Q: Why doesn't Singapore cut the GST to lower costs?
A: Cutting the GSt will benefit the rich more than the poor.
Hard Truth: They still stubbornly refuse to accept the universal truth that GST is regressive.
Q: Why not exempt basic necessities from GST to help lower-income Singaporeans?
A: If flour and sugar are basic necessities, how about biscuits and cakes?
Hard Truth: This is exactly like Marie Antionette, when told the people have no bread, saying, "Let them eat cake!" Off with their heads!
Q:Are good jobs that Singaporeans want and can fill being taken away by foreigners?
A: From 2005 to 2008 when the economic was growing, the number of jobs for both Singaporeans and foreigners grew.
Hard Truth: Note they omitted to mention the academics' finding that more new jobs went to foreigners than to Singaporeans.
Q: Can young Singaporeans still afford HDB flats?
A: Young Singaporean families are offered several kinds of help to buy their first HDB flat.
Hard Truth: Young Singaporeans are shackled with a 20- to 30-year mortgage that depletes the CPF account meant for retirement funds.
Q; Are foreigners here driving up prices?
A: Permanent residents can only buy resale flats and do not receive any housing subsidies.
Hard Truth: Maybe the question should be rephrased: Are foreigner here driving up prices of resale flats? Subsidy for Singaporeans is not subsidy as internationally defined - A payment from government to individuals or businesses without any expectations of profit. The best way of thinking about a subsidy is as a negative tax.
Q: Is healthcare given low priority by the government in Singapore, since the country spends so much less on it than some other developed countries?
A: While the government may spend less on healthcare than other developed countries, it takes better care of citizens in many instances.
Hard Truth: That must be the instance of how Health Minister paid $8 out-of-pocket cash for a bypass operation. Read the real truth from a practicing medical professional.
Q: With Singapore's population ageing, will there be enough healthcare facilities and nursing homes to cope with the rising demand?
A: The new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, completed last year, has 500 beds.
Hard Truth: The Khoo Teck Puat Hospital is the only new hospital that has been built for a long, long, time. Total number of beds have remained stagnant for umpteen years.
Posts
Hello,
ReplyDeletemay add something more to the answers,
Q: Why doesn't .. cut the GST to lower costs?
A: Cutting the GSt will benefit the rich more than the poor.
Hard Truth (zero's comment): Really. Please rais GST to 40%. Thank you. The poor will benefit immensely and thank you and vote you, PAP.
Q: Why not exempt basic necessities from GST to help lower-income Singaporeans?
A: If flour and sugar are basic necessities, how about biscuits and cakes?
Hard Truth (zero's comment):why do we pay civil servant a salary? It is so that they can form committees to solve problems. A committee can be formed to decide which items may be gst exempt period. Common sense will tell you rice, sugar, cooking oil, salt, the most basic raw materials of survival are to be included. One step at a time. A basic list can easily be designed beyond dispute by a panel of economists and level-headed people.
Q:Are good jobs that Singaporeans want and can fill being taken away by foreigners?
A: From 2005 to 2008 when the economic was growing, the number of jobs for both Singaporeans and foreigners grew.
Hard Truth (zero's comments):The answer is not relevant to the question. The question asks about jobs "taken away" i.e. foreigners came in and out goes the singaporeans. Yet the "model answer" talk about new jobs. People wnat to know why existing jobs are taken over by foreingers, we all know the reason is the employer can emply cheap filipino, so kick out singaporean. That is the problem!!
Q: Can young Singaporeans still afford HDB flats?
A: Young Singaporean families are offered several kinds of help to buy their first HDB flat.
Hard Truth (zero's comments): Of course they can. Play with numbers and stretch the loan to 50 years, it is just like saying "MRT train system are ok and not crowded, you can chose not to board it". We are sick of this kind of tricks!!
Q; Are foreigners here driving up prices?
A: Permanent residents can only buy resale flats and do not receive any housing subsidies.
Hard Truth (zero's comments): That is not the point. PR's come in all shapes and sizes, many of them don;t receive "subsidies" but they can afford still to splash their money here. That makes the prices go up in the market!
Q: Is healthcare given low priority by the government in Singapore, since the country spends so much less on it than some other developed countries?
A: ... it takes better care of citizens in many instances.
Hard Truth (zero's comments): Yada yada yada... And you have to wait 3 hours at the polyclinic just to get an MC for a sore throat on a typical working day.
Q: With Singapore's population ageing, will there be enough healthcare facilities and nursing homes to cope with the rising demand?
A: The new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, completed last year, has 500 beds.
Hard Truth (zero's comments): I suppose hospitals are adequate generally, esp with the new KTPH. But i think 80% of demand for healthcare is in the area of general ailments, which only need treatment by GPs at polyclinics. The polyclinics are bursting to the brim!! And i understand that there are not enough doctors too. Why, pap?
Actually the moment i flipped through the pamphlet i sent it to the pile for the karung guni man. So sad for the trees that were chopped to produce this rubbish.
zero
Their answers to all those pressing questions are really an insult to Singaporeans' intelligence. No wonder they called Singaporeans daft.
ReplyDeleteSingaporeans actually deserve these answers to the their questions because they are daft enough to remain silent when again and again the ruling party amends the constitution to eliminate opposition and pursue one-party parliament system. Any person with average intelligence will understand that this is to remove transparency and accountability so that no one knows the truths. It is then easy to cover up all the bad stuff and show only the good stuff. Singaporeans are daft because they started to make some noises now only after the issues of FTs, jobs, cost of living, HDB prices have burnt them. Is it too late for a change?
History tells you that one-party system will lead to decline. Non-inclusive and elitism society is not sustainable.
Do they even believe in their own propaganda?
ReplyDeleteWell, I can only say this as a citation from the movie "Thor", "You'll see soon enough" (Thor). "God, I hope you are not crazy" (Jane Foster)
ReplyDeleteI want to highlight that under Section 10.1 of the Handbook for Parliamentary
ReplyDeleteElection Candidates 2011
"The following acts constitute corrupt practices under the Parliamentary
Elections Act:
(d) make or publish, before or during any election, for the purpose of
affecting the return of any candidate, any false statement of fact
in relation to the personal character or conduct of the candidate;"
Does the following statement by Lim Hwee Hua
"Is it messy or are they holding back till after the elections so that whoever wins Hougang will then inherit the accounts? The Worker's Party has always emphasised transparency and accountability of the town council."
constitutes to a violation of the rule above?
Can someone ask the Election Department?
Well, the New Paper has to be penalized accordingly especially where it published an article on a PAP candidate as a "hands-on dad" so as to give a perception of him as a family man, and subsequently, this can be considered a form of indirect PR on behalf of the candidate by giving him a positive rep.
ReplyDeleteThat is actually an article published on COOLING DAY on mainstream media to promote the individual! So it violates the basic tenet of what the Cooling Day was instituted against, ie. promoting any party or individual at all.
ReplyDeleteI hope people realize that the deck is stacked against them.
ReplyDeleteAre Singaporeans daft and short-sighted?
ReplyDeleteThis GE2011 outcome will prove this.
If the oppositions cannot win big, then this means that Singaporeans support a government that is totally has no accountability and transparency. They shall have rights to complain about what they face in daily life. This also proves that they are really daft and short-sighted. The country will collapse one day. It is a matter of time only. History tells you exactly the same story.
Hey, I would just like to add something about the GST issue.
ReplyDeletethe GST is a regressive indirect tax by itself - definitely. it is unlike direct taxes like the personal income tax, which is progressive.
However, I would like to point out that cutting GST, while being a GOOD solution as seen by itself, may not be the BEST policy option even in times of increasing income disparity.
While reducing the GST would certainly benefit the poor, it may not be the MOST beneficial way to aid them if you consider the economy as whole. this is, as the 'pamphlet' has pointed out, the high income group contributes to a larger portion of the GST revenue collected by the government. take the increase of GST from 5% to 7% for example. with a 2% increase in GST, yes, the poor would have to fork out a larger proportion of their income to pay for the increase, as compared to a smaller proportion forked out by the rich. However, of the 2% increase in government revenue, a large proportion of it comes from the rich. rather than forsaking this large proportion of additional revenue, just so that the poor can pay 2% less of GST, the govt can use the additional revenue from the rich to aid the poor in more TARGETED ways - methods that benefit the poor directly instead of benefiting both (collectively) the rich and poor (which is what cutting the GST would do). this could be done through measures such as the GST offset package, education bursaries, financial aid etc.
well, im not judging if the measures then taken to target the poor are sufficient or not. they may be sufficient, or perhaps, some argue that much more could be done. but what i'm trying to say that cutting the GST may not be the most viable option. what is important is what the government does with the additional revenue collected from it.
if gst was removed from say basic necessities, wouldn't the poor be paying a lower percentage of the total gst - since most of their money goes on basics - and the rich would be paying a much higher percentage - since most of their money goes on non-essentials, like lexus cars and kate spade bags, which r being taxed?
ReplyDeleteto remove basic necessities:
ReplyDeleteyes, the poor will definitely pay less. but statistics have shown that the rich actually spend more even on basic necessities, than the poor. therefore they pay a larger proportion out of this 'gst from basic necessities'. thus the argument regarding removing basic necessities from gst would be the same as cutting gst as a whole.
I am curious: Did the Government fund the building of The Khoo Teck Puat Hospital or Khoo Tech Puat?
ReplyDeleteYou have unfairly defamed the late Marie Antoinette. The expression "Let them eat cake" had been in existence in France way before she set foot in Frnace to be its queen.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless the answers to the distributed booklet are too simplistic, not really for a more complicated age