1/06/2011

The difficult and unspoken truth

In politics, some truths are just too uncomfortable and difficult to be spoken. It is not that they are difficult to understand. It could be the simplest thing, a common knowledge, and like the proverbial elephant in the classroom, no one admits that it is there. Take for example the Gang of Four in China during the Cultural Revolution. Whenever the Chinese mentioned the Gang of Four, they would put up five fingers. The fifth finger stood for the unspoken truth. We have our own version of unspoken truth. In fact we have many unspoken truths. Internet and blogs have allowed some to surface and spoken brazenly as they really are. However, in the old media or in cocktail gossips, many would just look at one another in the eyes, perhaps with a little smile or an obliging nod when the unspoken truth happened to be the topic. Singaporeans are not dumb. They just pretend to be stupid or innocent, or even naïve by not talking about the unspoken truth. Take the issue of the disappearing savings of the Singaporeans, their hard earned savings all these years, who have robbed them of it? Singaporeans could have a lot of money saved, in the CPF or in their bank accounts. Why are Singaporeans feeling so poor, with their savings gone? Some may say the savings are transferred, from cash in the savings accounts to assets. So Singaporeans have some expensive assets like housing and cars and pieces of paper called COEs. Could Singaporeans continue to own their properties and cars and still have a lot of cash in their savings? Possible? If the answer is yes, then someone must have robbed them of their savings? The answer is in the difficult and unspoken truth.

3 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Houses and cars are not "assets". They are consumables.

The purchasing power of the Singapore dollar has decreased significantly.

Check out a recent report by UBS on relative incomes/ purchasing power -- Singapore is slipping.

Then check out the rate of expansion of the S'pore money supply over th last 10 years, and that should give you some clue as to why although nominally "richer" (in numbers) in actual fact there is a decrease in wealth amongst many people.

I doubt the situation is going to be reversed anytime soon. CPF is sunk money: it is GONE. If you can get some of it, good for you. If you can't: forget about it -- unless of course you want to drive yourself nuts and "entertain" people like my self :-)

Anonymous said...

A car is the biggest wasting asset and is also the least productive of all assets.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

My very first boss told me that.

He just happened to be Jewish.

At the time his company was selling Aussie real estate to gullible Singaporeans. Man, they used to queue to buy. I bet they all owned cars. :-)