taxis - high operating cost and poor service

Night life in Hong Kong is so very alive. One reason may be that there is no midnight surcharge. Hong Kongers, tourists and business visitors know that they can have a taxi ride home at an affordable rate, however late in the evening or early morning. I also question the $100 daily taxi rental fee imposed, seeing that car rentals to the public range from $40 to $50 a day. And with second-hand car dealers coming into the business, there is talk of even $30 a day. Perhaps the over-size call-booking machinery can be made smaller to cut this $100 rental fee. I suggest that taxi drivers be given the leeway to be their own bosses in their trade with a condition that their vehicles are taken for roadworthiness tests at regular intervals. Perhaps service will improve with this flexibility. Yik Ching Fong (Ms) The above extract is from Straits Times Interactive. It is very obvious why the cost of taxis is so expensive while the taxi drivers are not getting the income they deserved, thus affecting the quality of service. All the booking fees and surcharges should be removed. Better still, taxi drivers should be allowed to rent their taxis from whoever and not be held ransom by taxi companies. When one can get a car for $30-$50 a day, why should taxi drivers be compelled to rent from taxi companies at $100 a day? Allow more competition in the industry, allow private operators to enter the business and provide cheaper taxis and remove all the ridiculous cost. Taxi drivers will benefit from lower cost, more passengers and higher net take home income. Taxi companies that are uncompetitive shall be allowed to wind up. All these monopolies are bad.

myth 52

'The Govt does not have the monopoly of ideas' This is the greatest change in perception after 41 years of PAP rule. The present govt has often acknowledged, fairly recently, that they do not have a monopoly of ideas. This implies that they know that there are better ideas out there and there are people who are just as able outside the govt that can provide equally good ideas. Compare this attitude to that of LKY's govt, it is a big step towards a changing of mindset at the highest level. I quote Seah Chiang Nee in his article posted in Littlespeck.com 'Whereas Kuan Yew relied on superior logic and tough punishment to rule, his son cannot do that. Hsien Loong still needs logic, but he can't use the cane to gain support. Persuasion, yes, but not force.' Seah Chiang Nee suggested that the superior logic approach is no longer workable in a new Singapore of well educated population. And the acknowledgement that the govt does not have the monopoly of ideas also appears to make this reasoning sound plausible. In practice, the way the govt deals with the people and the implementation of solutions to the country's problems, there seem to be little change. It is still the superior logic approach, that the govt knows best.

I find it very puzzling

The Israelis rained their artillery and bombs into Beirut and all corners of Lebanon. Their tanks rolled in with 30,000 soldiers. And there was no signs of the Lebanese army. Where have all the Lebanese soldiers gone? One possibility is that they knew that they were no match to the Israeli army. Without air cover, they will be sitting ducks to air strikes and could be destroyed in no time. So the army and other armed forces were withdrawn and avoided contact with the Israelis. Some may just joined the Hezbollah in civilians. Does a country need an army that cannot fight when enemy soldiers invaded its territory? Any country that allows this to happen deserves to be invaded. For they have made themselves weak, seductive and inviting. If only that the Lebanese soldiers were strong enough to fight back, the Israelis will not be so eager to march into their land. This is the major weakness of all Arab and surprisingly, Muslim countries. All very weak militarily. They were allowed to develop their armies but a very weak air force. In modern warfare, without air superiority especially in desert land, the army will be as good as crippled soldiers. They just cannot fight. Singapore must always make sure that its armed forces are strong enough to prevent a Lebanon or an Iraq.

arm twisting singaporeans to part with their money

singaporeans are forced and harassed to cough out thousands of dollars to pay for things they did not want. stripped of their clothings, lying naked in a spa, they were made to part with their money to buy holiday plans or health products etc. it is so easy to make singaporeans part with their money. amazing, and above the law. report to the police after signing the documents? fat hope. it is a contractual agreement that is binding in a court of law. at best the victim can take out a civil suit against the offending party. what about signing under duress? then try to proof in court, and spend more money and time to do it. singaporeans are well protected by the rules of law in the country, and the legal system. there is no need to complain. just go through the due process of the law. singaporeans are so bless.

things are too cheap here!

CPF is charging $18 as admin fee to transfer your medisave money to pay for medical expenses! Is this reasonable? It all depends on how much is the cost of labour and other overheads. If rentals and overheads and salaries are high, then in order to operate at a profit, it has to charge accordingingly. Is it an issue of fairness? It again depends on how to compute the cost of admin fee. Nothing is for free. People must accept this mantra. Even keeping money in the bank, if too little, the bank will charge $2 a month to maintain your account. And this is cheap, in fact too cheap, to think of the high cost of operating a bank, expensive rentals, computers and well trained and highly educated staff. Actually the bank should charge something like $30 or $100 as admin fee as their overheads are very high. And out taxi fares are still very cheap compare to other major cities. We should comfortably double or triple the taxi fares to make it more befitting to other first world cities. And there will be more people, including professionals and graduates, rushing to become taxi drivers. Then we need not have to employ foreigners or will there be a shortage of taxi drivers.