Middle class blues

[Bobby_tan]

You are correct...must learn to be satisfied...but on the other hand, you work diligently for 10 years only to see your pay to have less and less purchasing power each year and there is no raise, how not to be stressed?

[Joseph22]

You are correct...must learn to be satisfied...but on the other hand, you work diligently for 10 years only to see your pay to have less and less purchasing power each year and there is no raise, how not to be stressed?

If u say no rise in pay. Then u have to look inward already. Was it the system or was it yourself??

 

If u say things keep rising beyond the pay raise. Then yes it's a valid argument.

[Donut]

The high class and clever ones have sold their properties and hiding in HDB now. Recently saw another luxury car (S350L) at my carpark. Looks like another upper class has downgraded to HDB.

 

Follow the advice of investment guru Jim Rogers: "Never follow the herd. Always go the oppositve way." Obviously only a few smart ones are listening.

[Donut]

To me, the definition of "upgrade" of property is the size of the new unit must be bigger than your present one, regardless of private or public. I see many ppl, jump from HDB to condo. but the size of condo is smaller than HDB, and they think they have "upgraded".

[Scion]

my opinion too

 

My 2 cts worth

 

Economy stagnant - As economy undergoing re-structuring, some sectors will shrink and some will grow. For example, electronics sector maybe shrinking but aerospace sector is growing. And for some sectors like IT, is more or less stable - neither growing nor shrinking. This is because whether you build factory to make hard disk or aircraft components, you need IT one way or another

but what will happen to the youngsters who studied mechanical and electrical engineering?

 

in any case, we are now a mature economy, there's little chance of us having 8-15% annual growth like during the 70s/80s. The govt did recognise this fact; that's why they develop IR and invest more in tourism, but sadly both did not really have sparkling results

 

Intense job competition - Only time when there is no competition is when Singapore is no longer attractive to FT. And if that is the case, then we are all in deep trouble.

 

there's no need to go so extreme, as in we don't take in any foreigners at all. The importance is the balance. Right now, I feel Singapore is overflowing of foreign PMETs, so much so that the wages are depressed. Again, MOM is recognizing this , hence the limit in the work permits and the emphasis of non-discrimination during the hiring, but shouldn't they visualise this much earlier?

 

Also, we need FWs (construction, F&B, environmental, shipyard, etc), but our own Singapore middle class surely can provide enough work force for the PMETs roles.

 

Price of cars out of reach - This one is really a personal choice. No right no wrong answer.

 

Cars out of reach, public transport unrealiable and overcrowded... there's little choice actually

 

Housing price sky high - Govt already guarantee all quaified citizen should be able to afford a roof over the head. And whether or not citizen is happy with the roof or not, it is also personal choice. I started with HDB almost 20 years back. And now, I am still staying in the HDB although most of my friends already in private housing. But I am very happy with my estate. Use to be quite bare when I move in after getting married. Now, very convenient liao

 

well, you cannot really compare the situation 20 years ago and now right?

In between, there's a certain Mr Mah who screwed up the whole public housing policy

 

[Wind30]

Instead of arguing about two different sides of the same coin, how about you do some research and show us about the difference instead? That way, you can present it the way you'd like. You seem to have the data already, so, shouldn't be much of a problem, right?

 

ok.. perhaps the error is not as obvious as I thought. Let me write it out then.

 

He started out with a bag of money for 1 SQUARE METER of space in 1998.

 

Did you see the smallest square that he drew for current prices? 0.35m by 0.35m. You know how much the area of that is? 0.1225 m2. That is EIGHT times the price of 1998. I can tell you our property price did not go up by eight times... actual numbers is closer to 3 times

 

what he wanted to show was that it went up by 3 times, ie 0.35. He should have drawn a square that is SQRT(0.35). The sides of the smallest square should be 0.59m, NOT 0.35.

 

The visual comparison he used is not only misleading but totally wrong. The space we can buy did not shrink down by so much.

 

Take aways are one thing but showing people that your space has shrunk by 8 times when in reality is only 3 times.. common... I think that is a big difference.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Wind30

[Hydrocarbon]

Don't bother to explain too much lah. The way I see his message, he is biting on the error in measurement and trying to discredit the show bcos of that.

 

Frankly speaking, who will bother to remember the numbers after watching the show. If u ask me, I can't remember the numbers after 5 mins. It is the overview and the take away message that matters.

 

Haha, normally I give people benefit of doubt one.

 

Yeah, I didn't remember the numbers too, just the take away. But I like the start of the show, which touched a little about the middle class merchants, not being blue blooded to be royals, but way richer than the peasants, and maybe, even some of the royals. I'd like to learn more about that too. Quite interesting.

 

I don't mind being that kind of middle class.

[Bobby_tan]

If u say no rise in pay. Then u have to look inward already. Was it the system or was it yourself??

 

If u say things keep rising beyond the pay raise. Then yes it's a valid argument.

 

Ok, then you look at the prices of everything. It rises every year right? Do you have pay raise every year? As for the raise, do you do your job well? Have you ever gotten complaint before? The situation now is that diligent employees who have been working well for years in the same company don't have a single pay raise. Worse, they get replaced by a cheaper FT as is the trend now.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Bobby_tan

[Joseph22]

Ok, then you look at the prices of everything. It rises every year right? Do you have pay raise every year?

I have pay rise every year.

[Wind30]

Are You Trolling ???

 

Y m^2 = X m * X m .

 

I believed the producer used ratio to give clear example of how much Same amount of $$ could buy, with width and length remain constants to each other.

 

his numbers used is smaller by more than 40 percent...

 

.....

 

is it that hard to see or are my numbers wrong...

[Bobby_tan]

I have pay rise every year.

 

Then ur one of the lucky ones. Most companies don't offer pay raise every year. Actually, most don't even give pay raise even if an employee's KPI is super hi for the year. And is your pay raise in the 1000s?

[Joseph22]

Then ur one of the lucky ones. Most companies don't offer pay raise every year. Actually, most don't even give pay raise even if an employee's KPI is super hi for the year. And is your pay raise in the 1000s?

I work in 5 company in a short span of 10 years. All company I work in give increment every year.

 

I don't know how you go about doing job hunt. But for me, I make a check on the company including whether they give increment every year.

[Roh96]

Follow the advice of investment guru Jim Rogers: "Never follow the herd. Always go the oppositve way." Obviously only a few smart ones are listening.

 

That's bcos it is hard not to follow the herd, and it is even harder to go the opposite way.

[Bobby_tan]

I work in 5 company in a short span of 10 years. All company I work in give increment every year.

 

I don't know how you go about doing job hunt. But for me, I make a check on the company including whether they give increment every year.

 

Most companies don't offer a confirmed raise in the job package. My previous 2 firms never offered this, and my current one actually doesn't but it has AWS.

[Joseph22]

Most companies don't offer a confirmed raise in the job package. My previous 2 firms never offered this, and my current one actually doesn't but it has AWS.

That is why you need to check. They won't state it in the employment contract. But you can find out through contact. Or ask the hr during interview.

[13177]

I work in 5 company in a short span of 10 years. All company I work in give increment every year.

 

I don't know how you go about doing job hunt. But for me, I make a check on the company including whether they give increment every year.

Increment also must see how much lo. Some company give less than $100 in every increment, so even if you work there for 5-10 years, total increment doesnt even exceed $500.

[Bobby_tan]

That is why you need to check. They won't state it in the employment contract. But you can find out through contact. Or ask the hr during interview.

 

Yah lah this one everyone know what. You ask they will just tell you flat out 'no'.

[Bobby_tan]

Increment also must see how much lo. Some company give less than $100 in every increment, so even if you work there for 5-10 years, total increment doesnt even exceed $500.

 

True. Most companies that do hand out raise usually only pay within the region of 100-300 a year. If u lucky or you are 'Paul Lampard' then you got about 400-600 lor.