Strange how the 走
always
attribute inflation to oil other than government's policy on GST
and immigration.
Oil was already on the high side before the GST increase. My
take is, the inflation was caused by oil, GST and immigration
policies.
The price of food and housing was stable the whole of 2007 till
the implementation of GST and immigration policy (to increase
population thru immigration to 6.5 million).
After the GST increase, prices of all food rises; then with the
increase in immigrant population and en-bloc sales (demolishment of
existing housing to make way for high density housing), a shortage
of housing caused an astronomical increase in housing prices.
All these issues are the result of oil? Not forgetting that most
of our energy generation comes from natural gas, not crude oil. I
can't see the logic of SingPower pegging it's electricity prices to
crude oil prices. The price of natural gas has been more or less
stable from 2003 to 2007 except for a spike at the end of 2005 and
beginning of 2006.
Source: http://www.energyshop.com/es/homes/gas/gaspriceforecast.cfm?
When the economy is good and booming, they attribute the success
of the economy to their foresight and planning. But when economy
take a turns for the worse, they push the blame to the global
economy. Shouldn't their wise foresight and planning averted all
these economic maladies? I wonder what does the citizens look for
in a leader? The kind of leader who shuns responsibility when
calamity strikes and takes undue credit. I respect those Japanese
leaders who step down to take responsibility of their mistakes,
unlike others who just sit still and blame others for their
incompetence.
Having extremely intelligent leaders paid multi-million dollar
salaries, yet they can't avert mundane economic woes. Obviously our
leaders aren't worth their weight in gold.
If you take the salary three to four times that of another
equivalent politician, you better be able to perform three to four
times better. You better perform miracles and not mere illusions
(something that deceives by producing a false or misleading
impression of reality).
Indeed the national narrative is that inflation is caused by high
oil prices which our dear gahmen has no control. Well, maybe it has
no control over the oil prices but it shouldn't add fodder to the
burning prices by increasing the GST. For those who forget or
choose to forget, oil prices were expected to hit $100 per barrel
when gahmen increased GST in Jul 2007.
