9/29/2007

A new amazing tooth

I woke up this morning to face a new tooth. It is splashed across the front page of the ST that $2.8 billion a year over the last 5 years 'to fund grants and top ups that benefitted all Singaporeans, especially the lower income.' And a typical lower income household received $136,000 worth of basic grants, which helped to build up their retirement savings! Now why am I feeling so poor. Maybe I don't qualify for the $136k of grant. That would make those who qualified richer than me, for I don't have $136k! Am I feeling shortchanged? And all those lower income households must be beaming a wide smile or they are secretly happy but not telling. And with so much money going to them, especially 'to build up their retirement savings' why is it that they did not have enough for retirement? Where is the money? Oh, sorry, this is a dangerous question to ask. Erase this question. Let me ask another question. If so much money have been spent for the benefit of the people, and the people could not feel it, could not appreciate it, then something is drastically wrong. It may be the method, the spread, or not publicising it enough in the media. The PR part is failing. I think a more simpler and effective way to make the people feel the generosity and the weight of the subsidies is to put the money directly into their pockets. Then they can feel the bulge, touch the money and smell the money. The people will kneel down and pray to the govt like god. Unfortunately so much money have been spent on them in a way that the people don't even know. It is a big wasted effort, and a big waste of money spent. You ungrateful people! But can't blame them. They are simple minded people that can't think and didn't know what is happening. They don't even know that they have received so much money.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's the money? Simple, they give with the right hand and take back with the left hand without anybody the wiser. Take the housing grant of $30k, which when the poor used to buy a house, they have to fork out an additional $110k to $120k for a 3rm flat. That will empty out their lifetime CPF savings. Top-ups of medisave will ultimately be negated when they increase the charges of hospitals and polyclinics. And other subsidies like upgrading are basically for political mileage with residents sometimes having to foot part of the cost. Does that translate into cash or help for the poor? On the contrary that's a further burden. Of course that is not a simple thing for peasants to understand and it is a good thing for the ruling elites.

Anonymous said...

I must be missing something here Redbean. How did you arrive at the $136K figure?