Hush!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

From 5 to 7

GST will be raised from 5% to 7% and details on the effective date will most likely be announced next year on the "Budget Day".

"This is inevitable over the next 5 to 10 years. Infrastructure investments will cost money - R&D is to cost $5b over the next 5 years; as medical technology improves, people age and more will go to hospitals to get more treatment, so spending is bound to go up. As we tilt the playing field across the board, the lower income will be getting another boost, not just once in a while. Therefore its better to start building resources now so that when we spend more, we have the means to do so," said Mr Lee. To finance this, indirect taxes or the Goods & Services Tax will have to go up. "It will give us precious extra resources to implement social programmes like Workfare later on. Our aim is to help the lower income groups and the elderly, not to increase their burdens. When we implement the GST increase, it's not just the GST increase, it's the package which will fully offset the impact of the GST increase and begin to strengthen the social safety nets and tilt the balance in favour of the low income groups - we will not just raise the GST but we will have a comprehensive offset package," said Mr Lee. - [Channelnewsasia.com]

The "offset package" to fully offset the impact of GST increase? In the first place, how extensive can the "offset package" reach out to our lower income groups?

Pocket is going to gain a 2% increase in weight soon. Shouldnt all of our pay/allowance (excluding the ministerial pays hor..) go up as well in order to "fully offset" the impact of GST increase? Heh.

Perhaps a progress package every year would be a sweet deal instead of a one-time thing. Unfortunately, we cant have an election every year. Whats the point of letting us taste something sweet and few months later to find ourselves end up paying double/triple or more for what we got from the package? And It shouldnt be even called a "progress package". It should be called the "Citizen to Payback soon package" instead. Heh. Stupid. Then I damn "loo gi", I wasnt entitled for the Package this year cos I am not yet 21 (on 31 Dec 2005.)

Labels: Gahmen, Singapore

Saturday, September 30, 2006

No more EM3

Finally MOE has decided to scrap EM3 for good after years of debate. This happen to be the topic of the PW(project work) I did in J1. Definitely a great move and worth applauding.

During my years, many education policies has given rise and then dropped within a short period of years. "Infamous ones " like the scrapping of mother tongue and SAT as a local University entrance requirement on the year we graduate from JC. Wonder how many of my peers went cursing madly about wasting the money to take SAT (for those who dont need them in the end) especially when it costs like 80 bucks per test. I myself wasted 160 bucks! Thats enough to cover my uni textbook fees k? Not forgetting I wasted 6 months taking AO chinese when I actually dont need to in the end.

Oh well.. Still glad that finally our education policy has moved forward one big step and lets hope it will still continue.

Labels: Education, Singapore

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Eat Drink Man Woman

One thing that really bond us (my university pals) is definitely food. We all share the common interest of food and always in search of good food. I guess as long as you are Singaporean, you are always in search of good food everywhere you go. Yesterday, 6 of us (Weilun, Ling, Xin, Sotong, Lesley and me) head on to Maxwell Food Centre for Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice. This chicken rice stall is pretty famous and it's strongly recommended by our Ling who normally eat nothing but fruits, veggies (esp Brocoli) and erm.... more veggies. So if any chicken can "lure" her, that will just mean that the chicken must be damn good. Haha!

Tian Tian.. They served one of the best Chicken rice in Singapore!

Labels: Chill Out, Food, Singapore