2011 budget to help the Singaporean or PAP election?

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#1
February 19th, 2011 | Author: Contributions

As I listened to the budget by our finance minister, I had a flash back of all the previous budgets speeches and what they had to offer in bringing Singaporeans to this poorer and decomposed state we are in, what happened to all the “handouts”, did they do more harm than good?

The budget sounds nice will all the “it will cost the government a couple of millions” so on and so forth.

But let’s all remember how we got here, is this the same government that imported cheap labor by the millions, without considering the impact it will have on its citizens that voted the PAP into power to safe guard the Singaporean interest in the first place?

Is this not the same PAP government that created a surge in HDB lease hold prices causing Singaporeans to take up a bigger debt liability to lease the flats from HDB, when they allowed PRs to lease directly from HDB.

I am very touched that the PAP government wants to help more Singaporeans own their HDB flats, but sir how is this possible when HDB is the actual owner, it seems the PAP is confused over the term “owner” and Lessee. It would be good if Mr. Mah Bow Tan could educate and clarify this confusion in parliament about the “HDB ownership” myth.

If HDB is the actual owner of the HDB flat and Singaporeans potentially lease it for 99 years, should HDB not be the one to pay the property tax instead?

Next we look at the scrapping of radio and tv license, to be honest there is no need for Singaporeans to pay for that kind of license as home owners that own a TV or radio do not do any forms of broadcasting, so why the need for the license in the very first place ? The advertisements and programs on TV and radio that Singaporeans have to put up with is indeed a torture, take for example playing “pretty woman” repeatedly over and over again.

Next is GST, if GST is to help the poor as claimed by the PAP government, why is it Singaporeans are poorer, so why not scrap GST in the first place, is it not the same as ERP,COE, Minister Mentor, Senior Minister, etc , etc. All this are just channels to collect taxes.

Question is how are these taxes accounted for and how do we know 40 billion is going back to the reserve, if there is no independent audit to account for our reserves.

Lastly I leave you with this thought, if the budget will help you, will you help the PAP in the coming elections, and how will the PAP help themselves once again?

Cheers
Budget 2011: Analysis snippets (Part 2)

Posted by theonlinecitizen on February 19, 2011 35 Comments
by Leong Sze Hian

I refer to the Budget Statement 2011.

Singaporeans’ wages grew 0.44%

Although the Budget statement said:

“Consider what happened to low-income Singaporean workers, at the 20th percentile of incomes. Their wages grew by about 23% in the last decade, or by 5% in real terms”,

I see from Annex A that the real income growth was 4.5 per cent. So, the real income growth per annum over the last decade was 0.44 per cent.

Also, what is interesting is that it is based on Singaporeans’ income, a departure from almost all labour statistics which lump Singaporeans and permanent residents (PRs) together. Moreover, it is based only on full-time employed Singaporeans. In the past, I believe the statistics used were always on all workers, including part-time workers.

If the Budget 2011 can give the data for Singaporeans only, why is it that we have been consistently been unable to break-down the data to Singaporeans and PRs, for unemployment, jobs, etc?

Therefore, real incomes may be lower, if all Singaporean workers (full-time and part-time) are included, which I believe was the case in previous years.

Change data definition – better statistics?

In this connection, last year’s resident full-time and part-time workers’ real income increased by 1.3 and 10 per cent respectively. But these figures may look better because of the change in definition in 2009 to classify part-time workers as those working less than 35 hours a week, instead of 30 hours previously. This may make the part-timers’ income higher because those previously working more than 30 hours may boost up their overall earnings, and full-timers income may also look higher because those working less than 35 hours would no longer be in their category. In other words, the presumably bottom rung of full-timers were moved to become presumably the top rung of part-timers.

Notwithstanding the above, the combined data for all workers was perhaps more revealing, with only a real median income growth of 0.5 per cent last year.

Similarlly, the household income statistics is also perhaps unique, as it is based on “Singaporean” households, instead of the usual resident (Singaporean and PR) households.

Budget surplus or deficit?

If we include land sales which is estimated to be about $15 billion, exclude the Top-ups to Endowment and Trust Funds of $7.14 billion and the $4 billion Resilence Package returned to the reserves, does it mean that the Budget would have had a surplus of about $25.86 billion, instead of a deficit of $0.28 billion? (Note: Transfers to top-up endowment funds are not expenditure per se, as only the interest every year from endowment funds are utilised)

Upgrade! Upgrade!

“We are moving ahead with our Continuing Education and Training (CET) plans. Last year, we announced the Workfare Training Scheme (WTS) to give additional training support for older, low-wage workers. This year, we will strengthen our support for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs), who in fact now make up more than half of our workforce”

The almost yearly ritual of upgrading skills to improve productivity, does not appear to have helped workers much, as recent labour statistics indicste that wages may be continuing to dcline for lower-income workers and that the more educated and older one is, the harder it may be to get a job when you are unemployed. As long as we have liberal foreign labour policies, like allowing foreign graduates to have a pass to stay in Singapore for a year to look for a job, the continuing rhethoric to upgrade may not work, from the perspective of outcomes for workers.

Workfare so little cash?

“D.15. As the economy has performed exceptionally and our revenues have been strong in 2010, I will provide a one-off Special Bonus payment for those on the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme. The Workfare Special Bonus will be given for work done in 2010, as well as for this and next year. The Bonus will amount to 50% more WIS for work done in 2010, and 25% more WIS each year for work done in 2011 and 2012. Employees will receive these bonuses fully in cash”

For a age 45 to 54 workers earning $1,200, the Workfare payout is $286 in cash and $714 to CPF. So, the extra cash that the worker can use is only about $24 a month. With this Budget’s once-off 50 per cent additional all cash Workfare payout, followed by 25 per cent in the next two years, he would only get an additional $500 a year or $42 a month this year, followed by $250 a year or about $21 a month. How substantial is this for the elderly lower-income worker?

Self-employed “lagi” less?

“Self-Employed Persons who make their Medisave contributions will also benefit. They will receive half of their bonus in cash, and the other half in their CPF Medisave accounts”

For the self-employed, it is even less, as only half of the once-off Workfare payout will be in cash. For a age 46 to 54 self employed person earning $1,200 a month, he has to contribute $408 in cash to get $333 Workfare entirely to his CPF. Now the once-off Workfare bonus payout is only 50 per cent in cash, which means that he will only get $166.50 or about $14 a month in cash this year, followed by about $7 in the next two years.
The fundamental problem of Workfare remains – Why would a already cash-strapped self-employed person contribute $408 of his precious cash to get $333 to his Medisave which he can only use if he falls sick or for medical insurance premiums, and hope for once-off special Workfare bonus partial cash payouts in future Budgets?

Not cash benefits?

The following Budget 2011 benefits are not cash that Singaporeans can use:-

$500 millon Medisave top-ups
$175 million Special CPF Housing Grant (SHG)
$10 billion to upgrade homes and rejuvenate estates over the next 10 years
$200 million U-Save and S & CC rebates (as these are to offset increased and possibly increasing costs)

You can read Part One here. Mr Leong will be speaking at this afternoon’s TOC Budget Forum 2011.


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#2
Increase GST .Angel
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#3
The strange thing in the last election was that the Hougang Stadium was fully packed and overflowing when WP held their rallies there.
But when come to election time.. eh? How come the result becomes 66% voted back the same old Pay N Pay?

My take on this: Singaporeans are a very selfish gang. They will want more opposition to be in parliament to have a check and balance, but NOT in their GRC.
Bcos ultimately, they are worried their HDB pricing will drop, no MRT, no upgrading, etc etc.

But the best part about the majority of us is.. noone practise a moment of critical thinking that when the day comes this Pay and Pay goes down, the housing pricing will still "drop".
A statement of Hard Truth from me: Singapore will never survive and rebuilt herself when we faced a external major crisis such as war. Bcos we are too selfish to be bothered with anything. And all thanks to the policy of importing more FTs and not bothering with building up national identity properly.

Our national identity is Chicken Rice, Laska, Satay etc.. Dun believe? Try flipping some ST articles on interviews of overseas Singaporeans on what they missed home most.
Darn strangest answers on earth for most of them that concentrate on food. I get the impression from them is that if no hawker centres, no Singapore. Big Grin

Cheers.


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#4
(20-02-2011, 06:16 PM)arthur Wrote: The strange thing in the last election was that the Hougang Stadium was fully packed and overflowing when WP held their rallies there.
But when come to election time.. eh? How come the result becomes ???

2006 Election result at Aljunied GRC
People's Action Party - 56%
Workers' Party - 44%

main reason - the M vote for PNP, cos WP to them is a Chinese dominated party.....I was at that stadium during that time and the atmosphere is so strong dat i dun believe the opp lost .....some said re-boundary with statistic can artificially be the winner.....look at at few old block at hougang constituency bot by wing tai 2 yrs ago then tear down just to leave it vacant.....those WP supporters are dispersed all over the island.....this is another strategy.


I really look forward to have such a rally...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Worker..._rally.jpg
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#5
It is a no brainer what the budget aims to do.
It is a strategy on their part and there is probably nothing wrong with that.

While looking what they are 'giving' us, perhaps
we should also look at what they are taking away from us.
When voting, instead of voting for the party you like, perhaps we should
cast a vote against the party we don't like. (And many of us can easily identify that.)

The system of governance worked very well in the past.
The garment indeed knows what's best during those times.
But as the population matures and becomes more educated,
and we move to being a developed country, the system may need to see some changes.

The western system probably is more democratic and transparent, democracy has its plus points and weakness.
It is a total package.

It is interesting what is happening in the US now. The house of representatives(republicans majority), okays the bill to cut spending.
However it has to pass through the senate(Democrats majority) before it'll pass congress. So it is a very slow and tedious process to push something through. But when something goes through, it would represent the consensus and passed scrutiny from all sides. Our system is Singapore is vastly different as we all know.

China failed in the past as there was too much concentrated power.
Dynasties do not last forever. Now it is happening to the middle east.
The western developed countries, for all their foolishness and silly acts,
has a more sustainable democratic system in place.
















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#6
I believe it will take quite some time before such "democratic" change comes to Singapore, either through the electoral system or revolution and protests like in the Middle East now.

I feel our population is not informed enough and do not care enough to want to break free from the "Status Quo" and make a difference. In short, everyone is simply too comfortable and caught up with their own material goods and wants to care about something as nebulous as "political change" and "freedom of speech".

Sad but true.
My Value Investing Blog: http://sgmusicwhiz.blogspot.com/
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#7
Singapore's living condition is still thousands of miles ahead of those poor middle east countries. There are many grouses and unhappiness but i do not think we have reached the stage that we need to go to street to protest yet.

There is a difference between hard life and unbearable life. Most poor singaporeans are more of the former than the latter.
As for the middle income singaporeans, the main grouse is hardly the price of the basic neccesities. They are mainly concerned with properties' prices, retirement needs and the inner fear of losing their jobs to the foreigners.



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#8
Agreed. Is more of Quality Life now. How to reduce the Stress of Living.
The whole society has moved to next level if we keep comparing with 1960's or 1970's or backward countries, sooner or later you will be outdated because the bulk of the people has already progressed.

Just my Diary
corylogics.blogspot.com/


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#9
STI has been declining in the few days leading up to the budget announcement. It has continue to drop today after budget announcement. Clearly, this budget does not help businesses, at least it is viewed that way.
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#10
(21-02-2011, 01:19 AM)Musicwhiz Wrote: I believe it will take quite some time before such "democratic" change comes to Singapore, either through the electoral system or revolution and protests like in the Middle East now.

I feel our population is not informed enough and do not care enough to want to break free from the "Status Quo" and make a difference. In short, everyone is simply too comfortable and caught up with their own material goods and wants to care about something as nebulous as "political change" and "freedom of speech".

Sad but true.

Can't be more true than this. Most of the time it does not go beyond how much "growth dividends" and rebates we are getting, or what taxes might be removed. I was both bemused and irked by the fact that the removal of the TV licence could be greeted with such loud cheers and applause from the parliamentarians whilst watching the live telecast, who should be expected to be impressed by more meaningful measures. There seems to be little scope for how one can help to improve this prevailing system as a whole in reality.

On a separate note, this was Kuwait's recent "growth package"

Kuwait MPs pass $5 bln aid package for citizens

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) – The parliament of the wealthy Gulf state of Kuwait on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation to grant cash and free food to Kuwaiti citizens totalling over $5 billion to mark national occasions.

The grants, made last week by Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, stipulate paying 1,000 dinars ($3,580) to each Kuwaiti citizen plus free distribution of essential food items for 14 months.

The cash grant will be paid to 1.155 million Kuwaiti citizens on February 24 while distribution of food will start February 1 and last until March 31 next year.

All 53 MPs present approved the law, which does not apply to the 2.4 million foreign residents in the country.

The Gulf state, whose financial assets top $300 billion, will next month mark the golden jubilee of independence, 20th anniversary of liberation from Iraqi occupation and the five years of the emir's ascendance to power.

Several MPs called on the government to take necessary measures to prevent merchants from exploiting the grant by raising prices which have been increasing over the past few months.

Independent MP Saleh Ashour said the prices of some food products had increased in that time by more than 35 percent.

Commerce and Industry Minister Ahmad al-Harun told the house that the ministry "will not allow merchants to exploit paying the grant to increase prices."

Inflation in Kuwait soared to 5.9 percent in November, the highest in 20 months on the back of high food prices which rose by 12.3 percent.

The fifth-largest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Kuwait has posted budget surpluses in each of the past 11 fiscal years, totalling more than $140 billion. It is also headed for another healthy surplus this year thanks to rising oil price.

The government has made similar but smaller grants in the past.

The Gulf Arab state provides a cradle-to-grave welfare system to its citizens who receive most public services and petrol at heavily subsidised prices and pay no income tax.

Some 80 percent of Kuwait's 360,000-strong national workforce is employed in government jobs, where the average monthly wage is more than $3,500.

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