Tan Kin Lian's Blog: The free market in Singapore

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

The free market in Singapore

I was given a cake on a low cost flight to Jakarta. The airline probably paid less than $0.50 for this cake. To get the business, the confectionery shop probably had to sell the cake based on the cost of ingredients, labour, rental and (hopefully) a small margin of profit. It must be a lot of effort to make a profit of $0.05 on a cake.

My bank wants to charge me $40 to remit some money to another country. Their real cost is probably $2. The rest is profit for the bank. This is why the bank is able to make a profit of $2 billion a year.

This is the "free market" as is operated in Singapore.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: Mr Tan,
Singapore does not work under the basis of true "free market". It is the government's own definition of "free market" with "free" been that the market price the product/service higher rather than lower through competition, particularly in area that GLC competes in. I recall reading in TOC mentioning that PTC does not allow lower price of transport by third party, but must match or price higher than those of government transport cost. This is not "free market" but manipulated market by the government. This government is very shameful indeed.; September 02, 2009 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Now days, most of top students' dream are to be bankers, to study economy and finance except doctor and lawyer. less and less top students want to be engineer, scientist. So, what the world will be in the future?; September 02, 2009 8:28 AM
Anonymous said...: the world will be more bullsh*t than real work which one day it will collapse itself. take a look at lehman ;); September 02, 2009 9:12 AM
Anonymous said...: There is no "free market" in Singapore. Your life is confined by this "free market". There is one way to beat the system though. Answer below.

a) You wakeup in the morning - You pay electricity and water bill to wash-up and prepare to work - Singapore Power (SP AUnet), PUB, GST....

b) You step out of the house - Take SMRT, Taxi(Delgro), or drive (pay ERP, petrol taxes (SPC))..

c) You go into office managed by Capitaland, Suntec,etc..

d) You make a deal using your mobile or fix line, connect to the network, - Starhub, Singtel, M1

e) You decide to Post a letter to your associate - Singpost

f) You take lunch/coffee/dinner - under one of the REITS managed buildings

g) You prepare to go home - SMRT, Taxi(Delgro), ERP, etc.

h) Reach home, have dinner, turn on the TV (Singtel, Starhub), read the papers (SPH)...surfnet to transfer fund and bill payment (Singtel, M1, NTUC etc.) via DBS

the cycle goes on and on ...like the Energizer Commercial.

There is no way to run from it. I have made my life goal to pay myself by Buying into all this Companies Stocks. I take comfort in knowing that i pay myself everyday. I own stocks like Singtel, M1, Starhub, SPH....still collecting.; September 02, 2009 10:41 AM
Parka said...: That is not free market because there's no competition.

Looks like an opportunity to start a business and charge $10 for remitting money.; September 02, 2009 5:44 PM
Anonymous said...: I learned that recently a bank charge a GIRO transfer for $20 and transfered amount is about $200. Unreason high cost of 10% service fee.

Francis; September 02, 2009 9:02 PM
symmetrix said...: EZ Link GIRO Top-up Convenience Fee.

I just received a letter from TransitLink. The new EZ Link with auto top-up by GIRO is now available. Existing EZ Link cardholders can change to the new card for free. So far so good.

Here comes the kicker. If you activate GIRO auto-topup, everytime a topup is made automatically to your EZ card, a "Convenience Fee" of $0.25 is charged to you. This is ridiculous, though the amt is small. Technology is supposed to reduce costs to the user, not increase it. I have the old EZ Link card and there was no such thing as a "Convenience Fee" for auto topups. It worked beautifully for me.

So now, after spending millions of $$$ on the CEPAS-compliant cards, the company is trying to recover costs by introducing Convenience Fee. A classic example of technology resulting in 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards. These are the kind of technologies that we don't need, thank you very much.

And thanks to no competition, we have to live with it. NETS is supposed to come up with an alternative contactless pmt system. I'm not holding my breath.; September 02, 2009 11:12 PM
Anonymous said...: To anon at 10.41a.m.,

You left out one thing - watch TV at home - Medicorp.; September 05, 2009 3:33 PM