By Callan Tham
The Straits Times, true to its form of operating as a government mouthpiece, publishes this gem of an opinion piece disguised as ‘Prime News’ entitled Life’s a beach but it’s no holiday (complete with the accompanying photo below):
MR I.B. YUSOF, a father of four young children, sold three Housing Board flats in nine years, netting $90,000 in profits.
Flush with cash after the first two sales, Mr Yusof, 44, took out a hefty bank loan and upgraded to a four-room flat in 2005. At the time, the sole breadwinner, who has a hearing-impaired wife, earned only $800 per month. He hoped to get a better job to pay for the new flat.
Unlike in some countries, where people are often too poor to rent – let alone buy – their first home, homelessness in Singapore is often the result of personal irresponsibility, stemming from avarice or divorce and dysfunction.
The story of Mr Yusof is true, but the conclusion is a swing and a miss. Ms Basu, the author of the opinion piece, made the conclusion that homelessness is self-inflicted in most cases when she can neither prove nor disprove the claim, and also manages to define divorcee as a ‘personal irresponsibility’. ST publishing this as ‘Prime News’ is just further proof that journalism is not practised at the paper that most Singaporeans ‘trust’.
Aside from the wilful redefinition of personal irresponsibility, it is also apparent to me that Ms Basu has failed to ask the right questions. HDB policies allowed Mr Yusof to sell his flats in order to realise a profit on his assets; this has been repeatedly heralded by the PAP government. If HDB confined itself to its original goal of providing functional and affordable public housing for citizens, this scenario might not have materialised.
Instead, HDB flats are marketed as ‘assets that grow over time’, not the neccessity that a roof over your head is. This strategy has been largely successful, and we are now reaping the whirlwind with increasing costs of new and resale flats. The HDB policies do not encourage home ownership, but instead promotes the use of a flat as an asset that can be used to increase personal wealth.
Other policies such as denying access of rental flats to single parents, based upon the fear of ‘an explosion in divorce rates or illegitimate births’, discloses the naivete in policy planning. Divorce is an unfortunate circumstance, but hardly an irresponsible move, and does not merit penalties. The undeserved social stigma is absurd enough without further punishment in national policies. And this goes without being questioned by Ms Basu (left) and even used as an unflinching justification of the policies.
This article is almost a personification of why the public remain largely uninformed and uneducated on policy issues due to dogmatic defense of the PAP’s policies, and further evidence (as if we need any more) of why a free press would do more to elevate political discourse than one controlled by governmental interests.
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Original article was first published on the Trapper’s Swamp blog
The ST Senior Correspondent in question, Ms Radha Basu, can be reached at radhab@sph.com.sg
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Confirms that the Government and the elite do not give a damn!!
You have Sumiko not giving a damn about lower paid Singaporeans being squeezed in their own country by foreigners who live 20 or more in one shipping container. Now you have Basu who does not give a damn about Singaporeans who are doing it tough, real tough. Indeed, they see it as a joke. They seem to seriously think that it is something to poke fun at.
The attitude of the Singapore aristocracy still is “let them eat cake”. Always remember what happened to the French aristocratic lady who said that.
I think Ms Basu has been living in Batu Cave for too long. She needs to come out of her comfort hole to see what is literally happening on the ground below her cave.
She must be DYSFUNCTIONAL, not to mention DELUSIONAL to cite the case of a lone family (i.e. Mr. Yusof) to arrive at conclusion that all homeless are irresponsible and deserving of their plight.
Then how about those homeless old folks that we see in increasing presence collecting trash cans & carton boxes all over Singapore? Are they also irresponsible people? Ms Basu should be BANNED from journalism judging from her journalistic ethic, or rather the lack of it.
@FaceTheFact: Policy specifics, such as who to help, how much help is rendered, etc can be discussed and fine-tuned. We do have common ground; we agree that more help can be rendered for those who need it, and that the government is better positioned to fulfill that role. Sometimes, a little push is all that is needed for people to pull themselves out of their slump.
I think a lot of the responsibility lies with this government. It’s their policies that encourage selling of flats for profit. We should not defend that.
I think REALLY? and ohmysingapore has made very valid points in this discussion as well.
@Callan Tham, I’m in line with your point. My remark is mainly referring to the case of Mr Yusof and Mr Imran.
Objective
Mrach 11, 2010 15:49
thatz easy for you to say. when looking for a home location means alot of things, more so for those with children or elderly. a good location translate to lower expenditure on transport, less time needed to commute, maybe more accessible to amenities like neighbourhood clinics when 1 falls ill, well connected public transport, etc….
there is a price for everything, that includes getting the cheapest price upfront without taking into considreation other costs that have a long term cumulative effect.
objective – which world do you live in.
how in the world will working at macs allow you to earn enough money to pay for an apartment of $100,000. it is difficult enough saving anything after you have used it to eat 3 meals a day.
and get real. transport costs are alot higher than just $2 difference. And its not as though living in Punggol and working in Jurong mean that you don’t take up time, which adds up as well. if you are a privileged person, please just shut up and find out before speaking crap.
Objective,
eh, transport costs will not stay unchanged for that 82 years. also, it can be hard to put a price on the level of convenience 1 enjoys if living in a mature estate. how does 1 translate time saved in travelling in a more well connected estate vs older estate? for emergency cases where a cab is the fastest mode of transport, cabs are easier to be found, as booking a cab does inccur extra cost that also does not stay the same over the years.
of course, even in a large mature estate itself, the distance to amenities, or bus terminal or train station will influence the final valuation of the resale price.
what new estates have older 1s have more. you can say the devil is in the detail, & the detail is the relative distance. perhaps you have a shorter list of criterior when choosing a home, but you should not apply it to others. there are good reasons why HDB units command a higher COV premium on top of their valuation, despite older units having a much shorter than full 99 year lease.
objective
Firstly, we are disgusted by the media’s misleading information. With regards to solution of homelessness, if the top talented, multi-million paid Ministers (top CEO equivalent brains) cannot come up with anything useful, don’t use the media to cover it up. This is what this article is about. Is it OBJECTIVE, is the writer being SUBJECTIVE?
objective,
let’s not go into details of how much transport costs will increase because no 1 can predict how much it will rise over the years. just look at how much HDB homes (new) cost now compared to 10 years ago. can you be certain the next 10 years will just carry over, like last 10 years price increase so much next 10 just multiply from today’s price?
if so, i think more than 80% of S’pore population will be homeless…
-.-”
@objective: you said, “if you are volunteering in the same field, you would had encountered that most of the cases are the same. Same case, same excuses. Those that have genuine cases DID get help, I saw it with my own eyes. Some did not get rental housing, but they got some comcare and cdc funding. These includes single mothers who are working, old folks abandoned by their children.”
Again you are presuming and making assumptions.
I have a theory and it’s quite simple. I think she’s from India and she’s sucking up to the government that probably gave her a free education and a well-paying job that allows her to disregard all poor people. It’s foreign talent like her that the PAP loves because they appreciate the PAP (and why shouldn’t they?) and they defend and will vote for them.
Won’t the real Singaporeans please stand up?
Hi Zheng Xi, I feel that the journalist’s nationality does play a significant role because I’ve met far too many foreign “professionals” working here who like to praise the PAP’s handling of social, political and economic issues at all costs because they compare it to what they see back in their home country.
So it will explain the “outrageous” nature of the article by Ms Basu.
Zheng Xi,
Ms Basu’s nationality is very relevant, especially when she wrote an opinion piece, not a news report..
Firstly, she might not be as in touch with Singaporean society, which would skewed her opinion.
Secondly, she might be an expat, which probably means she draws a higher than average income. That will affect the socio-economic vantage from which she views homeless people.
Thirdly, as Ta points out, foreigners tend to compare Singapore to their home country and see a very glowing picture, which is not necessarily wrong because we really are in fact better than the shitholes they come from.
It’s clear that the TOC takes a liberal ‘let’s hug everyone’ sort of line, but please don’t let your desire for PC-ness cloud the very real differences that exist between nationalities and races. It’s neither xenophobia nor racist to call a spade a spade.
Basu is the Indian version of Irene Lim who wants fovour with the centre.
Another case of a PR/FT promoting the destruction of the Singaporean alternative view.
Vivian, the Thar are in the same category.
what many here find outrageous, foreigners in less developed countries find miraculous.
eg, some villages that do not have electricity, do not have telephone, fridges, washing machine, PC, etc. to them its a luxury, but for many here, if someone were to tell me he or she does not have a fridge however small, i would have thought its a joke.
with more such articles being published in the papers, it does hint how bad S’pore really is- to need to compare to rural areas in far less developed countries. is there something very worrying about S’pore’s future that’s kept under wraps so all seem so positive & well, but articles like this hints the opposite is more true?
maybe there is a “good” reason to increase the (fat) pay of ministers, like polar bears in their natural habitat need to store alot of fat before the “long winter” ahead….
you guys haven’t learnt from the MrBrown saga ? We DO NOT have a free press. It is not setup as a 5th pillar.
But to be fair, she was just doing her job as a professional writer/reporter/watchamacallit.
what many here find outrageous, foreigners in less developed countries find miraculous?
eg, some villages that do not have electricity, do not have telephone, fridges, washing machine, PC, etc. to them its a luxury, but for many here, if someone were to tell me he or she does not have a fridge however small, i would have thought its a joke.
with more such articles being published in the papers, it does hint how bad S’pore really is- to need to compare to rural areas in far less developed countries. is there something very worrying about S’pore’s future that’s kept under wraps so all seem so positive & well, but articles like this hints the opposite is more true?
maybe there is a “good” reason to increase the (fat) pay of ministers, like polar bears in their natural habitat need to store alot of fat before the “long winter” ahead….
@Ta, I hv challenged many foreigners both in Singapore and overseas. Like you said, my foreigners praised PAP on their achievement. In US, they said Sin is safe and clean but asking them is it OK for the US government to ban gun policy and chewing gum, they said are you crazy. We paid a price for our success but these foreign only want our success and not willing to pay for a price, especially on freedom and human rights!
objective,
if its about that 1 point in time why did you even do a projected calculation over 82 years? 82 years is not over a period of time?
“Difference in price in tranport per day is maybe max $2 per pax. Thats 82 years of difference to make it up for a family of 5.”
posted on March 11, 2010 18:01
@objective: The huge wall of truth hit me hard that you continue to make assumptions that you know me. Is that the same kind of assumptions you make with the people you ‘help’?
@Matt
Ahem, think you meant the 4th estate, not the 5th pillar… :)
@chiper
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that races and nationalities are real qualities.
We might therefore say that such qualities induce perceptible effects in a given argument.
These effects may therefore be examined; if the effects induced are spurious (logical fallacies, etc) then we may successfully dismiss the argument as fundamentally flawed.
Therefore we may note that the question of race or nationality need not arise at all, insofar as the effects produced are perceptible from the outset; rather, having perceived spurious elements within an argument, we might therefore speculate or infer as to the causes of these spurious elements.
In other words, you have successfully confused cause and effect. You are a psychotic little xenophobe who evaluates arguments (in this context, at least) on the basis of “Is it written by Johnny Foreigner? NO! I’M NOT LISTENING!”
In this context, you are no better than the Honourable Lim Swee Say.
These foreigners who praise the PAP like to compare Singapore to their developing or ‘3rd world’ countries. Why don’t they compare to other developed, ‘1st world’ countries?
It’s like telling me I should be happy with a 56k internet connection because from where they come most don’t have Internet. But I’m paying my government the highest salaries in the world and forsaking all my democratic rights in the process!
Why should I be thankful for something that is commonplace in any developed, 1st world country? This is why one of my best friends has migrated to a developed country where he doesn’t have to keep hearing excuses made for every fault of the government.
Ta: Use your vote to decide your future fate.
Jack,
can you really take $300K & pay for the increase in the future? can i pay the price of new HDB units at the price it was “just” 30 years ago & say back then it was only **K? 1 can save the 300K now, but as those greedy private condo home owners found out, they cannot find a similiarly good home compared to their previous home with their buckets of cash unless they are willing to pay much more.
it would be false if Seng Keng or Ponggol does not have amenities, but compared to mature estates, its about the distance to those amenities, how many are there & how well connected they are at the point in time (old vs new). dun tell me there is no difference between mature estates & new estates?..
as for paying the price, eh, the price of HDB new or resale is a topic onto itself.
Objective wrote: “… but to the case, IMHO for this Mr Yusof’s case she’s right? I do agree that we should not breed the mentality that the HDB is an asset for speculation, which created this mentality in our citizens and thus all these homelessness problems…”
There are lots of problems with this statement. I can’t help but think those who made it to parliament in the PAP camp are trained to “get away with murder” with misleading info like this.
1. Mr Yusof was not speculating. Read Leong’s article today. Yusof lost his job and survived on his savings for a long time. The bank dished out a huge loan to him. Thank goodness for good man like Mr Leong! Poor Yusof, the victim as well as scapegoat of bad policy.
2. The ’speculating mentality’ does not necessarily lead to homelessness. It is the poor economy in Singapore. People lost their jobs. This Govt does not believe in welfare for the people so there is absolutely nothing, no way out if you lose your jobs and have children to feed.
3. What can lead to homelessness is also when the bank dishes out much more loan than you can repay and HDB build more 4 & 5 room flats or vice versa. If you can’t repay, you become homeless. All the bank is interested is to earn your interest and repossess your flat. All HDB is interested is to sell flats (not to house citizens).
I’m divorced and I can safely say it’s not because I was irresponsible. Usually in relationship issues, it’s hard to say who is in the wrong etc. It’s just a mistake. Through this divorce, I realised that this society does not believe in giving second chances. My ex and I sold our matrimonial flat. Wait, I know you are going to say that I got a lot out of it. But I didn’t. I’ve found someone that complements me and we want to buy a home of our own. But as I am considered a second timer, my partner is considered as one too. This means that in balloting, we fall into the 5% category. (I learnt that 95% of flats are reserved for first timers only.) But I am second timer. No second chance. What with private flats being in the million category and resale flats in the half million category, hmm what should I do?
Clioe: If I were you, I will pack & get out of SG with my new partner. Start a new & happier life somewhere. You will be surprise there are beautiful undiscovered places in Malaysia where you can build your dream home cheaply. Build part of the home for business, run a little holiday retreat, something like that.
Jack: Do you not think ALL businesses esp Financial Services function on the basis of overcommitment? The limit is loan facility and the guts! Had I the guts to overcomit years ago, I would be a millionaire today (even with the encouragement from our dear MIWs).
Anyway, this is not to say Yusof has indeed overcomitted or speculated on the flat. Unfortunately Ms Basu did not talk to Yusof (interview is too formal) to find out his circumstances, to hear it from the ‘horse’s mouth”. She did not ask him a single question hence there is absolutely zero credibility on this report and I can only think of one intention - to make Yusof the scapegoat of this irresponsible Govt.
With regards to your remark that Yusof should have done this or that, as Mr Leong wrote, Yusof sold his 3 room because he needed the money to feed his family as he had run out of savings after being jobless for a long time? (When the fire is spreading,you do anything you can to put it out.) After he sold it, he then had some money to survive plus paying a mortgage for some months, which will see him through for another few months. As some flats involves large amount of cash upfront, he had no choice but go for a flat that comes along the soonest possible that he is eligible for.
What I suggest for you to do is to put yourself in Yusof’s shoes. Losing a job, being jobless for months and having a family to feed. With regards to your info on partime job openings paying $1500 per month, have you yourself done this? If so where, which company employed you and when, what was your working hours? If I am a journalist in Sg, I will go undercover to see if this is true. I will apply and work for a whole month to see if indeed I get paid that amount for the part-time work. Unforunately we do not have journalist who work for the money they deserve.
Hi Jack
Quote: “Mr Yusof lacks financial education and prudency”
I have known of people with a first class degree in Financial Management in dire straits. It is not as simple as you thinlk, Jack.
I do not know your personal circumstance like if you are married young, have children, or have parents to give you a good education till you are very qualified and have a good job etc. Please do be aware that not all are in the same circumstance as you.
I am in a very privilege position and am very prudent with my finances, saved for raininy days, only take 40% housing loan. However I am still very concerned that I may lose my job and finished up my savings. Do you understand? It can hit anybody, anyone high or low (of course except MIWs). Now if that happens, I would have to sell my flat to feed my family. Then I have to take whatever offer of housing that comes along, and finance the new monthly mortgage with my cash raised for a few months hoping I will find a job by the time I have exhausted the $90K (assuming there is really such handsome cash profit). I would be writing hundreds of job applications and going for interviews. If the part-time work you said is overnight plus OT, that will leave me very little time to seriously hunt for a job. I would of course take up a day part-time job for few hours a day if there is one.
To Jack Mar 12, 2010 19:36
I think you have missed the point.
The MIW and the MSM usually likes to tell a one-sided story to prove:
1. Their policies work
2. A Singaporean’s failure is due to their own fault and no one else
3. Singapore’s success is due to MIW and they should be paid more
True, there are some who are in a bad financial situation due to their own self-infliction. But there are others who are in that situation due to circumstances which are out of their hands.
Whether Mr Yusof is a fictional character or not, we will never know. But we do know of the MIW’s penchant of making up stories (eg, the frog story, the lion leading the sheep, etc); the reason being the MIW likes to prove a point that what they are doing are correct.
The problem is, their moral of the story does not tally with the issues or problems faced by low wage earners, the above 40+ (but qualified) unemployed and even the middle income earners facing the ever rising cost of living.
So we, need to take the MIWs stories with a pinch of salt. To pick on one example does not reflect the actual or true accounts of a typical born and bred Singaporean struggle to overcome the ever increasing costs of living.
A clear sign that Mah Bow Tan is in a desperate state to win votes. So many articles have been featured in his favour in recent weeks. LKY must have instructed Shit Times to spice up the image of PAP ministers after great damanges have been done in recent years on, no just housing matter, every aspect of our lives & spaces being affected. I am waiting to vote in for any alternative parties. My vote is power to subduce PAP. I hated them to the core.
Ya, can’t believe they resort to sob stories!
Jack,
March 12, 2010 18:02
being financial conservative is a personal value, & within that personal value people themselves apply it subjectively. some spend more on their homes & less on other lifestyle stuff (like gambling, going for expensive overseas trips?)? HDB gives out 2 grants, but people may move homes more than 2 times. how many homes does 1 (or 1 family) need? just 1, but that is not the point.
family needs will evolve (the long term planning argument), incomes may not stay as it was when the home was initially purchased, families break up, the divorced takes another leap of faith when they remarry, some parents who lived apart from their parents may decide its more economical to live under 1 roof, unfortunate turn of events like death of a spouse, etc… all these means people need the flexibility to accommodate people, hence the need (i classified as needs due to financial ability & the to be financially well-grounded till post-retirement?) to move to another home. policies need to have certain level of flexibility to cater to those needs to remain true to their objective of providing homes for the public, not discriminate.
the govt cannot stop people from taking risks in investing their money, simply the current financial controls of the time assumes that person’s financial earnings do not change drastically. but when it does, as a social enterprise, HDB should practice what hospitals practice, to have a **% of homes for “emergency” cases. that excludes, renting homes through its proxies to FTs/FWs for profit.
a short bus ride is a cost itself, just more easily quantified in terms of cost, but not so for that extra time & energy to walk. to use the words “cheap & good” is to ignore how much home prices have rised over the years, how many have salaries that rised as fast?
does HDB need govt’s financial aid for helping people with short or medium term cash flow problems? HDB needs to rely on itself to stay in the black, does it not have well paid well qualified people to do so?
“past generation’s folly”
“should the hardworking people of singapore who struggles to have a good life for him and his family, be made to pay for financially irresponsible people, or even worst – blatantly abusing the system.”
let me give you a clue from this article & it spells out very clearly, “Parents’ irresponsibility, greed and policy are depriving kids of homes”. blatant attempt to tar all homeless with 1 broad stroke?
there are so many articles in TOC alone on the 2 quotes above, including this 1. lolz…
Is this the sign the homeless families are on the rise? This sign doesn’t gel with the great Singapore growth story.
Would like to challenge the PAP government to make the same declaration of ‘Ju Ze You Qi Wu’ (Home-ownership campaign for all Singaporeans) again.
That campaign was initiated some 40 years ago and it was progressing well until the last few years. Are Singaporeans worst off then the last 40 years? Is our current bunch of ministers screwing up the whole show?
May be Mr. Lee Kuan Yew should change his team or his effort will go down the drain.
Jack,
have 1 home is not the point when you bring up the issue of HDB’s number of grants. some people may move homes more than they initially planned to due to circumstances beyond their control, with home prices rising like it has over the years, there needs to be greater flexibility.
demand cheap & good, yes, but what does a loan over decades tell you? when economic cycles becoming shorter & the risk of another economic upheaval everpresent. what 1 can afford now (loan wise) may not be the case a few years down the road. & that is way before the loan is fully paid up. how does 1 really define living within your means when anything can change, anytime?
as with society, be it the boom years where people went full steam ahead with “upgrade upgrade”, & the case of toxic investments. i do believe people can be their own worse enemy, but are they entirely at fault? IMO, no. but i agree there is no reason why hardworking people who earn a humble living should not be made to shoulder the loses.
why do people take risks? its a mixed bag of answers, ranging from individual choices to the societal influenses & some other push factors like financial policies. if you look back 15 years ago & today, you can see how many more things you can buy with installments plans. eg, electronics, home furnishings, 15 years got ah? this is just 2 examples of how much times have changed.
please dun quote examples from other countries leh, there is a world of differences to make a good comparison.
Jack,
The problem is not so simple.
It is almost as good as being illegal to be homeless in Singapore. You are not allowed to camp anywhere in the open. The issue here is a basic right to have a roof, no matter how shabby, over one’s head.
So on one hand you have housing policies which do not allow people to rent cheap housing once they overshoot a certain limit. (let’s not discuss whether these are right or wrong policies first)
And on the other hand, you have people getting fined, having things confiscated for making tents for themselves to stay.
What then do you think the homeless should do?
Non of their actions, no matter how ‘irresponsible’, are criminal.
Even if you feel they do not deserve a concrete roof over their head, I fail to see how you think they deserve to be heckled, chased, sometimes having to spend their earnings to claim back their confiscated belongings… without even a permanent address it is very difficult for them to even restart their lives because the husband dare not get a job out of concern for the wife and children’s safety etc etc…
However you think of them, they are here, however they deserve it, they are with us. Ignoring them is not going make them better members of society.
It is not, as you put it, fair.
But it is a fact that the ‘better’ more ‘responsible’ members of society always have to deal the problems of the ‘irresponsible’, whether you like it or not. Because if we don’t, we will still suffer for it. Collectively. You don’t want to be a victim of crime by people driven to desperation.
A mature society recognizes that. A mature society also doesn’t like to shoulder the burden of the ‘undeserving’. It is not fair. But it still does it. Grudgingly, willingly, doesn’t matter.
You’re not doing it because you’re a bleeding hearts liberal. You’re not doing it because you believe people deserve a second chance. You’re doing it for yourself. Do it, because if we don’t, it will stink up the place.
I love the post by Zefly. It is very thoughtful, unfortunately I guess people behind this type of thought is not welcome into the ruling party.
Jack,
I don’t think you understand such a thing as ‘cashflow’ problem. A home, like the MM said, is an asset. So technically speaking, when Yusof was jobless & exhausted his savings in the 9 months, he liquidated his asset to ease his cashflow and re-invest. He could have sublet out one of the rooms, and also get a part-time job (provided he can find one), that way he probably still has a roof over the family’s head and also feed them. This is still very tight as he would still need to pay conservancy, utilities, sch fees, transport etc etc. It is not as easy as we think esp if you have children. So as silly as it sounds, it actually does make sense for Yusof to raise the large amount of cash through upgrading, thanks or no thanks to Mr Mah.
I also know of Mr & Mrs X who sold their flat and made tons of cash but soon find themselves trapped in their new flat which was bought from the HDB at the new high cost! Luckily for me, my feet are firmly on the ground. I do not believe in easy money. But believe me, many people got very taken in by the Govt’s trumpeting of Spore’s ’solid’ economy, HDB flat as wealth enhancing asset, the ruling party will never let them down etc.
How can we prevent people getting into the homeless situation? Besides stopping all the trumpeting and getting real by the Govt, HDB should allocate flats according to affordability. In Yusof’s case, how on earth was he offered the 4-rm flat? Did HDB not need to know his job situation? Did they not request to see pay slip?
In one country I know, the bank only loans up to 4 times the annual salary of the bread winner of the family and mortgage applicants need to supply evidence of the salary, like employer’s letter or pay slip. I know you are going to say that people should take personal responsibility but isn’t it more fool proof to regulate than take chances on people? It is the same as credit cards. The banks are dishing them out like biscuits if not for regulations. These are legal loan sharks and the Govt got to step in, this is why we have Govts. The Govt is not there to make money from citizens or to lord over them, they are there to regulate and protect citizens.
Does the Govt even has a dept looking into the homeless situation in SG? Any idea of how many and why? I am guessing NO because it is assumed that ALL homeless are Yusofs, who was presumed to be irresponsible. How many homeless people has a journalist like Ms Basu even spoken to?
So Jack, before you go asking for solutions, you need firstly to provide figures and more data. Until we understand more from these people, we are not going to suggest anything with regards to them. If you have the power to change from within, ask the Govt to regulate the legal loan sharks and the housing developer!
Jack,
if you cannot empathise with people who may live very different lives compared to you, there is no point expecting everyone to be like you, think like you, act like you…
if like you say, its ultimately the people’s responsibility why is there a need for any regulation when buying both resale & new HDB unit is concerned? if you have kept up to date with news, buying & selling new & resale units have been tweeked.
& no, my real name is not Jack, thank you.
in a society there will bound to be distribution of ppl in any yardstick, be it intelligence/earning power/financial literacy and many more which i shan’t list etc. the problem is always how much those at the better end should help those unfortunately at the worse end of it. i would like to think most ppl would agree with the necessity of helping those unfortunate ones, but many would disagree on the extent and mechanism of assistance. sure there is no one concrete way which is agreeable to all parties, but it is the responsibility of a mature and civilized society to find its balance point which is amenable to most ppl.
there is always a concern of moral hazard- to what extent should ppl subsidize those who have taken excessive risks and have to be ‘bailed out’- akin to the financial bailouts we have seen so far. at some point a line has to be drawn firmly and clearly. but before a society actually condemns anybody it makes sense to find out without pre-judgement what actually causes the situation in the first place. perhaps one less person will land in a similar situation in the future if ppl are actively improving the system from these existing examples.
we would like to think that ppl do have common sense and do what is best for themselves and for others as well, e.g. financial prudence etc…but it is unrealistic to expect all would succeed- back to my earlier point on a range of distributions. what we can do is to aim for the ideal scenario and hope for the best in the meantime.
Singaporeans are slowly and surely being alienated by the incumbent govt and what has made it worse is the ”lame media” is a complicit partner in these media charade and circus lah.
Where is the impartiality?, where is the social justice,? where is the professional integrity? Perhaps, these bunch of so-called journalists could not or cannot earn a decent living and took a dive lar. A dive that entails forgoing/mortgaging one’s ethics, one’s sense of justice, freedom, integrity, social responsibility and so on for …
PS – lame media cos i doubt we actually have a MSM media!
What I see :
for the less well-off : selling their homes is the only way they will ever see a ‘large’ sum of money in their hands. Maybe the only time they will ever have that chance. Yes some do and will make mistakes after having that money but hey..put ourselves in their shoes…Maybe we will be in their shoes any time in the future coz of the economy and the influx of foreign ‘talents’..
The foreign talents esp those professional sorts (India & China), I doubt these folks even have empathy for their poorer countrymen much less the poor in S’pore. Theeir lives revolve around their work/condo & fellow professionals.My God….just imagine sometime in this future, they or their descendants join the MIW and take over the running of this country! God help us all…..