The Moley Prophet

In the papers today, The Straits Times reported that some retailers in the heartlands are trying to pass the cost of using NETS for payment to customers by charging a transaction fee for their purchases. It also mentioned about retailers who impose a minimum spending before allowing customers to use NETS. What it failed to mention was, large retail chains and ComfortDelgro group are doing exactly what the smaller retailers are doing long ago.

Years ago even before the NETS fees quadrupled, 7-eleven has already been imposing a minimum spending of $5 for NETS transactions. This forces consumer who do not have enough cash with them wanting to use the service to purchase more.

When ComfortDelgro Taxis introduced NETS service on its fleet of taxis, nobody bothered about the charge levied on travellers who use the service. ComfortDelgro even announced in its press release that part of the administrative fee per transaction would go to NETS and a part would go to ComfortDelgro. Isn’t this worse than the small time retailers? Those retailers are just trying to defray costs while ComfortDelgro is making money out of a payment service when it is not in that industry of providing for the service.

Yet, the papers made no mention of any outcry, nor CASE made any remarks that consumers should not pay the fee. NETS said that charging an administrative fee to consumers is against its policy, yet it did not stop ComfortDeglro from doing it. Come on NETS, cut your nonsense by siding with your cousin.

LKY has revealed in a dialogue that the government would very much like to implement a system of free childcare and paternity leave to boost the declining birth rate. This system would create more harm than good for Singaporeans. First, we have to look at how this system could be supported. By deducting the salary of Ministers? Surely they wouldn’t be so patriotic to sacrifice their salaries. They are in fact, mere workers who try to match what they earn with what those in the corporate sector earn.

So, the money could only come from tax payers. Which would be us. The people who slog it out there with our brains trying to make more money. And we had to pay tax to support the sows who just keep giving birth.

In Singapore, people who have several children are either doing relatively well or on the other end of the income scale - poor. Yet, they do not manage their finances properly and continue having more children they could not feed, more children than they could house, more children than they could take in hand and educate properly. What happens to these children? They grow up affecting the society as a whole and take in resources meant for the well being of those whom these resources are taken from.

We are already providing tons of resources for these poor families, including fee textbooks, free education, bursary money. Yet, what have they contributed? More McDonald’s deliveryman maybe? These leechers use the money given to them on nonsense! Cigarettes, PSP, Nintendo DS, et cetera. Why then are we providing them with the money? They deserve to be in the state they are in!

The Swede system would only increase the number of such families. Plentiful of children at home to be McDonald’s deliveryman in the future. Having children is not just providing them with food and education. Beyond those, there are issues of taking care of the baby at night and educating them with proper values. These are things busy parents who are making money do not want. On top of it, companies may not be able to accept the more paternity leave idea. The people who have the ability to raise the children are not doing it and those who don’t will do it even more, I wonder how would Singapore look like in 15 years time.

Certain systems may work in a place, but not in the others. Take China for example, I believe China’s One-Child policy works perfectly there. It restricts those who are not able to support their children to have lesser babies and those who are able to afford to have the number they desire.