There are different types of people who complain. Some just do it for no better reason. I think they are rightly labelled as "whiners". Others do it with valid reasons.
No one is saying, Don't bring in the foreigners, don't crowd the whole country. I think we need foreigners to add to our workforce since we lack natural resources. But do it only after you have taken care of your citizens. For Lee Hsien Loong, I didn't see that happening on many major occasions.
Take buying HDB flats for eg. If you want to bring in huge numbers of immigrants to a tiny country, then jolly well prepare your infrastructure first. The reason why even public flat prices shot up so quickly especially from 2007 to 2013 is that there were insufficient new flats to go around. Remember those days where sellers could ask for $100,000 extra cash more than the value of their flats? This could have been minimised if the govt did better planning. With higher demands but limited supply, of course inflation would kick in.
Instead of building more new flats, guess what they did? They decided to sell land to private developers to build flats! Why? I knew a disaster in flat prices would come. This is clearly more for the govt's greed and convenience. Sell the land at profits, let the developer inflate the prices some more, in the end, who are the ones to suffer? The buyers. Who are the ones who are laughing away? Of course the govt and the private developers. Because of this, many flat prices are now sky high and prices will continue to go up for many other flats. You can mess up private property prices and let the rich play and speculate, but this is public housing for the masses we are talking about!
Then there are the often broken down MRT trains. This also happened because of not ensuring the infrastructure can cope with the heavy passenger load. This one is not from me, but that Lee Hsien Loong who admitted it himself.
Then you have the lack of hospital beds. It's really demeaning to see your loved one waiting in queue for more than 20 hours before getting a proper bed. Like all politicians who twist and turn their words, the Health Minister would have us believe it's due to our ageing population. Come on.... give better excuses can? Nobody says waiting is wrong. But for 20 over hours? That's too much. Nobody says flat prices must always stay stagnant and cost similar to those of 20 years ago. But to allow prices to shoot up so quickly in such a short time? Tsk tsk.... Nobody says that being in a crowded MRT train is unacceptable. But to be constantly pushed around and have trains breakdown during crucial hours every few weeks or months in the past? That's not right.
I'm not sure if the govt understands or empathises the ground level any more. What I do know is, many salaries have become stagnant yet the cost of living has gone up tremendously. And I'm not even referring to trying to own a car but just to get by, buy a flat comfortably, enjoy the simple pleasures in life... These are things the younger generation here is finding hard to cope. One has to be in such situations to really know what the commoners are going through today.
What SG100? Big joke. It's more for preparing the rich to make SG a more fun playground to throw money around. Like I said, nothing wrong, but take care of your commoners first. Every time I go out for lunch, I inevitably will see the elderly in pain slowly walking to sell tissue papers. And a minister once said those old folks pushing heavy cardboard boxes are doing it willingly for physical exercise. Again, Come on....think of better excuses can?
