Somewhere in may, the govt just gave out one of its largest payout to singaporean aged 21. whilst many singaporeans are happily enjoying the money, i have an alternative view on this. the progress package is not as benefitial as it seems at all. Ever since May, prices of transportation have gone up, be it taxi and now bus ride. Soon after the election, the govt has implement a "yellow box" smoke zone tax. Where is the government allowing for all this when SBS is still earning big fat profit of $200million annually? Does the answer really lies in the price increase of crude oil? Perhaps. But in my opinion, the underlying reason, which the public will find it hard to accept is progress package. The government is forced to reduce the inflationary pressure off the private sector after giving such a big payout. Let's take a more commonsensical, economic approach. When the government gives out money to its people. There is only 2 outcome. They spend it or they save it. Now we zoom in abit more and ask ourself, how is the money given out? it is progressive or regressive? kinda obvious, its regressive. hence, the money given is more likely to be spent than any other purpose. So now on a macro level, we now have a scenario where there is higher demand of commodities. so as across the board, price level will go up. Being regressive, the progress package will definitely have different impact on different goods. we also have to note that singapore does not exactly manufacture many of the goods, a large portion of it is actually foreign import. now, that's where the trick come, prices will confirm go up, due to the sudden injection of such a large amount of funds. the government job now is to keep the inflow locally and not out of it. it is not a delibrate attempt to "tax" back all the money. but more rather, it is to limit outflow of sing dollar and to maintain exchange rate. a sudden outflow of sing dollar will lower the exchange rate of sing dollar against almost all other currency. that will in turn raise the price of almost everything in singapore (which is much worse than just the measly increment we get for bus fare, so dun complain ok). but bottomline, the caused of it all is progress package. a government should never give out money like that, no matter how much money they have (trust ong teng cheong to even propose it when he was president, now Lee Hsien has done it... well, in my opinion... its just plain stupid. the balloon has been lying there to tempt so many people, yet it is him who burst it... sigh... i can that sums up my disappointment towards the 3rd generation PAP leaders).
posted @ 10:41 PM ||
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name: Tianyu
Passion: Maths, Music, Table Tennis
sex: M
philosophy: many people knows different part of me, but one thing in common is i will not
allow myself to fall *Elandriel*
