This is an excerpt from my friend Christopher’s blog [Post: So this is what people call a “dangerous idea” dated 9-12-2009]:
This means that if one can sustain himself indefinitely, he may be able to demand better treatment from his employers or even buy time to take a political stand. $2,000 a month is a small figure but consider how difficult it would be to get the government to give you $2,000 in this country.
I once told a friend that it is ‘optimal’ for a government gahmen to keep a nation’s people in a borderline state called: 吃不饱，饿不死 [Translation: Not filling but yet not starving].
Consider the two extremes. If the people are starving and dying then they will rise in revolt because they are likely to have nothing to lose but their lives anyway. If they are well fed, then they will start having all sorts of funny ideas on how to make things better and start meddling in how things are run. The in-between condition means that people will be kept in a situation in which they fear losing more if they rise up in revolt, but are saddled with enough burdens to keep them from being too meddlesome.
In Singapore, this condition is achieved through so-called “affordable public housing”. It is interesting to note that in Chinese it is written as: 负担的起的公共房屋. The reason being the words 负担 (in noun form) simply means burden. It would not be ironical, if one were to say that housing is now synonymous with burden – even for public housing built by the HDB. In China, there is a term for this: 蜗居 – which literally translates as the dwelling of a snail. Quite aptly put, since like snails we are all carrying our housing loans like a snail carries its shell.
Thus, it is almost comical when the Minister Mentor Monkey Mentos reassured Singaporeans that HDB will continue to build “affordable”flats when he also said, “‘Well, they have got to decide if the country is going to go up or go down. If the country is going to go down, then the economy will go down and their incomes will be down – unemployment will go up and property values will come down.”
It is interesting to note how the gahmen uses the economy to argue things their way all the time. On one hand they argue that we should bite the bullet and take pay cuts, not to expect huge bonus and good pay increments because of the current status of the economy. On the other they now justify the ridiculously high prices of our so-called public housing as a reflection of the economy. It is almost as if the Singapore economy has a split personality. That’s not forgetting, while the MM tells us to decide ‘if the country is going to go up or go down’, the gahmen said it was due to external factors and it got nothing to do with them when the economy headed south not very long ago. To me they might as well just say, “Tough. But there’s nothing much we do about it!’
In other words, what we decide about our economy has no effect on our economy at all. Even if what we decide has any effect, can we actually expect our pay to go up in tandem in terms of percentage just like our property prices if we decide the economy is to go up?
If I am not wrong, a minister (can’t remember who) once said that the gahmen considered our housing as ‘affordable’ as long as the monthly installments is not more than 20% of our income. Right, that means for every dollar you earn, you give 20cents away to the gahmen to pay for a house which you technically just lease from the gahmen… for the next decade if you are lucky (and for a couple of decades or so if you are not). Frankly, I wonder just how many Singaporeans are saddled with a housing loan that would require them at least 15 – 25 years to pay it off. Would the HDB be so kind to provide us the figure? Is that what is meant by affordable – i.e. being burdened with a debt that would take one almost one generation to pay off?
Is it a wonder why in the end, the Singaporean worker is the most meek and they continually suffer in silence as some of the worst paid workers in the developed world (without even considering what a lapdog our so called gahmen-controlled union)? Is it a wonder why many low level Singaporean workers just swallow their pride and keep quiet in the face of some of the most incompetent middle level managers in the world even when they could have been right?
So, I felt what Christopher has written makes a lot of sense because if we Singaporeans aren’t in the current predicament we are in, we would gladly tell some of these pathetic managers off, and even ask for better remuneration at work. If we Singaporeans aren’t saddled with all these burdens and worries, we would have no reservations making our decisions at the ballot box because the sum of our fears (for many Singaporeans) is simply the fear of losing our financial stability. The Tali-PAP has certainly done well in equating political stability with economic stability and thus indirectly our personal financial stability.
Even though I do not believe that Tali-PAP deliberately ‘created’ this system of modern serfdom or slavery through housing, I am convinced that they realised that it would be the most prefect method to keep majority of Singaporeans in a 吃不饱，饿不死 condition which will keep them in power for a long time to come.
The day when Singaporeans wake up from the fact that the ‘Singapore Dream’ of owning a property of his own is nothing but a nightmare, will perhaps be the day Singapore turn out en mass to vote the Tali-PAP out of power. Perhaps, that day is now though I suspect there’s not much a new gahmen will do to change this if they come to power.
I forgot to mention… the best and most tangible baby bonus, is to build real affordable housing.
Recommended Reads:
FoxTwo’s Microblog: Bureaucratic Stupidity
Growing your tree of prosperity: So this is what people call a “dangerous idea”
Rich vultures are savvy investors or someone who preys on “writhing bodies”. In the last severe property depression, many homeowners suffered almost 50% lost in value of their homes. If you have the money or timed your investment right, you would have make hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars( talking about easy money) from buying low and waiting for the market to turn in your favor(think enbloc sale). From conveyance lawyers to property agents, they all laughed merrily to the bank. The biggest losers, by no fault of their own, were forced to sell their homes AT THE WRONG TIME because they had lost their jobs and couldn’t manage their mortgage and had to downgrade or that the business failed and needed a huge chunk of bail out money or loved ones needed money for that life saving operation etc etc etc.
No one should be penalized TWICE in life( hit by ass-luck and hit by fallen property prices and BECOME MUCH POORER) so that the rich can get even richer at their expense.
With a stable property market, those who are financially trapped can fall on their property as oppose to a boom and bust market which have their property fall on them instead.
As far as I am concern, no one actually loses in the property market when home prices were restored to its historical peak. Those who bought their homes much earlier stood to gain the most.
Had you not bought a home and rented instead, you would have to pay 10 to 20 k annually to live in your current home( don’t forget, accommodation is not free). I believe that expended cost would have exceeded your accrued interest by a very wide margin.
All in all, you stood to gain over $100k if you sold your house. today.
Whether one will realize this POTENTIAL CAPITAL GAIN is subjective. In fact, if you had bought a bigger unit, you could down grade or downsize when you are in desperate need of money – one of many benefits of owning a home.
Will the property market burst? Potentially, yes.
However, I have argued years ago, it need not be. My stance is that the authorities(an elaborate collaboration between government, banks and valuers etc) need to defend the property market( ride out the recession) for the sake of the common man. If we allow a slump in the property market, the rich vultures will become much richer at the expense of poorer folks and folks (including small businesses)who ran out of luck.
As a case in point, this recession surprised many when some sectors of homes actually firmed up – the market was generally stable. I am glad the government sees the wisdom in a stable market ( not extreme swing in values)which is good for everyone in the long term.
Count it a blessing for being a home owner in sg.
Your writing is fluid..and hitting the nail on the spot.. just keep the people alive, no straving, just enough, and give them a lifelong burden – the HDB flats. One used to think that this is an investment, a home? Think again, this is no investment – it is a lifelong burden – 20-25 years loan? and finally doesn’t belong to you.
Burden because, the Singaporean who takes this loan has to be good and beahve well so that he can keep his job to maintain the lifelong burden, and not rock status quo.
Only the young who at this stage may not have yet got themselves entrapped in this visvious cycle, can and probably should speak out for themselves and their future in Singapore. Alex may be one of this phenomena.. kudos to him. Only if there are more of such passionate young people who we will support.
do you pay tithes to your church? many do and they usually give more than 10% to a preacher or minister mentor ,if you like , in return for blessings or staving the curse of god on you(according to the book of malachi – sorry for digressing a bit)
which is better? paying 10% to the church FOR LIFE( some say 90% to the minsiter mentor – to minister mentor or preacher because god is not physically present to handle cold hard cash) with no tangible returns(for all you know it could be hot air) and investing 20% for the duration of the loan period( with the potential of capital gain if one will to downgrade later or move in with children when one retires etc etc etc)
i think you chastised the wrong people(you are basically alluding to 90% of homeowners as stupid ,including your parents and yourself – i assume you own a home here or unless you stand by your beliefs and refuse to be “fooled” by the gahmen).
Thanks for the support man !