Focus on what we can do, not what can be done for us.

Little Speck raised inflation concerns on household necessities, housing, hospital, medical care, education and electricity. While this is indeed a serious problem, I find that the problems are not limited to just our nation, and it’s not fair for the government to take the brunt of the blame. Many other nations have their own concerns. Yes and that includes Silicon Valley. . Till date, I have not seen a developed country that is able to handle the issues on their cost of living well.

However, I believe a common sales tax-rate across the board punishes the middle-class and lower-income families un-necessary. Ideally, we need a tiered sales-tax system. To start off, the tax system have to distinguish between the needs and luxurious items that we consume. Healthcare (excluding cosmetic healthcare), Groceries, insurance services, and “non-restaurants and cafes” F&B and “compulsory” school textbooks should be exempted from the GST. In its place, a GST of 15-20% could be imposed on luxurious items exceeding a certain value which “provides limited benefits on top and over that of another non-branded consumption good.” Examples of such taxes could be made on luxurious vehicles or housing which exceed the certain stipulated fair-value. However, this would most likely be met with huge protests by the multinationals, who might threaten to abandon their operations in our country.

I did not like the idea of the government relaxing the prices on the COE, only to raise prices on the ERP later. It caused more congestion, and only increased the cost of living. We are no better off than before. It does not make sense for new car-owners to sell their cars as easily as the ERP rates are revised. There are too many tiers of cash outflows from owning a car in Singapore.

Perhaps a change also needs to be made for us to have a steeper progressive income-tax system. However the risks of having the rich leave the country to maintain their extravagant lifestyles would be a key concern. The next key question to ask is – How will Singapore be impacted when the top 20% of the rich leaves the country? Will we be better off, or worse off? I don’t know the answer to that question, and what it could imply.

If you believe that leaving the country is the way to go, I advise you to think again. Rising costs, and the lack of job security is a world-wide problem. The effects of globalization will eventually haunt any nation that fails to keep up with the rest of the world in terms of competitiveness.

Let me try to examine Singapore’s key concerns. The first problem is brain-drain, where the rich and/or smart leaves the country in search of better prospects. The second problem is the over-reliance of our economy on big foreign corporations. We have to fragment the economy by breaking it up into a strong network of small businesses, which is independent of the help of the government. We have to look further, think further and move faster. Yes. I’m going to preach about entrepreneurship again.

When you think about entrepreneurship, think beyond starting a consumer/retail trading business (import/export), or F&B that is constrained by space. The morals of these business are not wrong, but they are fundamentally flawed. The largest constraint on trading and F&B busineses are in rental prices and import-based inflation, which is Singapore’s weakness. Any business we should start need to follow at least one of these 3 factors:

1. Scalable – The ability to accomodate growth in your business with minimal space and human resource constraints. To keep it simple, think of your email or webhosting providers. In essence scalability involves technology.

2. Service-based – Where you charge by the hour for some intangible services, such as graphics design, programming, development, research, writing etc. This relates more to consulting services, or freelance services.

3. Passive-income generating – Where you earn income without being actively involved. This normally relates to financial investments, royalties from selling books, affiliate marketing, or advertising revenue. Imagine a writer has to write a book once, and he receives income for every copy that sells without putting in any work.

The point is – We should not worry about affairs that we cannot change directly. It’s time for us to start thinking what we really want to work as, and how we can provide our own financial and job security without depending on multinational corporations.

Note: Apologies for the lack of coherence, the grammatical errors, and for losing my focus halfway through. I did not get to put my arguments as strong I liked. I personally find that this is quite a bad write-up, but I have no wish to continue further.