>Out with the figures, Shanmugam

>Wrong to accuse them of driving up costs: Shanmugam

Speaking at the end of his three-hour visit to Yew Tee constituency in Hong Kah GRC, he said: ‘The first misconception is that somehow there are five million people and that is putting pressure on all of us. It doesn’t.’

Of the five million, 3.2million are citizens, and roughly 500,000 are permanent residents (PRs).

The remaining 1.3million are here on temporary work permits, and they ‘impose no burden’ on the public housing system, said Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Second Home Affairs Minister.

The reason: These foreigners are not allowed to buy any public housing flats, whether directly from the HDB or in the resale market.

As for the PRs, who can buy resale flats, he said they form too small a number at the moment to have any significant impact on prices. So, who is supporting the high HDB prices?

500 000 not significant enough to impact prices?

As always, when PAP ministers explain to the ground a hot issue, they expose that they conceal more than they show. Why doesn’t Shanmugam come up with the breakdown of the stats. How many of the 500,000 PRs have purchased HDB flats? How much have they paid? Is the their average above the national mean? Around the mean? Below?

I believe it is way above the national mean – and that’s why Shanmugam is so silent on it.

500,000 PRs to 3.2 million citizens is about a ratio of nearly 1:6. That means that nearly 1/7 of the HDB demand market are from foreigners who ARE eligible. And that 500,000 to Shanmugam is “not significant”!

How about coming out with the breakdown of figures to convince us, Shanmugam?

>Like Father Like Son – Let them buy (unbranded) annuity plan!

>In my last article. Let Them Eat Cake, I discussed how out of touch Lee Junior is. Today, in the Straits Time article, MM Lee on taking individual responsibility, we see the same characteristic of the Emperor who is out of touch with his subjects.

Excerpts from MM Lee’s speech above –

If you spend a lot of money and you’re left penniless and your children look the other way, you have to turn up at the Meet-the-People Session and then we will tell you: ‘But you are asked to buy a longevity insurance and you turned it down.’

Emperor Lee thinks that longevity insurance (actually the proper term is “annuity plan”) is the answer to all of Singapore’s aging woes. Typical “one size fits all” solution from the PAP.

Not everyone is able to even afford the premiums to buy annuities that will last a lifetime. Annuities are not moneymaking instruments for insurance companies. In order to have a decent payout for the customer, the premiums have to be high. If annuities premiums are made low so as to make them affordable, the payouts will also be low. That might not be enough for the aging person.

Annuity plans, like insurance plans are best started when you are young. The younger, the better. However the immediate concern is not the young, but the graying population. Retirees in the 60s are now worried about the future. With a life expectancy of 80 or more in Singapore, that would be about another good 20 years.

It is suggested that the payout starts at 85. So what do these retirees do before 85? Eat non-branded cake? On the other hand, if insurance companies pay out before 85, they expect higher premiums from these retirees. Can the retirees afford that?

So here is the Catch 22 situation for the aging population. Starve now so that you can afford to buy annuities and enjoy later (that is if you survive the starvation now), or enjoy what you have now and hopefully you drop dead before your bank account does.

As for those who don’t even have enough money today to survive, MM Lee has this to say to you – You were not wise enough to save when you were young. You should have eaten non-branded cake. Cake is after all, cake.

Like Lee Junior who feels that the cost of living can be tackled by eating non-branded bread and rice, Lee Senior thinks the aging population’s problems can be solved with annuity plans. True to PAP’s style, a one-size-fits-all advice is given!

Let them buy unbranded annuity plan. Annuity is annuity. Hahahaha

>Let Them Eat Cake

>“Let them eat cake” – the supposed (in)famous words of a French Royal, in reply to the question, what should the peasants eat since there was no more bread. This incident supposedly led to the French Revolution, which saw the demise of the French Royalty. Whether those words were really said, we don’t know. But what is for sure was that the French Royals were out of touch with the peasants.

Today, we have what appears to be the Son of Emperor Lee citing the same words.

In the article PM: Let’s tackle cost fears together, Lee Junior is quoted ‘No need to buy branded bread,’ he said in Mandarin to laughter. ‘Bread is bread, rice is rice.’

‘No need to buy branded bread,’ he said in Mandarin to laughter. ‘Bread is bread, rice is rice.’

High cost of living a laughing matter??

The French Royals probably did not know what it meant when they were told there was no more bread. Hence, the advice to let them eat cake. Likewise, Junior Lee probably does not know that Ah Pek, Ah Mm, Pak Chik and Mak Chik have been eating non-branded bread all along.

So how the heck does the advice to buy non-breaded bread help these people, just as how did the advice to eat cake help the French peasants?

This is the problem of ministers who are overpaid. They no longer are able to feel the ground and as such, their advice is useless to the poor guy on the streets.

The poor peasants in Singapore are left in the lurch. The advice to eat non-branded bread is good for only those who have been eating branded bread. For those who have been eating non-branded bread all along, what good is that advice? Let them eat cake?

There is more to come my fellow Singaporeans. More advice and schemes are on the way, which will help the upper class, yet will do nothing to help the lower class. Fret not. PAP is good at that.

In the article Singapore government seen cutting taxes as inflation soars and growth slows, it has been reported that we can expect a personal tax cut from 20% to 18%.

Er….so how does that help the lowest of income earners? Didn’t the government proudly present to Singaporeans that more than half of the population does not pay income tax? So what is that reduction in personal income tax for? It only helps the upper class, doesn’t it?

The concern now appears that we have a PM who truly is out of touch with the ground. He is coming up with policies and supposed remedies to “help the poor”, but in reality, does nothing to alleviate the pains of the low income earners.

Yeah, let them all eat cake. And let it be non-branded cake!

No need to eat branded cake. Cake is cake. Hahahahaha!