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The main cause of abnormally low birth rate is high living costs of which the key one is high property prices and subsequently mortgage costs. That is why the garment must crush ppty prices, and overdo it otherwise people will not be daunted. In other words, they must have the courage of Paul Volcker.
Paul Volcker was a 7-foot giant literally. Will a 5-foot minister also be able to exercise the same political courage as him? Go for it, Tiger!
This can be one cause of a declining birth rate. Click
Livermore, you have hit the nail on the head. With a birth rate of 1.23 (2.1 is the replacement level), it is NOT reversible. NO country with that sort of birth rate has ever been successful in reversing the birth rate. If Singapore does not import workers to replace those who pass on and retire from work due to old age, in 30 years, the scenerio here will change drastically especially with an ageing population problem. There will not be enough service personnel at all levels - be it services at ports, airports or land including health care (health care workers are in demand throughout the world). Foreign firms would not want to invest here due to shortage of workers or qualified personnel. In fact, there will be a migration of foreign firms and foreigners from Singapore. We won't have to blame PRs for high property prices because property will tank as will the share market as will the rental market. Government coffers will fall drastically. Many local and foreign firms will migrate to other countries to survive. Jobs will be less and Singaporeans may have to take up PR in other flourishing countries. Wonder if Singaporeans will complain when working in say China or Taiwan and are required to do NS there with the same priveleges as we give their citizen PRs here. In all the letters in the Straits Times we read PRs get the SAME priveleges enjoyed by citizens or citizens lose out in job applications or for university admission or award of scholarships - really, do PRs get the SAME priveleges? If indeed, a PR gets a job, a varsity course or scholarship over a citizen with the same qualifications, then write to the firm, varsity or civil service head with supporting evidence and cc a copy to the Straits Times and your MP. All Singaporeans will rightly be outraged. We read also PR is the cause of high property prices. Really? Look at it another way. Singaporeans who got 'subsidised' housing sold to PRs at record prices and PRs get the blame for causing property prices to soar while the Singaporeans who make enormous profit was never blamed for fleecing the PRs and causing the property price to soar. Remember they have the option to sell only to Singaporeans and decline the PR offers. We also read in this forum that 8k or 10k is not enough nowadays. How many of the PRs who stay in HDB earn that sort of money? We should learn from them that inspite of all the handicaps and extra expenses, they save enough to pay for a resale flat. My point is don't play the blame game especially when unsupported by facts or it may come back to haunt you in the future.
Livermore ( Date: 03-Apr-2010 13:14) Posted:
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Decreasing baby population will be here to stay. But I believe the garment will be determned to increase future PR population to at least 8 million to be able to sustain economic growth and population renewal. At present 4 over million, Singapore is still a very dead city - dead nightlife, dead retail life. So must have more people lah....
Livermore ( Date: 03-Apr-2010 13:14) Posted:
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In my view if you analyse the problems as a whole, the number one and most serious one is our declining birth rate
Australia not as good as many people here think. Racism same as 15 years ago, still as strong or not stronger. You get university or college white boys throwing racial slurls at you when you walk down street (from time to time). Train and bus service still as bad as 15 years ago with lttle or no improvement to frequency and bus shelter conditions. Now a cuppa cost around 4-5 aussie dollars and will keep on increasing. Yes, there is medisave but the medicine are so expensive and there is no reimbursement. A fried rice with egg in cheap Melbourne Chinatown Hongkong restaurant now cost about AUD 8.50. Clothes are mostly imported and a cheap T-shirt can cost 50 bucks. Mtero tickets are always on the rise - one short trip within CBD (no return) can cost around 3-4 bucks. Unemployment benefits can only let you get by with very minimal and not luxurious comfort....
nickyng ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 21:56) Posted:
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that is also one reason that the market volume so low....because most retail player/investor like me scare to lose hard earn money and dare not enter market before everytin clear out..... just in case market u-turn and we kana caught....
Livermore ( Date: 03-Apr-2010 00:13) Posted:
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Just for educational purpose .
10 years ago scenario: CPF rate reduction started at 55 yrs old
A 30-yr old couple earning slightly >$8000 per month, bought a 80x$8000 = $ 640 K property, borrowed 80%, i.e $512K at 4% p.a. interest (it was higher rate at that time) for 25 years repayment. The monthly repayment was 512 x$ 5.27837 = $2703 = 33.8% of salary, minus 20% from CPF ($1600), monthly cash will be $1103. So amount of salary left for other uses and saving will be $8000x80% minus $1103 = $5297.
Present scenario : CPF rate reduction starts at 50 yrs old (means must stop paying housing loan !, must also take into account job unstability)
A 30-yr couple earning slightly > $ 8000 per month, bought a 90x$8000 = $ 720 K property, borrows 80%, i.e $640 K at 2.75% p.a. interest for 20 yrs. The monthly repayment will be 640x$5.42166 = $3470 = 43.4% of salary, minus $1600 from CPF, monthly cash repayment will be $1870, so amount of salary left for other uses or saving will be $8000x80% - $1870 = $4530.
So it looks like the income ceiling for HDB direct purchase has to be increased by at least 10% every 10 yrs.
A friend's friend was working in Australia. So his parents who are retirees when stay with him, got PR, stay for 20 yrs already. Now the son has moved to Canada, the parents decided to come back to spore bcos 1) Canada is too cold for them, 2) Australian is getting racialist (similar to spore, unfriendly to PR), 3) they are spore govt pensioners so medically they are taken of as they were inAustralia.
While only her husband is working in Australia, my sister-in-laws who is a homemaker recevies a monthly unemployment allowance, a child allowance for her elder child and a baby allowance for her baby.
She can enjoy FREE ENGLISH education in the university.
All medical consultations are FREE, only pay for the medicines.
My uncle who is retired in Australia, also enjoyed all the FREE education just tO his TiME.
nOw, i regret that i did not bother to take up the PR before.
Sporeguy ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 12:43) Posted:
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Protection of your capital should be the top priority...
Because once there is a loss, no matter how small, it is very, very difficult to even break even...
Repeat, it is very hard to break even... 
Livermore ( Date: 03-Apr-2010 00:13) Posted:
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this market is deliberately be let to raise till today's booming price. our boss can easily revert to the previous regulation, staying for at least 3 to 5 years and maintain HBD flat as geniune roof to live under, not for making income, what is 1 year tight down for fully paid HDB, a 200k (3Rms) 300K(4rms) before was peanut for many condos singaporean owners to have it fully paid. on top of it, the rich foreigners being PRs here too.
We can just say and say to get our anger out of our nostrils but if it's control to make it into today's situation, we can only sigh! as we know what can be done but yet it would not be done..
Many parents of the Asian countries have their children well educated in their countries or here and want them to work here once they are graduated.......forget about Citizenry ship, my dear singaporean mates. Pragmatic is our boss slogan, but never thought that it would be so extreme that we soon become secondary citizen. not fantastically high paid and no bunch of money from rich parents so middle class (in work) or (in living) or lower class.
It's still good when reasons being we lack of elite and laboury man-power, but nowadays, clerks, tourguides etc. jobs are taken up by foreigners. and many Singaporeans pie of cake was halved and have no say about salary.........this is my dear homeland nowadays. I believe many of you could feel the same.
I agree.. these days $10K is not much.
Car + house + maid + daily spending + medical bills
After all that, there really isn't much left to invest. Cannot afford to be out of a job.
Livermore ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 00:15) Posted:
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Don't lose your capital. Once you lose that it is hard to make good money in the market and you find yourself "locked" and no choice but to keep working and working ........
WLBO_BB ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 08:09) Posted:
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wah! quick tell me where to apply Oz PR now !! :P mai tu liao !! :P hee....will i get shoot or mug to death by those racist Australians or not har? :P hee... :)
Sporeguy ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 12:43) Posted:
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save!!!U still lucky got 500 to save.. now family stuck in position. earnings too high to buy new flat. but resale too ex to afford. not to mention condo. anyhow garment only looking after one thing la.
Livermore ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 14:02) Posted:
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junction is toking sense. we can criticise garment but sometimes we also need to be grounded in reality and not be carried away.
Whether PR marry PR or citizen or foreigner, second generation must do NS. Most Singaporeans are as ignorant as you on the benefits and disincentives of PR. Ever wonder why first generation PR normally don't do NS? One is security reason. Singapore's enemies can easily send their spies to apply PR here. Second, most of the PR are not fit enough to go through BMT since they are not in their teens. Children of PR however, would have attended local school and mixed with locals and accepted local culture so they are less of a security threat and we catch them young and fit enough for BMT. There are pros and cons in having PRs and foreign workers but if say we chase them out tomorrow, Singapore will grind to halt immediately - schools, buses, MRT, restaurants, airports, seaports, services, contruction, cleaners, etc will see chaos. Remember, Singaporeans shun manyof the jobs foreigners take up. PR can come here to beef up our economy or can go elsewhere to help compete against us and certainly Australia has better benefits than what we can offer them. So lets not go overboard in our criticm. Don't they pay more taxes with less deductables than a similar Singaporean? Are they not denied buying direct from HDB, denied HDB loan, denied subsidies, pay more for upgrading of the flats, denied top up of CPF, baby bonus, and now pay 3 times more than Singaporeans for the education of their children from primary to university, pay more for health care, and a host of more disincentives to differentiate them from Singaporeans. If we go overboard one day we may realise that we have been shooting ourselves at our feet.
niuyear ( Date: 01-Apr-2010 16:24) Posted:
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It is not surprising to find couples living in private property but no children
WLBO_BB ( Date: 02-Apr-2010 08:09) Posted:
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I heard that PR in Australia got almost the same benefit as the citizen. A cousin (sporean) of my friend went to set up a chip & fish restaurant for a few yrs, got PR, close down the restaurant and got all the benefit such as unemployment and medical as long as he does not own more than 1 property. Now he goes fishing by the lake everyday. Any input !