7/27/2016

A nation of shopkeepers and taxi drivers…and natural aristocrats

Below are two comments I picked up from TRE.

 

  1. Sinkieland will be reduced to become a nation of shopkeepers and hawkers. By Oxygen
  2. Israel…are able to produce top scientists and top info tech engineers…while SG …of PAP rule have reduced us to be shopkeepers and taxi drivers and foodstore vendors and security guards. By ‘empty ricebowl for us’.

 

How true or meaningful are these two statements? Look at our economy and ask, what are the industries that are of high tech in nature, what are the industries that are making great profits? The industries that are really churning the fake growth, mostly due to inflation and inflated prices, are housing/properties and the service industries like finance, legal and medical services.

 

The govt has been working hard to reinvent ourselves, from a nation of shopkeepers to low wage industries, to high skilled knowledge industries, and now to services, financial services, legal services, medical services, and back to shopkeepers, hospitality services, hawkers and driving taxis. And everything has been maxed out and nothing new is on the horizon to drive the economy except to import more heads to balloon the housing/property sector.

 

The services are facing stiff competitions from around the world. Financial services are competing with lower and lower fees. Medical services would soon price themselves out of business and so is our hospitality and shopkeeper business. Even the taxi services are going to be priced out with new players flooding the market.

 

What’s next? Luckily the author of our next lap is out of ICU but his bags of tricks would have to wait as he is still out of action? Looks like we are running out of ideas and maybe a nation of shopkeepers and food vendors/hawker centres and food courts would be the last line of defence. But what’s wrong with being a nation of shopkeepers? We were doing very well as a nation of shopkeepers in the past, the shoppers’ paradise, the jewel in the East. Now a new Jewel rising in Changi Airport has risen.

 

Back in those days our cost of operation as shoppers was low. Housing and rents were low, labour cost was low, and we could sell quality products at competitive prices. Good and cheap. Today we are still good but not cheap. And shoppers can go anywhere in the world to buy good and cheap luxury goods. Why should they come here to buy good but expensive stuff?

 

The land and property owners still think they could raise rentals and the shopkeepers could go on raising their prices and the shoppers would continue to come to this shopper’s paradise of good but expensive goods. Would that be the case? Why is rental so high? It goes down the line, when the natural aristocrats everywhere demands to be paid in the millions. And someone must pay for them. It eventually reflects in rentals and all other costs that go to the price. The pay for a natural aristocrat can hire an equivalent of 100 workers or more. Imagine there are at least 10,000 natural aristocrats in the midst, maybe more. And the hefty rental cost, transportation cost, cost of living, how can the shopkeepers and the hawkers survive to sell their wares at competitive prices? We would even lose our shopper’s paradise industry if we cannot keep the cost and prices down.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...


Yes! In Sg, everything is up up up!

Here up, there up, everywhere up up up!

Only way is up up up!

Many cannot catch up! Left behind!

Where do we go from here? Where can we go from here?

Maybe this is the vision of the 70%!

Sad.

Anonymous said...

A better benchmark is to compare Singapore with Iceland.

Both are island nations.
Iceland economy does not depend on Alien Talents or PAP Aristocrats.
Iceland has a population of 300,000.

Iceland can defeat England and Austria in Euro 2016.
No Alien Talents or PAP Millionaires required.

Iceland sent their corrupt bankers to jail after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
Their economic GDP now exceeds the high of 2008.

Is this what happens when a country is not dependent on Aliens or PAP??
Is this what happens when the Icelandic citizens voted wisely??

Anonymous said...

South India-Sri Lanka-Singapore Economic Union Proposed
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http://m.thehindu.com/business/Economy/ranil-urges-trination-economic-convergence/article8877312.ece

Do you think this will create an orgasmic delight in our Singapore Parliament?

Anonymous said...

Singapore automatic member with CECA. Credit goes to those who signed this CECA agreement. They can be made honorary President.

Anonymous said...

So why is George Yeo working in Hong Kong?
- Shouldn't he be working in South India under the CECA agreement?

Anonymous said...

Sg is only a good stopover. Its not for long term unless one is very rich. It is even set up this way.

Anonymous said...

We would even lose our shopper’s paradise industry if we cannot keep the cost and prices down.
RB

Tiok. But I thought it was already lost even before GE 2015? But PAP could still win 70% votes in GE 2015, tio bo? So what's the problem, I mean for PAP?

And not say I kay poh, but what's the problem, I mean for our neighbour PM Najib, if he can still remain as PM and also just like PAP, even won recent by elections?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
So why is George Yeo working in Hong Kong?
- Shouldn't he be working in South India under the CECA agreement?

They will take his money and say thank you very much after that. They will con him with words. After using him, he die his own business.

Anonymous said...

Why PAP will always win the elections: Because We Can't Believe The Mighty Titanic Could Actually Sink
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Unfortunately for those partying on the upper First Class decks, they are as doomed as the working class passengers when the ship goes down.

Why did passengers remain on the Titanic even as its bow sank deeper into the ice-cold Atlantic?
They believed the experts and authorities because they wanted to believe the ship was "unsinkable."
And why did they want to believe the ship was "unsinkable"?

Two visceral realities fueled their misplaced faith in the ship's supposed safety:

1) The warm ship seemed so mighty, and the alternative--open lifeboats drifting in the dark cold night--seemed so vulnerable, uncomfortable and risky.

2) It was much easier to believe the experts' assurances that the ship was safe than it was to clamber into a small lifeboat and bob around the open Atlantic.

We all know which alternative turned out to be safe and which one was fatally unsafe.
The apparently risky open lifeboats were the sole source of survival and the enormous, complex "unsinkable" ship sank, ending the lives of everyone who clung to the appealing fantasy that the mighty ship was too technologically advanced to sink.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-26/why-real-reform-impossible-we-cant-believe-mighty-titanic-could-actually-sink
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Vote Opposition to avoid going down with the Titanic.

Anonymous said...

Lets face it, Singaporeans cannot think logically, are cowards, and have no sense of justice, just self interest. All the competent, nice people have left so the pool in increasing dumb and dumber and easy to rule. This vicious cycle is not unique, you see it in the Southern States(smart type move north), you see it in the UK(the opposite direction), you see it in the West Bank, etc. But the outcomes are different, in Singapore the outcome is a concentrating of the very stupid, ugly and self centered, entitled young men.

Coming home from abroad every year, I can see the shit self entitled, coward faces get shittier every passing year. No point arguing with them, stupid people always know they are right, and deserve whom they vote for. In spades.

Anonymous said...

@ July 27, 2016 10:34 pm

patriot and redbean are loyal singaporeans. so are pap ministers.
do you think they are part of the "pool in increasing dumb and dumber and easy to rule. "???

what about you?
why you come home to this shit hole every year?

Unknown said...

A working girl told me recently that there aren't any expats around anymore to service. She used to earn 20k a month. Even ang mohs are leaving.