LPPL ...
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You used to sound so logical maurizio. I don't know what happened, but you're sprouting nonsense lately.Originally posted by maurizio13:I don't know what justification they have to pay themselves salaries 6 times that of the US president, when the US president administers a country 14,667 times that of Singapore and takes care of 66 times the population of Singapore.
Even our cabinet minister's salary is at least 2 times that of the US President, I bet President George Bush regrets that his father did not take up Singapore citizenship then.
While on the surface, it may seem like a direct comparison, it is not so. Even you understand that the responsibilities of the two presidents differ in scale. What you have not pointed out of course is the fact that our governments are fundamentally different in structure.
Consider the ministers of the two governments to be instead board of directors of Sony and General Motors respectively. The structure is completely different. Would you complain if the Sony directors were paid more than the General Motors ones? After all, the titles are the same...CEO, CFO, vice presidents....etc.
Not to mention of course, the difference in balance of trade/governance success/etc.
If you want to focus on one aspect of the whole comparison and ignore all else, allow me to do the same. The national debt of USA is at an all time high under bush's leadership. And you're surprised he's paid less? What are you, an idiot?
See how this kind of arguments don't present an accurate picture?
It's one thing to point out our ministers have higher pay that others, but you're implying that they do the EXACT same thing as leaders in other countries for higher pay. That is simply not true.
At least have the decency to list down the facts properly and let ppl judge for themselves. Forcefeeding half truths is just disgusting. And you guys complain about the local propaganda. -
... yah maurizio13, you should have noted that all other countries are run like countries, while SG is run like a company... -
If you think it's nonsense, you can choose to ignore it, nobody will complain that you are dumb. Whether it's logical or illogical, I don't think you as an opponent has any unbias judgement, because all the time you are trying very hard to discredit me. Don't worry, I won't discredit you by claiming you sprout nonsense without any proof.Originally posted by deathbait:You used to sound so logical maurizio. I don't know what happened, but you're sprouting nonsense lately.
While on the surface, it may seem like a direct comparison, it is not so. Even you understand that the responsibilities of the two presidents differ in scale. What you have not pointed out of course is the fact that our governments are fundamentally different in structure.
Consider the ministers of the two governments to be instead board of directors of Sony and General Motors respectively. The structure is completely different. Would you complain if the Sony directors were paid more than the General Motors ones? After all, the titles are the same...CEO, CFO, vice presidents....etc.
Not to mention of course, the difference in balance of trade/governance success/etc.
If you want to focus on one aspect of the whole comparison and ignore all else, allow me to do the same. The national debt of USA is at an all time high under bush's leadership. And you're surprised he's paid less? What are you, an idiot?
See how this kind of arguments don't present an accurate picture?
It's one thing to point out our ministers have higher pay that others, but you're implying that they do the EXACT same thing as leaders in other countries for higher pay. That is simply not true.
At least have the decency to list down the facts properly and let ppl judge for themselves. Forcefeeding half truths is just disgusting. And you guys complain about the local propaganda.
If you haven't figured out already, the "they" was meant to be the executive decision making body like our PM. Responsibilities of both leaders differ? I suppose our PM has more duties than the President of USA (who not only deals with local US issues, he also has to deal with international issues like Middle East, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, China).
Sony and GE? What you quote are profit making organisations, the sole motive is to make lots of money for their shareholders. Are the responsibilities of the government to syphon money from it's citizen so as to maintain high surpluses? Or is it to ensure that all of her citizens maintain a decent moral standard of living?
Balance of trade has no significance here. Why you may ask? There is no point accumulating all those huge surpluses when all those surpluses will never ever be distributed to the citizens. Has the trade surpluse benifited the local Singaporeans? If they had used the interest from the surplus to supplement our medical services or public housing. Do you think that our housing and medical cost would be so high. Take a look at the cost of public hospital charges in Hong Kong (prices are based in Hong Kong Dollars, so you have to divide by 5.43 [SGD 1 = HKD 5.43]) How come Hong Kong can afford cheaper healthcare to her citizens? SGD 18 for A&E consultation in Hong Kong, Inpatient (general accute beds) SGD 20. How much is the A&E consultation in any Singapore hospitals?
Source: http://www.ha.org.hk/hesd/nsapi/?MIval=ha_visitor_index&intro=ha%5fview%5ftemplate%26group%3dOSR%26Area%3dHNI&lang=E
It's like being a shareholder in a corporation, the CEO of the corporation keeps building up surpluses with no intention of distributing those surpluses as dividends back to her shareholders. The shareholders can't cash out by selling their shares because the company is not a publicly listed company on the stock exchange. I should make you invest in my company as a major shareholder, I make lots of profits but don't pay you any dividends, I will just give you the excuse that we need to keep reserves in case of economic crisis. I will just keep building on the reserves and don't pay you dividends.
Most publicly listed corporation will retain the profits, if they have reinvestment opportunities that will earn a rate of return higher than the cost of capital for the shareholders. But most of our returns are below market rates, the only companies with good returns are those who have oligopolistic and monopolistic power structure. Why do you think that there are accusations of anti-competitive practices in their investments overseas (e.g. Indonesia & Thailand)?
You mean throughout the whole world (e.g. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, USA, Ireland, Germany), our ministers all work 5-6 times as hard as those equivalent ministers there? Maybe you can tell me what our ministers do that is so different from other politicians in other countries?
Half truths? Please tell me what half truths did I make so I can clarify with you. -
Like all businesses, they do not give a hoot about the environment, whether you live or die; their main emphasis is on the profit figure.Originally posted by HyperFocal:... yah maurizio13, you should have noted that all other countries are run like countries, while SG is run like a company...
Is it right to run a country like a business? -
... that's my point; whichever country you choose to compare with, Singapore will come away different - coz IT IS run like a business...Originally posted by maurizio13:Like all businesses, they do not give a hoot about the environment, whether you live or die; their main emphasis is on the profit figure.
Is it right to run a country like a business?
... economy & profits (or revenues), take first priority - the people are left to their own devices... -
n1 laOriginally posted by maurizio13:I don't know what justification they have to pay themselves salaries 6 times that of the US president, when the US president administers a country 14,667 times that of Singapore and takes care of 66 times the population of Singapore.
Even our cabinet minister's salary is at least 2 times that of the US President, I bet President George Bush regrets that his father did not take up Singapore citizenship then. -
maybe incresing the bus/mrt fares will help,Originally posted by charlize:Hey we have good people who knew this was going to happen.
That's why they are revamping the transport system soon.
Again.
it deters ppl from traveling
so traveling is a luxury item,
if u no money, don travel,
soon u`ll see in the papers,` increase in bus/mrt fare helps ppl afford public transport` -
and there'll be some who will say... US and Japan taxi fare higher than Singapore's orh...
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different standard of living mahOriginally posted by anonymouscoward:and there'll be some who will say... US and Japan taxi fare higher than Singapore's orh...
' 1st world standard of living,3rd world wages' -
Why they would worry? They don't take public transport and somemore... they dun pay for their transportation...Originally posted by happieman:All please repeat what i am going to say:-
The Govenment is not doing his job for allowing the unreaonable huge TAXI HIKE !
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pls la...you will puke at japan taxi faresOriginally posted by maurizio13:Our taxi fares are now comparable to Japan, but our salaries are comparable to China.
1st world living standards at 3rd world salaries.
S$9.20 flag down for 2 km
40% surcharge
100 yen($1.30) per 500 m thereafter for arnd 10 km
then 100 yen for like 350m
[/b] -
another type of golden path($$) for LTAOriginally posted by 798: -
Buy motorbike la.. Why buy car? So ex...
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Our goverment definitely deserves the right to be paid the highest in the world.
It stops CORRUPTION!
Hell ,with the ways things are going , its more like Daylight ROBBERY! Lol
Also you guys still dun get it.
Increase public transport fare, people buy car.
More people buy car, COE goes up.
More cars, road JAM.
Road Jam, put ERP!
More Jam , More ERP!!!!!
Kaching! \
Then people sell car, take public transport!
More people take public transport, increase fare!
The cycle goes on and on and on...... -
Since you took the time to compose this lengthy reply, it would be churlish of me not to respond to your challenge.Originally posted by maurizio13:If you think it's nonsense, you can choose to ignore it, nobody will complain that you are dumb. Whether it's logical or illogical, I don't think you as an opponent has any unbias judgement, because all the time you are trying very hard to discredit me. Don't worry, I won't discredit you by claiming you sprout nonsense without any proof.
If you haven't figured out already, the "they" was meant to be the executive decision making body like our PM. Responsibilities of both leaders differ? I suppose our PM has more duties than the President of USA (who not only deals with local US issues, he also has to deal with international issues like Middle East, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, China).
Sony and GE? What you quote are profit making organisations, the sole motive is to make lots of money for their shareholders. Are the responsibilities of the government to syphon money from it's citizen so as to maintain high surpluses? Or is it to ensure that all of her citizens maintain a decent moral standard of living?
Balance of trade has no significance here. Why you may ask? There is no point accumulating all those huge surpluses when all those surpluses will never ever be distributed to the citizens. Has the trade surpluse benifited the local Singaporeans? If they had used the interest from the surplus to supplement our medical services or public housing. Do you think that our housing and medical cost would be so high. Take a look at the cost of public hospital charges in Hong Kong (prices are based in Hong Kong Dollars, so you have to divide by 5.43 [SGD 1 = HKD 5.43]) How come Hong Kong can afford cheaper healthcare to her citizens? SGD 18 for A&E consultation in Hong Kong, Inpatient (general accute beds) SGD 20. How much is the A&E consultation in any Singapore hospitals?
It's like being a shareholder in a corporation, the CEO of the corporation keeps building up surpluses with no intention of distributing those surpluses as dividends back to her shareholders. The shareholders can't cash out by selling their shares because the company is not a publicly listed company on the stock exchange. I should make you invest in my company as a major shareholder, I make lots of profits but don't pay you any dividends, I will just give you the excuse that we need to keep reserves in case of economic crisis. I will just keep building on the reserves and don't pay you dividends.
Most publicly listed corporation will retain the profits, if they have reinvestment opportunities that will earn a rate of return higher than the cost of capital for the shareholders. But most of our returns are below market rates, the only companies with good returns are those who have oligopolistic and monopolistic power structure. Why do you think that there are accusations of anti-competitive practices in their investments overseas (e.g. Indonesia & Thailand)?
You mean throughout the whole world (e.g. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, USA, Ireland, Germany), our ministers all work 5-6 times as hard as those equivalent ministers there? Maybe you can tell me what our ministers do that is so different from other politicians in other countries?
Half truths? Please tell me what half truths did I make so I can clarify with you.
Let's go through this slowly.
"more duties"? Nay. I thought you read my post. Different duties is the phrase i would choose, and the answer is yes, they have significantly different duties. As you so kindly pointed out, our PM never has to make these military decisions daily. This alone should make you realise they have different job scopes.
If you haven't figured out already, the "they" was meant to be the executive decision making body like our PM. Responsibilities of both leaders differ? I suppose our PM has more duties than the President of USA (who not only deals with local US issues, he also has to deal with international issues like Middle East, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, China).Sony and GE? What you quote are profit making organisations, the sole motive is to make lots of money for their shareholders. Are the responsibilities of the government to syphon money from it's citizen so as to maintain high surpluses? Or is it to ensure that all of her citizens maintain a decent moral standard of living?
I agree that the gov should be looking to ensure all citizens maintain a decent standard of living. But I look around me and I can find no evidence that they have not done that. I try to book tickets for holiday during nov/dec period, and the flights are all booked up. I go down to the mega shopping malls and singaporeans all around me are buying ridiculously overpriced products. I walk past the countless dustbins placed on our islands and almost never see them neglected and overflowing. I don't know what standard of living seems "decent moral" to you, but as someone who has actually stayed in USA and australia(both first world countries thank you), I can honestly say that it's so much more comfortable to stay here. (The company of course, is another story)Balance of trade has no significance here. Why you may ask? There is no point accumulating all those huge surpluses when all those surpluses will never ever be distributed to the citizens. Has the trade surpluse benifited the local Singaporeans? If they had used the interest from the surplus to supplement our medical services or public housing. Do you think that our housing and medical cost would be so high. Take a look at the cost of public hospital charges in Hong Kong (prices are based in Hong Kong Dollars, so you have to divide by 5.43 [SGD 1 = HKD 5.43]) How come Hong Kong can afford cheaper healthcare to her citizens? SGD 18 for A&E consultation in Hong Kong, Inpatient (general accute beds) SGD 20. How much is the A&E consultation in any Singapore hospitals?
As I have mentioned countless times, if you're going to do a comparison, pick ONE country and stick with it. You don't get to bundle up good points from many different countries and make it sound like Singapore is bad because it's not utopia. And you ask me what half truths you sprout. It's this kind of evidence pulling that poses the most danger to the naive reader.
So let's assume you want to talk about comparisons between HK and Singapore. Sure, Singapore costs you more if you want to seek treatment here. Ever wonder why people fly in from all over the world to seek treatment here? Ok, marginal point. HK is has decent medical too. But as mentioned before, comparisons don't stop at the hospital door. You want a system like hong kong, you gotta take it all. Is the housing system better or worse? Are the streets cleaner, safer? Do they welcome foreigners? Do they provide equally good education?
These are all questions we must answer if you want to use Hongkong as an example. I notice you used USA just now too. Trust me, you don't want to answer some of these comparisons.It's like being a shareholder in a corporation, the CEO of the corporation keeps building up surpluses with no intention of distributing those surpluses as dividends back to her shareholders. The shareholders can't cash out by selling their shares because the company is not a publicly listed company on the stock exchange. I should make you invest in my company as a major shareholder, I make lots of profits but don't pay you any dividends, I will just give you the excuse that we need to keep reserves in case of economic crisis. I will just keep building on the reserves and don't pay you dividends.
You really are making this easy for me aren't you. The money may be inliquid, but are you sure there aren't dividends? What's CPF interest? Money that falls from the sky? Where do you think the roads come from? Do you pay a specific fee to have the trees around Singapore trimmed annually? Who do you think pays for the schools? The lifts don't clean themselves. The bins don't empty themselves. And thank god we don't leave the streets to clean themselves.
As to your seemingly innocent example, I'm going to be very uncomfortable with a company that does not think having cash reserves is important.Most publicly listed corporation will retain the profits, if they have reinvestment opportunities that will earn a rate of return higher than the cost of capital for the shareholders. But most of our returns are below market rates, the only companies with good returns are those who have oligopolistic and monopolistic power structure. Why do you think that there are accusations of anti-competitive practices in their investments overseas (e.g. Indonesia & Thailand)?
huh? If I understand you correctly, you have a corporation in mind that always generates a rate of return higher than OC in every investment. That's a downright lie right there. The description by you of the gov on the other hand is a classic profitable financial model. You make investments. Some are winners and some are losers. That's how it is.You mean throughout the whole world (e.g. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, USA, Ireland, Germany), our ministers all work 5-6 times as hard as those equivalent ministers there? Maybe you can tell me what our ministers do that is so different from other politicians in other countries?
Sure, pick one, and I'll be happy to go through the pros and cons of each comparison with you. No more of the "oh noes! Singapore doesn't have the might of the US military, the discipline of Japan, the determination of Ireland, or the wealth of England...we're doomed!" nonsense. You want to compare, let's have a direct comparison, case study by case study.
You want to know the half truths you sprout, there it is. To the casual observer, your comparisons may actually sound sensible. Therein lies the cruelest barb of all. -
1) So different duties means more salary? So tell me why is the CEO of a smaller company getting more salary than the CEO of a large multinational? Humour me.Originally posted by deathbait:1) "more duties"? Nay. I thought you read my post. Different duties is the phrase i would choose, and the answer is yes, they have significantly different duties. As you so kindly pointed out, our PM never has to make these military decisions daily. This alone should make you realise they have different job scopes.
2) I agree that the gov should be looking to ensure all citizens maintain a decent standard of living. But I look around me and I can find no evidence that they have not done that. I try to book tickets for holiday during nov/dec period, and the flights are all booked up. I go down to the mega shopping malls and singaporeans all around me are buying ridiculously overpriced products. I walk past the countless dustbins placed on our islands and almost never see them neglected and overflowing. I don't know what standard of living seems "decent moral" to you, but as someone who has actually stayed in USA and australia(both first world countries thank you), I can honestly say that it's so much more comfortable to stay here. (The company of course, is another story)
3) As I have mentioned countless times, if you're going to do a comparison, pick ONE country and stick with it. You don't get to bundle up good points from many different countries and make it sound like Singapore is bad because it's not utopia. And you ask me what half truths you sprout. It's this kind of evidence pulling that poses the most danger to the naive reader.
So let's assume you want to talk about comparisons between HK and Singapore. Sure, Singapore costs you more if you want to seek treatment here. Ever wonder why people fly in from all over the world to seek treatment here? Ok, marginal point. HK is has decent medical too. But as mentioned before, comparisons don't stop at the hospital door. You want a system like hong kong, you gotta take it all. Is the housing system better or worse? Are the streets cleaner, safer? Do they welcome foreigners? Do they provide equally good education?
These are all questions we must answer if you want to use Hongkong as an example. I notice you used USA just now too. Trust me, you don't want to answer some of these comparisons.
4) You really are making this easy for me aren't you. The money may be inliquid, but are you sure there aren't dividends? What's CPF interest? Money that falls from the sky? Where do you think the roads come from? Do you pay a specific fee to have the trees around Singapore trimmed annually? Who do you think pays for the schools? The lifts don't clean themselves. The bins don't empty themselves. And thank god we don't leave the streets to clean themselves.
As to your seemingly innocent example, I'm going to be very uncomfortable with a company that does not think having cash reserves is important.
5) huh? If I understand you correctly, you have a corporation in mind that always generates a rate of return higher than OC in every investment. That's a downright lie right there. The description by you of the gov on the other hand is a classic profitable financial model. You make investments. Some are winners and some are losers. That's how it is.
6) Sure, pick one, and I'll be happy to go through the pros and cons of each comparison with you. No more of the "oh noes! Singapore doesn't have the might of the US military, the discipline of Japan, the determination of Ireland, or the wealth of England...we're doomed!" nonsense. You want to compare, let's have a direct comparison, case study by case study.
You want to know the half truths you sprout, there it is. To the casual observer, your comparisons may actually sound sensible. Therein lies the cruelest barb of all.
2) Ermmm......Your analogy is really a no brainer. A classic example would be a millionaire going to a billionaire's party, he looks around, everybody drives a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mclaren and Porsche. So he concludes that everybody in the country is as rich as those billionaires. Then your same millionaire would go to a posh shopping area, he notices that alot of people are buying up ostentatious goods. The millionaire therefore concludes that the citizens in this country are all billionaires.
Is your experience a clear and honest representation of the whole population? Or is it only based on certain segments of the population, the segment which you are a part of. Remember, whatever you feel comfortable with, does not necessarily mean everybody feels comfortable with it, else there won't me so many disgruntled people in here. On the other hand, maybe all of us here are all losers and whiners, whereas you had it good, so you are not a loser and whiner.
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3) EVERYONE FLY IN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD? FYI, 3rd world countries in Asia does not qualify as "ALL OVER THE WORLD". I can't deny that RICH citizens in other countries such as, Burma, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia comes over to Singapore fore treatment. But that would hardly justify your reasoning of "ALL OVER THE WORLD". In terms of quality of healthcare, Singapore is leaps and bounds ahead of these 3rd world countries. What makes you certain that Hong Kong is lacking in it's healthcare industry, it was just reported in the news that Hong Kong's maternity wards are overbooked due to Chinese mainlanders opting for birth in Hong Kong.
Another issue about medical resources used in medical tourism (used to treat foreigners), it drives up the cost of healthcare. If supply is limited and demand is high, this will drive up the cost of healthcare. More demand for medical services from foreigners and quota intake in NUS / NUH.
If you compare the amount of subsidies the citizens from Hong Kong receives with Singapore. You would know how deprive we are.
Source: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/GHP/New%20Folder/Hong%20Kong%20Health%20System%20presentation.pdf
If you choose to bring up all those other points for comparison. Please do so, as I have other points to bring up too. Public housing is comparable to Singapore, because their definition of public housing is different from Singapore's. Public housing should be subsidized for those who cannot afford private housing, but Singapore's definition is way different. Above 80% of Singaporeans live in public housing, so does it mean that these 80% are below average income? Public housing should be subsidized to help the poor unlike HDB policy of insisting a profit for their services.
You can claim that the land that the HDB uses to build it's PUBLIC HOUSING has alternative uses, like leasing to multinationals to build their factories to provide jobs, so on and so forth.
But a question that all Singaporeans and yourself have to ask yourself is. Who are the true and ultimate owners of Singapore? To whom does Singapore belong to?
If Singapore belongs to her citizens, then ask yourself this.
In a company where the owners are the shareholders, where each hold a single and equivalent share in the company. The company has the interest of the shareholder at heart and all profits derived from the company will be paid out to the shareholders.
Does it make sense to charge an exhorbitant profit for a service they provide to shareholders and keeping all those profits without distributing these profits back to shareholders? All in the name of building reserves for future doomsday cataclysmic business cycle, which will never happen.
Maybe Singapore belongs to the government only.
I used USA to provide some stark comparisons between the GDP and the salary received by the leaders, I am not comparing all the issues surrounding the country. If you want to use countries to do a thorough comparison. Why not choose Finland, Denmark, Swiss (which our eminent leader once aspired to reach), Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria and Ireland. Like I said before, you cannot strive for improvement if you keep comparing yourself to monkeys, choose someone higher up the scale for comparison.
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4) Then you failed to understand what is interest and dividends. An interest is what is paid for the use of the money for a certain period. A dividend is paid from the profits a business makes. Other countries don't need to provide services such as tree pruning, road maintenance and garbage emptying? Having cash is important, nobody can disagree with that. But is having an enormous sum of cash at the expense of the shareholders good.
5) A business has to be profitable in order to survive, if a business makes too many investments which deviates from the budget, it will not survive. Your reply doesn't seem to explain the points I have brought up, you only tried to sidetrack the issue. I think you might have problem to see what I am really implying here. Maybe you want to read carefully again. Next thing is, you probably want proof.
"Most publicly listed corporation will retain the profits, if they have reinvestment opportunities that will earn a rate of return higher than the cost of capital for the shareholders. But most of our returns are below market rates, the only companies with good returns are those who have oligopolistic and monopolistic power structure. Why do you think that there are accusations of anti-competitive practices in their investments overseas (e.g. Indonesia & Thailand)?"
6) But does our leaders have all of the above points mentioned by you? In your own words. Prove it and show me the evidence.
Ok. We start with this issue.
While the government throws away our hard earned money into frivolous acquisition of over-priced companies overseas. The commoners are left with having to pay the price with high levels of inflation, taxes, fees, charges and fines.
Ever wonder why our wages are so depressed, while citizens from other equivalent GDP per capita economies (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, etc) can better afford holidays overseas. Their average wages are at least 3-5 times of Singaporeans (e.g. waiters and retail assistant makes AUD 15 to AUD 25 per hour). Singaporeans can only contend with 3rd world standard of living in the future, given the government's policy on letting in more 3rd world workers to push down wages.
The explanation for low wages given by P4P was global competition, seems like competition only applies to Singapore ONLY. But not to countries such as Australia or New Zealand.
P4P lackeys here complain that some of these countries like Australia, New Zealand, etc have high tax structure. But given their wages, they still make more than the average Singaporeans and could afford more despite their high tax structure. Notwithstanding that they do not need to pay for healthcare and basic education.
***This comparison is based only on the after tax spending power of low wage earners of both countries. I do not think that we need to compare the after tax spending power of high income earners, because they are still extremely well off after taxes.***
Singapore:
Income per year: SG$12,000
Income Taxes: 0%
GST: 7%
Spending Power After GST: SG$11,160 [SG$12,000 x 93%]
Australia:
(waiter or retail staff based on 3 times earnings of Singaporean only, not 5 times which is the higher bound)
Income per year: AU$36,000
Income Taxes: up to AU$6,000 = AU$0; AU$6,001 to AU$25,000 = AU$2,850; AU$25,001 to AU$36,000 = AU$3,300
Australia Personal Tax Rates
Total Income Taxes: AU$6,150 [AU$ 0 + AU$ 2,850 + AU$ 3,300]
Income after Income Taxes: AU$29,850
GST: 10%
Spending Power After GST: AU$26,865 [AU$29,850 x 90%]
An average waiter in Australia will have a spending power of AU$26,865, while a Singaporeans waiter will have only SG$11,160. Why do you think when we go for holidays overseas, we can afford less than an equivalent GDP per capita country like Australia or New Zealand.
You do the maths and tell me who is actually better off after personal taxes and GST.
Singaporeans or Australians???
Though Australia might have a higher personal tax structure, but their average wages are 3 to 5 times of Singaporeans. Even after deducting high taxes and GST, they still do end up with more money in the pocket than an average Singaporean. Moreover, they have no need to pay for healthcare and basic education.
Australian Wages
Bartending/waiting tables: $15 - $25 per hour (casual)
Chef: $700 - $800 per week (full time)
Retail sales assistant: $15 - $25 per hour (casual)
Check out operators and cashiers: $500 - $700 per week (full time)
Building/labouring: $650 - $850 per week (full time)
Engineering: $800 - $1500 per week (full time)
Hairdressing: $530 - $650 per week (full time)
Secretarial/administration: $600 - $700 per week (full time)
Child care: $18 - $20 per hour (casual) -
Dear Earl,Originally posted by EarlNeo:LoL... my company is actually doing a newer version of taxi booking, without operator and the taxi driver can even get job while having his kopi in a kopithiam. Beat driving ard hunting for customer. Hope the booking fees is as low as up to 50 cents only. and user can do it via a few click on a free downloadable software on any phone.
But think comfort is gona kill us if we release it out here.
I have read that Venture Capitalists can contribute to an economy by providing loans to businesses that may otherwise not have access through the other loan institutions (eg banks).
I have also read about VCs stealing ideas and information from startups who approach them because they have investments in other companies that may benefit. I read about VCs funding startups and then trying to conduct a coup to wrest control.
The Government, by virtue of you needing to apply for licences and having links to other GLCs and GIC have similar capabilities. I'm not saying that they behave similarly.
I'm not familiar with what sorts of protections other startups in other countries use when approaching VCs. Whether patents or copyrights are sufficient or other additional protections have been developed.
I wish you the best of luck finding a way to resolve this so the technology becomes available to the public before it gets replaced by another idea. -
Claire Huang
Tue, Jan 22, 2008
my paper
57,000 stranded because of this...
FOR the first time in 10 years, about 57,000 commuters were stranded in the east of Singapore during the morning rush hour as MRT train services were disrupted for over seven hours.
The delay was caused by the breakdown of a maintenance works train which was carrying out work between Tampines and Simei MRT stations.
The SMRT said in a statement that "there were some damages to the maintenance works train", and that they are
investigating the cause.
It said in a statement that this was the longest delay in a decade.
During the disruption, the SMRT tried to bridge services by ferrying affected passengers between Pasir Ris and Tanah Merah stations.
The company deployed 40 SMRT buses and 30 SBST buses to help the passengers who were stuck.
The SMRT added that westbound shuttle trains serving Tampines, Simei and Tanah Merah MRT stations operated at a 28-minute interval to ease the passenger flow.
Still, the move to ease waiting time was to no avail.
Commuters lashed out at the SMRT over its "crisis management" skills and are fuming over the lack of shuttle services.
Ms Monica Yong, one of the marooned travellers, said: "The SMRT staff sent everyone to take the buses, but there were not enough buses!"
Also in a similar plight was NSman John Er, 18, who was caught by the chaos.
Mr Er ended up taking the shuttle bus from Pasir Ris to Tampines thinking that he could avoid the delay.
Unfortunately for him, he ended up having to transfer to Tanah Merah to get on a working train to take him to Outram for his medical appointment at the Singapore General Hospital.
The SMRT has apologised for the inconvenience caused. -
1) You really want me to list the salaries of CEOs heading up smaller companies who get paid out more than the CEOs of bigger companies? Bear in mind that we are talking about company size, and not revenue, to be accurate to the analogy. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the head of a hedge fund(which probably employs 20 ppl) would bring home more than the head of say, a manufacturing plant that employs 200. [/humor]Originally posted by maurizio13:1) So different duties means more salary? So tell me why is the CEO of a smaller company getting more salary than the CEO of a large multinational? Humour me.
2) Ermmm......Your analogy is really a no brainer. A classic example would be a millionaire going to a billionaire's party, he looks around, everybody drives a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mclaren and Porsche. So he concludes that everybody in the country is as rich as those billionaires. Then your same millionaire would go to a posh shopping area, he notices that alot of people are buying up ostentatious goods. The millionaire therefore concludes that the citizens in this country are all billionaires.
Is your experience a clear and honest representation of the whole population? Or is it only based on certain segments of the population, the segment which you are a part of. Remember, whatever you feel comfortable with, does not necessarily mean everybody feels comfortable with it, else there won't me so many disgruntled people in here. On the other hand, maybe all of us here are all losers and whiners, whereas you had it good, so you are not a loser and whiner.
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2) You raise an accurate point about my personal observations. Yet, even "billionaires" such as myself wonder the streets, and visit the HDBs. I have yet to see the desolate picture you paint of the singaporean lower class. Where are the beggers situated? I'm having a hard time finding them. Where is all the crime supposed to be happening? All around me, all I see is prosperity yet uncontented people. How much worse are we, social wise, compared to your example, hong kong. I dare say we're better off as a people. -
I thought you settled on Hong Kong. My mistake. Please choose again.Originally posted by maurizio13:3) EVERYONE FLY IN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD? FYI, 3rd world countries in Asia does not qualify as "ALL OVER THE WORLD". I can't deny that RICH citizens in other countries such as, Burma, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia comes over to Singapore fore treatment. But that would hardly justify your reasoning of "ALL OVER THE WORLD". In terms of quality of healthcare, Singapore is leaps and bounds ahead of these 3rd world countries. What makes you certain that Hong Kong is lacking in it's healthcare industry, it was just reported in the news that Hong Kong's maternity wards are overbooked due to Chinese mainlanders opting for birth in Hong Kong.
Another issue about medical resources used in medical tourism (used to treat foreigners), it drives up the cost of healthcare. If supply is limited and demand is high, this will drive up the cost of healthcare. More demand for medical services from foreigners and quota intake in NUS / NUH.[/quote]
You seem to have settled on hong kong. Fine.I have already conceded medical care quality difference is marginal. You're just stalling here, trying to gain value from a case I've already conceded. Are you that desperate?If you compare the amount of subsidies the citizens from Hong Kong receives with Singapore. You would know how deprive we are.
I find it wierd that you first complain Singapore does not take care of it's people's needs...then turn around and complain that practically everyone gets a subsidy on a HDB. So you would rather HDB save it's resources for the really poor and give a huge subsidy, nevermind the rest of the population?
If you choose to bring up all those other points for comparison. Please do so, as I have other points to bring up too. Public housing is comparable to Singapore, because their definition of public housing is different from Singapore's. Public housing should be subsidized for those who cannot afford private housing, but Singapore's definition is way different. Above 80% of Singaporeans live in public housing, so does it mean that these 80% are below average income? Public housing should be subsidized to help the poor unlike HDB policy of insisting a profit for their services.
You can claim that the land that the HDB uses to build it's PUBLIC HOUSING has alternative uses, like leasing to multinationals to build their factories to provide jobs, so on and so forth.
But a question that all Singaporeans and yourself have to ask yourself is. Who are the true and ultimate owners of Singapore? To whom does Singapore belong to?
Stop setting up strawman arguments. Opportunity cost is opportunity cost, no matter who the land belongs to. You obviously saw the very obvious flaw in your argument and tried to head it off. Not working buddy. It could belong to the king of brunei and the land would still incur opportunity cost when you use it to build something.
Never happen? Really? Perhaps I should remind you of the last recession not so long ago. Do you think it was a fluke that Singapore was so mildly affected?
If Singapore belongs to her citizens, then ask yourself this.
In a company where the owners are the shareholders, where each hold a single and equivalent share in the company. The company has the interest of the shareholder at heart and all profits derived from the company will be paid out to the shareholders.
Does it make sense to charge an exhorbitant profit for a service they provide to shareholders and keeping all those profits without distributing these profits back to shareholders? All in the name of building reserves for future doomsday cataclysmic business cycle, which will never happen.
And yes, a company will always hold cash for emergencies, not distribute everything back to investors. That is perhaps the dumbest thing a company can do. And they aren't charging their shareholders for services. It just happens the shareholders are customers too. Much like you don't begrudge paying for coffee at starbucks, even when you own a few lots of it.
[quote]Maybe Singapore belongs to the government only.
I used USA to provide some stark comparisons between the GDP and the salary received by the leaders, I am not comparing all the issues surrounding the country. If you want to use countries to do a thorough comparison. Why not choose Finland, Denmark, Swiss (which our eminent leader once aspired to reach), Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria and Ireland. Like I said before, you cannot strive for improvement if you keep comparing yourself to monkeys, choose someone higher up the scale for comparison.
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Ermmm.....you are just hilarious.Originally posted by deathbait:1) You really want me to list the salaries of CEOs heading up smaller companies who get paid out more than the CEOs of bigger companies? Bear in mind that we are talking about company size, and not revenue, to be accurate to the analogy. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the head of a hedge fund(which probably employs 20 ppl) would bring home more than the head of say, a manufacturing plant that employs 200. [/humor]
2) You raise an accurate point about my personal observations. Yet, even "billionaires" such as myself wonder the streets, and visit the HDBs. I have yet to see the desolate picture you paint of the singaporean lower class. Where are the beggers situated? I'm having a hard time finding them. Where is all the crime supposed to be happening? All around me, all I see is prosperity yet uncontented people. How much worse are we, social wise, compared to your example, hong kong. I dare say we're better off as a people.
1) When one say bigger company, it's in terms of market capitalisation. Maybe you can show me a small cap company CEO earning more than a large cap company CEO? Please list them. I doubt you are able to, you are just shooting blanks. Also your use of hedge fund is illogical, because hedge funds aren't listed in the stock exchange, their CEO isn't nominated by the shareholders. Hedge funds are nothing more than punting houses.
A hedge fund is a private investment fund that charges a performance fee and is typically open to only a limited range of qualified investors. Hedge fund activity in the public securities markets has grown substantially as it constitutes approximately 30% of all U.S. fixed-income security transactions, 55% of U.S. activity in derivatives with investment-grade ratings, 55% of the trading volume for emerging-market bonds, as well as 30% of equity trades. Hedge Funds dominate certain specialty markets such as trading in derivatives with high-yield ratings, and distressed debt.[1]
If you choose to use hedge funds to make a comparison, then perhaps you should use Bermuda as a comparison. Bermuda's GDP per capita is US$76,403, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore]many times over Singapore's US$30,723. How much is the Minister in Bermuda paid as compared to Ministers in Singapore?
2) Please.....you don't understand what is an analogy? I doubt you can be a millionaire much less a billionaire with you kind of understanding, you can only be a follower. What I meant was, you observation is not a true representation of the population of Singapore. You conclude that just because you went to travel agency to book tickets for trips, you couldn't get tickets, it means that all Singaporeans are rich and flying overseas for holiday. That observation is only a selection of everybody travelling overseas. What if one goes to Bugis / Sungei area and sees lots of beggars and old folks picking up drinks cans from garbage? Does it mean that everybody in Singapore are beggars and can salvager? Moreover the flights in and out of Singapore is not only restricted to Singaporeans. There are lots of foreign students and foreign professionals residing in Singapore, perhaps another reason why flights are fully booked. I am not saying that there are no Singaporeans going overseas for holidays during the SCHOOL holiday period, but your analysis is not a clear representation of the population of Singaporeans.
Where are the beggars? Go over goddess of mercy temple near middle road / bugis area. I just went over Sim Lim to get DVD writer 2 days ago, while walking to Sim Lim, I saw two different old folks salvaging used drink cans from the rubbish bin. You really need to go out more, not only going out to those high class areas, but the lower class areas too. Then perhaps you will get a better picture of the ground, no point for you to sit in your ivory tower claiming that no poverty and crime exist in Singapore.
A youtube video of the poor and homeless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-guxHFyz2A
I think you would dispute the video as being fake, since it suits your argument and logic.
You remind me of this old chinese proverb about a cow with a bell, the cow covered it's ear thinking that if she can't hear the sound of the bells nobody else could hear it.