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8月22日 National Rally 2007 - minor pointThree days, after the Prime Minister made his speech, talk is still on.
I do not want to pretend that I was even interested in listening in, first hand. My disinterest, and the causes of, will be discussed separately.
I finally took a look at what PM Lee said, by going to the gov.sg website. This, after being asked too many times of my opinions on the National Rally, and all I could offer was "the banner looks awful, ugly, overdone, outdated, and of poor taste."
One thing struck me, when reading through the part about income gap, talent attraction and rentention. The rental, and role of Singapore Land Authority (SLA), Town Councils, and Inland Revenue Authority of Sigapore (IRAS) in the rental of commercial spaces were totally not discussed.
Outside the income gap, or one main contributor to the widening income gap, is the costs of living. Confuse not the terms, standard of living and costs of living, they do not move in tandem, but have an inversed relationship. Simple explaination, when costs of living goes up, you have to work harder, and longer, to buy that burger. Hence, your standard of living drops. This concept is important. Because, fellow citizens have been telling me, Singapore has to be costlier because our standard of living is going up. Such paradox, misleading us to work harder and longer hours for something which is going in reverse of what we think we are achieving.
Back to the rentals.
Now, I know of a recent incident of an MP, who shall stay unnamed, conducting the walkabout just before national day. The hawkers and shop owners refused to shake hands with the MP. Because the shop rentals were just increased, by a fairly large amount, and two hawker centers merged, and store spaces reduced. What do all these mean for us?
1) Rental costs increased, costs must be passed fully or partially to consumers.
2) Majority of patrons of neighborhood shops and hawker centers are middle-low incomers.
3) Longer working hours means you cannot (have time to) cook at home.
4) Silence on the role or rate on increase of rentals, creates the impression that the shop owners are trying to profiteer.
5) Publicity on CASE stepping in to capture the incidence of the phenomena of increasing prices, without information on the actual contribution of costs to such increases, gives undue credits to certain segments.
Until I see more truth coming out, and the costs of our seriously good Government being revealed and reviewed, I will continue to have no interests in big speeches by big names.
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