SG Complains

The Big Debate: Over ‘eat cheaper’ advice

According to Littlespeck

Government’s inflation advice to Singaporeans didn’t come across too well.
Compiled by Littlespeck
Nov 14, 2007

With widespread rocketing prices, the following advice by the Minister for Trade and Industry, Lim Hng Kiang in Parliament has stirred some strong reactions: -

“First, the CPI measures average changes in prices across all households. Whether there is an increase in the cost of living for a particular household depends on that household’s spending patterns. Switching to cheaper products can reduce the cost of living despite a rise in the CPI.” (Lim Hng Kiang)

- The public debates starts in the website such as Littlespeck and theonlinecitizen that symbolized the growing frustration over the recent inflation of food prices among all other things that people had been monitoring over the past few months or years!

What is the debate here is the solution provided by our minister is to switch to cheaper products to avoid the hike in prices. I am beginning to sense the lack of commitment of our Government to find proper solutions to this problem.

We have to find out the root of the problem and solve it quickly, energy prices that had affected food prices due to the fact that palm oil and corn farmers are pushing the cost of food up a few %…then it’s the energy problem now…not exactly food.

The situation is dangerous and the Government are just trying to calm people down but the back fire will be even more fierce and direct. What we want is hope not empty promises and excuses, any direct plans to solve the food shortages and high cost of food imports will be highly recommended. The high population in Singapore are not going to eat grass in future…

Burma is the tip of the ice-berg, Pakistan, India, China and the rest of the world started to rise the prices of fuel and the general inflation of cost of imports will probably skyrocket in the near future. Not decades away but 1 year or less.

When the electricity market starts to be liberalized, our electrical tariff ($/kWh) will be traded by EMC (Energy Market Company) and changes every 30 minutes according to demand & Supply and the cost of fuel to generate the electricity such as Natural Gas (PNG now later LNG) and other fossil fuels such as bitumen and diesel. NYMEX and BRENT Sweet Crude Oil prices had been one key indicator of how the future electricity prices will go.

Do Not be fooled by the chart given by Singapore Power that compares the rise of fuel to the electricity tariff. The actual graph should be measured in different units to indicate the accurate representation of the rise of electrical tariff!

Future is going to be bright only if human can work together instead of complaining, USA had victory garden to farm for food in their back yard to avoid starvation in the old days of the great depression…Cuba can survive after so long because they put policy for sustainability instead of capitalist policy.

We cannot ignore that the world oil supply is going to be harder and slower to extract due to political and geological limits of mother earth and alternatives are going to hike our cost of living over time.

It’s time to educate the population why there is a hike and enforce strong self sustainability solution to include electricity, water, food and financial debt reduction and entrepreneurship without going into Internal Security Act and remove the freedom and rights of the people. It’s time to give hope and stability to the population instead of empty promises and complicated policies that enriched the government but enslave the poor.

The world will be watching us to find a solution to this mess that we found ourselves to be in and replicate our success or failure.

Failure is Not an Option!