July 10 , 2008

This morning, when I was queuing up to buy coffee, I noticed the ST papers at the coffee shop shelf. Front page, there is a familiar face, Dr Chee’s adversary. Beside the picture, written Singapore to go the Swedish Way. And the same front page, Tharman warned about pay rises to workers no cure for inflation.

Very interesting topic. Let me talk about Swedish Way. We have heard so many about swiss standard of living many years back with the theme “more good years”. Our way of life, policy, social integration, infrastructure more or less copy from that of 1st world country. It is good that we have progress but one thing our leaders can’t make up their mind is the population policy. Many years back, the government said stop at two. Then it said three if you can afford. Now with the dwindling population, our leaders want to boost the birth rate, it then borrow the swedish ideas of taking care of children, meaning free child care and so on. Our population problem existed since 1980s, many schemes and incentives had been implemented but the numbers just don’t seem to increase. As a result, the government has to import from foreign country to boost up the numbers. So it goes to say we must have minimum 65% locally born to maintain Singaporeaness. Foreigners just can’t integrate into our society. But I say, will it be too late to implement the so called Swedish Way of child care, meaning everything is free for the child, this will become a nanny state, why the leaders do not think of this idea way back say 10 or 20 years ago. Is it because at that time, their ministerial salary is too low, and they can’t think of any ideas or they just follow the tune, ” no free lunch”.

Back to the issue of pay rise to tackle inflation. I find no logic at all not to increase the workers pay to help them tackle the high cost of living. We face the worse inflation in 26 years, and we know many residents can’t cope any more. Some have to work two jobs to supplement their income. The poor can get $290 grant per month, but for others, the GST rebate is just simply won’t help at all. GST increase according to PM Lee is to help the poor but in fact the increase help the government to gain extra revenue and sulplus. We really don’t know how much is channelled to the poor. To the lower middle income earners, they don’t qualify for any thing. That is why the Tak Boleh Tahan campaign comes in. That is what Dr Chee is doing now to highlight the income disparity and high cost of living. The famous 18 will go to court on July 11, Friday to answer charges of illegal assembly about TBT campaign. If election were to be held now, I can bet my last dollar that 10 to 15 opposition MPs will emerge, though it won’t be like political tsunami in our neighbouring country.

July 7 , 2008

Starting from today, ERP charges have increased again and more gantries will be added to deter motorists from driving or to encourage the motorists to give up driving and take the not so public transport. Diesel and petrol have increased again since Thursday. I have lost count how many times they have increased the price of petrol. In fact since last year, we have to cough out another 60% to pay for the fuel. According to the transport minister, ERP is for regulating traffic, but then what is the purpose of COE ? Is it not for regulating the car population. Obviously, the government used this ERP and COE to double tax the owners of vehicles. What they want is money, they don’t care congestion on the road, or poor business in the CBD area. Just like increasing GST to help the poor, is it really to help the poor or increase their coffer ?

On Sunday, 6th July. we saw the Tak Boleh Tahan campaign by SDP around Bishan and previously in Toa Payoh where the activists tried to highlight the high cost of living suffer by our heartlanders. Prices of food have increased tremendously, not to mention other items such as transport, medical fee, S&C charges, petrol, parking fees, CPF minimum sum, electricity bill, housing be it rental or owner occupied. All these prices have gone north. The TBT team highlighted the enormous increase in the ministerial salary since last year, and they are going to revise upwards this Dec. This increament is contrary to what we workers receive in this difficult time. Across the causeway, the opposition protested on Sunday in a stadium regarding price hike. Tens of thousand of people attended the rally, but over here, we suffer silently as nobody dare to protest due to the strict law regarding assembly.

I always hear many complains in coffee shop talk regarding price hike , ministerial salary, ERP and COE so on and so forth… but the complain seem like does not put into action when comes election. Every election we see PAP getting stronger, and oppositions look bad in image. People keep complaining but in the end, they still voted for PAP, I find that it is strange.

Sunday morning, I sat at a coffee shop taking my breakfast. Beside the coffee shop, there is a pawn shop, and I noticed many residents went in there ,all multiracial people went in to pawn their jewellery. Is it because of price hike and they can’t afford a living or because they are shortage of cash for gambling ? I tried to visualise but I can’t figure out their motive of pawning the jewellery.

Then this morning while driving I listened to the radio talk show in which the DJ mentioned that there is a family of seven who spend just $120 per week for food and grocery. One month it comes to about $480, wah, very cheap considering seven members in a family. May be they heeded the advice of our PM to eat house brand food, buy brandless bread and so on. Well they are really obedient kind of citizen, or may be circumstances force them to be thrifty.  One thing for sure , many of us really can’t afford to eat abalone or shark fins for this coming CNY. But a certain people can eat fresh sea food flown directly from Nagoya weekly if not daily. This will make people fed up and they will scold tew nia seng !!!

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