Long winter for property market?

This is the headline of a report in the Mypaper today. It lamented that the hopes for some of the curbs to be removed did not materialized and the cold remains in propertyland. It said, ‘It was a letdown for property players, who were hoping to see policies such as the additional buyer’s stamp duty rolled back.’
 
Yes it is a letdown for the property players who had made a killing in the last few years. The property bull run lasted for more than 10 years and after a year of cooling measures when prices barely changed the property players are crying father and mother.
On the other side of the equation, ‘The non changing of the policies basically creates a buyer’s market for another one year or so…Serious buyers will be able to buy a property at a fair discount.’ Said Mohamed Ismail of PropNex.
 
Whose interests should the govt take care of first, the serious buyers that have been given the short end of the stick or the propery players that are gaming for more profits?
The fact is that even at today’s prices, the serious buyers are buying at a high with prices doubling or tripling for the last decades. What is another 10% or 15% fall in prices? I fully agree with Tharman’s decision not to remove any curbs as it is really too early to do so. The high prices only profit the speculators and hurt the serious home owners real bad. It also undercuts the quality of life when people are forced to buy smaller and smaller homes and paying more and more.
 
The policies for home buying must serve a national objective, the welfare of the people and the quality of life must be paramount. The drumming of property players must be the least of concern to a responsible govt that cares for the people.
What is this long winter shit?

Denise Chong’s agenda on more immigrants

 The ST does not publish articles on social and political issues in the city for no reasons and one is not wrong to assume that every article is carefully screened and approved before appearing on print. The weekend article by Denise Chong, a young journalist on the politics of envy or jealousy by Sinkies against the influx of foreigners here is no exception. What is the message?
 
Here is just a small quote to give an idea of what she is pushing and approved for printing.
 
“I guess no matter how comfortably some have feathered their own nests, the psychological weight of seeing other people with nest eggs that are 20 or 40 or 60 million times bigger can sour contentment they might feel about their own more modest success.”
 
Why is a young journalist pushing so hard for more immigrants to come on board in this tiny island that is already over populated and squeezing the citizens out in many things, jobs, space, owning properties and cars? Why are there people who are so adamant, stubborn and persistent to want to flood the island with more foreigners? Why is it that now with a 40% of foreigners here, and targeted to be 50% or more in 2030 is a good thing and the more the merrier? What is the agenda?
 
What is the intellectual level of a young girl to push such a serious matter of national interest that would impact the whole population into the future, and to be worthy of being published in the official media? Or this is just an innocent view of a young girl and has nothing to do with the officialdom?
 
The citizens are crying foul, feeling squeezed and deprived and marginalized and wanting to stop the influx, and here is another journalist trying to stuff it in with no heed to their pain and anger, even giving them a dig as being selfish and green with envy. Would we want to see more foreigners coming in to take on top positions in the ministries, stats boards and the govt offices in general? Do we want to see a new citizen as our permanent secretary, head of our armed forces or the police, or even the intelligent services?
 
Do we see any difference between foreigners, new citizens and the original born and bred citizens, or that they are simply the same and the citizens should make way for these ‘foreign talents’? What is good for a country or the citizens if the foreigners are here and took over all the top jobs in the country?
 
How many more foreigners do we want to flood this island before we say enough is enough? Are we a country, a nation, or just another fuck shop?

Pioneer Generation Package – The brass tacks

While the euphoria is still in the air that the 2014 budget is as generous as one could expect, let’s get down to brass tacks to know what it really means to the beneficiaries. As a 65er, it is up close to want to know what one will get from this package.
 
Assuming that one is healthy and not going to visit the outpatient clinics often, one is not going to get any subsidy from this provision. The main thrust of the Pioneer Generation Package is the life long subsidies of $200 to $800 per annum which are targeted at the impending introduction of Medishield Life Insurance. Presumably the Medishield Life will cover all and sundries of medical conditions of an oldie and there is no need to quibble over what is covered and what is not, and also no need to look at the fine prints of the T & Cs.
 
As I pointed out in my first post on this subject, the 65ers will get $200 per annum for life. And if this is fixed, meaning no incremental adjustments over the years as the 65ers grow older, it is likely that most of them will get about $4000 in all for another 20 years of lifespan, plus or minus depending on when one kicks the bucket. And that is it, nothing more, nothing less.
 
The next part that a 65er will be interested to know is the premium for Medishield Life. The current Medishield Plan premiums for a 65er are around $400 to $800 per annum depending on the coverage. The Medishield Life premiums cannot be lesser than these for the same age group. Assuming that the premium is $1000 and a 40% subsidy, a 65er will still have to pay $600 for the annual premium. The net cash impact is another $400 outlay on top of the $200 top up.
 
For the 65ers in the current Medishield basic plan, the net cash impact is unchanged but presumably with better coverage. Not sure about the co payment part and how much one will eventually have to pay for hospitalization under the Medishield Life.
 
The impact on the premium is not going to be static on two grounds. One, if the $200 per annum top up is going to stay as it is over the years while the Medishield Life premium rises with age. Another expected change is the annual adjustment of premiums by the insurers tagged to the amount claimed and the escalating cost of hospitalization bills. The status quo situation as projected by the current computation may not stay and the premium cost to the 65ers could go up and up with time. The compulsory Medishield Life Scheme may not be what it is today, and the funny thing, we don’t even know what this animal is like except to assume that it is benign. Would it be so and for how long before it turns into a beast like the dreaded CPF schemes, started with good intention but not the same any more?
 
There are many variables that can change along the way when the agenda changes. On the whole, the govt is giving away $8b over a 20 year period. With 3.5m citizens, excluding PRs, and at an estimated average premium of $400 pa, the premium to be paid to the ‘insurers’ will be $1.4b a year or $28b over 20 years ceteris paribus. Who is going to benefit from this $28b? Leong Sze Hian and Roy Ngern wrote in their joint paper that the govt needs not pay a cent more for healthcare with the schemes proposed in the budget.

Kopi level - Green

Thoughts of an 18 year old Sinkie

 

‘I often think about how to repay my parents for they have given up so much for me just to keep me living and educated in hopes for a better future. I also often wonder if it’s easier or cheaper for me to die earlier instead. Is this investment worth it in the future, will I be able to pay them back….

Our growing and relatively efficient infrastructure is all thanks to them. Without them it would be impossible for Singapore to have such a beautiful landscape amongst other things. Without them there would be no skyscrapers to house those major corporations, no MBS and RWS for the affluent tourists….

And as for incessantly blaming the government for such issues, is there any way around it?
How sure are you that the opposition will implement better measures. Can you come up with a better way to deal with such multi-faceted problems? Change isn’t necessarily a good thing….

Economic and social problems are rife and it seems like Singapore’s gonna burst soon. Between fight versus flight, regrettably, I choose flight.’

Apathetic 18 year old

The above paras were extracted from a post by this Apathetic 18 year old posted in TRE. He covered a lot in his post, from hopelessly, to hope, from wanting change but not wanting change. The youth of today are caught in a dilemma between wanting to do their best, to carve out a good life for themselves and facing a competition that they still did not know what it is and how to deal with it.

I would say that this is a typical Sinkie youth, well brought up, still believe in the values of filial piety, looking after and repaying the hardwork and devotion of his parents. And as he grows up and comes smack into the face of reality, a harsh and rapidly changing world that he has to grasp by the horns to make meaning of it, it is a new battle to be won.

Singapore was not built yesterday. Singapore existed even before 1819. It is a continuous existence of a people and a society. In between there were ups and downs and prominent milestones in our history. The young must read our history in full, not just after 1965 or after 2000, the years that many of the young were familiar, but not knowing the past.

The phenomenon of an over populated island and the hordes of foreign workers in the construction sites are new. It was not like that before. We built this island. We built the main part of our infrastructure by the pioneering generation. The foreign workers only came in recently to add on the finishing touches to complete the story of modern Singapore. For the youngs who were born in Spring, they would know the winter before them.

We owe much more, in fact everything to the pioneering generation that turned this island into a modern cosmopolis. By the time the foreign workers were brought in, things were pretty easy and straight forward. They just came to put the lego pieces together. I am not so generous to give them so much credit. And so were the foreign mercenaries called talents. We built our airlines, shipping lines, banks and many big institutions by ourselves. The foreign mercenaries came to pick the fruits. It is easy but not when one was ploughing the barren land, planting the seeds, watering and pouring manure on the soil, and sweating it out under the hot sun with not enough to eat and wear, and not knowing if the seeds would grow into a tree.

The children of today will see only the finishing touches of a successful story and think they owe a big debt to the foreign workers and foreign talents that are here now. This is the price for not teaching history in schools, or teaching only contemporary history from 1965. And some may even think that is too distance and the only thing they are aware is yesterday, after year 2000.
 
We need to stop spouting nonsense like we owe everything to the foreign workers and the foreign mercenaries in Raffles Place and MBFC for our success. The recognition of the Pioneer Generation is most timely to remind our young that they have missed out on the winter of our history and are enjoying the three seasons of warmth and plenty. 

Be sure that you know who you should be grateful to. Yes be grateful to your parents and your grandparents, not the new foreign workers and mercenaries. Do not forget the contributions of your parents and forefathers. It is ungrateful to think that they did nothing and everything is done by the new foreigners.

What is the most difficult thing to find in Sin City?

Angels? No, there are plenty of them floating around, including immortals. Money, no, there are so much money floating around that some don’t even where the money is coming from but their bank accounts keeping growing. Talents? No, there are plenty of talents in Sin City, I mean the real local ones. Take a cab and you are likely to be driven around by a local talent who has lost his 5 figure job and could not find another that pays $2000. So they all end up as their own boss, driving taxis

Foreign talents there are also plentiful, nearly 2 million of them and all happily employed, replacing the local talents. So what is so difficult to find?

Fake talents, foreign talents that have fake CVs and qualifications are a rarity. With 2 millions of them in the island, and many came from countries that are notorious and infamous for fake talents, selling degrees and dilplomas on the road sides, these fake talents must be very easy to find. Statistically, every 10 so called foreign talents, there must be at least 3 or 4 fake talents.

The problem is that these fake talents are so ingenious that they cannot be found. The latest report, a paltry 25 were found as reported in the media a couple of days back. There is another possible reason why they are so hard to find. If they are not so clever to conceal their fake qualifications, then it is proof that Sinkies are really daft that they could not outwit the fake talents and could not find them at all. Another possible answer is that they don’t even bother to try.

But all could be false assumptions and the truth is that there is really a dearth of fake talents in the city. All the foreign talents are real talents and that is why the authority is unable to find the fakes in the city. This may be another case of needing 50 man years or more to find a single fake talent. They are really a rare find.

And we can hear the official view being flouted daily, we need more foreign talents or else we will perish. Have we perished when we were 2m or 3m? Now we are 5.4m and we will perish if we don’t bring in more, 6.9m to be exact, and the truth is that it is going to be more than that. And we have many silly young things being made to write about how selfish Sinkies are in wanting this island to themselves.

We have shared this island with more than 40% foreigners. Not enough? We want them to be 90% and Sinkies become an absolute minority? The bigger countries are already crying foul for having 10% foreigners in their countries. And we are asking for more. Who’s silly idea is this? Would anyone who is so confident that this is the way to go stand up to claim ownership of it? If it is so good, be proud to tell the citizens that it is your idea and claims credit for it or gets shit in the face when things turn bad. Don’t ask naïve little children to say it is good. No sensible people would want to be lectured by little boys and girls on this.

They don’t have this phrase, ‘pai jia zi’ for nothing. Oh it means a prodigal son that squandered away his inheritance by his stupidity. Many rich families turned to dust because of ‘pai jia zi’. Countries too can be taken over by foreigners if it is run in the same way, by ‘pai jia zi’.

The COI of the Little India riot has a lesson that the police learnt the very hard way. Little India was so peaceful, crime rate so low. So they found it not necessary to have the riots police on standby until the very nice and peaceful mobs attacked. The same lesson can be superimposed on the island. All the foreigners are so peaceful and helping to grow our economy. By the time they decided to take over the island all the riot police would not be enough. And the ugly signs of these ungrateful asses and arrogant beasts are showing everyday with Sinkies being abused, insulted, threatened and beaten. And the people that could make the meaningful change are just turning the other way. And the official line is still being pandered by kids. We want more foreigners. We must not be selfish. They don’t even know that they are selling their country away.

Kopi level - Red.

Yesterday hit the lowest level for this month.