~by: Leong Sze Hian~
I refer to the latest issue of the UBS Price and Earnings report, which is a study of purchasing power around the world (see HERE).
Out of 73 cities ranked, Singapore comes in at 10, 42 and 47, for Price Level, Wage Levels and Domestic Purchasing Power, respectively.
Triple whammy?
What this may mean is that Singaporeans may in a sense, be squeezed in a triple whammy – high cost of living, low wages and low purchasing power.
Another world first?
Singapore comes in at number 10 among the top-10 cities ranked according to Price Levels. The other cities ranked better than Singapore are Oslo, Zurich, Geneva, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tokyo, Sydney, Helsinki and Toronto.
What is perhaps ‘Uniquely Singapore’, may be that Singapore has the distinction of having the worse Wage Levels and Domestic Purchasing Power rankings, amongst the top 10 Price Level cities. In other words, none of the top nine above Singapore at number 10, have lower wages or domestic purchasing power rankings than Singapore.
In fact, the worse Wage Levels amongst the top nine, was Tokyo, at 19, which is 23 places above Singapore. Similarly, for Domestic Purchasing Power, the worse was Oslo, at 26, which is 21 places above Singapore.
Therefore, on a relative basis, Singapore may be much worse off than many cities in the world.
Perhaps we should do some serious soul-searching, as to whether and to what extent our policies may have contributed to Singaporeans’ current predicament of what I would call the “Triple Whammy Squeeze”?
Still they want us mere mortals to work harder and cheaper!
Is there any wonder why we are having less babies??
Is there any wonder why some are sandwiched between children and elderly parents?
Healthcare cost,housing etc…..
Steven Khor,
Idiot. Shut up. Don’t you know we already scoop the homeless off the streets. Keep them out of sight out of mind you imbecile.
I tried all cab companies and all have no cabs for booking at this moment, saturday morning 11:30am.
Try calling any n u will know.
For the record.
Steven Kho1 October 2011
@Chicharito
Before you think you so smart, one simple question: do you see homeless/poverty in Singapore? The answer is NO
……………..
you meant there is NO homeless in singapoor..not even eastcoast/changi/sembanwang beach?
than what the hell is the envoiroment officers been doin? swappin flies?
@ Steven Kho,
Be prepared to back up what you say that UBS is not trust-able. You are setting yourself for a libel lawsuit. And you must be one of the PAP elites that earns up to at least a few million dollars each year, that’s why you assume everyone can afford to dine at expensive restaurant, buy 3 condos in a year and buy new clothes daily.
It is an open secret that the high GDP growth went mostly to our ministers and their crony private sector bosses
Steven Kho,
You said UBS stock was “once worth buying”!!!!! Check the historical stock price first. UBS stock price went down and down after GIC bought it!? Which planet are u from?
Steven Kho,
The only thing here that is “flawed and has no credibility” is YOU!!
@ iVOTEahMENG
“what make you assumed everybody ere earned 5ks/month..let alone findin a tarpau lunch @ $2.50?”
he buy 1 loaf of bread ma, settle 3 meals including supper at under $2.50 a day.
weekends more extravagant a little, plain porridge with ketchup.
why ketchup? ketchup free ma, take from fast food counter.
Ya ,agree, do a similar comparison, but this time using Minister Salary ,even those top Civil Servants.
You did be surprised, they will probably be the “Best” in all 3 areas.
Public Service is not Private Service.
But One “Oldman” “twisted” the facts.
Die! Die! insist “must be willing toPay to attract ?”.
This argument is by itself an act of “corruption” ..”courruption of ones mind & intergrity to truly serve the public ,country out of love and community spirit.
So, where got “No Corruption” ?
It is “staring straight at us “
money no enough…
民间疾苦啊
Ge2016 if 2/3 parliament not filled by oppositions, sporeans u can pack ur bags. By than u will hv citizen frm other trash country to ditute the vote. Just like ep , put 4 Tans , and pap managed to dilute the vote. Sporeans never learn their lessons
what the above never mentioned is the housing of singapore is 99 years whereas in others are freehold. no one in sane mind except singaporeans and the coomunists will pay half a million to buy a 99 years hdb flat.
lots of swiss are staying in french borders so they are actually enjoying high wages and low costs of living and high standard of living.
@steven kho aka whatever shit..
First of all, I’ve never thought that I am so smart, but at least I know that I am not a moron like you!! Don’t you realize that my rebuttal is not so much against the pap, it is more against YOU!! You who tried to undermine UBS analyst and Leong Sze Hian with your crap knowledge.. You asked if I see poverty/homeless… Before I even answer you, since when do u even care about the poverty/ homeless??! You are one viper who will even ask a handicap 7 yr old to GET LOST!! Because you will not give him any HANDOUT!! Don’t think that by hijacking Godwin’s name we don’t know it is YOU! Dream on!! (yes, Sarah, I forgot that one) and you even have the cheek to boast about that.. And in another post, under the name of Michael Lim Peng Liang, you even dare say that it is right for the Nazis to kill thousands of Jews!! Once again TOC did the sensible thing by deleting your post. Can’t believe that bast**d like you even exist.. By calling you a beast is too kind. In Chinese, we call that ‘ren zha’..
And now, to answer your question, “do I see homeless/poverty in Singapore? Get ready for this, my answer is YES.. A BIG FAT YES!! In fact I want to ask you why didn’t you see? You don’t know? I tell you why, because you are blinded to them, that’s why!! You refuse to acknowledge their existence. You probably never spent a single minute of you entire life doing any social work, never will you give a single cent to charity, because to you any form of charity is HANDOUT!! Fare enough, they may be the minority here, but still there are plenty!!
Every Singaporean earns a decent income, that’s BULLSHIT!! In your blindness, you failed to see many who struggle to have 3 decent meal, nor afford to have ‘good flat to live in’.. Because you are living in a world of your own..
‘In Paris, homeless, gypsies, criminals roam the streets at every corner. They are starving, no clean drinking water, ridden with disease, poor, uneducated – all these leading to the extremely high crime rates in Paris’
Hello!! Are you talking about Afghanistan or Columbia? Sure enough their crime rate is indeed higher than ours, but criminals roam streets at every corner? You got that info from where? Hollywood? You think moi has never been to France before? I can walk alone at night in Nice or Marseille just as I do in Singapore!!
‘. They are starving, no clean drinking water, ridden with disease, poor, uneducated – all these leading to the extremely high crime rates in Paris. Government policy in France has clearly failed, while in Singapore, public policy continues to be the envy of the world.’
Once again, which planet are you from?? You might as well boast that Monte Carlo is a slump when compared to Toa Payoh!!
Now, back to you, steven kho aka Alvin Chua aka Michael Lim Peng Liang aka cancer spread to aljunied plus all the other hijacked names..
You have still yet to answer my question in the other post.. How many children have you got?!
My parents have don’t what LKY has called for in the 70/80s. To stop and 2, I have don’t what LKY has called for now, to have more.. How about you!!?! None??
Why? Because you are impotent? Gay? Or unwanted, which I am not surprise looking at your a*hole personality. Or are you like what you said.. Didn’t want to have children because of irresponsible?
So you are ignoring lky’s call? You defy LKY? Anyone who defy LKY ought to be hanged!! You said that right? So when are you hanging yourself??!!
for the eyes of steven kho
credit to the new paper
http://www.tnp.sg/picture/tnp-reporter-experiences-how-homeless-live
The results of the government’s FT policy are depressed wages and increased costs of livings for Singaporeans. We have to send very strong signals to the government of our stress and unhappiness.
Go c the public Uni, u b pissed by how many ppl seating there doing minimum yet claiming maximum.
Worst, some are great at accusing others for their wrong doing. We having 900 millions each year allocated for each Uni, yet has anyone ever question why NOTHING was being produced by the Uni?
Check someone please kindly let me know how many PRs, New Citizens are working in the Uni.
I overheard there are 15K employees and 40k students each year. So each undergrad need half a staff to serve? If yes, what services are we receiving?
We can keep on bragging how great we are but IS IT true? I will like Professors in Art, Science, Engineering, Law and Business to answer this cause we need to justify their pay.
Typo,
My parent have done, and I have done…
“Go c the public Uni, u b pissed by how many ppl seating there doing minimum yet claiming maximum.”
This is true. I know that there are many foreigners as profs in local univs who earn big bucks, but they are not contributing their fair share. They do not groom the locals. They do the bare minimum, act blur and claim fat pay checks.
Why? Because the system allows it to happen.
Meanwhile, locals because they are less well known, do all the donkey work that the profs claim credit for, and the locals are paid peanuts.
I wish the freaking civil servants who put these policies in place, know what the fark is happening on the ground. But they don’t. Or they do and don’t care.
This is your meritocracy? This is your foreign “talent”? Pui!!!
People, I lived in HK.
You will be quite surprised that HK is much much cheaper to live in than SG.
Example
Diet coke, pepsi light cost 80ct in SG, in HK 40cents. That is 1/2 price.
Carlsberg and Japanese brand beer etc cost $1 per can (6 can pack) in the supermarkets. In SG Changi custom duty free, $2.
Egg tart at neighbourhood store cost 30cents, same size and also tasty, in SG $1.50?
Yakult in SG 2.85. In HK, $1.40.
In their tea house, prices are similar to SG but quantity is much more.
And this is not because of strong S$. The prices have remained consistent over for since 2 years ago when exchange rate was at HK$5 to S$1.
well we had come to power and stayed in power for a very long time by some unsrupulous methods , ISA, newspaper control acts, control of judiciary.
unfortunately the people have started thinking and many are voting in opposition members – ungrateful peasants. Well, only 1 way to aviod the risk of being voted out of office – get rid of the people.
Take their jobs away and give it to foreigners – foreigners do not have the vote, so no danger here.
Make education tough, make life expensive, keep university education limited – and these will get to stop reproducing naturally!! TRF <1.2, means another generation, and they will be no more a threat.
For these we need to lock away the reserves, its like parents telling their kids, sorry we cannot afford to send you to school as we have to save for the future. And my golly, we have all the laws to freeze reserves, and nobody needs to know.
and we get in many new citizens, who will be so grateful, that they will vote for us the next 2 generations.
So long live us!
‘HDB recently announced it would build some 7,000 rental flats for low income Singaporeans.’
Singapore is now encouraging Home Rentalship, deviating from its original purpose of Home Ownership because the new administration has made Home Ownership unattainable for many of its Own People.
Such schemes were unnecessary in the past, when the island was still home to its Own People.
Now that it has allowed economic refugees from other nations to come seek fortunes in its limit land space, there is nowhere else for its Own People to go, but into the relatively lower rungs of society, into Home Rentalship.
We are LEASING from hdb only.
With this Renting, feel like foreigner .
From Leasing to Renting.
Result of 60%.
more good fookie years.
We must accept lower salaries.
The world economy is fuxxed.
Businesses cannot survive without resorting to lowering your salaries.
We must sacrifice for them.
We owe them their happiness.
We must accept to be replaced by any foreigner who wants to come here and take away our jobs.
We must help them settle in.
We must be kind and nice to them.
We are nothing. We owe them their happiness.
We must work longer hours and keep quiet and not form unions.
We must not expect bonus and accept contract positions.
No one owes us a living but we owe everyone a living.
Govt policy is a large influence on the price of goods and services in Singapore.
The govt is so effective in keeping commercial expenses low and flooding the market with labour to keep labour rates low. Apart from rectifying their big flop of a HDB policy in recent years, what else is the govt doing to lower cost of living? Have they asked govt agencies to hold off their exorbitant asking rents? Have they stopped selling public properties into “private” REITs so they can have a free hand with rent rates?
I call for all Malay who are now working in all stat board to gather necessary information on how budget was spent UNNECESSARY.
We need justification ON WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FOREIGN TRASHES seating n DOING NOTHING PRODUCTIVE in the PUBLIC SECTOR.
To keep costs of living low, Sg govt should consider bringing in less foreigners. I do not mind foreign talents (aka top tier talent that can pass on knowledge to us Singaporeans), but what the govt is doing is bringing in middle level and lower tier foreigners to compete against the citizens. Even in SG stat boards and ministries I see so many foreigners. A govt should never ever hire a foreigner, as state secrets are at stake. If I was the HR, I would have to think twice before even hiring a converted citizen who may be a spy from our neighboring countries. We were a “migrant country” considering most of our grand parents came from overseas. Those migrants sent $$$ back to their home countries (i.e. Philippines). So, that is exactly what the foreigners are going to do now. Make as much money and send home. Moreover, the foreigners are bossing us in our own country. Not trying to be xenophobic, but SG need to limit the foreigners and start to tell them to respect our culture and habits. The onus is not with SG citizens to bend over accommodate them. I joined the public service with hopes of serving ppl, but seeing how the govt is treating the ppl makes me feel disgusted the way things are done sometimes, thus, i left for the pte sector. I just pray that SG govt starts helping ppl and stop giving excuses and doing propaganda on how well SG are really doing. God bless us all.
I wanted to give expression to my disgust and disdain over the sorry predicament of singaporeans cos of poor and ”disconnectedness” amongst the incuments when goverance is concerned.
However, the Stockholm syndrome seems to have eclipsed all that matters.
I have merely skimmed the surface and left out innumerable instances and issues as I cannot help feeling cynical and hoping against hope that things would change.
I am utterly convinced that there is a dearth of ”quality” leadership amongst the current PAP so-called leaders who self-praise themselves as talents.
To assume or equate academic credentials with credibility is utter folly. That is an necessary UNLEARNING that would awaken the sleep-walking amongst us lah. The fallout from the increased .. or rather unchecked influx of foreigners has exacerbated the problem(s) and is placing a strain of the limited resources.
in recent years,our govt has be so enthusiastic about ‘SUBSIDSING’ FROEIGNERS’those who come here and steal our jobs n livelihoods and thsoe who are abroad?
we try so hard at ‘taxing’ our own ordinary citizens and stinge on granting welfare to our own needy n poor but we do not even blink an eye when dishing out ‘taxpayers money’ to some foreigners.
strange country we have become…
I sincerely believe that a genuinely caring government would do its utmost to alleviate the hardship suffered by its own people who faces the consequences of the ‘triple whammy’ daily.
What is the use of being a first class city/country when its own citizens could not afford to enjoy the various facilities built? I truly wonder. Worse still, some of them are indeed living below subsistence level!
In last 3 months alone, HDB prices rocketed by 3.8%, and private property prices continue to climb yet another 1.3%
HDB’s flash estimate of the 3rd Quarter 2011 Resale Price Index (RPI)
The failure of our government is stark.
Recently the govt announced its intention to start building hawkers centres once again. Wonder what took them so long. Wonder if they really thought people can just pay for higher and higher prices when wages for many do not increase proportionately.
Hamish McRae writes an article in the Straits Times today entitled, “Asia shows a vigour lacking in the West.” In this article he especially lauds the resilience of Singapore noting that it is enjoying a population explosion ( while the West is suffering population decline) and is growing by 5 to 6% to boot ( while the West is in deep economic trouble. Of course, if you pump people into any economic system you boost the GDP. But how much of the GDP rubs off the indigenous population? Very little, as the intake of foreign bodies is indiscriminate. Anybody who wish to work at a lower pay is accepted into Singapore. These are no talents. These types of workers simply take the place of Singaporeans who would have been able to do those jobs. This leads to a rise of GDP which bypasses the indigenous population. Thus a lot Singaporeans are earning less across the board and more are jobless while the GDP stays up in contrast with the West and other parts of the world. The writer praises the Singapore Government skyhigh. This is the sort of propaganda propagated by the Straits Times, to the point that while we suffer more and more we are less and less able to recognize the situation. Of course the PAP elites in Parliament are very happy for their pay is pegged to the GDP specifically to the top earners who are themselves buoyed up by the GDP. What a devilish scheme to rob a whole people.
Lets Close Ranks,
Come together,
Keep our fingers crossed,
Brace ourselves
For possibly double dip economic depression next year
We must continue to sacrifice ourselves so that the rich can have more happine$$.
We are digits, replaceable by foreigners.
We are proud to be 1st world citizen influxed by 3rd.
We accepted, ad we always have and always shall.
We r hum.
You work like a dog in Singapore, just to struggle to pay for an unaffordable hdb flat. What Swiss standard are we talking about? All the money goes to the flat and there is nothing to spend. The wealth is not spread to singaporeans except during elections, suddenly Singaporeans become important.
Quality of living has dropped. Only onge group of people are enjoying unjustifiably high wages and extraordinarily strong purchasing power. Guess who? It’s definitely not the SIngaporean.
UBS’ methodology is problematic.
http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/aci/docs/20110503_UBS_ACI_Wages_Comparison_report.pdf
Blame it on our bastards pap ministers and famiLEE
I left Singapore to run my business elsewhere. One main reason: biz and living costs way too high. I just started out here in another country, and will study how much different it is living here compared to Singapore. One thing remains: I am so sick of the P Ape P’s rules on the workers and people, while they enrich themselves through super-high wages. Atrocious and outrageous.
conclusion : the rich gets richer. The poor gets poorer.
Mr Leong, a Harvard alumnus, I implore you to check out this fine print in the UBS report – which explains why your analysis is flawed.
The UBS report normalizes all prices to the Euro, which the Sing$ has strengthened against.
The report must be read from perspective of someone earning in Euro. Picture can be quite different for someone remunerated in a different currency say S$.
http://www.ubs.com/1/e/wealthmanagement/wealth_management_research/prices_earnings.html
Who will fight for the rights of us the true aborigines of this land? Someone needs to write a book called “The Singapore Aborigines’ Dilemma” and we’ll all flood our votes and affections to him/her.
Our elders are the main reason for pap success, imho.
Because of aging population, more are still voting .
Give them 10more years.
The post 65ers and younger are >50 against , imho guestimation.
The top 30% populace are mostly tony supporters, based on my guestimation.
The 64kmillionaires mostly too.
The gm, management ppl too. These suckers survival is based on their sponsor’s support.
They either cannot do the job of their staff or have forgotten. So, guess how they keep their ricebowls? Orhui politics. As dirty as it can get.
The higher these employees go the less employable they become. So as kia si citizens with huge loans to make them look like business boss, they will suck up, vote wisely and extra kia si.
Scums of society!
Aiyo! Argue so much online also like this.Price will continue to rise.Government will continue to milk u. If u do not take it to the streets, just live with it. ITs not as if PAP going to listen to you suddenly and help you. They cant wait for you to die man!
Dear Anthony 4 October 2011,
You rightly said the following. Because this PAP is a government that is most NOT about “Use the people’s money for the people”! So aren’t they MOST ABOUT “USE the people FOR their money”!
You wrote:
“Aiyo! Argue so much online also like this.Price will continue to rise.Government will continue to milk u.”
And so with 60.1%, they have majority to EVEN MILK them 60.1% self-centred egoists or dfat ones like LKY said!
Now prepare for the rebuttal from the home-grown think tank, the IPS.
The mass migration of two million workers from China, India into Singapore in 5 years has not caused jobs to be created even for the lowest category of workers in the indigenous population. Anecdotal evidence has it that every Singaporean worker at every level of occupation has found it more difficult to be employed. More and more University graduates find it impossible to get jobs they are trained for. Because these are the very jobs much sought after by the foreign talent who are willing to work for much less pay in the multinational firms established in Singapore.The Singaporean is bypassed in the process. The only result of the mass immigration into Singapore is that the GDP is kept well up and there seems to be no recession in Singapore, on paper. But for the people who are named Singaporeans there is an ongoing recession year on year as Lee Hsien Loong carries on his mad scheme to enrich himself and his colleagues through their recession proof GDP linked salaries. Every year this Government throws money at us as workfare and get the ISD to shut us up in case we fidget and ask questions.