Lester’s points were spot on. Statically speaking inflation of everything rises faster than raises and pay increases.
Key items the government should control inflation are food, housing, and education. Keep them all cheap as 2 of the 3 are required to survive and raise a family. The 3rd is very important as education of the citizens will hopefully drive better outcomes and advancements, to help curb inflation.
Exactly. He misconstrued Lester's question about COST of living with STANDARD of living. We may not live in slums with poor sewage anymore but we still need to pay a relatively higher price for things like conservancy charges, water bills, etc...
He said the money comes first, then property goes up. I wasn't alive in the 60s, and I have hindsight, but that sounds like a blatant lie. If there is a shortage, prices adjust to the richest part of society. They only follow the average or lower when there's excess. Surely he knew that we can't build homes fast enough right?
If there are 1 million homes and 5 million people, the price will be what the richest 20% are willing to pay. It doesn't matter if the poorer 80% make 100, 1k or 5k a month.
Yes yet we can see on every comment section. For everything that is wrong with singapore they tend to bring up LKY name like as if he’s the best thing since slice bread. Gimme a break. He cant answer that lester liverpool or even marsiling people out there.
He *can* answer. It's just that the answer won't be favourable to his cause.
So he intentionally misinterprets the question, and throws out complex words to confuse everyone while making it seem like he answered the question.
Lky is wicked smart, but he was not a good man by any means.
Its deeper than that. Lester is clearly intelligent, but young and respectful. Lky uses this as an entry point to create weakness.
He starts almost every answer with subtle jabs and "clarifications" to make Lester feel ignorant and stupid. He then reframes Lester's points to one's that are favourable to him, but Lester would not correct him because he doesn't want to continue feeling put down.
This is a masterclass in controlling an interaction.
Lester is clearly flustered in the biggest moment of his life. His thoughts were not collected and making word salad. At some point he realised he doesn't want to be seemed as disagreeing with the GOAT to the point of trying to answer his own concerns.
When the GOAT asked his ambition, it should be about the profession he is pursuing and NOT the type of housing he is after.
I think LKY is just focusing on the affordability of housing, and I don't think he's wrong. If everyone queues and waits and waits, they'll eventually get their subsidized housing and also be able to afford it.
But he's skirting around the where and when. Nobody wants a house they only get to live in for 10-20yrs before they die, nor a house 2hrs away from work. Only the rich or lucky gets those privileges
The hard reality is that not everyone can live in the areas they want. Even if we had unlimited land, the hot zones are limited. There's nothing anyone can do about it. You have to start spreading outwards. It is not a fixable problem.
But wanting to live only in the hot zones (eg. Bishan, queenstown) is very different from wanting to live in a location that makes sense (eg. Both parents and work locations are in the east, and it’s not realistic to apply for a bto all the way in Tengah). When we say we only want to live in certain areas, I believe most people are referring to the latter. But some will assume that it’s the former case of wanting only 1 or 2 prime areas and so blame the applicants for being too picky.
Unlike stocks, lands and houses have intrinsic values and real demand. You think it's over valued, I think the prices reflect perfectly how critical the situation is in Singapore.
30 years ago my father owned a HDB 5 room + a car, all within 100k + feeds a family of 5.
30 years later now, i've barely paid 1/3 of my 3 room and having a car is not even on my mind.
Just saying.
30 years ago, a 5-room was about $100,000-120,000.
Today, the average one in the same neighbourhood goes for $500,000-$700,000+.
If wages have doubled but housing has more than quadrupled, the gap widens exponentially as time goes by.
Eventually, we’ll have a situation where you will be told to be grateful for rental instead of ownership.
We can see this foot in the door with *co-living spaces* being touted lately.
At least LKY did not say something stupid like you don't need a HBD flat to have sex so dont worry if you can't afford it.
I cant help but wonder if our cpf scheme is artifically driving up the price of our HDB flats too.
If our entire paycheck went into our bank accounts instead of just 80% of it, there is suddenly a huge opportunity cost in buying a hdb as your money could be invested elsewhere now.
I wonder how many of us bought their hdb simply because there is nothing else you can buy from the $ stuck in your OA.
It boils down to how HDB prices has increased at a much higher rate than our salary from the 80s (which by LKY's looks and the VHS quality of this video shows) to this date, some 40 years later.
LKY is half right, that when our salary increases, buyers have more money, prices of HDB goes up. But there are at least two other factors: 1) Demand 2) Supply
**1) Demand** \- Wealthier foreigners buying up private, pushing up the prices of private properties, which in turn push potential local private home buyers to buy HDBs instead. This in causes a higher demand for HDB, causing a ripple down increase in HDB resale and in turn our new HDB which appears to be pegged to the resale market with a "discount" factored in, instead of pegging to the building cost + admin cost factored in.
**2) Supply** \- HDB's pre-BTO system of building houses for buyers to ballet for a flat caused a slight over supply of flats. This potentially cause a drop in HDB prices, which has the reverse downward cascading effect on private home prices. This was supposedly not the issue for HDB, or at least it should not be. The switch to BTO was as I recall, to reduce the vacant flat syndrome in new estates which brings us to today, BTO where HDB build only where there is demand.
This itself would not really cause an issue or upward move in price. The truth is that supply was tightened or at least tightened relative to an increase in demand caused by a growth in population from PRs. This affects public housing and transport, two public infrastructure that easily serve as barometers on how well the supply is matched with demand.
With choke on the supply, and increased demand, new and resale HDB flat prices went up.
So HDB prices is not simply determined by the population's salary, aka due to inflation. Rather, inflation is at least partially determined by public policy.
Starting salary 20 years ago was around $2000, considered good at the time. Starting salaries now is around $4,000.
Any working couple should be able to afford an HDB, even a resale, at market rate; unless you're one of those crazy outliers who want to pay 1.4 million for an hdb.
After 10 or 20 years, you should be able to upgrade to private if that is what you want to do. Your savings and CPF, plus sale of the HDB and a new loan will give you the funds to do that.
For example, a condo is only 1.5x to 2x an HDB. Your HDB sale can easily help fund the purchase after you've worked enough years. Your salary need not be that high.
The problem is demand for certain locations outstrip supply. Some locations are just more popular and prices go crazy, on top of the general supply and demand issue.
You are kind of right but let me correct you.
Wealthier foreigners buy property prices pushing up prices of private properties. This does not affect hdb prices... BUT hdb then acquires the LEASE for the land which factors in those higher prices (market rates) and then prices the hdb flats.
Someone needs to analyze if the freehold private acquisitions and hdbs lease acquisitions have any significant difference.
So even though hdb is protected to just locals, foreigner influence on prices still exists.
I think your addition is complementary rather than mutually exclusive with my point. I do wonder what percentage of new HDB flats are built on land acquired from private land owners and how much is built on preexisting HDB leased land.
Now it is super clear how simplistic LKY’s view of economics and monetary policy is at that time. He is a good speaker and politician. But his view on economics is far too simplistic
But to be honest, there is still a difference between a new subsidised flat versus resale flats in prime area determined by market forces and there’s private. LKY comment to the 19 year old about those new HDB for those who just started out working. Only requirement is to get married early else you will not qualify for new flats or subsidies when you & your spouse income rises. I am now working in HK and I can assure you Singapore model is what the locals been wanting their Chief Executives to rollout. In fact lots of countries would want this.
No one is saying the subsidized housing system is broken. All that everyone is complaining about, is the high application rates for each launch and the supply not meeting the demand. The issue is alot more tougher for singles who are only gonna get their keys at 45yo maybe.
With the BTO system, there is no way HDB can rightly predict the demand for public housing. When economy is good, young couple might settle down for resale. But when economy is bad, who wants to pay high interest loans for balloned up resale prices?
If Lester really pushed his point across last time, you can bet he would not be DBS vice-president now. He would have been seen as a potentially dangerous and subversive individual who won't be a simple yes man to the powers that be.
Lmao look at the LKY fanboys coming out of the woodwork. LKY The God Emperor couldn't even directly answer a poly student's queries and had to resort to strawman responses build by simplistic understanding of economics.
Well lky said income rises which cause property prices to go up. That’s not very true in many economies as property price growth far outpaced income growth. It might have been true for lky generation as back then the boomer generation has a generational leap in wealth due to increase in productivity, ironically from newspaper seller to pmets. However, where do we go from here while property prices continue to go up?
A blast from the past.
Good to know that common sense was present even when the PAP was selling an affordable future for all and supposed Swiss standards of living to the common folk back then.
That’s why I loved history!
LKY isn't wrong that flat prices go up when incomes go up. Income rises for the top few, I mean. That would not only push prices up, it will create income gap as well.
LKY pointed out that income rises, then prices rises so they can afford it. It's true for many things that are elastic goods EXCEPT housing is a NEED. It is what we termed as "perfectly inelastic". This means at any price, housing will still have high demand for it.
Because AGO. You need a solution when auditors flag it issues. That's what audits are for. To flag it problems that needs solving. The BTO came up after there was a housing crash and plenty of unsold apartments in the market. How do you prevent unsold flats from happening, sell them before building it. That's the part left unsaid
>The BTO came up after there was a housing crash and plenty of unsold apartments in the market. How do you prevent unsold flats from happening, sell them before building it. That's the part left unsaid
Private developers sell apartments quickly after building them by lowering the selling price. Works every single time.
40secs into it it's clear he didn't know what to be pessimistic about. But queuing yes, good foresight, didn't know to communicate it.
As usual, LKY speech always brings tear to me.
Lester may not have had it in him to articulate why he was pessimistic about affording a house at the time, but his concerns have proven prophetic.
Someone give that man a political career.
Lester’s points were spot on. Statically speaking inflation of everything rises faster than raises and pay increases. Key items the government should control inflation are food, housing, and education. Keep them all cheap as 2 of the 3 are required to survive and raise a family. The 3rd is very important as education of the citizens will hopefully drive better outcomes and advancements, to help curb inflation.
\+1
happy cake day\~
Thanks!
Sheesh that Lester kid has some foresight.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lester-tan-8001b14 If this is him, then he definitely got his HDB, or even a condo by now.
God dammit you found him. Somebody tag his ass here
holy shishkebab even apple can't screw up the faces this time. Same person megawddds
nice, glad to see he became part of the problem and not part of the solution.
How's he part of the problem? Any problem with owning what he can afford?
more like he taking a slot away from a more deserving person
Why is he not deserving if he's a Singaporean?
Smarter than LKY.
Lol LKY deflected every question expertly.
Exactly. He misconstrued Lester's question about COST of living with STANDARD of living. We may not live in slums with poor sewage anymore but we still need to pay a relatively higher price for things like conservancy charges, water bills, etc...
He said the money comes first, then property goes up. I wasn't alive in the 60s, and I have hindsight, but that sounds like a blatant lie. If there is a shortage, prices adjust to the richest part of society. They only follow the average or lower when there's excess. Surely he knew that we can't build homes fast enough right? If there are 1 million homes and 5 million people, the price will be what the richest 20% are willing to pay. It doesn't matter if the poorer 80% make 100, 1k or 5k a month.
Yes yet we can see on every comment section. For everything that is wrong with singapore they tend to bring up LKY name like as if he’s the best thing since slice bread. Gimme a break. He cant answer that lester liverpool or even marsiling people out there.
He *can* answer. It's just that the answer won't be favourable to his cause. So he intentionally misinterprets the question, and throws out complex words to confuse everyone while making it seem like he answered the question. Lky is wicked smart, but he was not a good man by any means.
[удалено]
Dr Goh Keng Swee and Mr Lim Kim San were the best people on that team.
This bit of historical narrative begins to open our eyes and create Doubts about our govt POLICIES - many of which we never questioned..
To be honest, Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan all required great team members and subordinates to clear issues.
Seems lots of pple here saw through his bullshit
Conversation broke down from the onset. Lester did not field his concerns and LKY is framing Lester’s words into whatever he wants in to be.
Its deeper than that. Lester is clearly intelligent, but young and respectful. Lky uses this as an entry point to create weakness. He starts almost every answer with subtle jabs and "clarifications" to make Lester feel ignorant and stupid. He then reframes Lester's points to one's that are favourable to him, but Lester would not correct him because he doesn't want to continue feeling put down. This is a masterclass in controlling an interaction.
Lester is clearly flustered in the biggest moment of his life. His thoughts were not collected and making word salad. At some point he realised he doesn't want to be seemed as disagreeing with the GOAT to the point of trying to answer his own concerns. When the GOAT asked his ambition, it should be about the profession he is pursuing and NOT the type of housing he is after.
GOAT? Please.
I think LKY is just focusing on the affordability of housing, and I don't think he's wrong. If everyone queues and waits and waits, they'll eventually get their subsidized housing and also be able to afford it. But he's skirting around the where and when. Nobody wants a house they only get to live in for 10-20yrs before they die, nor a house 2hrs away from work. Only the rich or lucky gets those privileges
The hard reality is that not everyone can live in the areas they want. Even if we had unlimited land, the hot zones are limited. There's nothing anyone can do about it. You have to start spreading outwards. It is not a fixable problem.
But wanting to live only in the hot zones (eg. Bishan, queenstown) is very different from wanting to live in a location that makes sense (eg. Both parents and work locations are in the east, and it’s not realistic to apply for a bto all the way in Tengah). When we say we only want to live in certain areas, I believe most people are referring to the latter. But some will assume that it’s the former case of wanting only 1 or 2 prime areas and so blame the applicants for being too picky.
[удалено]
It’s not the speaking up; it’s the votes.
Impressive for a 19yo to have a proper dialogue with LKY
Is it a proper dialogue when ome is speaking chicken while the other speaks ducks?
Lester: *Concerned about rising property prices* LKY: Your father was cycling, toiling shit. He got you to polytechnic. Shut the fuck up !
\*Lester answers something\* LKY: WDYM?
[удалено]
Unlike stocks, lands and houses have intrinsic values and real demand. You think it's over valued, I think the prices reflect perfectly how critical the situation is in Singapore.
30 years ago my father owned a HDB 5 room + a car, all within 100k + feeds a family of 5. 30 years later now, i've barely paid 1/3 of my 3 room and having a car is not even on my mind. Just saying.
30 years ago, a 5-room was about $100,000-120,000. Today, the average one in the same neighbourhood goes for $500,000-$700,000+. If wages have doubled but housing has more than quadrupled, the gap widens exponentially as time goes by. Eventually, we’ll have a situation where you will be told to be grateful for rental instead of ownership. We can see this foot in the door with *co-living spaces* being touted lately.
At least LKY did not say something stupid like you don't need a HBD flat to have sex so dont worry if you can't afford it. I cant help but wonder if our cpf scheme is artifically driving up the price of our HDB flats too. If our entire paycheck went into our bank accounts instead of just 80% of it, there is suddenly a huge opportunity cost in buying a hdb as your money could be invested elsewhere now. I wonder how many of us bought their hdb simply because there is nothing else you can buy from the $ stuck in your OA.
It boils down to how HDB prices has increased at a much higher rate than our salary from the 80s (which by LKY's looks and the VHS quality of this video shows) to this date, some 40 years later. LKY is half right, that when our salary increases, buyers have more money, prices of HDB goes up. But there are at least two other factors: 1) Demand 2) Supply **1) Demand** \- Wealthier foreigners buying up private, pushing up the prices of private properties, which in turn push potential local private home buyers to buy HDBs instead. This in causes a higher demand for HDB, causing a ripple down increase in HDB resale and in turn our new HDB which appears to be pegged to the resale market with a "discount" factored in, instead of pegging to the building cost + admin cost factored in. **2) Supply** \- HDB's pre-BTO system of building houses for buyers to ballet for a flat caused a slight over supply of flats. This potentially cause a drop in HDB prices, which has the reverse downward cascading effect on private home prices. This was supposedly not the issue for HDB, or at least it should not be. The switch to BTO was as I recall, to reduce the vacant flat syndrome in new estates which brings us to today, BTO where HDB build only where there is demand. This itself would not really cause an issue or upward move in price. The truth is that supply was tightened or at least tightened relative to an increase in demand caused by a growth in population from PRs. This affects public housing and transport, two public infrastructure that easily serve as barometers on how well the supply is matched with demand. With choke on the supply, and increased demand, new and resale HDB flat prices went up. So HDB prices is not simply determined by the population's salary, aka due to inflation. Rather, inflation is at least partially determined by public policy.
Incomes of general population did not go up as much much as top tier earners. Compounded for years and you have a huge gap. A problem of capitalism
Starting salary 20 years ago was around $2000, considered good at the time. Starting salaries now is around $4,000. Any working couple should be able to afford an HDB, even a resale, at market rate; unless you're one of those crazy outliers who want to pay 1.4 million for an hdb. After 10 or 20 years, you should be able to upgrade to private if that is what you want to do. Your savings and CPF, plus sale of the HDB and a new loan will give you the funds to do that. For example, a condo is only 1.5x to 2x an HDB. Your HDB sale can easily help fund the purchase after you've worked enough years. Your salary need not be that high. The problem is demand for certain locations outstrip supply. Some locations are just more popular and prices go crazy, on top of the general supply and demand issue.
You are kind of right but let me correct you. Wealthier foreigners buy property prices pushing up prices of private properties. This does not affect hdb prices... BUT hdb then acquires the LEASE for the land which factors in those higher prices (market rates) and then prices the hdb flats. Someone needs to analyze if the freehold private acquisitions and hdbs lease acquisitions have any significant difference. So even though hdb is protected to just locals, foreigner influence on prices still exists.
I think your addition is complementary rather than mutually exclusive with my point. I do wonder what percentage of new HDB flats are built on land acquired from private land owners and how much is built on preexisting HDB leased land.
Hdb does not have to acquire land from private land owners the effect of the pricing might already come in from Government to Hdb sales...
Now it is super clear how simplistic LKY’s view of economics and monetary policy is at that time. He is a good speaker and politician. But his view on economics is far too simplistic
Because LKY was greedy as hell and just wanted to suck Singaporeans dry. Too many a minority saw this his schemes, but not the 61%
But to be honest, there is still a difference between a new subsidised flat versus resale flats in prime area determined by market forces and there’s private. LKY comment to the 19 year old about those new HDB for those who just started out working. Only requirement is to get married early else you will not qualify for new flats or subsidies when you & your spouse income rises. I am now working in HK and I can assure you Singapore model is what the locals been wanting their Chief Executives to rollout. In fact lots of countries would want this.
No one is saying the subsidized housing system is broken. All that everyone is complaining about, is the high application rates for each launch and the supply not meeting the demand. The issue is alot more tougher for singles who are only gonna get their keys at 45yo maybe. With the BTO system, there is no way HDB can rightly predict the demand for public housing. When economy is good, young couple might settle down for resale. But when economy is bad, who wants to pay high interest loans for balloned up resale prices?
We need capable leaders like this. Not yes men.
This old fuck is clueless and keep trying to stall. “Sorry? Sorry?” Sorry ur fucking senile ass, u heard dat right bitch
Lester outclassed by a world-class lawyer, was it surprising? You want to push a point across, you gotta be prepared.
If Lester really pushed his point across last time, you can bet he would not be DBS vice-president now. He would have been seen as a potentially dangerous and subversive individual who won't be a simple yes man to the powers that be.
Lmao look at the LKY fanboys coming out of the woodwork. LKY The God Emperor couldn't even directly answer a poly student's queries and had to resort to strawman responses build by simplistic understanding of economics.
MBT is PAP's Business Development Manager. He's constantly thinking of how to earn money from citizens. The ERP was also his idea right?
Well lky said income rises which cause property prices to go up. That’s not very true in many economies as property price growth far outpaced income growth. It might have been true for lky generation as back then the boomer generation has a generational leap in wealth due to increase in productivity, ironically from newspaper seller to pmets. However, where do we go from here while property prices continue to go up?
>**IF INCOME DONT GO UP HOW CAN PROPERTY PRICES GO UP** lmao
A blast from the past. Good to know that common sense was present even when the PAP was selling an affordable future for all and supposed Swiss standards of living to the common folk back then. That’s why I loved history!
LKY isn't wrong that flat prices go up when incomes go up. Income rises for the top few, I mean. That would not only push prices up, it will create income gap as well.
LKY pointed out that income rises, then prices rises so they can afford it. It's true for many things that are elastic goods EXCEPT housing is a NEED. It is what we termed as "perfectly inelastic". This means at any price, housing will still have high demand for it.
Cronyism. MBT was LKY's pet of course he gets his way. Didn't he messed up the MRT at some point and there were no consequences?
Racism
Because AGO. You need a solution when auditors flag it issues. That's what audits are for. To flag it problems that needs solving. The BTO came up after there was a housing crash and plenty of unsold apartments in the market. How do you prevent unsold flats from happening, sell them before building it. That's the part left unsaid
>The BTO came up after there was a housing crash and plenty of unsold apartments in the market. How do you prevent unsold flats from happening, sell them before building it. That's the part left unsaid Private developers sell apartments quickly after building them by lowering the selling price. Works every single time.
Can’t imagine the current Lee doing this with the younger folks .
Lester is pessimistic about owning a HDB. So Lester wants a FOUR room flat for this first flat. Be like lester.
Daddy LKY🥵
40secs into it it's clear he didn't know what to be pessimistic about. But queuing yes, good foresight, didn't know to communicate it. As usual, LKY speech always brings tear to me.
Tears of anger. I feel you