The 2 cent debate

Singaporeans were all high and excited debating about the 2c savings that the PTC had granted them during this financial crisis. There were excitements everywhere, in the old media as well as cyberspace. The professionals went to town literally, interviewing the grateful commuters for the savings that would have brought them some relief and easier on their pockets. The PTC must have spent many hours debating among themselves on this big decision before agreeing to the reduction. I remember the MYCD took a year to study before increasing the public assistance grant from $360 to $390. And the President took 11 days to approve a $4.9b withdrawal from the national reserves. I wonder if the PTC needed to agonise over this 2c reduction? But all these cannot beat the 2c debate and the expectations of compliments from the grateful commuters. Would the media would be conducting straw polls and interviews on the street on issues like the $58b loss from our investment of public fund, with more losses waiting to be announced? I don't remember any such exuberance when the news broke out. It is kind of a sad that people should all be excited over 2c. What kind of existence is that, worrying about 2c everyday? They will probably hit a state of delirium when their salary is raised by another million dollars. Just sharing my 2 cent's worth.

Burning rage of taxi drivers

The media interviewed a few taxi drivers last night and you can tell that they were very unhappy with the lower ridership and lower income. They complained to the media that taxi fares must come down when the fares of trains and buses are coming down. They are losing more passengers in this hard time to trains and buses. It hurts their income for sure. But they could not reduce their fares as the rentals for the taxis are still high and eating into their income. Wait a minute, in an earlier post I quoted a media report that several small taxi operators wanted to reduce the taxi fares. Oh, now I see. Lowering fares without lowering operating cost and rentals of taxis will not do. It will mean high cost low income. What about the views of big taxi operators? They are for high fares. Lowering of fares will reduce the income of taxi drivers. True, true, I agree. No doubt about it. But can they reduce the taxi rentals? Now, that is a very difficult question. No, they are not considering it. They are thinking of other ways of promoting taxi rides like talking to corporations and giving discount vouchers to encourage ridership. Discount vouchers? Discount from whose income, taxi operators or drivers? My question is, why waste all the money and effort to promote to a small group of users? If, I say if, the discount is from the taxi operators, why not simply lower the rental and its equivalent in fares? Why not? They must have good reasons to do so. In the meantime the taxi drivers can continue to fester in their burning rage. Please don't burn anyone, please. Maybe this is why taxi drivers are prone to start fires.

SMRT and buses cut fares

The Public Transport Council(PTC) is showing its caring side by announcing a reduction in SMRT fares ranging from 2c to 18c or a bit more for those who need to transfer from bus to train and vice versa. The more the commuters do their transferring acts, the greater will be their savings. The transport operators will be transferring the savings from govt subsidies to the commuters. I was worried for them for a while when I thought they would have trouble explaining to their shareholders for the loss in profits with the reduction. SMRT claimed that it would have to fork out another $30m to $40m even with the govt subsidies. Would they be incurring a loss then? Maybe not with oil prices coming down rapidly to almost its previous level and with the big increase in ridership. My prediction is that SMRT will chalk up even bigger profits next year. Good for them. Let me compute how much savings will I get before I pop that bottle of champagne. 2c a trip, 2 trips a day and 22 trips a month. Viola, I save 88c! So I will be able to go for that additional cup of kopi in the hawker stall. Not bad. My cost of living is coming down. For those taking buses, the savings could be 20c or more per trip. Very good. Maybe I shall take buses instead and save more. Better still, take bus, train, bus combination, maybe I can save enough for two plates of chicken rice. Great idea.

Second key tested!

Chua Mui Hoong in her article today in the ST is all praise for the second key system. It has been tested and it works. It works so smoothly like a well oiled machinery. Everything goes without a single hitch. The system has been perfected over time. What if the President said no? Or what if the Presidential Council said no? These are highly unlikely scenarios. But let's say if it happens, what's next? The request to dip into the reserves goes back to Parliament for another debate, repackage and re submit to the President? Could there be a provision somewhere that after 3 rejections by the President the request should automatically be passed in Parliament? Or would there be a vote of no confidence on the President and a new elected President be elected? Or would the govt just accept it and say can't do anything to help the people because the President said no and no money available? Has this part been tested? How smooth will it be?

Time for a one party dictatorship

We are in a major crisis. We cannot afford to have a weak govt. We cannot afford to have all the politikings going around and sapping away the energy of the govt. We need continuity so that the govt can plan ahead to overcome this crisis. All the conditions are ripe for a single party govt to manage the country over the long haul. A combative democratic process is unhealthy. We have lost probably $100b or more of our reserves. And we don't even know how much is our reserves or how much we have lost. Someone told me not to worry, we have much more in reserves than officially announced. Actually it is frightening if losing $100b is seen as nothing. We need really able men and women to make sure that our reserves keep growing and being protected. And if we are to have able people managing them, a one party dictatorship is the way to go. Through our experience many good men and women would not want to be involved in the rough and tussle of running for election. A single party dictatorship will give the govt full authority to appoint the good men to office, something like the American president appointing his cabinet. There were signs of an election coming with the electoral list being updated. The media reported that there were no new faces doing the walkabout, indicating that the team will stay put. This could be a possibility. How about the possibility of an election for a dictatorship or a single party rule? Like I said above, a dictatorship or single party rule has the flexibility for the power to appoint the office bearers. No neeed new faces to walk about and be recognised or to learn the rope of garnering grassroot support. Is it possible? But this is not the issue. The main issue now is for a sustainable govt to be in place for a long time to overcome this crisis. The people must close rank and support the govt, stay together and cut down on all the bickering and allow the govt to do its job. Maybe 10 years, 20 or 30 years, we shall overcome.