S’pore is now richest in the world

Dear Contrarian,

There will be NO personal attacks tolerated within this forum. If you have different views, please agree to disagree in a polite manner.

A repeat of such behaviour will earn a one-week ban.

Thank you for your attention.

Regards.

(17-08-2012, 08:59 PM)Contrarian Wrote: > So, ask yourself, why on earth do you need 2 strikers? My parents'
> time, it was to help make ends meet for the less privileged as they
> have easily 5-12 kids to feed.

You are probably living in DREAMLAND. Today's couples when married, have to shoulder a debt burden of $300 - $400K for their BTO home. My 3 room parents flat was $7.8K So the flats have shot up 400 to 500 times. Has wages gone up this quantum? How many % of today's young parents and 20+ newly married couples can afford to have 1 person work?

There's some exaggeration here. Even using your own numbers, it is 40 to 50 times, not 400 to 500 times. And you are comparing a 3 room flat to a 5 room flat now. You didn't mention when the 3 room flat cost 7.8K. And what were wages then like.

Coming up with my own non-scientific and anecdotal example...

Currently a 5 room flat (from HDB website in Punggol 21) is about 350K. My wife's parents bought their 5 room flat in Haig Road in 1974 for 35K. That's a 10 times increment or about 6.5% per annum growth. My wife's mother (a clerk) earned about $150 then. 10x 150 is 1.5K. So just with this (admittedly limited) example, it seems that income and hdb prices are in pace - this is intuitively agreeable since affordability (and hence demand) should be correlated with income.

Its comments like these that I respect the generation that started their working life in Singapore during the late 60s and early 70s - when Singapore was the equivalent of a "penny stock".

Now some who have grown up in a "blue-chip stock" environment are implying that our parents and qian-beis (seniors) had it easier?

I am sure 30-40 years from now, the next generation will whine how easy it was in 2012 when we could afford HDB flat 5 room at $350,000... HDB flats in the future would be in millions.... (Ofcos the next generation will forget to mention their pay will be in the tens of thousands per month then)

Every generation will have to go through their own baptism of fire. My generation's test to prove our mettle was the Asian financial crisis in 97.

Anyway base on our Fiat Monetised economy system, GOVS of the world will keep on printing more more paper money to keep the world economy from collapsing; That's one of the main reasons why you will need more and more fiat paper money to buy less and less things.

(17-08-2012, 10:03 AM)KopiKat Wrote:

(17-08-2012, 09:32 AM)cif5000 Wrote: To stick on the title of this thread, I think "Richness" should be measured by the number of children one has, if one really has to measure it, just like the olden days.

You hear questions like, "how many children do you have?", and not "how many millions of dollars you managed to accumulate?"

Ya, my mother always seem rather embarrassed when she was asked that Q as she only has 7 kids while others usually have 10 or more...

To be fair, for current generation, let's impute an Intangible Value of $1Mil per kid (I'm ok if you think it's worth more). So, we can have proper comparison between DINKs and others. If you have 2 kids and DINKs have $2Mil, then both should be considered as on par. If they don't agree, they can go for arbitrations...

By that measure, here's the richest man in the world

[Image: article-1358654-0D434280000005DC-607_964x553.jpg]
The full monty: The Ziona family in its entirety with all 181 members

The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren

(17-08-2012, 10:03 PM)tanjm Wrote:

(17-08-2012, 08:59 PM)Contrarian Wrote: You are probably living in DREAMLAND. Today's couples when married, have to shoulder a debt burden of $300 - $400K for their BTO home. My 3 room parents flat was $7.8K So the flats have shot up 400 to 500 times. Has wages gone up this quantum? How many % of today's young parents and 20+ newly married couples can afford to have 1 person work?

There's some exaggeration here. Even using your own numbers, it is 40 to 50 times, not 400 to 500 times. And you are comparing a 3 room flat to a 5 room flat now. You didn't mention when the 3 room flat cost 7.8K. And what were wages then like.
Coming up with my own non-scientific and anecdotal example...
Currently a 5 room flat (from HDB website in Punggol 21) is about 350K. My wife's parents bought their 5 room flat in Haig Road in 1974 for 35K. That's a 10 times increment or about 6.5% per annum growth. My wife's mother (a clerk) earned about $150 then. 10x 150 is 1.5K. So just with this (admittedly limited) example, it seems that income and hdb prices are in pace - this is intuitively agreeable since affordability (and hence demand) should be correlated with income.

yr is not meaningful either - comparing a 5-room flat at outlying punggol location against the city fringe location at haig road. maybe u can share with us how much yr in-law's haig rd 5-ro0m flat is worth now and use it compare, then is more accurate

regarding dual/single working parent issue, instead of looking it this way, i heard of countries that implemented flexi-working hours i.e. work 1 day rest the next day, work 1 day rest the next day..and so on..towards the work-life balance objective. such initiative is not controllable at individual level, it has to be driven by the country level mgt.

(18-08-2012, 06:09 AM)pianist Wrote: yr is not meaningful either - comparing a 5-room flat at outlying punggol location against the city fringe location at haig road. maybe u can share with us how much yr in-law's haig rd 5-ro0m flat is worth now and use it compare, then is more accurate

In a 38 year gap, there are many other differences (such as build quality), which I won't bother to close. Suffice to say that comparing purchase from HDB to purchase from HDB vs resale comparison is better. And Haig Road in 1974 is just as "far" from city centre as Punggol 21 is now.

You are missing the point. The point is incomes are much higher now. A scarce commodity such as property will ALWAYS be expensive relative to your income. In comparison, stuff like manufactured goods become cheaper relative to income (big screen TVs or fridges). Even travel has become a lot cheaper relative to income.

I think enough said by me on this topic.

(18-08-2012, 12:36 AM)Temperament Wrote: Anyway base on our Fiat Monetised economy system, GOVS of the world will keep on printing more more paper money to keep the world economy from collapsing; That's one of the main reasons why you will need more and more fiat paper money to buy less and less things.

to simply accuse government around the world of printing money is too biased.

the advance of the world economy itself requires more and more money to be printed, otherwise, we are going to experience deflation constantly, which of course only benefits those who are older.

The younger generation, though more productive, will earn much less due to limited supply of money.

(18-08-2012, 07:18 AM)freedom Wrote:

(18-08-2012, 12:36 AM)Temperament Wrote: Anyway base on our Fiat Monetised economy system, GOVS of the world will keep on printing more more paper money to keep the world economy from collapsing; That's one of the main reasons why you will need more and more fiat paper money to buy less and less things.

to simply accuse government around the world of printing money is too biased.

the advance of the world economy itself requires more and more money to be printed, otherwise, we are going to experience deflation constantly, which of course only benefits those who are older.

The younger generation, though more productive, will earn much less due to limited supply of money.

I think there are some grounds to Temperament's statement. After all, who else can you blame for excessive money printing?

Money printing occurs becos govts wish to intervene in the workings of the economy thru monetary policies. Of cos whether this is desirable then depends if you are a believer in Keynesian or Austrian economic theories.

It's really ok to earn less in absolute value in a deflationary environment, so long as ur real wage improves.

(18-08-2012, 01:04 AM)swakoo Wrote: By that measure, here's the richest man in the world

[Image: article-1358654-0D434280000005DC-607_964x553.jpg]
The full monty: The Ziona family in its entirety with all 181 members

The world's biggest family: The man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren

Not unless you impute a much higher Intangible Value / kid. According to Forbes, the richest in the world has Billions.... But, I do wonder if his desire(?) for kids has anything to do with his political affiliation...Their quality of life must be extremely bad, can't find many with a smile on their face...