SG budget 2018, 19 Feb 2018

[Volvobrick]

Then we might not have enough doctors or the quality might be questionable. Not to say all are bad but just takes one black sheep(or quite a few more) to spoil the soup

 

All the Ft doctors will invade since it is the same concept for many industrial, systems and manufacturing lines.

 

Not to say I look down on those scholars, how many can get a million dollar job outside? If not for the garmen, for the matter of fact, how many of these so called army scholars can integrate to the normal biz world without helicopter?

 

Are they paid less? Probably less is near questionable, but with all the perks, sacrifice is a joke. Only thing they sacrifice is probably some privacy the same way the celebs lose them. Issue is, they are paid much higher than most celebs.

 

My first sentence was not referring to doctors.... but statements made by some politicians.  Of course most of them probably would struggle to find salary half of what they get outside of the government.

 

Health care is hugely subsidised by tax payers ie you and me.  The supply of doctors is artificially capped, through medical student enrollments, recognition of selected overseas colleges etc.  And there is information asymmetry between doctors and patients.  This need to be tackled to prevent over treatment (and increased costs/over charging).  Not making patients pay 3% or 5%.

 

I believe in the economics of supply and demand.  Just look at the legal profession.  More lawyers = lower pay.

 

 

 

 

 

[inlinesix]

My first sentence was not referring to doctors.... but statements made by some politicians.  Of course most of them probably would struggle to find salary half of what they get outside of the government.

 

Health care is hugely subsidised by tax payers ie you and me.  The supply of doctors is artificially capped, through medical student enrollments, recognition of selected overseas colleges etc.  And there is information asymmetry between doctors and patients.  This need to be tackled to prevent over treatment (and increased costs/over charging).  Not making patients pay 3% or 5%.

 

I believe in the economics of supply and demand.  Just look at the legal profession.  More lawyers = lower pay.

 

A lot of 1st year lawyer will be replaced by AI soon.

[Kyrios]

It's an industrial area, not residential area. Most likely a few more services from Joo Koon to Tuas South, since parts of Tuas South have no bus services yet.

There used to be a bus terminal in Tuas South near the 2nd link, but closed after Joo Koon interchange opened.

 

 

Cannot be worse than sungei kadut another industrial area..probably the only place in stinkapore with zero bus services even though shitloads of people work there

 

I walked all the way out from my car scrapyard in sungei kadut loop after scraping my car to Yew Tee MRT...

Edited March 14, 2018 by Kyrios

[DACH]

Cannot be worse than sungei kadut another industrial area..probably the only place in stinkapore with zero bus services even though shitloads of people work there

 

I walked all the way out from my car scrapyard in sungei kadut loop after scraping my car to Yew Tee MRT...

There is one bus service, 925.

Frequencies sucked, but last heard that was years ago.

Edited March 14, 2018 by DACH

[Theoldjaffa]

They are planning to go into demand based for buses during off peak hours at tuas area right? I remember reading articles that state that future bus ride at tuas during off peak hours will be done by booking through apps and then bus will come. Bus will not ply the normal route during off peak hours.

 

Perhaps lta could ask grab to bring the grab shuttle plus to tuas area lor.

 

this is where analytics and big data can help. by measuring demand and allocating supply, it makes for a more efficient use of resources and likely can contribute to a better user experience.

 

for buses, there are trunk services, there are feeder services. at the end of the day, the service must make money, or at least not lose money. 

 

there's double decker buses for high volume routes, or single deckers for lower volume routes. there is no one size fits all bus, so for those who says no to buying double deckers at all, that is a rather myopic view.

 

buses should complement MRT routes and not duplicate.

[13177]

Cannot be worse than sungei kadut another industrial area..probably the only place in stinkapore with zero bus services even though shitloads of people work there

 

I walked all the way out from my car scrapyard in sungei kadut loop after scraping my car to Yew Tee MRT...

why you walk? You can call taxi or uber/grab le?

[Ash2017]

My first sentence was not referring to doctors.... but statements made by some politicians.  Of course most of them probably would struggle to find salary half of what they get outside of the government.

 

Health care is hugely subsidised by tax payers ie you and me.  The supply of doctors is artificially capped, through medical student enrollments, recognition of selected overseas colleges etc.  And there is information asymmetry between doctors and patients.  This need to be tackled to prevent over treatment (and increased costs/over charging).  Not making patients pay 3% or 5%.

 

I believe in the economics of supply and demand.  Just look at the legal profession.  More lawyers = lower pay.

 

Agree with have limited number of doctors serving our population. If so why is our authorities aggressively promoting Medical Tourism? At the same time direct Singaporeans who cant afford to seek treatment and buy medicine from JB.

 

There is an undisputed fact as published that our population is aging so will need added medical services. This is not something we just discovered 1 or 5 years ago. Trends are being followed carefully by statistician from the government, then why did we not built more hospitals but instead we built more ERPs.

 

In a tiny island with just a population less than 6 million but just how many politicians we have in our parliament. How many mayors we have and is there overlap in their job description? If MPs are paid about $15,000 per month for their work and sacrifices, how come some can take up 50 odd directorship? If they just concentrated their time on one job may be just may be we can 1/2 the population of politicians in parliament. 

 

If you look at each road works, often you find one or 2 workers digging and doing some manual work. I or 2 would be looking around and observing and supervising and chatting. Another 1 or 2 may be dont know do what. 

 

We really need to re-boot, especially our priorities and our social values.

[Kyrios]

why you walk? You can call taxi or uber/grab le?

 

Me peasant only...no money....$$$ used to call uber can be my lunch money for a few days... 

[Leo72]

Agree with have limited number of doctors serving our population. If so why is our authorities aggressively promoting Medical Tourism? At the same time direct Singaporeans who cant afford to seek treatment and buy medicine from JB.

 

There is an undisputed fact as published that our population is aging so will need added medical services. This is not something we just discovered 1 or 5 years ago. Trends are being followed carefully by statistician from the government, then why did we not built more hospitals but instead we built more ERPs.

 

In a tiny island with just a population less than 6 million but just how many politicians we have in our parliament. How many mayors we have and is there overlap in their job description? If MPs are paid about $15,000 per month for their work and sacrifices, how come some can take up 50 odd directorship? If they just concentrated their time on one job may be just may be we can 1/2 the population of politicians in parliament. 

 

If you look at each road works, often you find one or 2 workers digging and doing some manual work. I or 2 would be looking around and observing and supervising and chatting. Another 1 or 2 may be dont know do what. 

 

We really need to re-boot, especially our priorities and our social values.

Government is building more hospitals and community hospitals for the past few years to now. But a new hospital can only increase the beds by about 1k to 2k per 2 or 3 years (construction need time) whereby the import of foreigners plus the new born every year are in term 20k to maybe 100k per year, how to catch up? Should seriously consider stop importing for sometime, or allow importing to replace those going back their home countries for good or reduce importing to minimum level so that infrastructure building can catch up first?

[Theoldjaffa]

Me peasant only...no money....$$$ used to call uber can be my lunch money for a few days...

You are not alone. I'd also rather walk to take bus and mrt rather than call cab or Uber.

 

It's just me. I don't find it worth it to pay for such rides, unless there's a promo code.

[GravityBlue]

There is an undisputed fact as published that our population is aging so will need added medical services. This is not something we just discovered 1 or 5 years ago. Trends are being followed carefully by statistician from the government, then why did we not built more hospitals  = COST  but instead we built more ERPs = REVENUE

 

Just look at the long Qs at the polyclinic , demand outstrip supplies.

[13177]

Me peasant only...no money....$$$ used to call uber can be my lunch money for a few days... 

So bad ah?    But walking distance from scrapyard to yew tee mrt is quite far le! Or can use those free bicycle?

[inlinesix]

You are not alone. I'd also rather walk to take bus and mrt rather than call cab or Uber.

 

It's just me. I don't find it worth it to pay for such rides, unless there's a promo code.

Why le?

 

Out of curiosity

[13177]

Why le?

 

Out of curiosity

I believe there are many people dont find worth it to pay for such rides, even there are promo. Maybe different people have different perspective. Like some people can spend money on car or branded bag or holiday, which some people might find not worth for these things?!

[Count-Bracula]

Sure? I thought the ic says Indian.

Those people who keep nominating him must really hate him.

 

The tallest grass gets cut first.

SAY SORRY SAY SORRY SAY SORRY!!!

 

IC as in "In Charge" not NRIC. 

[Carbon82]

The way you talk is like the smoking corner is full of smokers all smoking like factory chimneys..... Normally just see a few smokers there only so not too bad.

 

i have never seen a smoker blow smoke right into a non smoker's face except in movies 

 

usually smokers mind their own business. it's the wind that blows smoke around.

 

so even with 1 smoker, the smoke can still get to me. Just like in my balcony, when i'm enjoying the cooling wind, my neighbour downstairs lights up a cigarette, i can smell the smoke already. 

 

so banning smoking 5m away from bus stops does help somewhat if there's no wind, but becomes useless when the wind starts to blow in the "right" direction.

 

at coffeeshops, the yellow box is just adjacent to the non smoking areas. the customers near there will still be subjected to smoke. That's what carbon82 is talking about.

 

unless there's a facility like those found in airports that prevents smoke from coming out. 

 

Thanks @theoldjaffa for the illustration, and yes, that is what I meant. And to add on why I say it is a useless move (>90% of the time) to have an open air smoking zone, adjacent to non-smoking area, you just need to visit any coffee shop, walkway leading to a commercial building or shopping mall.

 

At many neighborhood coffee shop that I frequented, the smoking tables are situated directly next to non-smoking tables (they all look the same except that smoker table have an additional metal tin for the ash), and now that many coffee shop has those movable canvas to shelter patrons from rain and shine, as long as 1 smoker lighted a stick (and normally it will be more than just 1 person, especially when a group of smoker sit together), cigarette smell will be floating in the air, and by the time I finished my meal (<10 min), I will smell just like a smoker.

 

The same goes for the walkway I mentioned, and 1 case in point: The overhead bridge leading to Jurong Point shopping mall. Yellow box were drawn >5m away from the entrance to the mall, and you can always see smokers taking their puff at these designated, but for non-smoker (a lot are students in uniform), by the time they walked across the overhead bridge (passing the smoking zone in the process), their uniform will be stained with the cigarette fume, and I am not exaggerating. Thus my question on the effectiveness of having smoking zone (when it is opened air, not enclosed one like in Japan and Taiwan)...

 

 

Want to do should do it properly and enclose the whole bus stop. Stop the pollution and cut down on electricity usage. Really stupid to try to cool down the earth by opening fridge door.

 

And getting back to the topic about the "high tech" bus stop with air purifying and cooling facilities, I foresee more energy wastage than anything else, exactly as what @Volvobrick has mentioned: Cooling down the earth by opening fridge door. And from operation and maintenance point of view, with the cooler having to work run the clock (at least during it operating periods), beside not being able to deploy VSD to save electricity, the wear and tear rate will be high, and are the mastermind behind these "great innovation" prepared to fork out additional cost for maintenance and repair, and where the $$$ will come from?? Tax payer right???

 

As a commuter, if I were to take bus (which I did at time), I am mentally prepared to get a little discomfort (else I can always spend more to take cab / uber / grab), as I am trading comfort for $$$ (or time, as some might say), so making sure the bus arrive and leave on time shall be my priority. I hope those sitting in air-conditioned office planning all these "incentives" get the fact right, and stop wasting more money to distract commuters from the un-reliable bus arrival interval.

 

And before I ended this long post, allow me to share my personal experience in China (QingDao, ShenZhen, Xiamen, in the city center). Bus fare is flat RMB1 per trip (regardless of distance traveled), and the buses are generally very new, clean, arrived and departed on time (waiting time within 10 min, even during off peak period), and at least another duplicated line to every destination I am going (and I hardly have to transfer to another bus in the process of getting to my designation, which sometime can be very ulu). Yet, I didn't hear the operators complaining they are losing $$$.

[13177]

Sadly those sitting in air-conditioned office planning all these doesnt get the fact right,thats why they would come out with all the useless things, instead of planning a better and reliable bus standard of service. 

[inlinesix]

@carbon82, our bus otaku will say don't use big city to compare to our bus service.

 

Anyway, in order for our bus service to be punctual, bus lane needs to be fully utilized. Not cutting through 6 lane of traffic.