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Abstracts of essays; news; announcements; short takes.
About Me
- Yawning Bread Sampler
- This blog carries summary abstracts of Yawning Bread essays, with space for comments.
Here too are other tidbits that are too short for the main Yawning Bread site.
To email me, go to the main site.
Blog Archive
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2006
(136)
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July
(14)
- Racial Harmony Day
- Israel attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon
- Sauce for the goose
- Honour and the control of others
- Struggles rather than Troubles?
- Gay marriage defeated in New York court
- When the puppet speaks to the master
- Singapore buys Malaysia, Malaysia bombs Singapore
- Let Mr Brown speak
- Flags and monuments
- Much ado about citizen journalism
- The inutility of speaking truth unto power
- Income inequality widens markedly
- The troubles of Joo Chiat
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July
(14)
Posts
5 comments:
I would definitely agree that the income gap has widened, based on anecdotal evidence.
However, one thing I would like to point out is a better measure of the equality of wealth would be the average net assets (assets minus liabilities) of individuals or households. Note: some measures exclude primary residence in the assets.
This measure will be more accurate especially with an aging population, where retirees have no income but potentially large amounts of income-generating assets (especially those with capital gains, which are not reported in tax returns). Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the data is available
Besides globalisation, economic competition from low cost countries, etc... there is another reason the MSM & PAP would rather not highlight. Our brilliant ministers in order to meet their financial KPIs to justify their million $ salaries had been outsourcing many low level tasks to private contractors. Examples are the school servants/cleaners, parking attendants, security guards etc who used to work for the MOE or stat boards. Outsourcing simply means retrenching such workers, who invariably fall within the first 3 decile, only to be re-employed by private contractors if they are lucky, to do the same tasks they used to do for the last umpteen years. The rub is they have to accept a lower pay or slink away penniless to join the ranks of the first decile. They are lowly educated & the most vulnerable in our society, unable to fathom the true cause of their miserable fate. Then come election time, mired in poverty, the PAP mercifully dispenses a Progress Package to uplift their spirits & clear their minds so that they can, once again, make the right choice at the ballot box, to ensure more good years. For whom, I wonder?
This is the result of our SUCKING sinful gov.... just like the way NKF blowing up their coffers to justify for themself high $alaries.
Great article.
Don't recall this being reported in our papers but Singapore's cost of living has gone up while the quality of life still lags at 30+ placing worldwide.
http://www.mercerhr.com/attachment.dyn?idContent=1216315&filePath=/attachments/English/QOL_Survey2006_table.pdf
http://www.mercerhr.com/attachment.dyn?idContent=1231390&filePath=/attachments/English/Mercer_Cost_of_living_2006_summary_table.pdf
Guess its going to be rough.
I had read the article but could not recall the base of computing the wages. Is it real (adjusted for inflation) or absolute earnings figure? How about employer CPF? There had been a sharp drop in this component of our wages over the past 5 years (lowered to 13%, reduced cap from $6,000 to $4,500 for example) and if these had not been considered in the study and are taken into consideration, the drop would be more widespread than what has been reported.
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