Beware of your pockets

If the forum pages of the main media are an indication of what is over the horizon, I am fearful of what is in the pipeline. The main media has rightly been perceived as the sounding board for the govt policies, what the govt has in mind are often tested first in the media for a ground feel or to signal what is coming next. And the preview could lessen the impact when policies are implemented with the people mentally prepared for the shock.

The last few days the signals are for higher cost of water consumption and hitting hard on car ownership. Two foreigners, I am guessing from their names, likely new citizens or PRs, one a Dr Asit K Biswa and a Cecilia Tottajada, wrote to the ST forum that the cost of water was too low, or cheap and it was time to tighten the tap on cheap water to reduce consumption. Another comment, not sure if it was from the same two, ‘the price of water has not increased since 2000’.

See the reasoning for the increase? So long never increase so much increase. The other reason, must increase price to cut down on consumption. Aren’t the people already paying too much for water with different kinds of water conservation taxes? Not enough, still want to increase? And the reason is to cut down on consumption. Did they know the history of water pricing and the cost of water instead of gut feel of cheap or expensive, based on what, market mechanism?

Hey professori from whatever university, I already limit myself to take bath once a week to cut down on water usage. Not enough? And I only brush teeth once in two days. And I also use used water to flush the toilet bowl, which means the water is used several times before flushing down the drain. Do you know or not? It is so easy to talk about cutting down consumption. Tell the poor worker to cut down on food consumption lah. But make sure you know how many meals he is taking and what he is taking in the first place. If the guy is already taking plain bread or plain porridge and only two times a day, how much more to you want him to cut down? You think everyone eat like a pig, 5 meals a day? You think everyone is hosing water on their cars?

Do these so called academics know what they are talking?

And the other call, not by an academic I think, to reduce car usage, is to make car use prohibitive. What a moron. The next thing, to manage the use of precious land, shrink the size of flats by half to make it painful. There are many people who must use car whether for work or for special needs. Using the car is a necessity and sometime unavoidable. And there are many small enterprises that need a car or they could not operate. Increase cost to make it prohibitive? I see shit coming out of the mouth.

But put these silly thinkers and comments aside. What is behind these calls, is it an indication of what is coming and the media or govt is preparing the ground for increase in water fees and more financial disincentives to car usage?

What are the real problems to water usage and car usage? What are the causes to high water usage and car population? You dunno meh? Think 10m or 6.9m. If the govt is crazy to keep pumping more people into this piece of rock, water will always be not enough and no matter how high the price is, the people would still need to use them. Fuck the pseudo academics. And so will be space for cars. 5m and we are so squeezed with so many cars, 6.9m and 10m, how would it affect car prices and car usage? Is this what we want? Is this for better quality of life? Prohibit car ownership, prohibit water consumption so that everyone would smell like a sweaty manual worker and cannot afford to bathe?

This is already one of the most expensive city to live in. Want to increase cost further by more stupid suggestions?