TR EMERITUS

As expected, water price will be going up, but who is bearing the brunt, and who is having a free ride? The domestic sector, ie households, will see a 20 cents increase per cubic meter, bringing the price to $2.94 per cubic meter in April 2024 and another 30 cents increase per cubic meter in April 2025, bringing the price to $3.24 per cubic meter. For those using more than 40 cubic meters a month, every additional unit will cost 70 cents more, bringing the price to $4.39 per cubic meter. NeWater, which is mainly supplied to wafer fabrication plants, industrial estates and commercial buildings, i.e. industries, will see an increase of 17 cents a cubic meter, bringing the price to $2.50 in 2025. According to sciencedirect.com, “The Singapore government has made many efforts to promote the use of NEWater. They made the price of NEWater more competitive than tap water by lowering taxes and fees.” Thus, Industries are paying less tax than domestic users. With the upcoming tax revision, the difference will be even greater. However, the increased cost of supplying water accrues mainly to industries rather than households. These include the second phase of the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System which would cost $6.5 billion, almost twice that of the first phase built nearly two decades ago, increased cost of chemicals to treat used water, and increased cost of electricity. All these are needed to supply even more Newater to industrial users. There is hardly enough water for the people, yet we want to support many industries that use even more water than them. That’s fine if industries pay the true market cost. Instead, the people are taxed more than necessary to supply the water infrastructure for industries and to mitigate cost increases for them. People should open their eyes and see clearly. What the government is doing is the usual “socializing cost and privatizing gains” and should never stand for it! The government says that financial help will be given to households to offset the price increase. Nice and good, but this “sunset” technique is designed such that when the goodies are used up when the sun sets, tax revenue will be pouring in and the people would have forgotten the additional burden on their shoulders. Life goes on, albeit more difficult. In the long run, they add up, and life becomes very difficult. The government uses the “sunset technique” every time they need to solicit buy-in from the people to increase their tax burden. The people thinks the government is so good, always helping the people, but is in fact stabbing them in the back.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →

Around two days ago, I put up a post on the criteria I used when trying to figure out if I would like a person or not. These criteria I used are not hard and fast rules. I’ve gotten along well enough with people who don’t fit into the my “box” (yes, I know I often complain we try to put people into boxes), but by and large, most of the people that I get along with and want to deal with on a personal and professional basis tend to have at least one of the following: Firstly, there should be an appreciation of a contact sport and one should preferably have played a contact sport at some stage in life. The sport can be a combat sport like boxing, MMA or kickboxing or it can be a team sport like ruby union and league as well as the American and Australian version of football; Secondly, if one comes from a country where there is compulsory military service, one should preferably have served in a combat vocation. If one comes from a country where there are professional standing armies, I tend give instant respect to the guys who did a spell in the military. I think of one of my American friends who was touted as being “Mr. Cisco” but what made a difference to me was the fact that he once served in the US Navy. Finally, I want to know if a guy has spent time doing any form of menial work like waiting tables, farm work or worked in a construction site or shipyard. As a matter of disclosure, I played rugby at house level during my first four years at Churcher’s College. I also served as a 155mm Gun Howitzer Commander during national service and as is well known, I waited tables in a Bistrot in my late thirties and carried on even though I was working a corporate job by day until Covid put an end to this side gig. So, you could say that what I’m doing is looking for people who are similar to me. I guess it is human nature to want to be with people similar to you. While there’s probably an element of truth in there, I’m looking to be around people of a certain character. I will be the first to admit that I’m not always the best judge of character. My abilities to judge people accurately have come with time. I’ve found that while I may not necessarily have an instinctive flair for reading people, I can figure something out about a person from their experiences. I, for example, click with people who like contact sports because I know they’ve taken a few knocks before and they’ve managed to get up and continue. I take the difference between soccer and rugby as the example. In soccer, you’ll see the guy rolling on the floor and screaming in pain when someone taps him. In rugby the foul usually involves an attempt to incapacitate the guy. There’s a lot more money in soccer than in rugby (both league and union) and so I guess its all about trying to gain every advantage you have, even if you need to blow things up a bit. In rugby its about getting the ball across to score that try. To make it in a contact sport, you need to take a few knocks in life and then get up and play again. One of the best explanations of how this relates to life is seen in the movie Rocky Balboa, where the aged Rocky ticks his son off for being a complaining wimp: [LINK] Likewise, the same is pretty much true of people who have served in combat roles. It’s about understanding that your life does depend on working with the guy next to you. Its about understanding that no individual is above the “purpose.” A 155 howitzer for example, will simply not function if it was down to a single operator. Now, this is not to say that individuality is not important. I take myself as an example. I have an ego and my greatest pride has always been the things I did as a one-man-operator. I take pride in the fact that the job was done by Tang Li from Singapore with no multi-national backing as opposed to be Tang Li part of the Webber Shandwick team. However, as much as I believe in the power of individuality, I also understand that you need to be both dependable and to depend on people to get the mission through. Yes, I was a lone PR operator for many years but I was also working alongside people doing design, social media marketing advertising and so on. We had to work together to achieve the common objective. There is a reason why, nearly two and a half decades after leaving national service, my proverbial “BFFs” are my military buddies. I value people who have done manual work because it actually gives you an understanding of the value of work. I think it was best explained by an American who had volunteered his son for national service and found, to his horror, that the SAF hired Bangladeshi workers to do area cleaning for recruits. He said, “If those boys had to clean up after themselves, they would look at the Bangladeshi worker in a different way.” The converse of this, is that I get turned off when people treat service staff badly or start turning their noses at construction workers. I was brought up to treat everyone with respect and when I see someone talking down to someone like the service staff, maids and construction worker, that automatically triggers alarm bells about that person. No matter how rich that person is or how powerful, only those from the gutter “talk down” to people and that applies whether you have a million cash in the bank. At the end the day, all we have is our character. Money, position and power and even good looks fade. So, I try to surround myself with people with some shred of character. I think of my kids first serious boyfriend. He was the manager in a bar she worked at. Had served as an army regular for six-years in Provost unit. Looked like he could handle himself in fight. He was the only “mummy’s boy” worth considering human – he looked after his mother and didn’t expect her to protect him from life’s realities. I respected that he looked like he could handle himself in a fight and we worked together in the same restaurant, the entire crew kept telling me how fortunate I was to have him as my “son-in-law.” I just wish my kid knew how to treasure the guy.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

1) Is the increase in water price reasonable? 2) The Water Tariff is just $1.21 aka 44% of the total price of water. Water Conservation Tax (22%) and Water Borne Tax (33.6%) constitute 56% of the Total price. 3) GST is imposed on the water price which includes Water Conservation Tax & Water Borne Tax! These aren't "Value Added" of water supply but simply taxes. GST is supposed to be taxed on Value Add and it should not be imposed on taxes. 4) The increment of water consumption projected by PAP Gov isn't due to an "irresponsible usage" of water by Singaporeans but due to increase in total population caused by PAP's aggressive population policy! Why should Singaporeans be taxed so heavily for something which isn't caused by us? 5) The increasing demand on water which results in more water infrastructure to be built is caused by rapid growth in population, instead of Increase in water consumption per Capital by Singaporeans. We should not bear such additional cost. 6) The key problem of Singapore is falling fertility rate which will endanger Our existence as Nation in the long run. The increasing High Cost of Living is the main cause of low fertility rate. 7) Rapid increase in foreign population in Singapore will only cause even higher cost of living and spiral us into a vicious cycle of low fertility rate. This model of population policy is unsustainable.   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →