So what’s surprising these days? SMRT is going to raise flag-down rates for standard taxis. The uncles at ComfortDelgro complain about a drop in business, but people are going to get “used to” the new fare structure in no time. I would be very surprised if the other taxi operators don’t follow suit; probably with a bit of time lapse and perhaps with a few different twists in order to make it look less like price fixing. Our modelling agencies should take notes.
But as far as cabs go, no “Unoccupy Taxi” movement can last very long in Singapore. That’s the absolute tooth.
I can’t help admiring how ComfortDelgro and some other related companies can dump their historical baggage so easily. I know I would have great difficulty, remembering that in 1973, NTUC Welcome Supermarket was set up in Toa Payoh in order to solve the problem of rapidly rising prices of oil and daily necessities back then. Unless I’m very much mistaken, these stores were set up to counter profiteering on the part of provision shops which used inflation as an excuse to mark up prices. Nowadays, the folks who have set out to keep rising prices in check have become the leaders of upward price revisions. Amazing.
More on history. Going back to the SARS epidemic in 2003, I remember this piece of news.
Changi faces challenge as regional hub
By William Barnes and John Burton
December 24 2003
Financial Times
When Air Asia, the Malaysian budget airline, recently started flights
from the southern state of Johor, near Singapore, it hoped to attract
passengers by running a convenient bus service to the city-state.
Singapore quickly quashed that idea. Yeo Cheow Tong, the transport
minister, said the government would not approve a bus link for Air
Asia because it was not “in our national interest”, reflecting fears
that Singapore’s Changi airport would lose business to Johor’s new
Senai airport.
The rest of the article can be read here
The term “national interests” was stuck in my mind, but I didn’t see how operating bus services to Senai could have affected our “national interests” in any way that affects me. With a 2-way traffic, buses can also bring people from Senai to Singapore. These folks may patronise our local stores and help us out. Fast forward to the end of 2011 and look what happened.
- SINGAPORE: Travel agencies expect their tour groups to the Johor Premium Outlets to be booked out by January next year, with Singaporeans forming the majority of their customers.
The shopping complex, a joint venture between the Malaysian Genting Group and the Simon Property Group of the United States, is about half an hour’s drive from the Tuas Checkpoint in Singapore.
The official opening of Johor Premium Outlets on Sunday saw shoppers buying top international brands at a discount.
The rest of the article can be read here
So local tour operators are allowed to organise tours to Johor Premium Outlets. How about Johor Premium Medical Services at half the charges in Singapore? That will be the day. As if our expensive regulatory fees, high rentals, private sector saturation, manpower issues don’t already put us at a disadvantage. What happened to “national interests”? Running a bus service to Senai is against national interests and taking customers away from our own stores is not? I’m confused. Unless we have a three quarter bag rule applied to shoppers at Johor Premium Outlets.
Going back just a couple of months, I’m sure everyone remembers this outcry concerning the controversial Abercrombie and Fitch advertisement. Again, I can’t help admiring the folks at Abercrombie and Fitch. Instead of bowing to pressure, they went all out to show the puritanical and rigorously righteous folks out there how out of touch with the ground they are. If only dentists could do this.
