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Barely days after I mentioned that BTO flat prices have "supposedly been delinked", there has now been a clarification from Parliament from the relevant minister. In response to the question: "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?", this was his answer: "The member has not heard wrongly. Both statements are correct. We take into account those factors, and we apply a discount, and then further we give extra grants to the members. But in recent months because when I de-linked - the meaning of de-linking means, I vary the discounts, so that the prices can maintain, steady." If I understand what he's saying, this means that the fundamental basis of new flat prices is still linked to that of surrounding resale flats - but since there is now more scope to "discount" from there, they feel justified in stating that it is de-linked (yay!). And therefore, the prices end up magically being both linked and de-linked at the same time. Well, perhaps we can't expect too much, since a true cost-based approach would collapse the market and enrage recent buyers, but this is a reminder to never take what politicians say at face value. They can very well do the opposite while keeping a completely straight face.  So reasonable! (Original source: MND Facebook, The State's Times) Sure, it is true that employers would prefer young, cheap labour, with nine foreign chambers of commerce writing in - but since when did employers not salivate over cheap labour? And why aren't those chambers lobbying for their home countries to grow their population by 32% in 17 years too? Tellingly, on the previous page, a French national residing here said, "I am French, my parents are French, why should I erase my history and identity just to get a Singapore passport?", even as our own DPM asserts that "Being Singaporean is not where you are born but is what you believe". History? Identity? Negotiable. The cosmetic debate in Parliament rages on with the WP offering instead their vision of 5.9 million or less, but all past experience points to the "worst-case" population projections being met or surpassed - does anyone believe that our profit-oriented transport providers, for one, will willingly take losses on supplying excess capacity? Meanwhile, Alex Au has rationally suggested that the Population White Paper's focus should be on children, not GDP growth, which the NSP is in agreement on. He further goes on to convincingly illustrate that the bogeyman 2.1 dependency ratio, far from being unacceptable, is actually roughly what can be expected in a developed economy with a stable population, and that the current ratio of 5.9 is instead an aberration that simply cannot be sustained naturally. It can, however, be artifically sustained, which is basically what the proposed plan is - allow in a large working-age population that stays "forever young" by not renewing their employment passes/permits once they get old. If this sounds like an employer's wet dream, it is. It is also a wage-depresser - labour behaves like any other commodity in supply-demand dynamics - and productivity killer, even without the intangible but not insignificant sentiments about cultural dilution, loss of identity and doing National Service to guard a population that is half-foreign coming in. If the incumbents think that since they managed to forge four major races together into one people years ago, they can therefore easily repeat the feat at will... well, let's say that times may not be the same any more. So, it could be asked, after all the criticism, is there an alternative? In short, I think yes, there is, but... There will be PAIN Using construction as an example - could we, instead of using 250000 low-skilled foreign labourers, instead rely on 100000 trained locals? Technically, the answer is obviously yes, since many if not most developed economies, Hong Kong for one, are on this model. In practice, however, one could look at it from the perspective of a contractor. To make the transition, he would first have to learn or hire engineers well-versed in less labour-intensive methods, possibly making some costly mistakes along the way. He would then have to hire and train locals, some of whom might quit along the way, while paying relatively high retainers. Next, he would have to worry about supplies such as prefab parts, which may not enjoy economies of scale if most other contractors are not interested in them. And after all this, he might not even be making much more profit than today. It's easy to understand how they might very well just throw up their hands in this environment, and continue calling in S$18-a-day guys who will cheerfully say "Yes, boss!" at every opportunity. Can this state of affairs be broken? This is where the pain comes in. Certainly, some companies will not be able to cope, and go bust. There will be a stretch of time where lifts don't get repaired as quickly as the industry adjusts, earning complaints from all directions. But in time, say ten years, if not twenty, it all should come good. But one can as easily imagine policy makers consider all the shit, risk and additional work that they would have to take if they proposed this, and weigh it against the joys of a quiet working life and their remaining years to retirement, before quietly erasing the whiteboard and recommending a tweak. To conclude this, a friend went off the record on GChat to ask me what I honestly thought of the incumbents, which was quite unnecessary. If I recall, the helpfully proposed options were greedy, stupid or ballless. What I said may have been a little disappointing. To me, I would say that most of them are individually fairly decent fellows - while this might be an open invitation to online lynch mobs to converge on me as an Internet Brigade Troll, it is the truth. Come on, I don't think they all signed on just to inflict pain and misery. At the end of the day, many of them are simply fellow Singaporeans called upon to serve, some of whom could never be mistaken for the psychopathic manipulators that some sections of the local Internet community would paint them as - case in point, the good doctor who ran a hapless PR campaign for Punggol East. Greedy? Well, perhaps. They've often admitted as much themselves, such as when they justified their salaries. But then, I daresay most of us are kind of greedy too. Stupid? Hardly, if one goes by qualifications. It might get a little more iffy if we go by "helicopter ability" standards, but that rare quality is famously hard to judge. So it's down to ballless. If you read that as "lack of will to change", this probably hits closest to home. Current developments all point to a group mentality of keeping to what worked previously, even as the costs of that slowly pile on. 3.5 to 4.5 million? A bit of dissent, manageable. 4.5 to 5.3, transport breaking down, housing through the roof? No problem, some small fixes and we're good to go for 6.9! That's it, all set for the next 17 years! And when that day comes, the next batch can just look at the figures, say that they're sorry but there's no choice, we've got to make the tough decisions... Eight million it is. Next: It Continues
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