Yushui Village in Lijiang, Yunnan, with snow mountain backdrop and cascading waterfalls.
1/22/2008
Housing is affordable
I must agree with Mah Bow Tan that housing is affordable. Singaporeans have a wide option to choose from, from the exclusive condos to the rental flats. So if one cannot afford a 4 rm flat, go for 3 rm. If that also cannot, go for rental. Everyone should live within his means and opt for the appropriate housing type. Everyone has a choice.
But in the case of hospitalisation, hey it is a different matter when you cannot choose which expensive wards you want to be warded. Ok, ok, you can choose even C wards but you have to pay a little more. If people are given a choice to opt for things at a lower price, then it is affordable.
Anything is "affordable" provided you get off your arse and work for it.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative is to become a minister, sit on your arse writing nonsense policy, and bullshit speeches, whilst collecting millions of dollars over your career from the taxpayers.
IF one looks at the real estate held by ministers and their families, it is easy to conclude that real estate is "affordable" in S'pore.
dont just say it is affordable when the price mechanism is not truly market driven.
ReplyDeletewe have been hearing the property developers and speculators cheering every time property prices break new high. it is better to contain public housing to a manageable level and treat it differently from private housing. the latter, let them speculate as much as they want.
Prices are ALWAYS market driven.
ReplyDeleteHowever you get different price phenomena if the market is "hampered" from the market behaviour when the market is "free". With a "hampered" market, it is usually the supply mechanism is interfered with. And the only agency which has sweeping powers to affect interference which is market-wide, is the government.
If you affect the supply, you will (naturally) affect the price.
For e.g. the govt outlaws drugs and heavily taxes tobacco. This creates a "profit opportunity" for less savoury charateres of the society - namely gangsters.
So on the "free" market, the price of illicit drugs is INFINITE (infinitely HIGH) - because it is not available ay ANY price in the legal-free market. Because of this infinitely HIGH "natural price", the price of illicit drugs on the BLACK market will be - you guessed it - HIGH. And of course price is also related to risk of production and distribution, number of suppliers, and demand from users.
Unfortunately there is no "black market" for roads, because supply of "black market roads" is unavailable - unless some gangster invents a hyper-space transporter, and starts giving the owners of physical roads some competition.