Singaporeans won't be laughing when the HDB apartment they thought was worth $800,000 becomes almost worthless because the country has gone to the dogs without the capable leadership of the PAP.
The thing is this $800,000 can become $400,000 or $200,000 anytime. Tomorrow, twenty years or fifty years down the road. Under PAP leadership or not. It only needs a hard shove in the right direction for things to go to the doldrums. We are an open capitalist system easily affected by outside market forces and investor confidence.
The way PAP has gone is indeed questionable, choosing to bring in and utilise massed cheap labour for short term gain. In the long run, we still have not created the necessary expertise or sustainable local startups which will benefit us over the years. Instead, foreign expertise is used to make up for this shortfall. Inefficiency starts to replace productivity, after all, Singaporeans already work the most hours in the world, and foreigners offer a cheap, attractive solution to rival Singapore workers.
That comes to my reasoning on why Singapore HDB prices are unaustainable. Lets face it, Singapore may be an attractive destination at this moment. But its only a matter of time Mumbai and Shanghai becomes the place to go in a couple of years, after all safety, low taxes and good infrastructure can be replocated with the right investments. If immigrants slow to a trickle, or a financial crisis with us being badly affected, these will show us how good these policies are. If the can continually raise the HDB prices through these times, our economy will be shot. So surely, they will once again ask Singaporeans to sacrifice their asset appreciation plan to save our economy. This is how i read it, and why I view their asset appreciation HDB plan with derision. And am thinking which government scholar thought up of such an half ass plan for public housing without thinking about the long run.
PAP's track record is indeed exemplary except the past ten years or so. And yet some of you, especially the thick skulled ones do love to go on and on about how they turned us from sleepy fishing village to first world city. As I will point out once again, Singapore was already a city when Singapore seceded from the Empire. If it indeed become a sleepy fishing village, something really went wrong for us to change from a city to a fishing village within 3 years in Malaysia, also under LKY. Saying PAP will do well because of their track record is like voting for a company CEO based on the fact the company been doing well for many years, under other CEOs, while things are shit under the current CEO, but he is the son of the founding CEO, so he gets away with it, that's Singapore for you.
The PAP old guard is gone with the wind, and our current leaders seem to be more apt in fixing problems a couple years after they've been left to fester than to create new visionary policies. After bringing 2 million foreigners, the PAP thinks the solution is to bring another 2 million more. They know they screwed up, look no further than the quiet demotion of WKS and MBT to realise they see a problem too. Things still ain't so bad, but it could get a lot worse, as they do seem inept. In which case, what is stopping us from voting WP, one is inept, one is a clean slate, seriously who would you choose.
I may be wrong, and our HDB prices sustain till a 3 room flat cost a million in woodlands or bukit panjang. I will be horrified if that comes to pass too. But as i said, it's highly unlikely as market forces will prevent such unthinkable prices from happening.
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