And why should they include land cost, if HDB takes the land
from the govt without paying? If they include land cost into their
calculations, then it is NOT land cost, but opportunity costs,
since the land was never sold to HDB in the 1st place.
hehe, thanks to people like you who easily believe in them,
everything is inflated.
Let me give you a list of highly 'subsidized' things in Singapore
(oh man, we are so 'lucky')
1. HDB is highly 'subsidized'
This became a heated argument after someone whacked them in ST
Forum displaying what he believed to be the base cost of a HDB
flat.
Later on, the HDB admitted that the so-called subsidy is a MARKET
subsidy. A MARKET subsidy is NOT a subsidy.
They merely calculated a supposed value that the flat should cost
on the open market, and then put a discount on that value.
2. University fee is highly 'subsidized'
This is one of my favourites. Whole day, the govt were trumpeting
that they were highly subsidizing our school fees. Then we realized
that most times, the govt likes to calculate something called
Opportunity Costs.
Opportunity Costs, if you would know, is not a cost at all, but is
in fact a harping of how much they could have made on the land if
they had used it for something else. But to plant such costs into
the total costs of our education is, to me, never correct.
In fact, if you look all around, all costs are inflated. Our govt
really uses Opportunity Costs to the maximum.
I think they learnt their trade from one industry the most.
HOTEL.
Rack rates are always inflated and almost never actually charged on
customers.
