Monday, March 31, 2014

Affordability Questioned

When the mainstream media puts out a full page article with the heading "Building affordable homes for S'poreans" you know that even the spin masters are tired of spouting out the same old lies. Hiding the truth just got difficult.

There was this 1992 quote attributed to Goh Chok Tong:
"It is in your interest to ensure that the value of your flats continues to rise."
And this one from Khaw Boon Wan:
"If Singapore's economy were to decline permanently, all properties would drop in value."
The most recent quote about chasing up the prices came from Lee Hsien Loong:
"The HDB programme is not just about the roof over our heads. It is also a valuable nest egg."
Quite obviously, the tiresome triumvirate shares same agenda, keep racking up those numbers.

The whole affordability problem started when the Housing and Development Board (HDB) deviated from it's original 1969 charter of providing basic housing for the masses. In 1971 public flats could be put on the resale market, instead of being sold back to the HDB at fixed prices after the 99 year lease was up. Conveniently excluded from the telling of the deviant history is the part when the cost of land is imputed into the price tag of the flat. There's a quote somewhere with Dhanabalan saying that land set aside for public housing would make more money if allocated to private developers. Henceforth the opportunity cost of land was foisted on the peasants. The article did record that in 1988, Dhanabalan said land-scarce Singapore could not afford to let every single person have a flat of his own". But it's okay for billionaire singles from overseas to buy up a whole penthouse or bungalow. Just for that, he deserves to be slapped on the left, and then the right cheek.

Members of the pioneer generation recall 3-room flats could be had for $7,000 in the good old days. So the $10,000 for a new flat in Sembawang is not the result of a typo. Perhaps it's the subsidy that is padding the inflated prices. Which begs the question, does HDB pump up the sales revenue with the inflated numbers, or nett off the subsidies and report only the "discounted prices"? We would like to think the HDB had a good system in the past, and should revert to the original guiding light of Lim Kim San.

Lee Hsien Loong told Sir Malcolm Rifkind at think-tank Chatham House that it is not the system that will continue keeping (Singapore) clean, it is the people who run it who will do so. Problem here is that we already have people who keep running the system to the ground.

15 comments:

  1. Lee Hsien Loong is right. It is people who run the system that matters. And for the record, he and his goon team are corrupting our nation. The Olam deal reeks of insider trading. Is the Lee family fully invested personally?

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  2. Of course they would not want us to know, SLA is raking in tonnes of money. The construction cost of a HDB block is not even 10% the cost of the land it occupies. We are robbed and cheated. The money SLA collects goes into a sinkhole called the reserves where our KFC president is not even able to audit. And money is rubberstamped for LHL's wife to gamble with impunity. Buying out debt ridden companies that ought to collapse and making them private so that we cannot check on her.

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  3. The serious question to be asked is whether the system that obtains in this little red dot fosters, intentionally or otherwise, corruption and nepotism. When we have a system which have in-built conflicts of interests, it will inevitably lead to corruption and nepotism. Since our Dear Leader was wont to use (or misuse) of the Catholic Church's election of the Pope to justify the PAP's cadre system, he should emulate its prohibition of marriage policy for its priests to prevent nepotism and dynastic tendencies.

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    Replies
    1. That system already applies. Only to single citizens, disguised as the Ministry of HDB. They are the mother of catholic church here. Or at least try in every way to act as one and be one. They dictate that only "married people" have value and are recognized by their system. Singles or divorced don't deserve a house unless they meet a series of barricades and get behind the queue. They don't deserve a roof over their heads despite being a productive citizen. Even married PRs/couples are more valuable than Single/divorced/aged citizens. They keep telling us land is scare here, but they bring in the rich trillionairesforeigners who can snap up condos or landed properties on this scare land, or allow them to reap and flip for profits when they depart. Just like donation to the church.

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  4. At the start, LKY & PAP the party he represents looked decisive and promising. But like most of his long tales and their long authoritarian reign after 50yrs, there's a sting in the tail now.

    He said " we look at the way politics is played in Singapore, a lot of it doesn’t happen in Parliament because the opposition in Parliament has decided it’s politics for them no to propound policies or alternatives.." Ironically, he must realized that politics didnt happen in parliament because they were mostly played out in the court room through his father's rule by law.

    The only person that is sniping the oppositions on an international stage is him and his Party. Do you hear Obama or Cameron or Angela Merkel going around in overseas world stage disparaging their domestic oppositions in public?

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    Replies
    1. You're right. They are the only ones denigrating opposition politics in a democracy. Even Malaysia doesn't do that.

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    2. When you got nothing good to say about yourself.
      You try to direct attention away by sniping at other people.

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  5. Straits Times Headline:
    "PM Lee to Singaporeans: We are on your side"

    ROFL!
    April Fool's Day!

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  6. Straits Times Headline:
    "PM Lee to Singaporeans: We are on your side"

    ROFL!
    April Fool's Day!

    Hello, why is that new to you ? Under PAP government, everyday is April's Fool everyday not only on 1st of April. Olam sign of insider trading benefit PAP cronies and screw singapore investors not privy to those info. No investigation at all, that April fool for sinkies investors.

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    Replies
    1. But many Singaporeans still pay money to buy the Straits Times.
      So the number of daft Singaporeans is truly impressive.

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  7. What would Lim Kim San say if he was still alive? Seeing his hard work being mangled into an unrecognizable monster?

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  8. Nobody noticed? Last wk ST had a column on land sales proceeds showing garmen proceeds in 2012 and 2013 of around $5b to $7b per year. Straight into leeserves, far more than the $3b to $4b "budget surplus" each year! The housing Ponzi must go on la, and now that thousands of PRC billionaires have been rejected by Canada and London is imposing taxes on "empty luxury" flats, surely the next few years would be bumper harvest for civil servants tasked to attract the said jilted PRC elites to come to the red dot to snap up more houses? Maybe we can all set up $2 shell companies to front these purchases since foreigners cannot buy landed property? The PRCs are laundering money anyway, so they won't stay in the houses they buy in red dot, we can rent it out and collect commission?

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    Replies
    1. Think your figures are wrong. Easily more than 10 B each year.

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    2. our land is our asset. after we sold it, the money from our land sale becomes our asset. the money is then put into our reserve to generate passive income.

      If the money from land sale is used, then our asset is truly gone.

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