Thursday, February 7, 2013

Khaw Doublespeak


About a week ago on 31 Jan, Khaw "made clear" that he has de-linked the prices of new flats sold by HDB from the resale flat market. He claimed to have done this ever since he took over the housing portfolio in 20011 from Mah Bow Tan, the public enemy one who aligned public housing pricing to market value.

At least one member was not asleep when Khaw went into the standard spiel about "substantial price discount", "housing grants", and "affordability" during the Parliament session of Tuesday 4th February . MP for Nee Soon GRC Lee Bee Wah was like, excusez-moi, "If I heard correctly just now, minister mentioned that the resale price of the flats in the vicinity is taken into consideration. I thought recently minister mentioned the price of new BTO flat has just been de-linked from the resale price?" Khaw's response has to be classic text book doublespeak:


For those not familiar with George Orwell's novel "1984", Wikipedia explains doublespeak as language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. Examples include "downsizing" for layoffs, "ponding" for floods, "planning parameter" for targets - you get the idea. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning. In such cases, "doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth, producing a communication bypass".

On Monday, Teo Chee Hean  said Singapore was heading for a crisis given its rapidly ageing population. Yesterday, Khaw said the Government has made a major shift in the way it provide housing and public infrastructure - it will now invest and build well ahead of demand - evidencing the lack of 20/20 vision admitted by the prime minister is endemic among their ranks. So did the chicken come first or the egg? Was it the building shortfall or the population surplus that contributed to the current overcrowding? To decrypt the duplicity of utterances, throw away your Oxford or Merriam-Webster, what you need is a Concise Dictionary of English Usage as Perverted by the Pro Alien Party.

The only people talking sense are opposition members like NCMP Mrs Lina Chiam who pointed out that  soiled White Paper is based on a very unique event in human history, namely, the Baby Boomer phenomenon. "Given that this is a unique event in history and is transient in nature, albeit for 10 years or longer, is it wise to plan for a country’s population and infrastructure based on this event?"
Baby boomers (circa 1966) marching at National Day Parade


46 comments:

  1. The BTO flats are now double or triple the price of what they really cost to build. All the so called discounts or grants are just bullshit. Government is raking a huge profit from the sale. There is a special place reserve in hell for people like Khaw.

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    Replies
    1. Typical PAP strategy - take alot and then give back a small amt and emphasize on this small amount to show how 'charitable' and 'concerned' they are for Singaporeans.

      (i) Raise hdb prices 2 to 3x and then give discounts a small fraction to defray the costs and then tell people how concerned they are abt Singaporeans.

      (ii) Raise taxes, COE, ERP, utility and all other charges and then nearing elections, give like a paltry S$500 back to Singaporeans to tell them how concerned they are about Singaporeans.

      (iii) Raise GST and then give a one-time small amt to defray the GST raise. Do we stop paying GST after that? Like duh...

      (iv) Get all eligible male Singaporeans to be cheap labour for compulsory military conscription and then pay a paltry amount and reframe it as not 'pay' but a 'thank you note' for doing one's national duty. Cheap labour is just what it is cheap labour - national duty or no.

      Delete
  2. I don't think the price of new flats are delinked from resale prices.It is still based on resale prices less discount. The discount used to be fixed. So when the resale prices go up, the prices of new flats will follow.What the crafty Khaw did was to vary the discount to achieve a uniformity in the prices of new flats.

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    Replies
    1. Told you not to believe him. You never learn your lesson?

      Delete
  3. The $8 man could do well as a stand-up comic. When you let in the hordes and did not plan for the appropriate infrastructure it is gross negligence, not a strategy. If you are going to increase the number of foreigners as propsed in the White Paper and "build ahead of demand" it is not a "major shift in policy". It is called common sense. Self-praise is no praise.

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  4. After undersupplying flats for so long, now he says he is going to oversupply them provided you support the white paper. Is he using the carrot or the stick? He looks like a four faced Buddha to me, depending on which face you are facing.

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    Replies
    1. "After undersupplying flats for so long, now he says he is going to oversupply them provided you support the white paper."

      That kind of statement from Khaw is a insult of human's intelligence as the increase in supply of flats is to satisfy the incoming millions of population foremost.

      Delete
    2. Khaw wears a mask, always trying to "enlighten" us with his stupid analogies.. 佛面蛇心!

      Delete
  5. When citizens live in a democracy.
    But cannot gain access to the cost of their HDB flats.
    Something is not right.

    No more blank cheques.
    Vote Opposition for a Singaporean Singapore.

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  6. If he is just going to over project and build new HDB flats like in the past, why is there a need to do BTO. We should revert back to the old system where, we just apply for the ready flats when we need to and can move in within a short period of time.

    If the BTO system is not abolish, then, we know that what he said is like what comes out from the back of a male cattle.

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    Replies
    1. You bring up a very good point about BTO versus the old HDB system.

      They have implemented so many schemes and explanations to fool and confuse us ... and now it's reached the point when they themselves are confused.

      It's time for Singaporeans to start again with a clean sheet of paper.
      Item #1 on the list.
      Vote out the Traitors in GE 2016.

      With Traitors in charge.
      How can there ever be a Singaporean Singapore?

      Delete
    2. bro or sis, its perhaps time to leave puberty thoughts behind. the BTO system is not to confuse you, its to line the pockets of certain people. Remember Deng said: for free market in china to take off, some people must get rich first. Teh Cheang Wan and his supplier networks followed this famous saying. How do you still get people to support your party when the whole nation is angry?

      Delete
  7. This idiot Minister is finally admitting the fact that HDB had been overcharging buyers during MBT's tenure and that there wasn't any raid on our reserves as what his predecessor has argued.

    It was just plain greedy, all these Papig fuckers.

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    Replies
    1. Hey, how about a rebate for those who overpaid for their flats?

      Delete
    2. What about a rebate of 2 years wasted in NS.
      Defending what?
      Defending HDB from building enough flats for Singaporeans?
      Defending Aliens' right to buy HDB flats ahead of Singaporeans?

      Delete
  8. really treating us like kids. End of the day, it's still using the market price as a benchmark!!! WTF? Why don't you start using the construction cost AND THEN vary it from there?!

    You ask me, this type of minister, how to vote for him?????

    ReplyDelete
  9. this cow never made sense ...............wonder what caliber he has to become minister..........we dont need high academic qualifications but people with proper cow sense and lotts of EQ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. cow is a gentle and generous mammal. Not a fitting name for creepy guys

      Delete
  10. Ha..can't resist a good laugh from our neighbor's post, noting how the propaganda has even reached their shore by none other than the statistician who believes in the 6.9m. Sell, and the whole world will buy into it (not)...except our laksa recipe! LOL

    http://biglychee.com/blog/2013/02/07/the-most-we-can-learn-from-singapore-is-a-laksa-recipe/#comments

    ReplyDelete
  11. Do not under estimate Minister Khaw.
    He is one in 5.3 million that can cooly and smilingly screw up the people. Dont pray pray ah.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Here is a man who
    *grossly underprovided in healthcare,
    *who drove prices of healthcare up,
    *who turned public hospitals into profit centres, *who introduced means testing when he said he wouldn't,
    *who didn't plan ahead for the provision of medical personnel
    *who claims he had to pay Eight Entire Dollars for a bypass (ministers dun get uber heavy medical benefits or discounts?)
    and pple want to believe him re housing????

    No wonder Kuan Yew calls us daft!!! This man is a first-rate old-style politician - he is more slimy than snort from your nose. Be grateful he's just PAP chairman and a min, and not your PM.

    No one seems to accept that that rogue govt we've been warned about is Not akan datang, but is Here, and has been here for at least a decade!!! Hello Sleeping Singaporeans, plse wake up.

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  13. Well, it is after all his year, slimy Khaw is a snake, lies downwards, wriggle his way upwards. Its a real sorry state of the PAP when a opportunistic Penang grass snake rises to the top, no wonder even Grace is considered a "talent" worth a million and a half! Too bad for Singapore, the voters of Sembawang like them their politicians flaky. BTW who is the whip? How dare obasan LBH dare point out the snake's lie when all his MND perm secs scholars have double-checked and confirmed that "it has been delinked"?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Reality and phantasy conjured up by magicians, to mesmerise the public. Cow man speak with fork tongue. Mr Khaw, to hell with your doublespeak and koyok sales pitches. We want back our Singapore, because it is not for sale. BTW your mis-AIM review time is running out - need spurs in the hide of your Deputy Secretary Tay Kim Poh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keep calm lah.

      He still can't beat Master Mah's bold declaration "GO for the maximum resources that this island can take" . Me waiting to see which MP will ask where the nuclear reactor will be sited. Maybe once that is made known, the world punters for that 6.9m property demand will drop to half, and this whole issue will just evaporate.

      Is V.Bala skiving?

      Delete
    2. Is V. Bala is busy retaking his medical exams?
      In preparation of possible defeat in GE 2011?
      Time to re-start medical career?
      Go with the flow?
      Like George Yeo?

      Delete
    3. No, V bala taking property agent exam, heard housing bubble will be enlarged with 2m more FTs! Sure beats starring into eyes of angry voters as eye doctor.

      Delete
  15. The holy cow turns out to be a two faced snake.

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  16. //Khaw said the Government has made a major shift in the way it provide housing and public infrastructure - it will now invest and build well ahead of demand//

    Clearly an admission that his predecessor was the other way round...build AFTER pent-up demand. So suddenly, their refusal to plan and build has now become an emergency on our part to approve!!

    So urgent, that if we don't approve, Khaw said all the foreign workers will die? Or rather, all the babies will not be born ?? er..which?

    He officially deserves an Oscar award, after Lim Boon Heng.

    ReplyDelete
  17. PAP now say "People First, Not Growth First" ..

    Is that the same as President Tan's version of "Singaporeans First, not Singaporeans Always? "

    In other words, can they clarify the people here includes Sinkie + PR + Foreigners on this island huh?

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  18. Low Thia Kiang is quite funny to say it is an upside-down roadmap.

    6.9 when you look upside down is actually 9.6 leh. Does Low Thia Kiang know something that we don't!!!???

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  19. Lucky Tan has said that the real OASR (old age support ratio) is currently at 9.8 : 1 given the population size now; in fact way above OECD benchmark.
    So what precisely is the "real crisis" that TCH tries to allude to?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You asked a good question. Is not about the Baby, neither is it about the Aging. Let the old fox Wong Kan Seng clues you in >>

      "Singapore does not have unlimited past reserves to plug the gaps," he said.

      Delete
    2. Plug which gaps? Those in the pockets of the MIW?

      Delete
  20. No matter how these clowns in white try to twist and turn with red herring and nonsense, they can't hide the primary objective of the toilet paper is to mass convert foreigners into citizen in time for next election to vote the evil regime into power again, after all, how else can you find a country that treat foreigners better than local. Name me one democratic country that treat foreigner better than local.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When you find out the root purpose is to bring foreigners to vote for the incumbent party in coming election suddenly every nonsense, rhetoric, red herring and barking of pap attack dogs, toilet paper without research reference, marketing gimmicks, empty and broken promises make complete sense, which all there to support our instinct that it exists to bring in foreigners to support PAP base.

      Delete
    2. Despite such angry vehemence now, when it comes to GE2016, there will still be massive numbers of idiots voting them in from sheer, blind fear of the unknown.

      This is much akin to blind sheep bleeting "bleh bleh We owe PAP everything. God save PAP and we will too...."

      Delete
  21. "The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil" (Albert Einstein)

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  22. As a PAP dog, he is not comfortable to be number two. He wants to compete with MBT to be Singapore public enemy No 1 position.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Its a sad sad day for Singapore and Singaporeans when our nation's prime resources and future lie in the hands of smart, condescending technocrats like KBW who first visited Spore in his late teens and did not even serve NS in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Khaw Boon Wan liked other foreign born will not live in Sg when he retires.
    Is his family even here?

    Anyone knows?

    ReplyDelete
  25. No, it's not doublespeak. It's not even English.

    Any guesses to what "will now invest and build well ahead of demand" means?

    In English?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good.
      Must ask for time-line, number of flats built, and money spent.

      Delete
  26. Headlines on screenshot in mrbrown.com:
    "Parliament passes motion on White Paper"

    The WP said the PAP got it upside-down and the White Paper should be "A Dynamic Population for a Sustainable Singapore" instead of "A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore.

    Now, the PAP is getting it back to front again. You should pass motion first, and then wipe your arsehole with the white toilet paper, instead of passing motion on the white toilet paper. How to use the white paper if your motion are already on the paper? How, how, how? What do you think?

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  27. With at least another in take of 2 million foreigners, new citizen, PR ,investors ,money launders ,the govt says they are going build appox. 700.000 new HDB flats .They dont understand maths.

    It will be a heavy price to pay when comes next election

    ReplyDelete