Tan Kin Lian's Blog: High prices in Singapore

Monday, August 31, 2009

High prices in Singapore

Dear Mr TAN
The prices of electrical and electronic engineering products and falling by the day reflecting the advent of sciences and technology, increasing scale of economy, reducing labour cost from cheap foreign labour, falling cost of capital, intensive competition and the substitution of labour with automation.

But the prices of financial services are rising significantly by the day, despite the advent of information technology, ATM humanless banking, increasing scale of economy, reducing labour cost from cheap foreign labour, falling cost of capital, intensive competition and e-documentation.

Is it NOT cheaper NOW to issue and process a bank draft or money order?
Is it NOT cheaper NOW to issue and maintain an insurance policy?

Also, there is a significant management failure in the efficacy, efficiency, economy of distribution cost in Singapore.

Examples: The exact same box of Nestle ice cream is sold in JB supermart at RM5.05 but it is sold in Singapore supermart at S$5.05. The exact same bottle of Narcissus rice wine is sold in Shenzhen China at RMB5.00 but it is sold in Singapore supermart at S$5.00.

Same Air, Train and Bus return trip tickets are sold in Malaysia at RM but in Singapore at S$.

Why are hawker stores NOT restricted to owner operators and instead, there is an intermediary sub-store landlord to increase the cost of operations. Please advise WHAT and WHERE distribution management had gone WRONG.

Thanks & regards
T E O

8 comments:

Parka said...: Many times you're paying more for the human cost.; August 31, 2009 4:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Could this be because of financial re-engineering to reflect increasing GDP and GNP figures to justify salaries of some people?; August 31, 2009 6:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Your financial products have a large human labour cost, the cost of paying 6 figure salary to ceo , 5 figure to senior managers , hgih commission to your insusrance agents and as if not enough these agents want more incentives to make them work harder. You see, everything is money and is cost and YOU are paying.
Example ntuc spent so much money on rebranding, marketing , launching the new shit colour logo (low sigh color) and fly kites . You mean all these activities no need money? From where? of course from you and the orphaned money..
Another point is all your whoelife and endwoment products are affected by COST, human labour cost; technology cost may go down but not the ceo, the senior managers the agents all, their salaries. Do you expect these products to do well, wait long long... they will return negative return.
Throw them away before you lose more .
How did you buy them in the first place? You bought them or you were sold ? If you were sold you can look into the fact find form and recomenedation to see if there the products were NOT on the reasonable basis. Report to MAS and ask the company to refund or sue the company and agent for mis-selling.; August 31, 2009 7:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Despite the high costs, many still choose to live here.

So of course the Gahmen capitalise on this since they have great control over how high the costs, especially land and HDB cost.

For those who chose to leave, Gahmen can always replace them with foreigners from the whole wide world.

Furthermore, unlike many other countries, they never lose an election for 44 years so they can afford to do what they like or what they think is best.; August 31, 2009 9:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Finally, there is a first world country in Asia which can boast a govt that did not lose an election for 50 years but just lost it after 50 years in power. What is 44 years compared to half a century? First world country and in Asia to boot. Is it time now?; August 31, 2009 11:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Life is not fair. An engineer creates the best product, design the most efficient production cycle and keep the cost price low in order to be cost competitive. His brain stores a huge volume of knowledge and technical know-how you can imagine.

On the other hand, a marketer pushes this product to the market, sets selling price and comes up with advertisement and such.

Guess who has a better salary ?; September 01, 2009 9:53 AM
Anonymous said...: High prices are one of the causes of of dissatisfaction with the govt here, maybe it's time to follow the Japanese - enough is enough.
The gap between the haves, the privileged lot who command millions dollar salary, and the have-nots, are getting wider as the years go by.; September 01, 2009 2:15 PM
C H Yak said...: High political & physical infrastural costs cause such high costs. It will be worst off with a "bloated" public service & government.

The Govt had invited Harvard management guru Michael Porter to speak in Singapore and he had mentioned this setback on the progress of Singapore.

As a result, individuals have to put up or suffer with the high costs. Corporate pressures and landlords acccentuate th eproblem.; September 01, 2009 3:52 PM