In a speech to the International Cooperative Alliance meeting in Singapore, minister Lim Boon Heng said that the share of value added earned by shareholders is higher than the share to the workers.
I think that he was probably referring to international figures, although I suspect that this remark applies to Singapore as well.
What does this mean?
1. Worker wages are depressed, due to global competion
2. Businesses are able to make excessive profit, in spite of global competition.
Where does the excessive profit come from? I suspect that they come from unethical practices, such as creating sub-prime products, structured financial products, excessive charges and questionable marketing practices.
What does this really mean?
Consumers are being exploited. Consumer protection has been weak in many countries. This is an area of attention for governments, regulators and consumer bodies.
The prevailing idea was that the free market can take care of these matters. This is a wrong notion. Businesses know how to make excessive profit at the expense of consumers, and get away with it.
Mr. Lim Swee Say, said that copoeratives exist to take care of the less fortunate or less abled. But lately NTUC Income has been rolling out products that don't cater to the lower income. Examples products like limited premium living and revosave are meant for the high income earners and the rich. How can the poor afford? If they do buy it will be terribly at the expense of coverage
ReplyDeleteand budget.Lapse will definitely happen.
As you say the shareholders will benefit but the shareholders or the policyholders in Income don't benefit if products like these are not within their reach.
Who benefits? There are 2 groups; the staff of Income and the insurance agents, the losers are the customers, Win-win- loss.
This is a great contradiction
Consumers have always been abused by
ReplyDeleteinsurance agents,timeshare companies, estate agents and the likes. There isn't enough protection for them. The worst victims are usually the poor. Naive, clueless, and ignorant they are easily exploited. They don't know their rights and have no idea where to seek redress. I hope the government sees this quickly and put in place a set of regime to curb before it gets out of hand especially in good time.
The worst abusers are insurance agents, timeshare salesmen, and property agents.They are active abusers because they can seek out their victims. The market is a jungle and the weak must be protected against the predators.
I agree with your observations fully.
ReplyDeleteFirstly in this modern age, IP is priced so that those who develop technology, drugs, etc earn loyalty which are obscenely hugh, is this necessary?
Secondly, the power of advertisement - the money spend on advertisement and endorsement of product - we buy what those advertisement tell us to buy and no one sells you product which are good for you but earns little for the seller, the sellers are only interested to sell those products that make hugh profit for them.
I read that an identical electrical item has more years of warranty when sold in Australia than in Singapore because of their consumer protection law. It seems Singapore needs to catch up in this area.
ReplyDeleteInsurance agents don't look after the interest of the clients' if they are not qualified. How? Even they are sincere and caring and honest, they cannot give the best to their clients
ReplyDeletesimply because they do not know how.
The worst is trust. Having trust for agents can be dangerous and disastrous. The recent cheating case reported in ST of ocbc staff cheated by a colleague is an example.
There are thousands of cases of miseries caused by trust. They could be sincere wrongs but still wrongs.
The point here is never engage an insurance agent or salesman who comes declaring sincerity, trustworthiness or honesty as their basis of their practise. If they lack COMPETENCE just run as fast as you can.They are dangerous. They are at best hypocrites and at the worst they could be con artistes.
They must be an adviser, honest, ethical, and competent otherwise they cannot serve the interest of the clients. They cannot even they want if they lack the 3 traits of a good adviser.
This is even more important when it happens in a co-operative, especially one that is linked to the national leadership. This is because if it happens in a commercial entity, it is only the individual losses plus the image of the commercial organisation. If it happens in an NTUC related enterprise, then all the previous efforts of the national leadership is put at risk because the public thens to then link it to the government, and the losses are magnified to not only that of the individual, but even the trust and respect for our national leadership is put at risk, including the loss of votes during election time.
ReplyDelete