APEC 2024 Peru. Biden shafted to a corner in the back row. Xi in front row next to Peru's President
8/31/2010
The mission of HDB is to build flats for all Singaporeans
Really? Ask the singles. Oh ask the young professionals who happen to be earning a bit more, exceeding the arbitrary ceiling of $8000/$10,000 pm income. Are they not Singaporeans? Are they less deserving than the new citizens? What is their crime?
The premises for creating such rules have changed. Solutions need to be found to look after all Singaporeans so that no one is left out for whatever creepy reasons. After all these years, have the policy makers become enlightened, betterer in their thinking processes, bigger hearts, or still living in the closets?
The prices of HDB flats are no longer cheap. And the private sector is a killer. Why forced these people to buy from the private sector? To help the developers to get richer, or to help to shore up the prices of private properties by increasing demands so that speculators who own many private properties can be assured of higher profits?
The reasoning that they will add to the demand for public housing and compete with the lower income HDB buyers is bull. They will be looking at the more expensive flats, the DBSS and Exec condos. And the rulings can be tweaked to see to that.
Then of course more flats can be built to cater to the demands of those who want smaller and cheaper flats. It is a supply and demand issue. The biggerer the demand, more flats need to be built. Blaming on a small group of Singaporeans is silly, a poor excuse.
If HDB does not want to build enough flats to meet the increasing demand, it is unfair to put the blame on other deserving citizens.
Right man. HDB's mission to build flats for all citizens. What happens is that some kau sai decided some should be deprived of HDB flats according to their personal whims and to be pushed into the sea to feed the sharks.
ReplyDeleteWhy should Singaporeans be deprived of buying a HDB flat and then offer them in a silver platter to new citizens or the rich who own plentiful of landed properties? What kind of justice is this?
Kau sai justice.
Land is a scarce resource.
ReplyDeleteYou can bullshit the people with some socialist welfare HDB/ CPF nonsense for a few decades.
But in time reality catches up.
Land is expensive in S'pore, get used to it fact of life.
How can you expect the state to "overcome" a fact of nature (scarcity) by "policy". Tjat is sheer madness, unsustainable and eventually even more detrimental to the capital structure in the territory.
Other crowded cities have sky-high real estate prices: Tokyo, HK, London... and they've had it LONGER than S'pore.
People manage in these cities, even those who are poor have the opportunity to be upwardly mobile and a great majority of them accomplish wealth accumulation.
So I think redbean is full of shit. You can't expect the govt to wave a magic wand and create "abundance" from the fact that land scarcity is a reality and prices will thus be high
Matilah, you are getting the same disease. When people complained about overcrowded trains, they will say look at Tokyo. When people complained about high property prices, they said look at Hongkong...
ReplyDeleteJust use the extremes to justify our extravagance. Why don't we think and set our own parameters for goodness, like minister salaries. Don't compare with anyone, because no one is near us. And this what we consider as reasonable and good. Set our own standard.
We must decide what is good and don't blindly use moving targets to feel good when it is shit.
Duh, you already got the disease: )
Actually, you are correct. I am 'disease ridden'.
ReplyDeleteHowever that still doesn't nullify the point to look at the cities who have solved or managed their "over crowding" problems.
Sure you can develop your own stratergies, but other countries have had systems which "work" (relatively speaking) for decades or in the case of New York etc hundreds of years.
Why re-invent the wheel?
Please don't for one moment think that I "care" I don't. S'pore is a hotel to me -- I can't change shit there, it is beyond my powers.
Actually, I like crowded cities --- they are full of life and energy. Perhaps I live in a secluded sparse area that I find such a contrast energising!
Keep those damn borders open!