Black & White 100 Project - 77 of 100

"A day in the neighbourhood" — Leica M2 and CV Nokton 35/1.4 SC on Kodak Tri-X. All rights reserved.

This is a pretty typical scene in a Singaporean housing estate when I was a wee lad. A neighbourhood barber, a provision shop, residents milling around catching up on the gossip or just taking refuge from the relentless great fireball in the sky. The fast pace of development in Singapore may mean this is something that will only be recounted in textbooks rather than lived out in the flesh.

Why is this even allowed?

I was very surprised when I first read that real estate agencies and agents are also allowed to operate money-lending businesses. The conflict of interest that is legally allowed to exist in this case is nothing short of egregious.

Click to read more ...

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Vivian Balakrishnan's indignant response to Al Jazeera's coverage of the homeless in Singapore has been making the rounds for the past couple of days, helped by our unquestioning mainstream press when they printed the minister's words without even an hint of challenge or an effort towards verification. And when Al Jazeera refused to back down from that story, the contrast between them and the local press has never been clearer.

Click to read more ...

Still in denial

Leong Sze Hian has written many pieces regarding HDB flats and policies for TOC, and part two of his report on the People’s Association Youth Movement (PAYM) policy forum @ Jurong GRC, held last Sunday, has some very interesting statistics for us to mull over. Here are some that caught my eye.

Click to read more ...

Fallen through the technicality cracks

What the homeless need is a helping hand, not a free gift, and that helping hand could just be as easy as fine-tuning existing policies to close off such loopholes. Which is what the government should be doing anyway.

Click to read more ...

Statistics as a magic trick, continued

Singapore Mind does one better and posted the entire Sue-Ann Chia editorial in this article, along with more numbers to illustrate how HDB mismanaged demand of flats and pulls together a pretty good summary with links.

Click to read more ...

ST editorial highlights statistical trickery

I won't call it a triumph of journalism standards, but it is refreshing to see an ST editorial that cautioned against dismissing legitimate issues with the excuse of astroturfing, and exposed the sleight-of-hand that National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan presented to the ST as justification for rising resale flat prices, using Hazel Poa's blog post.

Click to read more ...

Statistics as a magic trick

Hazel Poa breaks down the latest HDB statistics National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan provided to ST's Jessica Cheam to justify median household income outstripping increased HDB resale flat prices.

Click to read more ...

ST refuses to challenge falsehoods

Straits Times published a fluff piece today, an interview with National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan about the cost of public housing. The minister produced a chart proving that median household income has kept pace with prices of flats, which is touted by Jessica Cheam to be "hard facts and statistics".

Click to read more ...

The problem with government forums

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong "wants to strengthen the CPF route in the buying and selling of flats" to reinforce "the aim of these homes as assets for life":

"When we help people to own a home, it's really for you for life," Mr Lee said. "When you're not so old, and you've bought the house, and now you see that the pot of gold is down there and you ignore the 'please don't break the glass sign' and you break the glass and take the money out straightaway, then what happens to you? Or more importantly, your children and your dependents? Where do they go?

Click to read more ...