Around the new year, a friend commented that this is the last year that I will be in my 20s. I was like, what the shit, you’re right!
So.
I decided that for this year, my resolution would be to climb a mountain. Nothing too high, but I just want to climb it (not counting Bukit Timah). I guess it has to do with milestones in life, and just constantly validating my existence or something. Fingers crossed!
Call me pessimistic, but this stinks of propoganda
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The upside of this downturn
Friday, January 09, 2009
Provided by: Straits Times People can look forward to lower costs; spirit of goodwill may also grow
FOR the first time since we started work several years ago, several of my peers expect to see our annual pay dip this year.
Fortunately, the prices of many items are widely expected to fall too – if they have not started their descent – from private homes and resale HDB flats to cars.
For those of us who are starting out in jobs or starting a family, it does not seem like such a bad time – provided we keep our jobs, that is.
Recession may not seem to be such a bad word after all. This may appear terribly self-centred, given that in a downturn, more jobs are lost, more livelihoods are at stake, and many more families struggle to make ends meet.
In this crisis alone, thousands of retirees have seen their life savings diminish with the collapse of United States investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Thousands more – especially those running small businesses – fear that their livelihoods will be sharply affected.
No one harbours the illusion that the immediate future – the months ahead – will be cheery where personal finances are concerned.
Singapore’s growth is forecast to be between -2 and 1 per cent, and I believe that is an optimistic projection.
Analysts expect retrenchments to surpass the 30,000 figure in 1998, occasioned by the Asian financial crisis.
Workers in export-oriented sectors like manufacturing and electronics are anxious to know if they will keep their jobs after the Chinese New Year.
But while a silver lining may be much harder to find, it does exist in this downturn – and it deserves mention.
For one thing, people might see their purchasing power rise in some areas.
Property prices that soared in recent years are set to drop, bringing good news to those in their 20s and 30s seeking to buy a home to call their own.
Aspiring car owners who have the means are waiting for their chance, with prices of certificates of entitlement expected to fall and stay low.
Investors who did not get badly burnt when one respected financial institution after another teetered on the brink of collapse are still waiting for the market to bottom out.
Just a year ago, inflation was the byword, with more than just property prices soaring: The prices of oil and many daily essentials rose sharply.
There was a spike in the number of people seeking food and other types of assistance, as there will surely be this time round among those who lose their jobs.
But the jobs are there, even if they may not be as glamorous.
Nanyang Technological University economist Tan Khee Giap noted in a recent interview that Singapore’s total employment is still considerably higher than the resident working population.
In other words, there are more jobs created than workers to fill them – only that fewer Singaporeans have the skills or inclination to take them up.
So this downturn – and the generous government-funded training opportunities, which were recently expanded to cover 800 courses, up from 150 – offers plenty of opportunities for those out of work to train for jobs in growth sectors like hotel management and health care.
There are also opportunities for the average person on an everyday level: Prices of a number of goods and services can be expected to dip as suppliers shed excess demand and retailers offer discounts to encourage spending.
If demand drops, prices may well fall.
The experience of previous severe recessions is instructive. During the Great Depression of the early 1930s, records show that the cost of living here fell substantially from 1931, helping to ease the problem of high unemployment.
Singapore historian Loh Kah Seng, a PhD candidate at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Australia, noted that while estate and rubber factory workers suffered a loss in purchasing power, labourers employed by the local government and in manufacturing enjoyed an increase in real wages.
In an article on how official and oral history records showed the impact of the Depression on ordinary people, Mr Loh cited various accounts of how people coped, that could well apply even today.
Among them was rubber broker Gwee Peng Kwee, who said that because things were cheaper, ‘in spite of the slump, although we felt the pinch, we managed to carry on’.
Civil servant Soh Wah Seng ‘recalled the affordability of leather shoes from England at $4 to $5 a pair, suits at $2.50 and silk socks at 60 cents a pair’.
At the time, government employees made no more than $1 a day. ‘Life for most people was more difficult than in the preceding years. But they did not despair but were able to turn to family, friends and kin to obtain jobs, or to procure some pocket money or temporary lodging and food,’ wrote Mr Loh.
A similar spirit of reliance on family and friends prevailed during the 1985 recession, independent Singapore’s first.
In a newspaper article in January 1986, writer Irene Chua observed how people coped by cutting back and re-examining their priorities and lifestyles. She reported on how youth organisation staff worker Lee Wah, 27, rediscovered the value of friendships when her sales executive husband was retrenched.
‘Their friends have been inviting them over for meals. And they now realise just how many friends they have,’ she wrote. ‘One friend even offered to pay their insurance premium. Another footed their car repair bill.’
Will this recession see similar examples that bring out the best in people?
Over the recent Christmas season, groups such as the Boys’ Brigade, YMCA Singapore and the Salvation Army reported a dip in contributions, and cited the economic downturn as a factor.
I would like to believe that people’s uncertainty over how badly their wages will dip or how their businesses will fare as the year ended, was a more likely reason for their holding back.
Now that the picture will be clearer for many with the start of the new year, hopefully those who are better off and fortunate to save on a home or car in this downturn can also be more generous in giving to charity to help those affected in this crisis. In past crises, this spirit of giving helped people cope in anticipation of eventual recovery. This time round should be no different.
zakirh@sph.com.sg
(c) 2009 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Straits Times
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Maybe opening a casino at this time is not the best idea after all.. Read here
It was to my surprise one random day of the week to receive a text message from my friend Pinky. After dating his girlfriend for a few years, he was finally ready to pop the question.
But not before he gathered his brothers together to prepare to wow her.
So thus started an elaborate plan, headed by him, executed by all.
I did not manage to go to the actual proposal because I went to Hong Kong, but I managed to take some pictures of the preparation (the lighting was too low to make out some of them pics so I had to discard them).
