Money, Money, Money: Singapore Life This Week

This week in Singapore it has all been about the money.

We had the Budget with the imminent General Election in mind.

All Singaporean voters got loadsamoney!

This was helped by Singapore generating a surplus of dosh thanks to increased corporation tax income as I wrote about here.

We had the mock hoo-hah of Kinokuniya closing some of its space due to not making any money and being replaced by a cafe which in Singapore is normally a license to print money!

I wrote about that here.

Some people seem to be in some delusional state that somehow having bookstores that don’t make any money was our right and that we were entitled to it!

Nope!

It’s all based on money.

No money, no honey baby!

We had our lovely casino MBS taking out the largest loan ever in Singapore’s history of some $12billion to build more suites, more towers, more space for gambling and an arena that competes directly with the existing Indoor Stadium (that is also getting replaced with a larger arena), all in an effort to make more money. Story here.

Well that and not be gazumped by the upcoming casinos in Thailand, Japan and Vietnam.

We have Property Guru losing money again so having to get rid of 12% of its workforce, 174 people, shutting 3 existing businesses and focusing on core markets. This despite a property buying boom in the region which saw sales in Singapore of properties rise by over 200%. Story here.

People who have money here, have a lot of money and they’re investing in the tried and tested property market. Property sales were up 256% in January, see the story here:

We had the new Raffles Sentosa Hotel open with no rooms and only suites to cater for the wealthy tourists and locals looking for an expensive staycation.

Read about that here.

There was also a big debate this week about whether Singapore was too expensive for tourists, which is why even though Changi had record visitors, Singapore's inbound tourist numbers were not up by the same amount.

The question here seems to revolve around targeting. Should Singapore be focused on affluent tourists with money instead of millions of tourists with less money?

I wrote about that here.

Of course there was big drama this week with the leader of the Opposition, Pritam Singh being fined $14k but in two parts which enabled him to escape being disbarred from the forthcoming GE.

I wrote about that here.

Most people don’t seem to care what he was found guilty of as they assumed that a government committee and judiciary was going to do this anyway so most commentators think that it will have minimal impact on who votes for the WP.

The WP is after all more of a protest vote than anything else.

They won’t be getting their hands on Singapore's reserves anytime soon.

One of my most commented and viewed posts of the week was about the reality of FnB with the closure of The English House because it catered for the wrong market, was in the wrong place, served the wrong dishes and had terrible service!

The market is now for Asian fine and casual dining not Western fine and casual dining.

FnB entrepreneurs and Westerners complaining about it are as far removed from reality as those people wanting bookstores to still be around despite losing money!

I wrote about that here.

Another very popular post that I wrote this week was all about how money can’t buy you love and as old fashioned as that sounds, it’s true. My post about that here.

Then there was the post I wrote about retailers pulling out of Parkway Parade because they were no longer making money but they were replaced by smaller FnB and retailers who presumably think that they can make money.?

Read about that here.

I also shared how our health workers are increasingly coming from overseas because, in my view and the data backs me up, no amount of money will persuade locals to take these front line jobs, same as FnB, same as construction, same as retail.

Management directing people no problem but not front line doing the hard graft.

Basically yet another job that Singaporeans don't want and that can't be done by automation so this is inevitable: "SCDF to begin hiring foreigners for emergency medical services roles The move comes amid an increase in demand for such services." My post about it here.

What do you think?

Have a great weekend!

Cheers!

Chris