friends’ passports after their assault on a taxi driver!

Anyway, how exactly are these two foreigners different from Howard Shaw, or even Allan Khoo (one of the other 46 men) who has been previously charged and convicted for attempting to extort money from another 21-year old student prostitute? If the Main Stream Media [MSM] claims that it is reporting all these about the ex-principal and Howard Shaw to keep the people in the know, then tell us everything about everybody or nothing at all. Why the bias, and in particular why pick on these two prominent Singaporeans? What they have done is not any more heinous than the other 46 offenders, or even those who “used” the same girl more than once. Had they been opposition members I am quite sure many would have screamed “political persecution”. It does make many wonder whether those two have crossed someone that brought such ill fate upon them! More ominously, perhaps the MSM find Singaporeans easier to bully.

It particularly irks me that the MSM again selectively destroyed the lives of a few men much like how it has splattered the private information of the pre-Dana Lim ExCo during the AWARE drama. Those private information include not only the occupation of the members of that short-lived ExCo, and in some cases even the number of children they have and their spouse. It is of no surprise that the MSM is steadily losing credibility among Singaporeans. What it is doing is no better than the wall posters of Mao’s Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

That said, I am not expecting the MSM to start making the information of the foreigners involved in this case headline but rather that I wished they would stop selectively destroy the lives of people in this manner.

Recommended Reads:
FoxTwo: The 44 Men Charged For Illegal Commercial Sex Are Victims!

Random Discourse – NSF Deaths and Online Comments

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When 21-year old Private Dominique Sarron Lee Rui Feng of 3 Singapore Infantry Regiment [SIR] passed away during training, a girl Zheng Huiting posted the comment “Singaporeans too weak? LOL” to a Facebook link about the news of this tragedy.

This is not a post written to flame Zheng Huiting, because many others have done that rather effectively. The girl has apologised and even beat a hasty retreat from social media by erasing her Facebook and Twitter profiles. My friends and I wouldn’t care to flame her, because we wouldn’t give a damn to the comments about National Service [NS] by those who are not required to do it and has never done it. Personally, I felt some of these girls probably can’t survive even one Physical Traiing [PT] session in the army. If they have so much to say, just try one of our PT sessions. Survive that first, then come back and talk.

However, I am still outraged. We don’t “LOL” (Laugh out Loud) over the death of someone. Regardless whether we know some of these people personally, these are one of our brothers who lost their lives doing their duty for our country.

I remembered watching with some apprehension when another NSF was carried into the medical center on a stretcher screaming in pain. One of his leg is broken and he was bleeding profusely. A part of the shin bone was jutting out. We don’t “LOL” about something like that. We simply rush out of the way so the medics and his platoon mates can carry him quickly into the first aid room. I also remembered back in 1994, I did a recovery for a overturned tank in which the commander was killed. I was subsequently sent as part of the unit (also as part of the larger Armoured Formation) to the poor sod’s funeral. No one wants to die doing their NS. But it breaks the heart when you see the mother screaming and running after the carriage carrying the coffin of her son to the crematorium. None of us even dared to smile, much less “LOL” at that.

Even after our full time NS is completed, some of us still feel something for the units or camps we have served in. When a Taiwanese F-5F crashed in Hukou camp in Taiwan, I went to look up the news to find more details. I was sad when I read that 2 of our soldiers were killed in that crash. No, we don’t “LOL” at such things even when we don’t know those people.

Are our young boys spending 2 years of the prime of their lives defending those who no longer appreciate it? Maybe it’s high time we implement some form of NS for our womenfolk, to bring about some real gender equality. Even putting them as nurses in hospitals would help. Having them pull night or weekend duties will make them understand how painful that is.

If there is any other thing that invalidates the meaning of NS, it would be our young womenfolk’s failure to appreciate the sacrifice our men has to make, on top of employers’ preference in hiring foreigners over Singaporeans due to our NS obligations. I shudder to imagine when they become mothers. Anyway, 2 years of NS is not all to a Singaporean men’s NS obligations. There is also a “reservist” cycle in which the men are expected to spend up to 40 days a year during training, and to keep fit and pass their annual Individual Physical Proficiency Test [IPPT] every year until their are released by the Singapore Armed Forces [SAF]. How long this cycle will be depends on how soon you reach 40 years old or complete 6 High Key and 4 Low Key training, whichever is sooner. If the NSman is an officer, he needs to serve even after 40 years old.

Are we ourselves to blame for this lack of respect for NS? All too often we talk about NS as a waste of time, and we ridicule some of the “silly things” we do during NS before our women folk. Worst of it all are those who thought little of their NS training and openly belittle it. Perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe this chap loved NS so much that he is angry that the Ministry of Defense [MINDEF] did not post him to a unit where training is tougher than what he experienced – such as the Commandoes, the Guards or even the Combat Engineers where they do more than taking a “stroll in Lim Chu Kang or Mandai with guns”. MINDEF should have made him redo his NS.

Then there’s the damage one of our full-time National Servicemen [NSF] has done to the image of NS. We have all done our part to ridicule that poor boy whose maid carried his fullpack, but what is worse is the public hounding of our NSFs – such as a recent photo showing a NSF sitting on the floor of our MRT trains, or even longer ago NSFs who occupied the ‘Priority Seat’ (if I remembered correctly). I have two things to say about this. First of all, why the hell does anyone complain about the NSF sitting on the floor of the MRT when we know just how horrendous the service has been recently? Are we forgetting that the trains come at irregular frequencies, and the increased number of break downs? Furthermore, the train wasn’t even packed and is this poor sod still sitting down where he is when the train is getting more packed? If he stood up when it is required, why berate him for it? Who knows what he might have gone through that day? As for those who took the priority seat, I always find it ridiculous that people takes photos of the “offenders” and make a fuss. Why didn’t they step forward and confront the “offender” right there and then? As far as I am concerned, anyone who failed to do so at the scene has basically forfeited his right to pursue the matter. Don’t convene a ‘kangaroo court’ in STOMP or some forum or website to trial the poor sod.

Really, even though the food, treatment and allowances maybe better in NS these day, I am quite sure the PT sessions to ensure everyone attain the IPPT standards are not compromised. Stop beating up on our NSFs because they seem to be better off now. We all aspire to a better life and we expect the SAF to improve and evolve over time as well. I don’t demand everyone to mourn about accidents and deaths in the SAF, but please remember this is a life of someone who is obliged by law to defend everyone else of us. At the very least honor them for their sacrifices even if they might be just pushing pens in a cubicle in one of our camps.

Recommended Reads:
FoxTwo: Singaporeans Too Weak? LOL!
Senang Diri: Singaporeans close ranks against post on NSF’s death

Random Discourse – Incomplete Information, Statistics Massaging and Word Play

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PropertyGuru raised a furore when it released the report “HDB flats are more unaffordable than private homes”. My first comment when I saw the news on Yahoo Singapore was: “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

One might wonder how that can be true. The truth of the matter is, when you compare a person who is able to purchase a condominium with a person who purchased a HDB, it is very unlikely that the person who purchase the condominium would be taking a 30 years loan and at the end of the day end up with almost nothing as savings. On top of which, the person who purchase a condominium can be single and under 35 – while a HDB flat is out of each of singles and singles can only purchase a resale market from 35-year old onwards. Otherwise, the couples who purchase a condominium will have a combined monthly income of at least $10,000 and above.

A 4-room BTO [Build To Order] flat would be entry level for most, since it comes with a hall and 3 bedrooms and more of them are being built. At about 90sq meters, it is comfortable enough for a family of 4 (2 parents and 2 kids). After all, a 5-room or larger is basically nothing more than a 4-room with a little more space. When a 4-room costs at least $300,000 (and that is only when you are extremely lucky and the unit is at some out of the way HDB Estate) and the median income according to the HDB for 4-room flat applicants is $4,200, that simply means the price to income ratio is 71.43. Even with a $10,000 grant, the price to income ration is 69.05.

Now consider a 3-bedroom condominium. The cheapest one listed on Property Guru (at Twin Waterfalls EC, Punggol Way) is $630,000. Now consider that the minimum income of any couple able to purchase a unit will have an income of at least $10,000, the price to income ration is 63.0. Granted, it may actually cost more than listed, but I am also taking a very conservative estimate here because the median income of a condominium buyer may be even higher which will take the ratio even lower. How the HDB wants us to believe that Property Guru’s analysis is based on incomplete information is beyond me!

Here is the chart on a subsequent news report whereby the HDB refuted the analysis of PropertyGuru and argued that the report was based on “incomplete information”.

Since we are on the topic of incomplete information, lazy me did a little analysis of the figures in the chart. Again taking the 4-room flat as basis, the HDB’s chart showed that the applying couple will have a median household income of $4,200. Assuming that this is nett income, that means the couple (35-year old and below) contributes $1512 a month collectively. 10% of that downpayment would be $30,700, deducting the $10,000 grant, the couple will have to save up $20,700 which will take them about 21.4 months to save since only $966.18 goes into their ‘Ordinary Account’ [OA] in their CPF and only 100% of OA can be used to pay for the 10% down payment.

So, after emptying all of their hard earned CPF of almost two years and left with nothing, the couple still has to pay $1,049 month in installments which means they even need to come up with a cash component of $82.82 a month for the next 30 years. If they want to shorten their loan period, they will have to pay a even larger cash component. Remember, the longer the loan period simply means you are paying more to service the interest before you even start to pay off the principal sum. Really, what affordable housing? It’s nothing more than economic slavery. The better part of your useful working life is wasted paying off for a pigeon hole. If you start work at 25, you are still in debt at 50. Now who is talking about “incomplete information”?!

It really annoys me that the HDB continues to resort to such in their lame attempt to distort reality. And that’s not forgetting that part about being able to own a flat with less than $1000 of income! That’s not forgetting that they did some statistic massaging when they used “average selling price” for the flats, while they used “median household income” of applicants. A friend was sure average income is higher than median income in Singapore, and another explain that medians in general gives more balanced figures compared to averages. In other words, their objective maybe to show that it remains affordable even in a ‘worst case scenario’. But it doesn’t change the fact that if it takes almost your entire lifetime to pay for it, it is clearly not affordable!!

Now on the matter of statistics massaging, here’s another example: “180 bus trips added, services improved”. This article was posted on Today Online on Saturday morning. In the article it wrote: “Public transport operators SBS Transit and SMRT have improved 22 bus services and added 180 bus trips weekly between January and March, even as wider service improvements under the Government’s S$1.1-billion Bus Services Enhancement Programme will be rolled out from the third quarter of this year.”

Whether there were 180 bus trips added per service, or 180 bus trips spread across 22 services, it really makes not much of a difference for us. The math is simple, if it was 180 trips per service then it’s about 1.4 extra trips every hour each day. If it was 180 trips over 22 services then it is just about 1 extra bus per service each day (probably during peak hours). It doesn’t need a rocket scientist to figure that out. If I am asked which one I would believe, I tend to believe it’s the latter since that cost less in terms of manpower and fuel consumptions and produce the same stunning statistic wizardry.

Anyway, this isn’t the first time they have done something like this. Previously, we used to be told how many train trips were added each week to ease congestion. Did anyone ever wonder why none of us were able to perceive or even feel the service improvements at all? Then again I understand that if they tell us that it’s just one trip a day we would wonder why is it even news worthy, not to mention no one will even believe there is any improvements at all!!

Here’s the best part, the article even tried to make it look greater than usual by adding this: “even as wider service improvements under the government’s S$1.1-billion Bus Services Enhancement Programme will be rolled out from the third quarter of this year.”

It is trying to have you believe that this is not the end of these so-called “improvements”. The better stuff is yet to come! However, remove that last bit and it won’t take long for anyone to discover just how uninspiring this piece of news is. Talking about which, the local main stream media [MSM] have always resorted to such word play to shift (if not manipulate) opinion. For e.g. “But only 68.1% polled agreed that it is necessary to reduce the inflow of foreign workers to spur productivity and create better jobs.”

Only 68.1%? Well, if you take away that word you will realise that more than half of the people polled wants less foreign workers in our country. But with the word ‘only’, the number now sounds a lot less significant. Read the following statements:

  – 200 soldiers committed rape after occupying the city.
  – Only 200 soldiers committed rape after occupying the city.

Notice the difference it made with just one word? In the first example, it tells us that there were 200 violations and everyone will feel some outrage. But the next statement will make the unsuspecting believe that just a small number of soldiers within an “assumed” large occupation force committed such atrocities.

The next time you see any statement with words like “even”, “only” etc, pause a little and re-read them and you will get a whole new perspective of the information you are getting.

Current Affairs – Budget Debate on Transport & Housing

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This has got to be the most talked about lately:

So I would like to assure Mr Gerald Giam, who might not have caught up with all the developments… that a family with $1,000 income can now, through our housing subsidies, purchase a small flat… – Deputy Prime Minister [DPM] Tharman Shanmugaratnam


Chart obtained from HDB website
AHG – Additional Housing Grant;
SHG – Special Housing Grant

This is not some new “Tharman-ism” or a slip of tongue. The chart on the right shows how it can be done.

If this is just solely an academic exercise to prove it can be done, it surely has achieved its objectives. Unfortunately, one question that comes to mind right away would be:How is a person who is just making $1000 going to be married in the first place?

Even if you would believe in fairy tales whereby an undergraduate would marry down, the fact would be that such a couple would then not be in the example here. That also means a person who is single is totally out of luck since singles don’t qualify for a flat until they are 35. Ironically, it is only at 35 where Workfare kicks in to compliment such a worker’s earnings and yet they are only qualified for resale, not new HDB flats.

Another blogger did a very detailed analysis, from the location and availability of these 2-room Build to Order [BTO] flats, to the possibility of raising children in such a small flat and then the financial situation of such a couple when they reach retirement age. I won’t quote or link him, since I do not agree with his liberal political views. However, I would like to point out that even if a couple managed to raise a child (like my parents did), they will only have just one child and that’s not going to do much for the Total Fertility Rate [TFR] of Singapore. My friend has asked me what value is there for a couple to own such a flat and what resale or rental value is there in getting one. We agreed there is none. This example is completely meaningless other than to show us that a couple with just a take home income of $1000 a month is still pretty much screwed whether they buy or rent a flat.

In short, this has achieve no other purpose other than making a fool out of Gerald Giam. A form of “mental masturbation”, if you will. Hopefully, it would help Mr Giam gain some invaluable experience in future parliamentary debates after this blunder and the previous one with the MX9 salary scale. A lot of those in the middle of the political divide maybe rather forgiving over the fact that the opposition generally does not have sufficient information but that does not excuse them from being more diligent, well prepared and getting their information right in the future.

~ * ~

DPM Tharman said the package (S$1.1 billion for Public Transport Operators [PTO]) is a subsidy for commuters, and not a subsidy for operators.

That raised a chuckle when I first heard it. The state of our public transport has gone so far down that few (if not nobody) believes that anything other than a radical change will work in improving it. Even when not all of that S$1.1 billion came from commuters using public transport, taking the money pooled from the people and then telling them that this is a subsidy for them sounds like a mockery of their collective intelligence. Neither will it convince commuters by telling them they would have to pay more in the future if the PTOs are to do this on their own. The fact is, when the fare system changed to distance based, some 33% of commuters suffered a fare increase according to the Public Transport Council [PTC]. I am one of the unfortunate 33% who did not benefit, and in my case that increment was 7% even when the statistics showed that fares went up by a mere 0.3% since 2006.

Next, some gripes about the bus service. Frankly, throwing money at a problem isn’t going to solve it unless someone listens to the feedback. While adding the number of buses may address the long standing complaint that the bus frequency sucks, it does nothing address the commuting experience which can be rather frustrating and also the routes of some services which completely blow our mind away. Just try taking some buses like service no. 2, 51, 154, 167, 174 196 and 197 from end to end when bored. While the route they take would help a commuter know Singapore’s road and estates a lot better, they are a unpalatable alternative to the MRT. Who would spend up to 2 hours on a bus while it takes 45 minutes on the MRT? (For reference: 2 hours can take a person about 1/3 of the way from Singapore to Genting in Malaysia, if I am not wrong.)

Even the current Express Services are an utter sham. Take for example Bus Service 502. It makes no sense for it to prowl Jurong East and West Avenue 1 again when those stops are already covered by the feeders! (In fact, it makes no sense at all that some of the inter-HDB estate services like 157 and 198 to go by those routes as well.) When commuters are charged by distance then it makes sense for them to take the feeders to the interchanges to catch an Express Bus (or an inter-estate one) since that doesn’t actually add to their cost. Meanwhile, commuters paid a premium for a so-call “Express Service” which can take an agonising 20 minutes before it hits the expressway in the morning. That’s not forgetting morning traffic! Is it a wonder why all of the pressures are put on the MRT system?

Anyway, S$280 million goes into buying 550 buses according to what I have read. That’s about S$510,000 a piece, while the remainder of the money is to cover the net operating cost for the next 10 years. These buses are so expensive that it makes me think they are armored and made of titanium. Perhaps it also includes a S$100,000 COE. It remained to be seen how this S$1.1 billion is going to help improve bus frequencies. If these 550 new buses are going to be like the current ones with almost half the seats removed (like those SBS Transit bought recently), it would be about as meaningless as increasing train frequency only to bring the entire system crashing down completely later. The reason being that the system is still being run with commuters as just mere numbers and not human beings. Clearly, frustration with the system will not improve if the commuting experience remains as bad. In short, someone should look into what the minimum comfort level expected in public transports as well. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone would want to spend money on that unless I first figure out how to pay for it and what returns there will be. Even Nigerial Scams are better than what I am suggesting, right?

Anyway, some of us surmised that the SBS Transit buses were bought with the bad habits of Singapore commuters in mind. Since most commuters simply refused to move to the back, then it is only logical to have more standing space in the front to fit more commuters per bus – a typical Singaporean line of thought. My personal opinion is, put the seats back and bring back the buses with doors at both ends which have been completely phased out.

Thus, my point is simple. If the government wants to call this a “subsidy for commuters” because that “subsidy” will result in an overall improvement in the comfort and commuting experience of the bus service, I will be fine with it. But if the S$1.1 billion is nothing more than a cosmetic effort so that the government can argue it has done something, then I will be exceptionally upset. Meantime, please do something for our polytechnic students. I would say the government have no sense of proportion if it hassles over a mere S$28-million in revenue a year for the PTOs to give polytechnic students fare concessions. That is not even 1% of their annual combined revenue, because the PTOs annual combined revenue is almost 3-billion according to their annual reports. On top of which, they can always raise fares and when has that ever been denied?

~ * ~

Before I end, here’s something that’s not really related to the above. My simple understanding is that the word ‘even’ makes something better or worse than it already is. Here are some examples:

“Even cats are not as cute as your baby!” would indicate that the baby is so extraordinarily cute.

“Even a moron is not that stupid!” would indicate that whatever is being referred to is utterly stupid.

“He even stopped at the red light.” would indicate that this person normally doesn’t stop at the red light and that by doing so, something out of place has happened.

Need I say more about “even the Nigerian Scheme…”?

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