SINGAPORE - It was reported that the Government is building more two- and three-room flats because they are presently in demand. Two-room flats are those with a living room and one bedroom. The sale price for such a new flat starts at S$76,000. What this really means is that Singaporeans are getting poorer and unable to afford bigger flats.

A few years ago the Government was saying that it would phase out the smaller flats because Singaporeans were moving into 4- and 5-room flats as they got richer. What happened?
There is only one answer: Singaporeans are getting poorer. The HDB tells us that "there are more people who will need to downgrade to smaller flats, as well as first timer families who would also like to start with smaller flats to be financially prudent."

" In the meantime the People Action party ( PAP), through its media, continues to sell us the snake oil that under its rule Singaporeans are better-off. It doesn't bother to explain how. That's because it cannot: Our public debt as a percentage of the GDP is close to 100 percent and income disparity levels are at those of Third World countries than First World ones. Queues for free food are lengthening. The number of homeless are increasing. More and more of our youths are getting disillusioned and alienated. The brain drain problem is going from bad to worse."

What's worse is that Singaporeans find themselves with absolutely no voice. We lost it when we traded our political strength for the promise of, in the PAP's words, "more good years." In the interim, the PAP has tightened the noose so much so that Singaporeans now find themselves at the mercy of a handful of people within the ruling party.
Have we been cheated? This is what Dr Chee Soon Juan's book, A Nation Cheated, talks about. It reveals how Singaporeans have been short-changed through the years. Perhaps this is why the book continues to sell well. Kinokuniya Bookstore has placed yet another order for it as more and more Singaporeans want to know more how they have been systematically robbed of their economic and political rights, especially in such depressing times.