SMRT

[countonme]

One way for the authority to "help" MRT, is to give new land lease at low price to rent out and make rental income, to cover the rising expense, like salary hike. The rental business is surely quite a monopoly for them. Saw in the past had made good use by opening up many shops around the perimenter of the MRT stations. But she prob had focused too much on this. Talk about greed.

Ooops, then my bad.

Also 1 interesting observation from SMRT is that 67M of its 127M profit for previous FY came from rentals. Does that mean SMRT profitability till 2016/17 will be susceptible to the commercial rental market cycle? The rental segment carries a OPM of 75.8%. This is because its train operations profitability is set to decline in the near term

[specuvestor]

How low can the fare go? Unless the fare is subsidized, then it may go further down. Then it's the tax payers subsidizing.

If SMRT going to go nationalised, there may be more bureaucratic layers. Will they be efficient?

Public goods are supposed to be subsidised by tax money. Who paid for the roads that the foreigners are driving their sports car on? Who is subsidizing the defence budget? Who is paying for the street lights in Tuas when no one is even there at night? The question is by what degree and what is optimal sharing of cost and responsibility between operators and state.

I think a lot of us assume nationalisation is bad, being pounded on that concept by finance 101 since day one.

In general I think it is true, but I am proud that our public service is one fo the most efficient and effective in the world and hence I do not see an issue that public goods should remain in govt hands. If anything the past 20 years have shown us anecdotally that going capitalistic on public goods does not work either. We should not be dogmatic either way... the evidence had spoken.

[Temperament]

Socialism with capitalistic incentive was what made Singapore, so much so that China wanted to learn the model from us.

Goh era of Singapore Inc, thinking the rich would eventually help the poor as aggregate economy improves through taxes and jobs, was what caused a lot of the problems today. The principle has changed

I think it's very interesting to say

The principle has changed

Care to elaborate?

To me everything or every business in Singapore that has something to do with the GOV. must make money or the money must come from the people one way or another. No?

If you think of the COE now, it really crazy. Which country can follow what Singapore's COE system? Name me one and i kow tow to you.

And GOV is experimenting of Satellite tracking your car to make you pay whenever you move your car. No need ERP anymore. What's better then EMP?-"Every Move Pays"
Ha! Ha!

i think GOV will implement one day. Gov may gives motorists some "sweetener" before implementation of "EMP" . That's their style of implementation of many policies. So that you don't have the will to protest strongly. May be some Singaporeans will make noises but usually end in a whimper. Why?

[specuvestor]

If we look through history PAP was socilaist if not moderate communist. LKY was deemed as "less dangerous" which he was not shy to admit in his books on why the British decided to talk to him. The more aggressive Socialist Barisan in the end broke away and confined, which was what the British wanted.

Nonetheless the socialist ideal had helped us through the decades, plus the impeccable implementation and execution of LKY and his team. IMHO the execution starts to falter in the 80s when we start to social engineer the education system and incentivise graduates to give birth more. Then of course comes the million dollar minister debate, which I personally don't disagree with the idea but the execution sucks. But the shift from socialism to elitism, greater good to individualism, was evident.

The change in principle was even more evident during Goh. especially in his well known argument with Chiam on owning properties and challenging Chiam to build a HDB flat. Releasing CPF for house purchase and privatising shophouses sounds like a good idea under the umbrella of "asset enhancement", until years later we realise 羊毛出在羊身上 the money has to come from somewhere.... and it came from increasing cost of living. Back in the 90s it was so fashionable to say we need to privatise these govt entities because they also need to make money. That's actually rubbish because tax dollars are supposed to subsidise these entities. Rather that than to build a durian using totalisator tax.

The idea of "pay as you drive" is the stated underlying principle for past 20 years and came from these kind of capitalistic ideology. The problem is that the rich are not impacted. It's only the logistics, middle class and those who really need to travel that is impacted. That is why the socialistic penalty point system works better than capitalistic fines. And transport efficiency is a major national strategic importance. I would look at strategic allocation instead and maybe allocate a COE to families with 2 kids or 2 elders. If they choose to sell the COE away they will receive a hefty sum subsidised by the market.

And of course now this ideology is extended to getting rich foreigners to come, without understanding the repurcussions on the populace and asset inflation. Not rocket science that the citizens are complaining through the ballot boxes.

After leaving school 15 years ago, I have come to realise and conclude even the most perfect theory does not works perfectly in real life, and some are outright wrong. Monopolies of public goods may not be a bad idea GIVEN the condition of effective governance. Some things cannot be totally commercialised because it is of strategic importance to social or security goals. I am of the opinion that to have SMRT and SBS operate the rails are as useful as having Mediaworks and MediaCorp. Theory doesn't work.

OTOH the model of NTUC fairprice ie providing a strong market contender to keep prices low is also a good model. Capitalistic yet achieve socialistic goals.

[opmi]

I think competition between mediaworks and mediacorp is good. And the tv quality in SG went up.
But I get your point.

NTUC co-op is returning to its socialistic roots. Which is good for Singapore.

If Hdb and jtc tries to privatize more assets, I will definitely KP.

[specuvestor]

I think competition between mediaworks and mediacorp is good. And the tv quality in SG went up.
But I get your point.

By better if you mean becoming more dramatic with captions like the Taiwanese? And of course not forgetting the korean soap operas....

Their competition in the first place was not internal. It's external.

[Temperament]

Thank you for you elaboration on "The principle has changed". I think it's time for the principle to change back to more for the people than for individual. And finally the principle should be at a position that can balance the interest of the people and individual(Elitists).
i think if not the next GE, a few more GEs will do it. Or Singapore collapse in years to come?

[sgd]

And GOV is experimenting of Satellite tracking your car to make you pay whenever you move your car. No need ERP anymore. What's better then EMP?-"Every Move Pays"
Ha! Ha!

I think the implication is lost on many folks. Am aware singapore has it's own Satellite in space but that's to monitor weather and haze, we built the micro satelites piggy backed on to indian rockets and launched into space some years ago.

But LTA is experimenting with Satelite to monitor your erp later. They are so rich to be able to put a statelite into orbit. Is not cheap for a small country to have it's own satelite let alone the transport ministry of a small country to do it I think LTA must be having a lot of money to be able to do something like that.

See the cost to launch satellites, where do you think they going to recover this cost from?
http://www.globalcomsatphone.com/hughesn...costs.html

[NTL]

Do they need to launch their owm? Is there a news or statement about this?

[sgd]

here

http://ride.asiaone.com/news/general/sto...-proposals