Tag: HDB

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.

Commentary – Not filling but yet not starving

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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”

A Rant on a Hot Sleepless Night

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I read with great amusement DK’s post on ‘HDB RAP VIDEO PRODUCTION’.

Just why the fxxk are they spending this money when they claim they have been making a loss providing housing for Singaporeans? Would a stupid rap like this makes our stay in our pigeon holes which takes us a decade and a half (or more) to pay off more comfortable? Would it not be better they save that money so that everyone can pay maybe even $1 less for their little pigeon hole?

In fact, looking at the extravagance, it begs the questions: does the HDB this day still serve its original intended function – i.e. to provide affordable housing for Singaporeans?

While some may still claim that it is still serving the function, the reality is that some people are now taking a decade and a half or more to pay their housing loans. And for those of lower income, the flats have more or less moved out of their reach. Of course, the $3 million dollar ministers will tell you to get a smaller flat if you can’t afford it.

So, on paper, the HDB ‘still provides affordable housing for Singaporeans’ . However, it is my considered opinion that slowly and surely, the impression of its true functions today are these:

  1. to find a way to build the houses as cheap as possible, like $60K a unit, and then sell them for at least $100K of profits. (e.g. A brand new 4-room for first-time owner costs $160K!)

  2. to come up with the best way to call a discount a subsidy. (e.g. It’s a real and tangible subsidy! Because you are paying less compared to the market price! And to get the subsidy you have to sell it to some other poor sucker.)

  3. to come up with ridiculous arguments on why they are making a loss. (e.g. Well, if we sells the plot of land to a private developer we could have earned more!)

Add the above to the list of stuff we should get an accounting from the Tali-PAP gahmen on top of the following:

  1. The surprise surplus from the raise of GST;

  2. The escape of Mas Selamat;

  3. The GIC & Temasek investments;

  4. What exactly is being done with our national reserves?

  5. How did a huge sinking fund in the town councils come about when they claimed our conservancy charges are just good enough to pay for the services rendered?

  6. Why is the sinking fund that grew on the money tree used for gambling investments, and yet conservancy charges are still raised?

  7. Are we even getting proportional returns from what they are doing with our CPF money?

Simply put, ‘You don’t ask why you strike Toto’ is a lousy and uneducated excuse to give in Parliament – by one with a doctorate no less – when the Tali-PAP is asked to be accountable for how the huge surplus comes about from the GST increase!

When asked to clarify on the principle in which the gahmen applied in looking at salary of the minister pitching to corporate world vis-a-vis when it comes to accountability and responsibility, we expect the gahmen to do so, and not answered with the question to an opposition MP if anyone thinks that DPM Wong should be fired!

These examples gives me the impression that we are being held in contempt or low regards simply for asking for some accountability! It is as if we are all being ungrateful for even asking because they think they have ‘provided’ in terms of their own self-defined job descriptions! It would appear they are expecting us to shut up because we don’t know better and we shouldn’t know! In fact, I must ask, if this attitude is our own fault, just like over indulging parents have spoil their own children?

Come on, fellow Singaporeans! It’s time we put things in the right perspective, and stop allowing the Tali-PAP to put the carriage before the horse!

It is time to look beyond that pathetic few hundred dollars of GST rebates, the car or condo you might own or the well paid job you have now. It’s time to look at how we can get this gahmen to be accountable to us!

It’s way past due time we remember that they are paid in full with their $3 million p.a. pay, and remember the performance of a gahmen during its term is nothing but vindication of our trust in them for the previous election, and not justification for us to continue ‘signing them blank cheques’ for the next term so they can continue to do whatever they want!

When, will you say with your votes: ‘Enough is enough already?’

When?

Or you already did it another way, with your feet?