TR EMERITUS

Dear Mr Mah, I refer to your interview by Straits Times as reported on 7 Apr 2010. You said that from 1999 to 2001, household incomes rose while home prices fell. However, you omitted to say that immediately after that, from 2001 to 2003, household incomes fell while home prices rose. In fact, given the roller coaster prices, a person who bought in 1999 would have paid more than someone who bought just two years later in 2001. Another person who bought two years after that, in 2003 would also have paid more than the one who bought in 2001 even though it might be the same flat. Because of roller coaster prices, people have ended up paying more for nothing either by buying too early or too late. Is this state of affairs desirable? Are you encouraging couples to time their marriage according to property cycles? You said household incomes and home prices inched up in tandem from 2001 to 2006. That's not true, using 2001 as the starting base, from 2001 to 2006, home price indices have consistently been higher than their corresponding household income indices. You said both indicators rose sharply from 2006 to 2008. Again that is not accurate. Using 2006 as the starting base, from 2006 to 2008, home prices have again outstripped household incomes and by quite a large margin too. Therefore, what you say is not true. If we break up the decade as you have done so, we find that prices have not moved in tandem with income over the last 10 years. In fact, if we use 2001 as the starting base, home price indices have always been higher than their corresponding household income indices. You concede that there is some housing demand due to PRs but you have not acknowledged the fact that the great majority of PRs who are renting units or rooms are also contributing to housing demand. You said improving economy leads to higher prices but last year was recession year and prices went up just the same. In fact, during the SARs year of 2003, home prices also went up. These are some of the examples that invalidate the factors you attribute for the huge increase in prices. You ask whoever can do a better job to come forward. Whoever comes forward, it would be difficult for him to do any worse than you already have. You said so many things have changed over the last four decades so you don't want to compare with 40 years ago. You are right, 40 years ago, we had Goh Keng Swee which was why flats were cheap. 40 years later, we have you and now flats are so expensive. You said 12,000 flats are sold every year but Ms Chua Mui Hoong of Straits Times once calculated that there is a potential 95,600 buyers of HDB flats. The large discrepancy between supply and demand is simply too glaring not to be noticed. You said the average HDB mortgage is 'healthy' because it meets 'international' standards. But a recent study by NUS revealed that our housing price to income ratio is comparable only to some of he most expensive cities in the world like Hong Kong and London. Also, time and again, the statistics you provide show that despite meeting 'healthy' international standards, buyers of 3-room flats typically have nothing left over whatsoever for retirement. No wonder they are forced to sell their flats back to the government for retirement. It is clear that you did not tell the entire truth and for some people, that is akin to lying. You do not need to fudge figures to tell lies, you just need to selectively pick figures to distort the truth. Stop blaming Singaporeans' rising expectations. Stop blaming Singaporeans for your own inadequacies. Start recognising that prices have indeed went out of control. No point repeating your grandmother story about your past. The more you speak about your past, the more it contrasts with your current wealth and status, the more it portrays you as someone who has rossed the river and then burnt the bridge. You said people of your generation started small but upgraded later. It was precisely because prices were much lower then that the burden wasn't so great so that the realisation of a home was much easier. But with each upgrade comes higher prices with the burden of the upgrade falling upon the shoulders of the next generation. That burden keeps piling and piling onto future generations until it has become totally unbearable. This is like the ponzi scheme that cannot be sustained indefinitely. You said it is unfortunate that buyers want their ideal flat the moment they get married. Lim Kim San never had qualms about that. He built so many flats so quickly it really puts you to shame. You said HDB has made many hard choices over the last four decades that have been proven right. With that, you are basking in the lime light of your predecessors. Ask yourself, what have you ever done right as a minister? You said without a home, we wouldn't do national service, we wouldn't fight for Singapore. But you look at the PRs with a home here. Would they do national service? Would they fight for Singapore? So having a home doesn't necessarily mean that they would therefore serve NS and fight for Singapore. You said the HDB looks after the whole life cycle. But it is doing a terrible job keeping prices affordable. If the price is affordable to begin with, then there will be no need to sell the flat back to the government, there will be no need for the whole life cycle. You remind Singaporeans that we used to live in kampungs. Perhaps for some who have found HDB flats exobitantly pricey now, they might prefer to stay in kampungs if that meant much cheaper housing. You said life doesn't hand things to us on a silver platter. But you and your HDB have been handing Singaporeans IOUs that make us pay for the rest of our lives without having to keep our homes in the end for some. Thank you Ng Kok Lim  Read More →

The recent declaration by the Education Minister for a curriculum review of the Mother Tongue Language has frustrated me again. First of all, in a world where English is the number 1 spoken language, why is such emphasis being placed on a language that is at best, used on a daily basis for communication only? Let's face it, unless I decide one day to move to China or taiwan, I will NEVER need to know it to such a proficient degree where I can compose a literary masterpiece with it, which is what is expected of our kids in schools these days! I understand the need to preserve our culture and roots, I am NOT asking to remove the subject altogether, but why not make it a NON examinable subject, where proficiency in speaking is the aim and NOT academic results? Have we truly become such an elitist society where EVERYTHING has to be force fed on our future generations? While our kids may have an academic headstart on our foreign counterparts, they are also stressed way beyond their years. As a parent, I do not ever want my child to grow up BEFORE he or she has to, and in Singapore, they will be... PS: I've stood behind non English speaking PRCs in fast food restaurants holding the entire line up just to order something which they can't pronounce to save their lives! So, evidently you can be really proficient in your MTL, but the fact of the matter is, if you can't speak a single word of the English language, which is the default language of the WORLD, you're still a loser. So our dear Government, please wise up. Leonard Lim  Read More →

During the first meeting of the new United Kingdom coalition government comprising of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats yesterday, the Cabinet decided to reduce the salaries of all ministers by 5 percent in a bid to reduce the ballooning budget deficit, the Telegraph reports. The U.K Prime Minister earns about 142,500 pounds or S$289,275 annually, or about a tenth of that of his Singapore counterpart. In contrast, Singapore's ministers are expected to get a hefty 8.8 percent pay hike this year on the back of an improving economy. A certain percentage of their salaries is pegged to GDP growth - the higher the growth, the more money they bring home. The British economy grew by 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010, but that will not translate into extra pay for its ministers who have been changed anyway following the election last Saturday which saw the 13 year old Labor government being booted out of office. Though Singapore inherited the Westminister Parliamentary system from the British, there has been no change in government for more than fifty years since the ruling PAP first won power in 1959.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →