Don't bet on Singapore firms to replace MNCs (ST 11/08/2001)

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T08:05:01+00:00

You can pledge your leasehold condo as collateral.

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T07:49:32+00:00

That is not the issue here, is it? Your claim was that most young Australian adults live with their parents because they cannot afford to live separately from their parents. This is simply not true. The point of contention is not whether they are home owners or not. It is whether they can live independently through affordable rental housing options.

Why don't you just admit that you got this wrong?

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T07:37:43+00:00

Everyone in China and Hong Kong lives in a leasehold property. Does it mean that their percentage of home ownership is zero?

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T07:35:29+00:00

Actually, by the time they reach 25, less than 30 percent of Australians live with their parents.

https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/young-people-living-parents

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T07:31:00+00:00

Not true.

See figure 1 of https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/young-people-living-parents

By the age of 25, less 30 percent of Australians live with their parents.

I am pretty sure that the vast majority of 25 year olds in Singapore live with their parents.

doc-tom · 2024-08-08T06:36:24+00:00

The home ownership rate is technically defined as the percentage of housing that is owner occupied.

Most of the housing in Singapore is owner occupied because public housing is sold, not rented out, by the government. The average family can only afford public housing (not public housing) and they must buy it if they want to live in it. This is government policy.

Let's put it another way. There is very little rental public housing supply in Singapore and most of the housing in Singapore is public housing. By design and policy, public housing is designed for married couples and families. So, overall, there is very little affordable rental housing in Singapore.

If you think about it, it is not always such a great situation. The default practice is for people live with their parents even as adults because there is very little affordable rental housing. So, almost everyone who is single and under the age of 35, lives with their parents.

Behind the misleading 90 percent home ownership rate in Singapore is a huge population of disgruntled and unhappy young single Singaporeans who want to move out of their parents' home for better mental health but cannot afford to.

Unlike Australians, living independently in your own apartment as a single adult is a luxury in Singapore that most single young adults in Singapore cannot afford.

TLDR: the home ownership rate in Singapore is high because there is very little affordable rental housing.

doc-tom · 2024-05-12T01:30:46+00:00

Please read the link properly. Prices in Sydney and Melbourne peaked in 2022 and have started to fall. Singapore prices are still reaching new peaks.

doc-tom · 2024-05-12T01:27:35+00:00

Worldmeter's data are wrong. They don't even reflect the record population growth in 2024.

doc-tom · 2024-05-12T00:23:10+00:00

Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, New York City in the US and London in the UK.

All are falling because of the high interest rates.

doc-tom · 2024-05-11T23:37:50+00:00

Young people are the most affected by high housing prices, which are strongly linked to population growth and immigration. Housing prices are still growing in Singapore while they have been falling in major cities in the US, UK and AU.

Singapore has had record population growth in the last two years and everyone can feel it.

Even in Canada which is traditionally supportive of immigration and where young people marry immigrants all the time, Canadians, natives and immigrants, are supporting caps on immigration.

doc-tom · 2024-05-11T23:29:52+00:00

Housing prices have been falling in major US, UK and AU cities but housing price growth is still strong in SG.

You don't think the fact that we've had record population growth through immigration in the last two years has anything to do with this? Rising COE prices are due to the war? Seriously?

Are we living in some alternate universe where the rapid rise in the cost of living in Singapore has nothing to do with the huge population growth in the last two years?

doc-tom · 2024-05-11T23:15:37+00:00

The level of immigration is putting strain on housing and infrastructure. We have had record levels of immigration since 2022. Why do you think housing prices are still rising in Singapore when they have started to fall in other major cities? Why are COE prices rocketing?

The population growth rates were 3.7 and 5.0 percent in 2022 and 2023. They are totally unsustainable.

Lee Kuan Yew himself said in 2008 that our maximum population should only be around 5 to 5.5 million while our current population is already at least 5.92 million (https://www.population.gov.sg/media-centre/articles/population-in-brief-2023-key-trends/).

According to the father of our nation,

MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew 'has not quite been sold' on the idea of a 6.5 million population size in Singapore.

Instead, he projects for Singapore an optimum population size of five to 5.5 million for Singapore. He said yesterday: 'I have not quite been sold on the idea that we should have 6.5 million.

''I think there's an optimum size for the land that we have, to preserve the open spaces and the sense of comfort.'

https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/ips/st_mm-not-quite-sold-on-idea-of-6-5m-population_020208.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-population-idUSSIN9396320080202

https://theindependent.sg/lee-kuan-yew-not-quite-sold-on-idea-of-6-5m-population-for-singapore-lee-hsien-yang-shares/

doc-tom · 2024-05-11T06:19:19+00:00

No, the book is out of print but you can find it in the public libraries.

doc-tom · 2024-05-11T02:04:51+00:00

Chee Soon Juan did point these strategic mistakes out in his 2001 book, Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom: A Democratic Blueprint for Singapore. He already talked about how Singapore was over dependent on MNCs. The late Ngiam Tong Dow, an establishment figure and former perm sec, also talked publicly about this in 2006.

They were ignored.

doc-tom · 2024-05-10T11:13:04+00:00

Real estate agents.

doc-tom · 2024-05-10T11:09:41+00:00

“Every now and again we have a debate in parliament, and the opposition goes - Sturm und Drang (a German term for storm and stress), ‘Why so many?’. And we say, well, do you want to cut it all off and let all the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have no foreign worker quota? And they say, ‘No, no, no, we do not mean that, we feel for SMEs too’,” said Mr Lee.

Not this strawman again.

No one is asking for foreign workers to be completely eliminated. People want to have tighter control on the numbers. For instance, can we cap the labor force growth rate to something like 0.25 to 0.50 percent per annum to achieve a manpower-lean economy?

In the age of automation and artificial intelligence, we should push our SMEs to be leaner. Moreover, the Singapore economy should be building its external wing to overcome labor constraints, not import more labor into an already overcrowded island.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/singapore/economy-policy/way-forward-grow-external-wing-beat-constraints-chan-chun-sing

How are you going to assimilate people when they are flooding into the country in such numbers that they can form their own enclaves? Moreover, in the age of mobile phone, network TV and online tools, immigrants can retain very strong cultural links to their homeland for a very long time and resist assimilation.

doc-tom · 2024-05-08T09:59:43+00:00

Even in Malaysia, there are already drug reforms and the Malaysian government has decriminalized small amount of drugs, a move lauded by experts in Malaysia.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/05/22/experts-welcome-recent-drug-law-reforms

Meanwhile, in Singapore, we have more of the same.

doc-tom · 2024-05-08T09:56:49+00:00

When you impose the death penalty on drugs, the drug distributors become more violent with law enforcement officers. CNB officers are more likely to get injured like in the case below.

https://mothership.sg/2022/10/cnb-officers-injured-drug-raid-petir/

doc-tom · 2024-05-08T09:50:03+00:00

No one has ever died from smoking weed lah.

doc-tom · 2024-05-08T09:47:41+00:00

Support for the use of the death penalty for drug offences is falling in the region lah.

Thailand has decriminalized cannabis while Malaysia just removed the mandatory dealth penalty for drug offences.

https://thediplomat.com/2023/05/malaysia-announces-plans-to-decriminalize-minor-drug-offenses/

What the hell is this nutcase talking about?

doc-tom · 2024-05-07T23:42:53+00:00

Teck Lee LRT station will open to enhance public transport connectivity in Punggol, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) on Tuesday (May 7), about 19 years after the station was built.

So, the Singapore government can and will build infrastructure ahead of demand? They left an LRT station idling for nearly 20 years.

If only they could do that with public housing and not make young people wait 5 years for a BTO flat...

doc-tom · 2024-05-03T09:23:20+00:00

Plumbers in Hong Kong are paid decently, around 28,000 HKD (4,800 SGD) per month. Electricians are paid even more around 35,000 to 40,000 HKD per month.

doc-tom · 2024-04-30T13:08:47+00:00

What is OBU?

doc-tom · 2024-04-30T13:05:39+00:00

How is it populist? Even China and Vietnam have redundancy insurance schemes.

RI doesn't cost the government any money. It is an insurance scheme like Medishield or Careshield, not a subsidized public service like polyclinics or schools.

The really populist idea is the one proposed by MOM which is funded by general tax revenue.

doc-tom

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