Friday, June 29, 2007

Where's my farkin piece of the Singapore pie?

Now you know why everything in Singapore is so damned expensive.

SINGAPORE : Singapore is home to the world's fastest-growing population of millionaires [US$1,000,000], according to the annual world wealth report compiled by Merrill Lynch and the CapGemini Group.

The number of high net worth individuals in Singapore grew by 21.2% last year to reach almost 67,000 millionaires.

Singapore's millionaire boom is part of a global trend that saw the number of high net worth individuals rise 8.3% to reach 9.5 million last year. - Channelnewsasia
Let's take a minute to absorb this piece of information. 67,000 millionaires out of a population of 4,000,000... that's 1.68%. Out of every 100 Singaporeans, there are 2 millionaires.

And mind you, these are US$ millionaires. If we take a local context and define a millionaire in terms of S$1,000,000 (US$1 is S$1.50), there would conceivably be approximately 50% more millionaires (assuming a simplistic linear distribution of wealth at this top end of the curve) or 3%.

That means 3 out of every 100 Singaporeans have S$1,000,000 or more... more or less.

Since Singapore's buses carry 40 passengers per bus, there's at least 1 to 2 millionaires in each full bus. In trains of 100 people per carriage, that's 3 each. Remember that the next time you clumsily step on someone's toes while shuffling your fat ass to the door.

And while the Million $ club grew by 21.2% - my salary grew by 3%, which was below inflation. Top civil servants got salary increases of 14-33% (where the lowest ranked superscale SR9 now earns S$370,000 per annum!) The rental for my flat grew by 20%. My bank account has hardly grown at all. GST's up 2% in a couple of days and income tax still eats away a month of my salary on top of that.

So, where's my farkin piece of the Singapore pie? Where's my share of the 8.2% GDP growth?

Ask any salary earner off Orchard Road strip and away from Shenton Way CBD... this story gets repeated over and over. Is this what's called the rich getting richer, and the poor get kicked while they're down?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you think this statistic make Singapore gov feel proud. I will say this is rubbish !

Economic pursue at a major expense of social issue and cost uprising only benefit the gov who are already the richest in the world, and rich man, elite and all others who benefit from gov pursuing the wealth. But the rest of mortal man suffer at this hand of this self-centered ppl.

Amazingly, the reasons that these assholes give when ask the reason is that Singaporean should happy because this create JOBS ! You mean blow Job ?

Anonymous said...

You must be kidding me.. Every bus has 1-2 millionaires? Every train has 3-4 millionaires? You must be kidding me, millionaires won't even take public transport at all, unless they are really bored. The toes you step on in the public transport all belong to the poor people.

Anonymous said...

Govt policy is to enrich the rich and make the poor poorer- they cut the income tax ceiling %, which only benefits the hi income earners (including the ministers themselves), while upping the GST by 2% to 7%, which affects everyone. So, everyone shares the burden of the reduced govt income from lowered income tax by paying for more GST. How nice!

sean-the-man said...

>>>>>You must be kidding me.. Every bus has 1-2 millionaires? Every train has 3-4 millionaires? You must be kidding me, millionaires won't even take public transport at all, unless they are really bored.>>>>>

Rhetorically speaking larrr... just to put the numbers into perspective.

sean-the-man said...

>>>>>Govt policy is to enrich the rich and make the poor poorer- they cut the income tax ceiling %, which only benefits the hi income earners (including the ministers themselves), while upping the GST by 2% to 7%, which affects everyone. So, everyone shares the burden of the reduced govt income from lowered income tax by paying for more GST. How nice!>>>>>

You just used a nailgun on the head, man!