Govt keeping close eye on ECs

[corydorus]

When people see Minister and Developers rub shoulders Or trying to emulate HK housing ... it is something of concerns.
Glad there is a revamp.

[specuvestor]

Nothing wrong with being fire fighters, it is a noble profession. There will always be fire to fight. There are governments that fiddle while the country burns, so I am thankful that our gahmen is still fighting fire.

After the fire has been doused by the fire-fighters, we should start asking questions like ... what is the root cause of the fire? As specuvestor has suggested, the free market is efficient but not effective, particularly on tasks with social objectives in which fairness is paramount. On hindsight, the government kept their hands off jobs that should be rightfully theirs and left too much to the free market. Why leave EC development freely to private developers when they got subsidies from taxpayers? Why privatize SMRT when it is a monopoly for a vital social service? Is it right for billions of dollars of profits to be spent on dividends for thousands of shareholders instead of maintenance of our transport infrastructure that will be used by millions of commuters? When social services are monopolized by private companies, customers like us will still have to go back to the same private monopoly regardless of how badly screwed we are. Which was better? The SMRT before it was privatized or the one after? Not trying to sidetrack this thread to SMRT woes but using SMRT as an example of bad privatisation, like ECs.

When people see Minister and Developers rub shoulders Or trying to emulate HK housing ... it is something of concerns.
Glad there is a revamp.

Agree with Hyom and Cory. HK is a perfect example of how rich developers exploit the home owners, with HK properties now being the most expensive in the world.

Public service and private enterprises cannot be mingled because they have different objectives. We might as well abolish defence since it takes up 1/4 of our budget and a cost centre with little revenue generation.

Problem with public service is the incentive system. Capitalism is not the cure. That's why I say high ministers' pay (not obscene) is principally correct but incentive structure sucks.

SGX as a regulator that answers to profit driven shareholders is already an oxymoron. Consider why a China power station, Huaneng Power, derives 1/3 of their profit from a single power station in Singapore. Who foots the bill? Issue with NKF, SMRT, high utility bills, etc. is not a recent phenomenon. Singapore Inc started with Goh and it takes at least a decade to show the cracks. We have to be clear where is the root.

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> For eg if tomorrow Khaw say no one can own more than 1 property, do you think the people will appreciate the asset deflation?

Khaw will never do this, because their objective is to entrench people in singapore. sell more land, get them off HDB phones to condos, and less worry about town council problems.

Khaw did say the bike purchase was JUSTIFIED. And he did not acknowledge the bikes of $2000 per bike was expensive, I take it that he says it is value for money.

Is this very difficult to judge and implement?

The stated objective for HDB is to provide affordable housing for the masses. The real reason is that as a migrant society in 1965, we need to make the populace have a vested interest in Singapore's future. So we make everyone a property owner. This is not a conspiracy theory, It is in LKY's memoirs.

And the principle makes a lot of sense. Fast forward to 50 years later with our issue with FT. I don't think we have a serious problem with overseas talents because that is in our blood. We have a serious problem with foreign talents because they REMAIN foreign, they are like hot money... They have no vested interest in our future. Citizens must always have its privileges. That was too watered down in the last decade.

And that leads to Khaw Boon Wan who was an overseas talent and one of few PAP guy that I would vote for. But for sure the bicycle saga is not his finest moments, even though subsequently it was investigated. So to his credit it didn't end there by saying it is not an issue. Like Hyom say, contrast with the other incompetent ministers.

And also remember that they had debated about NKF and brushed it aside in parliament. It was SPH that finally busted NKF, not government investigations. This has far reaching implications on governance than most people realised.

[hyom]

Like Munger always say... look at the incentive system. This incentive system is driving Singapore to be a rich man's playground. I don't think this is that surprising. Conversely if the minister's pay is pegged to say bottom 20th quartile of the population, then things will change.

EDIT: I mean MULTIPLE of 20th quartile.

I cannot agree with you more. A committee was set up to look into setting the right salaries for our Ministers last year. I think it would be better if the committee had looked into setting the right incentives instead of the right salaries. It is not only wasteful but even harmful to spend lots of money to attract brilliant people and then drive them with the wrong incentives. See what happened to Wall Street in 2008 when it self-destruct with all the brains and energy that money could attract. It all boils down to bad incentives driving intelligent people to game the system leading to their own self-destruction. The world would have been a safer place in 2008 if Wall Street had hired stupider people.

Bad incentives and smart people are similarities which our elitist government hold in common with Wall Street. I hope we learn the right lessons from 2008 to prevent the same thing from happening.

George Yeo used the term "enlightened self-interest" to persuade Singaporeans to vote for PAP. Actually, to increase votes for PAP, "enlightened self-interest" should tell PAP to peg their salaries to a high multiple of the median income of the masses and not to the income of the top 1000 earners. Only 1000 votes, how to stay in power? Meanwhile, as salaries are pegged to the top 1000 income earners, policy-makers' internal biases will be to favor the rich. This will worsen the income-inequality problem which is already a major threat to social stability today, not to mention the votes that will be lost.

I am not against top government leaders and civil servants getting high salary. In fact, high salaries for top government people is a good thing because the most expensive place to have incompetent idiots is in the government. However, excessive salaries do have one side-effect. When salaries are too high for senior public servants, they no longer have a stake in the long-term future of Singapore. With globalization, the rich can simply migrate to greener pastures and take their money along with them. When policy-makers do not have a long-term stake in the country, their policies can take on a self-serving short-term bent. Earn as much as you can while you can, place low priority on the long-term good because if the country crumbles later, just migrate!

Get the incentives right, please! The stakes are too high. At least for most Singaporeans who are not rich enough to migrate.

[Temperament]

Like Munger always say... look at the incentive system. This incentive system is driving Singapore to be a rich man's playground. I don't think this is that surprising. Conversely if the minister's pay is pegged to say bottom 20th quartile of the population, then things will change.

EDIT: I mean MULTIPLE of 20th quartile.

I cannot agree with you more. A committee was set up to look into setting the right salaries for our Ministers last year. I think it would be better if the committee had looked into setting the right incentives instead of the right salaries. It is not only wasteful but even harmful to spend lots of money to attract brilliant people and then drive them with the wrong incentives. See what happened to Wall Street in 2008 when it self-destruct with all the brains and energy that money could attract. It all boils down to bad incentives driving intelligent people to game the system leading to their own self-destruction. The world would have been a safer place in 2008 if Wall Street had hired stupider people.

Bad incentives and smart people are similarities which our elitist government hold in common with Wall Street. I hope we learn the right lessons from 2008 to prevent the same thing from happening.

George Yeo used the term "enlightened self-interest" to persuade Singaporeans to vote for PAP. Actually, to increase votes for PAP, "enlightened self-interest" should tell PAP to peg their salaries to a high multiple of the median income of the masses and not to the income of the top 1000 earners. Only 1000 votes, how to stay in power? Meanwhile, as salaries are pegged to the top 1000 income earners, policy-makers' internal biases will be to favor the rich. This will worsen the income-inequality problem which is already a major threat to social stability today, not to mention the votes that will be lost.

I am not against top government leaders and civil servants getting high salary. In fact, high salaries for top government people is a good thing because the most expensive place to have incompetent idiots is in the government. However, excessive salaries do have one side-effect. When salaries are too high for senior public servants, they no longer have a stake in the long-term future of Singapore. With globalization, the rich can simply migrate to greener pastures and take their money along with them. When policy-makers do not have a long-term stake in the country, their policies can take on a self-serving short-term bent. Earn as much as you can while you can, place low priority on the long-term good because if the country crumbles later, just migrate!

Get the incentives right, please! The stakes are too high. At least for most Singaporeans who are not rich enough to migrate.

Hi hyom,
I can't agree more. i always feel the Papys have reached the valley of no return because of the way they are over-paid. So i think many of them don't really bother or can feel how we feel. Another words, your votes do not matter anymore, really.

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I would say the definition of "affordability" has changed radically over the years. In the past, it used to be that what was affordable needed to be fully funded by cash, and therefore anyone who wanted to buy anything would have to SAVE UP for the purchase.

Nowadays, you can use credit and leverage to ensure something is "affordable", but you pay only the installments and a ton of interest to the bank/finance company. Technically, this means that you are paying for something you cannot actually afford by using FUTURE money*.

This is what many couples and property investors are doing - using future money to pay for current enjoyment; all in the hopes that prices will (forever) rise and they can cash out even richer than before!

*I do not endorse this trend and do not think it is healthy at all!

Yes! So what can ordinary working class do? The Rich and Powerful Elites force the working class to go on leverage if possible even in the daily necessities of daily living. And a roof over your head, is it a necessity for your life? Anyway, history will always repeat itself.

[FA+TA]

2013 just started, but another issue pop out. After EC, this issue emerge.

新年伊始,一波未平，一波又起
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singapore...35476.html

Just like watching Hong Kong drama serial, never ending interesting plots keep appearing. What next?

Past year, my family was continually bormbarded and polluted with words like Orxx Sxx that never appear or heard on printed media, radio and TV so frequently before. I have no choice but stop using my favourite Oral B toothpaste and toothbrush and switch to Colgate before young family members ask me what is Orxx Sxx.

4 Chinese words 以诚待人 is what the ruling party should follow. Hope for positive changes after many new bloods in the party. Very disappointed...

[HitandRun]

And that leads to Khaw Boon Wan who was an overseas talent and one of few PAP guy that I would vote for. But for sure the bicycle saga is not his finest moments, even though subsequently it was investigated. So to his credit it didn't end there by saying it is not an issue. Like Hyom say, contrast with the other incompetent ministers.

Hi Specuvestor

I'm curious about your assessment here. Do you reckon his performance at Ministry of Health is good? Despite overcrowding public hospitals (patients had to be place at corridors for many hours), KTPH being filled just several months after it opened, insufficient medical practitioners such that we have to import many FT doctors (if you go to polyclinics, you will know what i mean), govt had to pay incentives for foreign medical graduates to come back, etc.

[Ray168]

URA to stop developers from profitting off supersized ECs: Khaw
Published on Jan 07, 2013 3:30 PM

National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said Monday that he has directed the Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA) to tighten the rules on the developers of executive condominium (EC) projects to prevent them from profitting off the sale of free space.

Mr Khaw said that he was originally "baffled" that developers were "short-changing" themselves by launching such massive units, as they could have made more money by using the space for two or three normal-sized apartments.

After looking into the matter, he realised that developers were using a loophole in the rules to profit from the super-sized units. Currently, they do not have to pay development charges on outdoor roof terraces, as URA wants to encourage developers to build more communal outdoor space for residents to enjoy.

For example, the presidential penthouse suite at the CityLife @ Tampines project has a roof terrace of 1,600 sq ft, on which the developer did not have to pay development charges.

"Developers' selling off free spaces to make additional profit for themselves is not improper under current URA rules," wrote Mr Khaw. " But as more developers do so, with larger private roof terraces and "private enclosed spaces," communal space in the development that benefits all residents will correspondingly shrink."

Furthermore, buyers may find themselves disappointed later on when they realise that the outdoor spaces they have paid for are not allowed to be covered up or enclosed, he said. He has directed URA to "review this policy and have it fixed."

[brattzz]

no wonder, got loophole didn't plug!

[Contrarian]

> no wonder, got loophole didn't plug!

Well done, bro. Their eyes are so damn 'sharp'.

When it happens, then Khaw said "follow the spirit of the law" - it's a good joke... Businessman are there to make $. Follow the EC spirit? My god...

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> And that leads to Khaw Boon Wan who was an overseas talent and one of few PAP guy that I would
> vote for.

he, the health minister, delayed the heart balloon surgery operation and it become a full heart bypass. And he paid $8 only.

If I were health minister, I would have paid the full amount because I delayed the operation.

[specuvestor]

And that leads to Khaw Boon Wan who was an overseas talent and one of few PAP guy that I would vote for. But for sure the bicycle saga is not his finest moments, even though subsequently it was investigated. So to his credit it didn't end there by saying it is not an issue. Like Hyom say, contrast with the other incompetent ministers.

Hi Specuvestor

I'm curious about your assessment here. Do you reckon his performance at Ministry of Health is good? Despite overcrowding public hospitals (patients had to be place at corridors for many hours), KTPH being filled just several months after it opened, insufficient medical practitioners such that we have to import many FT doctors (if you go to polyclinics, you will know what i mean), govt had to pay incentives for foreign medical graduates to come back, etc.

IMHO in general I appreciate him because through the years I feel that the guy has a heart, though we have different religious beliefs, and he is a worker. His first problem was SARS which he handled quite well. He also improved the hospital transparencies. He also looked into a certain hospital in the East. He also improved the medishield system. I am personally disappointed that he didn't include critical illness as part of universal healthcare.

I do not think our public hospitals are optimal, and I think he agrees there are much room to improve. But healthcare is not a simple problem to solve. There was a parliament debate saying we must not encourage entitlement lifestyle for healthcare... SERIOUSLY?? Who would purposely get AIDS for eg in order to get AIDS, or leukemia or diabetes subsidied treatments? Seriously these guys read too much theory to even comprehend how the real world with incentives work. If I get subsidies for something optional, I would find ways to abuse the system, for eg the recent EC. But if it is something that I am forced into, for eg critical illness or birth issues, why wouldn't the state provide universal insurance, which should be much cheaper than pte insurance where agents cream off more than half of premiums?

Suffice to say that our system still outperforms many 1st world countries, though it has room to improve. And I would STILL never visit that particular hospital in the east. Khaw is now in MND to grind through what his predecessor failed to do.

> no wonder, got loophole didn't plug!

Well done, bro. Their eyes are so damn 'sharp'.

When it happens, then Khaw said "follow the spirit of the law" - it's a good joke... Businessman are there to make $. Follow the EC spirit? My god...

---

> And that leads to Khaw Boon Wan who was an overseas talent and one of few PAP guy that I would
> vote for.

he, the health minister, delayed the heart balloon surgery operation and it become a full heart bypass. And he paid $8 only.

If I were health minister, I would have paid the full amount because I delayed the operation.

Regulations are there to give guidelines on the intent. And I think our policies generally are much more clearer than other places. We emphasize a lot on 1st principles: why the policy exist. This is very crucial because people executing the doctrine are able to come out with bureaucratic procedures that follow the intent, rather than in other countries that the intent is totally lost in piles of paperwork. The regulation itself has become the intent.

The $8 saga has to be read in context: he paid $8 out-of-pocket after medishield and pte insurer payments, and co-insurance paid by medisave. It doesn't cost him $8. Is he delusional that most people in his condition would pay only $8 out-of-pocket? Maybe, especially if I am the insurance company paying out to the health minister But relatively low out-of pocket expense in that type of scheme is not impossible.