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I was fortunate to live in Japan quite frequently in previous jobs, at times during their typhoon seasons from late August to October. It is really depressing to see flood, houses collapse, trees uprooted, etc, etc, whenever a typhoon crossed the land. And these kind of things happen every year many times without fail, at times more than 10 in a year. Do you see its people demand their government to SOLVE the problems once and for all? No! Every time it happens, the people will simply come together to help each other out, be it volunteering to help those trapped in their houses, cook hot meals, in logistics, or whatever way possible. Really heart-warming to see these in actions on TV. And as the weather here becoming more erratic, floods seems to be here to stay in certain part of lower-lying areas. Should the government be blamed for every occurrences of these floods?. Now do pause a while to imagine a whole month of rain water coming down within 2 hours. Do you think it should qualify as an act of God? To me, it certainly is. And do you think the government is able to stop it? Not possible unless it can blow the clouds away. Trying to channel the water quickly to prevent localised flooding will need many big drains which is not possible in our limited land. And mind you, it has nothing to do with influx of FT! So should the government be blamed for this kind of AOG? If yes, then all governments that has typhoons, tornadoes, heat waves should be replaced yearly as they are paid well, but the disasters just keep on repeating every year, and they are not able to prevent the consequences like floods from happening again! Surely I believe the government is not sitting pretty doing nothing, the people in the relevant departments are surely burning alot of mid-nite oil to come up with countermeasures. But do be patient and understand that not everything should be blamed on government just because its cabinet is paid well. Do give them some time to think of a practical solution to alleviate the situation. It will be too much to expect no floods. Let us come together to help each other out, and make this place a better place to live. It will be nice to see our local TV reporting neighbors helping each other to clean up the neighborhoods and each others' houses. Maybe if they are to have more air-time for this kind of actions will be good to encourage the society to be more kind and helpful.

For those drivers who stay beyond Bedok and often ply PIE toward city regularly, you would have probably obvious one grey metal pillars being built on the edge of the expressway and another pillar in the middle of the expressway just outside the Bedok slip road. It doesn't look too good to me thou[sweatdrop] Is this the sign of Every Road Pay era?

MP Inderjit Singh says govt policies may have contributed to inflation By Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 25 February 2008 1546 hrs SINGAPORE: The Budget Debate kicked off in Parliament on Monday with MPs taking a long and hard look at what has been troubling many Singaporeans - growing cost increases. MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, Inderjit Singh, pointed out that the "grow-at-all-costs" policy of the government might have overheated the economy and worsened the income divide. From electronic road pricing (ERP) and public transport fares to the Skilled Foreign Worker levy to healthcare charges, MPs cited a litany of recent cost increases. While some may have been beyond the government's control, Mr Inderjit Singh questioned whether all the hikes were necessary and if some could have been deferred. He said: "I feel a significant part of the inflation has been caused by factors that we could have controlled. "In the last two years, the government has contributed to inflation by allowing multiple cost increases, both directly or through policy changes that resulted in cost increases. "The end result is an era of very high cost increases, high inflation not supported by enough wage increases, especially for the lower and lower middle income Singaporeans and companies." The impact on the needy is telling. With real income shrinking as well, statistics show the lower 20 percent of Singaporeans are suffering effectively higher inflation rates than the top 20 percent. Mr Inderjit Singh argued for a review of what he called the "boom and bust" policy of growing as fast as possible during the good years to compensate for periods of slower growth, even if some Singaporeans could not keep up. In addition, he felt the government might have been too quick to impose the GST hike last year, a significant cost increase which triggered off other increases which were passed on to consumers. "In light of the booming economy which should have been visible by mid-2007, the Government could have made the late decision to hold off the GST rise by a year or two," said Mr Inderjit Singh. He recalled how the Finance Minister had stoutly defended the 2% point GST hike, citing reduction of government income from other sources and the need to generate enough money to fund Singapore's growth. But now, instead of projected Budget deficit of $0.7billion, the government had a surplus of $6.4 billion, leaving the government to face a 'pleasantly embarrassing outcome'. This point was also highlighted by other MPs who spoke during the Budget debate on Monday. With Singaporeans experiencing one of the highest spikes in the cost of living in the last five years, MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, Michael Palmer, said direct assistance could help. He said the government could set aside some money for a contingency fund from the Budget surplus to provide an inflation relief package, similar to the GST Offset package and specifically targeted at the low and middle income earners. Mr Palmer said: "We expect inflation to rise to between 4.5% and 5.5% (this year). That represents at least a 900% increase from the 2005 figure and a 450% increase from the 2006 figure. If inflation hits 4.5% this year, it will still be more than a 200% increase from last year. So when the Minister said that 'inflation today is higher than what we have been used to in Singapore for many years', in my humble opinion, that may be understating the matter somewhat," he said. His bottomline? The fear of creating an expectation of handouts should not deter the government from being caring and giving help when it has the resources to do so. - CNA/ir Trumpet blow big big and now trying hard to find a stopper to stop the trumpet from blowing....I would say GST is the root cause of everyday necessity cost to go up despite global oil price increase...all businesses taking advantage of GST increase, rising cost of raw material and oil pass down the cost to consumers...now most ppl with less than 5% pay increment last year is facing the increasing cost and taking desperate measures to survive....now cannot eat fresh meat...must eat frozen meat...i wonder the chefs at PMO uses fresh meat or frozen meat...they must lead by example by eating frozen or leftover meat....