Minimum wages + ObamaCare + Unemployment = ???

This is the awful monster that you get when you put minimum wages (aka maximum wages), Obama's Affordable Care Act (aka national insurance plan for everyone that no one wants to pay for) and Unemployment Insurance (aka insurance against trying to find work).

For the majority of you who don't read US news, this is basically a combination of three "well intended" populist vote buying laws that had morphed into a horrible monster that forced employers to...

1. Pay the minimum wage since there is no incentive to pay more.
2. Convert as many permanent staff to temporary staff as possible to kill entitlements such as bonuses and benefits.
3. Restrict working hours to 29.5 hours per week as you must pay for the ObamaCare if you go over 30 hours or risk a hefty fine.

And the net result is let's say you are working in New York, you get $214 per week (29.5 x $7.25) flipping burgers, assuming you can land yourself a job in the first place.

And so how does the employee responds? Simply reduce productivity since there is no prospect whatsoever for conversion to a permanent position, pay raise or bonuses.

Oh why even bother to try to work when you can collect your unemployment benefits at 60% of you last average weekly wage which is $128.40 doing nothing at all for 99 weeks?

Source : http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-19/obamacare-strikes-forever-21-which-forcibly-demotes-some-workers-295-hours-week

Reading tea leaves

Have you notice that DBS has been changing the denominations and minimum withdrawal accounts at their ATMs?

First, ATMs with a minimum withdrawal of $200 appeared. For the folks trying to withdraw the bare minimum amount of $20 for whatever reasons (don't lie, it is because they are broke and/or didn't have financial discipline), not because of the fear of loss), sorry, you are out of luck.

Then with time, even more ATMs dispensing only $50 appeared. And lately, they started to dispense $100 notes as well.

How I interpret the bank's actions is that these are the bank's reaction to inflation. When inflation is creeping upwards, customer draws cash in ever larger amounts and therefore forced the bank to refill the ATMs at a higher frequency.

Moreover, it makes little sense to spend more to employ more Certis Cisco guards for more ATMs refilling runs.

What I am expecting is that inflation will be rearing its ugly head again and MAS is likely to strengthen the Singapore dollar to rein it in.

And so our overseas holidays will likely to become even cheaper in the future.

Random thoughts on why Singaporean don't make babies

1. When people were poorer than, their retirement plan was their children who will support them when they are old. Nowadays, things had changed. The parents do not need financial support or didn't expect the children to. Thus the people no longer are willing to have children.

2. There was no reliable birth control or safe abortion then. No way to terminate once the act was done.

3. There was no TV or internet. No distractions in other words.

Hence the fastest way to make babies is to destroy TV, internet and make people all dirt poor. Tada! We don't need any more FTs...once the new babies grow up.

Trying to swim is really hard when ...

I was trying to go for a swim in the evening last week and I arrived at Ang Mo Kio swimming pool to stare at a notice that it was close for 3 days due to maintenance. Undaunted, I cycled to Bishan swimming pool and I realised I had forgotten my towel. After the swim, I had to dry myself using my stinky shirt but found that the towel wouldn't have mattered anyway because I had to cycle home in the rain.

Today, while changing into my swimming trunks, the elastic strings snapped from the inside and I had to go home instead.

Wow, it's not easy to swim these days.

Adding to the flaming topic of population growth of Singapore.

I came across an interesting article posted on the Worker's party website, "A Sustainable Singapore with a Dynamic Singaporean majority" by MP Low Thia Khiang which was delivered in Parliament on 7 Feb 2013.

A PDF document titled "Table of Different Solutions to the Problems" caught my eye. Within the document, a summary of the solutions supported by the Worker's party and PAP were listed.

Without permission, I copied and pasted the content of the PDF here and added my own comments. As this is an article and document written by the Worker's party, any of the solutions supposedly coming from PAP should be taken with a ton of salt because it is bound to be bias. Let's objectively go through the content of the PDF file.

1. Low birth rates
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Institutional reforms to remove obstacles for young couples and set birth rates on path to recovery.
   
   
   
   PAP Government solution
   Use monetary incentives to entice young couples to have more babies and hope birth rates will improve.
   
   My comments.
   Worker's party solution using institutional reforms will also unlikely to work, along with the monetary incentives employed by the PAP government. My take is that the diagnostic made was wrong in the first place. It made several assumptions that the problem was caused by high housing costs, lack of family and social support, lack of quality childcare options, and bad work-life balance that are preventing young couples from marrying earlier and having more babies.
   
   What I think that the cost of a country with a large middle class. The problem was the mindset of the new generations. Let's face this, there is no incentive to reproduce as people get more and more materialistic. Why saddle yourself when you can enjoy the world with your love?
   
   Back in the days of 1950s, housing costs was cheap but the young couples were typically living in with the husband's family, so they didn't have to move out and get hit by any housing cost. But now, the expectation is that you can never place more than two female in the kitchen without bloodshed, so young couples prefer to move out upon marriage. Contributing to the lack of family support, the parents of the new couples were also questioning why they are expected to look after their grand children when they are already so old. Maybe taking care of the first grand child was fun, how about the next?
   
   Work life balance is a personal choice most of the time. The better your own productivity, you can work less and get more. The reason why work life balance is out of whack is the fact that the young couples were chasing dollars in order to maintain a higher standard of living and unwilling to let it go. Just two decades ago, dining out was considered a luxury and was only done for celebrations. Take a look now and I believe this is true.
   
   The mindset of the people towards the family has to change. Unless institutional reforms includes forcing people to get married and have children, none of this is likely to work. On the flip side, think about the conditions that made my parents. My grandparents were not rich, there were no TV, no Internet and no condoms. Two generations were living under a single roof but there were children everywhere. Maybe those are the right conditions for high birth rates. Thus does having a couple with no distractions, no entertainment and no contraceptive methods may yield better results? Maybe throwing in a free porn channel can help too.
   
2. Shrinking citizen core
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Focus on recovering citizen birth rates to maintain citizen core; grant citizenships to foreign spouses .
   
   PAP Government solution
   Give out new citizenships to immigrants to top up shortfalls to meet birth quota.
   
   My comments.
   Both solutions are not exclusive and are necessary. I am not a big fan of the idea of defining "The citizen core" as locals versus foreigners. Historically, the demographic of the island is changed with every successive generation. Every since 1819, foreigners have arrived in mass, worked, lived and integrated with the island's original population over time. I came to the conclusion that the term "local" in Singapore is nothing but a contemporary thought. With globalisation, this process of de-localisation and the internationalised identity of the local population is inevitable.
   
3. Immigrant integration
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Promote integration through family ties and educational institutions
   
   PAP Government solution
   Integration through online course and participation in PA activities
   
   My comments.
   Again, none of these will likely to work. Promotion of integration through family ties? Unless you are talking about a foreign spouse, family ties are useless. In the case of a foreign spouse, they have to integrate or the marriage is over anyway. This makes the point made by Mr Low meaningless. Similarly, educational institutions and PA activities are unlikely to help much either.
   
   However, I must admit that this is not an easy thing to do and I do not have any solutions on this one either. The time required for integration for every new citizen can take decades with varying results. From my observation, by the time the next generation, when their Singaporean children are born, the integration is as good as done as the children are raised and educated like most children in Singapore.
   
4. Ageing population
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Senior citizens are a resource and could be encouraged to work in appropriate occupations
   
   PAP Government solution
   Elderly citizens are a burden to society that needs to be supported by immigrants
   
   My comments.
   The only way senior citizens can be a resource is by re-entering the workforce and ending the idea of retirement. This will increase the manpower pool and drive salaries down for jobs that they can perform.
   
   I had always scorned the idea of retirement, thinking that this is a way to remove headcount from the workplace by "natural" attrition or a chance to slash their ever-growing salaries which must have grow over the years while in employment. Probably when I am near the age of retirement, I will be faced with the dilemma of not saving enough to slack till I die,or to accept a lower salary to for the same job, assuming my employer still wants my services.
   
   Therefore, as a voting citizen upon retirement age, I have the option of either continuing to seek employment for a low wage or to get immigrants to support my retirement. Since I will not be squeezing in the peak hour trains if I am retired, why should I vote for the Worker's Party?
   
   And yes, senior citizen is a burden to the country if they did not save enough for their own retirement. Strangely, Mr Low asked "Is the government admitting that the CPF scheme is causing insufficient savings that our senior citizens will become a burden?" I had no idea what is the basis of CPF being the cause of our senior citizens becoming a burden because it sounds like an oxymoron. Preparing for your own future is everyone's personal responsibility and the CPF was never meant to allow you to retire at your current lifestyle.
   
   "The government sees our senior citizens as fiscal and healthcare burdens."
   How is this not the case? Again, if the senior citizen does not save sufficiently for their health care, the load has to be passed to the taxpayers or we can leave them to die on the streets instead.
   
   "The government’s solution is again immigration, as though by increasing the support ratio, our senior citizens will be magically supported."
   There is no magic. It call creating a larger tax base to pay for the current cost. Yes, this is a Ponzi scheme involving getting the new comers to pay for the people who are already in the scheme. The only way not to continue the Ponzi scheme is to remove entitlements, remove subsidies and basically reduce cost to the point that you no longer need to do so.
   
   Otherwise, we can print more Singapore dollars or sell more debts and pass the ensuring hyperinflation bill to our future generations. Somebody got to pay the bills someday.
   
5. Slowing economy
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Promote resident workforce growth through greater labour force participation of women and seniors
   
   PAP Government solution
   Promote foreign workforce growth
   
   My comments.
   This is a right answer to the wrong problem. If the answer is for promoting a greater local workforce to meet the demand of a growing economy, increasing labour force through a greater participation of women and seniors is a good idea.
   
   However, the reason of the slowing economy is Singapore is not because the labour force, local or not, cannot meet the demands of the economy. The economy in Singapore is driven by foreign trades, and that is declining due to the on-going global economic crisis. Increasing the labour force does not address the underlying issue of decreasing demand.
   
   I don't think the PAP is promoting foreign workforce growth as the solution to the slowing economy. The foreign workforce are for filling gaps that the locals cannot fill at a reasonable price or speed.
   
6. Infrastructural
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Build for the quality of life of current population
   
   PAP Government solution
   Build to prepare for worst-case scenario of immigration tsunami
   
   My comments.
   Referring to my comments in problem 2, we are actually part of an older immigration tsunami and we are in no position to deny the next. Why are we always talking about a "current population" when it is not something you can make static in today's world? Either we prepare for tomorrow or we will be left behind in the world.
   
7. Workers’ Party solution
   For Singaporean families
   
   PAP Government solution
   For Immigration
   
   My comments.
   For integration. Immigration is inevitable, is a part of our history and our national identity. There is never a point in history since 1819 that we had deny immigration and we should not do so just to put a show of nationalism which is meaningless in a globalised world. This sounds more like hypocrisy and double standards to me.
   
   From a hundred local folks in 1819, we had grew to 5.3 million today. Seriously, do you think that a bunch of locals suddenly decided to reproduce themselves since then? It was all through immigration.
   
   Not to worry, the immigration tsunami will stop as soon as Singapore becomes unattractive to them. Probably at the same time, our "locals" will also be joining another immigration tsunami, going for the next best country of the time.
   

Last words before I get flamed.
Given a choice, there is nothing to stop you or me from migrating to another country doing the immigrants are doing and facing exactly the same issues as they do.

We are not Japan and will never want to be. Read the following Wikipedia article for an idea of what is to be expected if we following the path of what the Worker's Party is advocating. Aging of Japan.

My take on sustainability is that none of what we are doing or going to do are sustainable. Like it or not, we are in the greatest global Ponzi scheme ever in human history. There is little room for moral values, nationalism and protectionism. Our future as a national depends on how much you can grab now, not how much you can grow in the future.