Quality of Life

I thought this article hit the essence. Quality of Life is important. Home ownership. Spacious enough.

https://www.theedgesingapore.com/do-sing...c-90572253

HK is different from singapore, as they have motherland china to fall back on.

SG needs to have at least its own citizen LIVE in it, for country defence and survival reasons...

Yes we the common people mostly got no choice but the "Richies & Elites" are different.

They have families or Nests all spread out all over the world or SEA.

At the drop of a pin, may all ready to fly to somewhere safe.

Hope it never happens to Singapore.

No arguement about it.

Life is just like that.

Of course some Richies or Elites may stay on to fight but how many?

War time the airport will be grounded, more likely only those with ships at the marina can run road fast enough.

If HNW people have a property and some money overseas, I dun think any will stay to fight, land mass is so little, nothing much to defend except for the air we are breathing, there's plenty of that everywhere else.

Also if some crazy dictator like Mr. KIM decided to use nuclear device, even it hit johor baru, most of sg will be wipe out. Well at least that's what my physics teacher told us.

Most of the time military for small country is just a show of force and deterrent. Small country is like small cap, when the big whales come really can't do anything.

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That why we must always have some portion of our networth in physical gold.
Can always carry and run road with it.

In general, Hong Kong has freer, less regulated markets compared to Singapore. Letting loose capitalism in Hong Kong has created great wealth inequality, and misery for the have-nots. As much as Singapore eschew the 'communist' label in the 70s and 80s, it has, on the other hand, been more 'communist'/socialist than it would like to admit. The efforts to ensure access to reasonable-quality housing through numerous subsidies is the biggest proof of this. There are also numerous handouts; Singtel shares, Pioneer Generation card, NS rewards (CPF top-up, vouchers, safra memberships), Skills Future credits, S&C rebates, GST/U-Save voucher, etc.

In socialist-leaning countries in Western Europe, employment has only begun to recover, but still hover at 10%. If you give workers a bigger slice of the cake than can be afforded, the system eventually breaks down; unless the workers have special qualities that cannot be found elsewhere (which is not the case anywhere in the world).

In capitalist-leaning cities such as Hong Kong, workers are given a slice of the cake so small which apparently allows them to be satiated enough not to revolt. A few weeks ago, I read an article on Bloomberg which highlighted the stories of mainland Chinese migrants working in Hong Kong, but end up being more miserable than before. I'd imagine myself going insane if I have to live with my family in a 250sft shoebox. How can its people be sufficiently productive or innovative to sustain or grow the economy? I think the only reason it has not imploded is the patronage and refuge provided by mainland China. In another capitalist-leaning country, Trump won the election by telling people what they really want; socialist measures such as American first, bringing back jobs, protectionist policies.

Many people chide Karl Marx for being wrong that socialism is a superior system of economic production to capitalism. I think he is still partially correct on the necessity of socialism to cope with the ills of capitalism. To this end, Singapore balances the 'winner takes all' outcome of a capitalist system with its socialist handouts and subsidies. And while the spoils of commerce are not distributed equally in SG, I will say they are done in a manner which is more or less acceptable to those involved. In spite of all the unpopular capitalist policies implemented by Singapore (such as FTs), she is willing to make socialist measures to ensure its long-term sustainability and growth.

(02-08-2017, 06:46 PM)Temperament Wrote: Yes we the common people mostly got no choice but the "Richies & Elites" are different.

They have families or Nests all spread out all over the world or SEA.

At the drop of a pin, may all ready to fly to somewhere safe.

Hope it never happens to Singapore.

No arguement about it.

Life is just like that.

Of course some Richies or Elites may stay on to fight but how many?

Which is why I support no dual citizenship to contain the problem. Frankly we can never eliminates the rich and poor divide.
The rich can live anywhere and they will be top 10% there. Surely the rich earns the right to move their family members out in war time. But it does no good to anyone to "blacklist" them. And not all rich are the same. There are many who are loyal, hardworking and charitable.And they do create jobs and demand. Didn't Sun YatSun came to SE Asia to help collect fund from ethics Chinese for the revolution ? Connection is always there.

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http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170706...inequality

In a paper published in April in the journal Nature Human Behaviour called ‘Why people prefer unequal societies’, a team of researchers from Yale University argue that humans – even as young children and babies – actually prefer living in a world in which inequality exists. It sounds counter-intuitive, so why would that be? Because if people find themselves in a situation where everyone is equal, studies suggest that many become angry or bitter if people who work hard aren’t rewarded, or if slackers are over-rewarded.

Starman’s co-author Mark Sheskin, a cognitive science post-doc at Yale, puts the findings of this research succinctly: “People typically prefer fair inequality to unfair equality”.

(02-08-2017, 09:55 PM)karlmarx Wrote: In general, Hong Kong has freer, less regulated markets compared to Singapore. Letting loose capitalism in Hong Kong has created great wealth inequality, and misery for the have-nots. As much as Singapore eschew the 'communist' label in the 70s and 80s, it has, on the other hand, been more 'communist'/socialist than it would like to admit. The efforts to ensure access to reasonable-quality housing through numerous subsidies is the biggest proof of this. There are also numerous handouts; Singtel shares, Pioneer Generation card, NS rewards (CPF top-up, vouchers, safra memberships), Skills Future credits, S&C rebates, GST/U-Save voucher, etc.

In socialist-leaning countries in Western Europe, employment has only begun to recover, but still hover at 10%. If you give workers a bigger slice of the cake than can be afforded, the system eventually breaks down; unless the workers have special qualities that cannot be found elsewhere (which is not the case anywhere in the world).

In capitalist-leaning cities such as Hong Kong, workers are given a slice of the cake so small which apparently allows them to be satiated enough not to revolt. A few weeks ago, I read an article on Bloomberg which highlighted the stories of mainland Chinese migrants working in Hong Kong, but end up being more miserable than before. I'd imagine myself going insane if I have to live with my family in a 250sft shoebox. How can its people be sufficiently productive or innovative to sustain or grow the economy? I think the only reason it has not imploded is the patronage and refuge provided by mainland China. In another capitalist-leaning country, Trump won the election by telling people what they really want; socialist measures such as American first, bringing back jobs, protectionist policies.

Many people chide Karl Marx for being wrong that socialism is a superior system of economic production to capitalism. I think he is still partially correct on the necessity of socialism to cope with the ills of capitalism. To this end, Singapore balances the 'winner takes all' outcome of a capitalist system with its socialist handouts and subsidies. And while the spoils of commerce are not distributed equally in SG, I will say they are done in a manner which is more or less acceptable to those involved. In spite of all the unpopular capitalist policies implemented by Singapore (such as FTs), she is willing to make socialist measures to ensure its long-term sustainability and growth.

Hong Kong is rife with monopolies or quasi monopolies that impose a huge, uncompetitive burden on society. Just read Jake Van Der Kemp in the SCMP on taxi licences and MPF, as examples. Look at the way that a few big developers control the property market. Beef imports are controlled by a single importer. Monopoly capitalism is a gross distortion of capitalism. There has been a very obvious change in the general attitude to Singapore in Hong Kong. Ten or twenty years ago there was a general tendency to sneer at Singapore. Now I see a general realisation that the Singapore government has done a much better job of looking after the average Singaporean than the Hong Kong government has of looking after the average Hong Konger. Discussions in the newspapers on housing and MPF/CPF now often refer to Singapore, and how much better Singapore has done for the general citizen, rather than a few vested interests. The political system in Hong Kong is moribund: lots of verbal fireworks and posturing, but not much really changes, and those vested interests make sure that it does not.

“People typically prefer fair inequality to unfair equality”.

That's why who likes to live in North Korea or Russia or ?

People of more democratic country also, "Prefer fair inequality to unfair equality".

But i think they also "Prefer unfair inequality, at times".