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LoginWhy prices keep increasing !!!
56 posts
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Increasing prices good for government.
Old price $100 x 7% = $7
New price $150 x 7% = $10.50
With increasing prices, they will laugh all the way to the GST bank.
Last few days ago Royal Umbrella rice was $9.80 (5kg) @ NTUC Fairprice, then yesterday it was $10.80 (5kg).
They provide assurances that there will be sufficient stock, but they never guarantee the same price level.
Think about this, if they had kept buffer stocks of rice for 3 months, which was purchased under the old price.
Why has price risen to the new price?
Profiteering?
Edited by maurizio13 04 Apr `08, 1:15PM
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An economic system does not have to be expansive—that is, constantly increasing its production of wealth—and it might well be possible for people to be completely happy in a non-expansive economic system if they were accustomed to it. In the twentieth century, however, the people of our culture have been living under expansive conditions for generations. Their minds are psychologically adjusted to expansion, and they feel deeply frustrated unless they are better off each year than they were the preceding year. The economic system itself has become organized for expansion, and if it does not expand it tends to collapse.
The basic reason for this maladjustment is that investment has become an essential part of the system, and if investment falls off, consumers have insufficient incomes to buy the consumers' goods which are being produced in another part of the system because part of the flow of purchasing power created by the production of goods was diverted from purchasing the goods it had produced into savings, and all the goods produced could not be sold until those savings came back into the market by being invested. In the system as a whole, everyone sought to improve his own position in the short run, but this jeopardized the functioning of the system in the long run. The contrast here is not merely between the individual and the system, but also between the long run and the short run...
http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/11.html#31
...The third notable feature of the whole development is closely related to this special nature of capitalism. Capitalism provides very powerful motivations for economic activity because it associates economic motivations so closely with self-interest. But this same feature, which is a source of strength in providing economic motivation through the pursuit of profits, is also a source of weakness owing to the fact that so self-centered a motivation contributes very readily to a loss of economic coordination. Each individual, just because he is so powerfully motivated by self-interest, easily loses sight of the role which his own activities play in the economic system as a whole, and tends to act as if his activities were the whole, with inevitable injury to that whole. We could indicate this by pointing out that capitalism, because it seeks profits as its primary goal, is never primarily seeking to achieve prosperity, high production, high consumption, political power, patriotic improvement, or moral uplift. Any of these may be achieved under capitalism, and any (or all) of them may he sacrificed and lost under capitalism, depending on this relationship to the primary goal of capitalist activity—the pursuit of profits. During the nine-hundred-year history of capitalism, it has, at various times, contributed both to the achievement and to the destruction of these other social goals...
...In the course of time the central fact of the developing economic system, the relationship between goods and money, became clear, at least to bankers.
This relationship, the price system, depended upon five things:
the supply and the demand for goods,
the supply and the demand for money,
and the speed of exchange between money and goods.
An increase in three of these (demand for goods, supply of money, speed of circulation) would move the prices of goods up and the value of money down.
This inflation was objectionable to bankers, although desirable to producers and merchants.
On the other hand, a decrease in the same three items would be deflationary and would please bankers, worry producers and merchants, and delight consumers (who obtained more goods for less money). The other factors worked in the opposite direction, so that an increase in them (supply of goods, demand for money, and slowness of circulation or exchange) would be deflationary.
Such changes of prices, either inflationary or deflationary, have been major forces in history for the last six centuries at least. Over that long period, their power to modify men's lives and human history has been increasing. This has been reflected in two ways. On the one hand, rises in prices have generally encouraged increased economic activity, especially the production of goods, while, on the other hand, price changes have served to redistribute wealth within the economic system...
http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/02.html#5
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"Think about this, if they had kept buffer stocks of rice for 3 months, which was purchased under the old price."
Stocks of rice is held by importers so they can only control price at NTUC. More interesting how much price rice increase in Carrefour and make a price check. But I believe they make a small profit on top of normal profit + GST of course.
Singaporean consumption pattern no way to curb inflation. Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rice also price increase. All want to eat Thai rice. I guess this tells the supermarkets that demand (for Thai rice) is relatively inelastic and they can maintain the current price even when supply increases again.
However I think that the 3 warehouses full of rice means 3 months of low consumption worth, not normal consumption.
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Think about this, if they had kept buffer stocks of rice for 3 months, which was purchased under the old price.
How do u know the price we r having now is not the price tat they bought 3 months ago ?
Why are prices keep increasing ?
Sad thing man... inflation and reduction in the world food supply. I heard more people r making bio fuel and global warming causing tis drop in supplies. Supply drop, demand same, then price increase
What are the governemnt doing to help ?
Nothing much can be done... win win situation like buying food from other countries, eating different rice, more frozen meat, packets eggs r already employed. it is the problem of the world... only thing is to endure till the next harvest
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Not just the price of rice increases only, prices of oil, flour, hawker food, drinks in coffeeshops and prices of many things have increased !!!
Why ?
How to cope ?
What can the government do to help ?
Like what some forumers show the increase in prices will lead to more GST for the government, the extra GST should be used to help the people then, right ?
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Originally posted by Ahm97sic:
Why are prices keep increasing ?
What are the governemnt doing to help ?
blame it on US
cos of rising oil prices and also US relying more on biofuel..turning food into energy instead of being sold as products
all cause and effect now!
Edited by SiMiLaiEh* 04 Apr `08, 5:25PM
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Price increases because there is high demand. You should not blame the govt. You should blame those who stock up rice unnecessarily. They are the one who drives the demand up and since enveryone wants to make profit (this includes NTUC), they will have to increase the price to make profit and to buffer people from stocking more rice. Consequently, the poor suffer because of the increase in the cost.
And also, those who trade in commodities and futures also play a part in increase in cost of food.
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Not to mention that we have alot of high paying ministers above there earning ridiculouse amts of salary .Inclusive of a " legendary " minister mentor first in the world . Where do we get the money to pay them ? You make your guess . PS: Our ministers pay is much more then the president of a large nation like US . How do we manage to pay our minister such fat salary bigger then US , think agn .
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