Thursday, February 24, 2011

Financial Planning Talk by Tan Kin Lian

I am conducting the talk tomorrow (Feb 26) at SMU School of Economics Room 2.2 from 2 to 5 pm. You can register on the spot.

SDP Anniversary Dinner, 2011

The Singapore Democratic Party is quite well organised, with a strong membership. They are able to attract many young members. Here is a video of their anniversary dinner, produced by Dr. Wong Wee Nam
Read SGEP

In recent months, the SDP has been focused on preparing for the general election. They have managed to attract many credible candidates. The court case against Dr. Chee Soon Juan was for an event that occurred several years ago, and was for the offence of selling the newsletter without a licence or speaking without a permit. Many people could be charged for committing a similar offense, if they have been targeted.

New FISCA website

FISCA will be launching its new website in March. You can have a preview of this website here:
http://www.easyapps.sg/assn/Org/Default.aspx?id=5

Click on "Information" to see the information that is available for the public. Members can login to see the evaluation of the insurance and investment products. About 20 evaluations have been created, covering the popular products in the market.

We will send an e-mail to existing members to notify them of their new login ID (using their e-mail address) and allow them to create their new password. They can login to see the evaluation of products. We will be adding to the evaluation of products quite frequently. It will be useful to join as a FISCA members.

Tan Kin Lian

Consumer financial issues

I need a volunteer to check the local media daily for letters on consumer and financial issues. Your tasks are:

  • Make a summary of the issue
  • Post the summary in the FISCA website with access to the original letter 
This task is for a  undergraduate who is able to spend about two hours a week. If you are interested to volunteer for this task, send an e-mail to kinlian@gmail.com.
  

Policy of give and take

An excellent article by Dr. Wong Wee Nam
http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=5953
Also read SGEP

Quote:
The government has collected a lot of money from the people. It is about time it provides for the poor, the indigent, the sick and the aged and other services that would not draw complaints from the general population. We want long term measures and not “goodies” that could be eaten away in matter of months by rising costs.
Unquote

Higher rentals for food stalls

Dear Mr. Tan,
I have come across two incidents of high rentals for food stalls. Apparently, this is rampant and nothing was done about it.

Case 1. My friend rented a stall in a primary school, but later found out the stall was actually sub-let from the main stall holder who knows nothing about food business. This person bid for stalls island-wide and sub-let them to the genuine hawkers. How can the hawker sell quality cheap food to students if there is a middle man profiteering from this system? The school administration should ensure the authencity of the bidder and ensure integrity in their business administration? Eventually my friend decided to give up the stall.


Case 2. Another 
 stall holder told me that the rent from the middle man was so high, after a change of landlord, that he had to give up the stall.

It seems that the Jurong Town Corporation is giving up its industrial estates to private developers and landlords. The privatised developers are increasing their rental and the stall holders are being squeezed by the rising food prices and rising rental. 
The hawkers, who have low education, cannot forsee the privatisation changes coming, and will lose out to public listed food courts like Kopitiam and Banquet. In time, there will be no more sole proprietorships or enterprising business, but everyone has to work for big enterprise. This is totally suppressing small enterprises in Singapore.

REPLY
I agree with your views. We have a bad system in Singapore.

Poor feeder service

I took a bus from Midview City to Ang Mo Kio MRT. It was a bad connection. The bus stop was 7 mins away from the MRT station. It was a long walk.  On my return, I walked from Bishan MRT station to the bus stop to take the bus to Midview City. It was another 5 minutes.

No wonder, people pay the moon to get a car. Our connection between the bus to the MRT station is quite bad, judging from the long distance in both examples above.

We have an unsatisfactory system where the bus services have poor connection to the MRT system. It is better to have small buses running a local service to bring commuters right to the MRT station. This is probably the system in Hong Kong.

It is time for our Land Transport Authority to pay attention to this important matter. There is no point to spend some time time and cost in changing to a distance based fare, when the basic system has a lot of flaws.

Tan Kin Lian

Donation to FISCA

I helped a consumer to prepare a complaint against an insurance agent who cheated her. The agent convinced her to invest $50,000 and instead of putting it into a single premium policy, the agent changed the application, without her knowledge, to an annual premium policy. After a lengthy investigation, which was quite stressful to the consumer, the insurance company finally agreed to refund the full payment of $50,000. She was grateful for my help.

I asked her to make a donation of $200 to $1,000 to FISCA. She sent in a cheque for a larger sum. I appreciate her generosity. I hope that other consumers, who has got my free time and assistance, will also make a donation to FISCA.

Tan Kin Lian