Absorb GST - passing the buck

Fair Price, Cold Storage, Shop N Save and Shengxiong are absorbing the July GST increase, albeit for a few months. It would be nice if all the big shops absorb the GST increase altogether. Then the people can save some money from this increase. But can things be so simple. Once there is an increase in cost, the merchants will know what to do and finally the consumers will end up paying everything and more.

myth 143

Rising cost and prices are bad I think this is a myth. Cost of living going up, GST up, prices of properties going up, rentals going up, fees going up, salaries going up, all these are actually good for the country. Singapore can only be saved when all the costs are up, the higher and faster, the better. You don't believe me? The laws of economics are like gravity. What goes up must come down. Any irrational and unjustified increases will strain the system and the system will break. Then all prices and fees and salaries will fall down like apples.We should quickly jack up all the prices. While we are complaining about having too many foreign talents and workers here and not knowing how to stop the flow, it is starting to slow down. And yes, they are finding it too expensive here to live with the relatively low income vis a vis cost of living. And the shops in Orchard Road will be ghost town if the prices keep going up. Soon people will stay clear of this place. Only the super rich and real super talents will come. And these are the people that we really need. Quickly, jack up the prices and see them fall.

Ban that song

In the Sunday Times column, 'English as it is broken', it tries to explain the proper usage of person and people as often people are confused when using these two words. A person is a person, singular. People is a collective now. So it is proper to say one person or two persons but not one people or two people. It is incorrect to say there are one or two people in the room. It is correct to say one person or two person in the room. So cannot say one people. This brings me to the famous national song of Singapore, One people, one nation, one Singapore. This must be broken English or Singlish. How can we sing 'one people'? Actually English is a bloody confusing language to use. And my first paragraph has me confused too. I begin with 'people are' and then 'people is'. Now which is right and which is wrong. People is a collective now, and is is used to explain the word. The people are friendly, the noun in action. And who says one cannot write 'is is' in the same sentence? Stupid English or Singlish?

Of politics, race and religion

Several JI operatives were detained by ISD again. And the faces are familiar, Muslim and Malay. But this time round there were no under currents by other groups to point the finger at the Malay community. Perhaps the process of educating the people to look at it as a problem not of a community but a few individuals has been a success. Also, this time the area of focus is the Middle East and Afghanistan, quite far away. The attraction in this case is the surfacing of an elite, a trained lawyer, who is motivated enough to give up his cosy lifestyle of comfort and material well being to risk his life in the rough and tumble of the war torn mountains of Afghanistan. Why is the movement gaining momentum despite the claims of success by the western media? Or is the western media's spin just a spin, and the movement is gaining grounds and growing stronger? For those who are reading the western media, the impression is a simple good guys against the bad guys, modernity against backwardness, secularity against religion, the west against the muslims or arabs. And it is very easy to choose to be on the right side of goodness. Apparently if one is to read the Middle Eastern or Muslim media, the picture is quite different. It is a picture of western oppression and injustice against the arabs and muslims, a war of suppression by the west against Islam, a war for control of Arab oil. So, is this a problem of politics or religion, or of race? It seems that it is a combination of all, and economics as well. Control of the Middle East, control of oil, control of media, control of values and control of a people and their religion. But the western media will say no, it is the uplifting of a backward people, a shining light of progress in democracy, human rights and materialism leading the way. The west and western media see themselves as the liberators of a feudal people locked away in time and stubbornly refusing to live and enjoy the life of modernity and secularism. And these people say, leave us alone to our life. We don't need you to meddle with our life and dictate to us your values. And so the fighting and killing continues.

The Living Legend

He may have come from a little red dot. Some may not have good things to say about him. Some may even hate him. Some may regard him as enemy. But he is a living legend among the world leaders today. No one in the world can command the kind of respect and deference from around the world except him. Not George Bush, Putin, Blair, Mahathir, you can name anyone, none is even close to the presence that he commands. LKY, just saw him in Tatarstan over the news. You can see how respectful and honoured the Russians felt to have him visiting them. And he is Asian, from a little red dot. Not even an Ang Mo. He is at least a head taller than all the Ang Mo leaders today. Whether you like him or dislike him, agree with him or disagree with him, he is in a class of his own. Singapore or the world will take a long long time to produce another man like him.