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> Vivian Balakrishnan remarks that Malaysia-, -Singapore water deal is "morally wrong"

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Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 02:44 AM

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QUOTE(weissPC @ Mar 3 2019, 02:30 AM)
Cannot cut as it seems from the video that Johor is dependent on Singapore to supply 16 +6 million gallons of treated water.

Furthermore, as indicated in the video, if Malaysia increase the price of raw water, what is there to prevent Singapore to jack up the price of treated water to Malaysia? Isn't that stupid?

If die die want to cut water supply, Johoreans also won't have enough treated water, and it will be considered an act of war by Singapore, and Singapore just need to invade and take over Johor, then their natural resources problems will be solved, Malaysia will definitely retaliate, but is that what both countries want?

In the end this water issue benefits no one and is a non-issue that Tun M has played up many times and is very tiring, just move on and focus on other bread and butter issues la...
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A lot of the raw water of Johor already diverted to Singapore in the first place so how to produce enough treated water? This agreement, just like the building of the Causeway, was another trick by the British. On the surface, it looked as if both the building of the Causeway and the water agreement would benefit Malaysia but in fact we kena conned left, right and center.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 02:52 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 02:48 AM)
Most people don't even know Newater is not drank except in times of emergency such as war, normally it's used for lesser industrial purposes

and invented by ex-Malaysian Chinese whistling.gif
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Hyflux is in deep financial trouble.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:02 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 02:55 AM)
I know
1 of these days I'll go down and find my Hyflux contact, ask him what the hell happened

Singkies also get complacent, not just us. But their previous hard work gives them the safety net to rebound. Whereas we are constantly toeing the line...
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Maybe Singapore thought that by using desalination they can eventually be free from the need to import water from Johor. In a way that's possible, but I think that is a huge blunder on their part. Because they would have to depend more on energy imports instead to power their desalination plants.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:13 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 02:48 AM)

Or we can learn not to kena con

Guess which Msians have been doing for literal centuries rolleyes.gif

But going back to 1962 - well at the time we were so happy that we booted out all the undesirables to a little island, for a long time there was much rejoicing that we had kicked them out

But as we basked in our hubris and lenggang lenggok, people were working hard. Now we dengki and we say we kena con, they steal our land, bla bla
Even Tunku Abdul Rahman, our first prime minister, was conned into agreeing to merge with Singapore:



QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 02:48 AM)
In my life I've watched the island's fortunes grow, from 2.2 to 2.3 to 3.0... in the meantime we are still stuck where we are

How much longer are we going to bitch and moan? When will we get down to business?
Talking about 2.2 to 2.3 to 3.0 means you don't understand Singapore's monetary policy lah. They use exchange rate policy, not interest-rate monetary policy like the rest of the world.

Why Singapore’s Central Bank Has No Key Rate


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:15 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 03:05 AM)
I would not be surprised if SG is the first ASEAN state to become nuclear capable.

It's the inevitable future.
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Haha. That would be a big joke. A single accident would wipe out the city state.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:38 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 03:23 AM)
The means is simply the means, but we are talking about the end result

MAS's objective has always been to push the rate down

If they let it run free, it'll probably be higher than it is today - what does that say about the attractiveness of their economy vs ours?
No, they have no control over interest rates. Their intention is to control inflation, that's all. They remove Singapore dollars from the economy by pushing it up in order to reduce its availability for their people to spend.

They are well known to be a attraction for corporate tax avoidance activities. Profits from neighbouring countries which should be rightly be taxed locally are siphoned off to be taxed very lowly by them instead.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:48 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 03:43 AM)
Our corporate tax is just as low and we can get "dirty things done dirt cheap" better than them

So why does Singapore attract FDI and not us? Hmm... maybe because this is not the sole or even major factor in their success...
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Haha. You are indeed quite ignorant about them. On the surface it looks like their corporate tax rates are not much lower than us. But multinational companies get special deals with them if offshore profits are transferred to Singapore instead. How low? Less than 1% also possible.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:21 AM

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QUOTE(agent sawyer @ Mar 3 2019, 04:09 AM)
Well we can give Lynas practically 0% deal, who wins  biggrin.gif
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You can even equate an investment incentive of a genuine investor with transfer pricing activity? Why are you trying so hard to protect Singapore's morally wrong behaviour of helping others to avoid paying taxes in the countries that generated the profits?


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:28 PM

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QUOTE(AllnGap @ Mar 3 2019, 07:29 AM)
Where u get this info from ?? 1% that's super low
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I hope our government takes action just like what the Australian tax authorities are doing to their tax-avoiding large companies:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-20/tax-...-fight/10512732

QUOTE
At issue was the margin on mark-ups for commodities BHP sold to its Singapore operations. The island nation's headline company tax rate is 17 per cent, but in years gone by, companies like BHP have been able to legally reduce it to near-zero, thanks to generous incentives from Singapore's Government.

Marketing hubs established by the mining giants allow commodities dug up in Australia, such as iron ore and coal, to be sold to the companies' own operations in Singapore, before they are subsequently sold with a high mark-up to China and other nations.


Imagine we have a factory here that produced something at RM100 and intending to sell to China at RM150. The factory can avoid paying tax on the RM50 profit by "selling" to their Singapore "marketing arm" for RM100.01 and then its "marketing arm" "sells" to China for RM150, with Singapore only levying perhaps a tiny 0.25% tax on the RM49.99 profit.

This, to me, is morally wrong.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 03:58 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 03:52 PM)
sg is already self sufficient in water through NEWater and desalination. in fact, sg has been supplying johor with water when it had shortages in the past few years. malaysia has been threatening to cut for a long time not.

i think just cut water is good, just cut all. sg can also send all malaysians working in singapore back to malaysia. also embargo malaysia, dont buy anything or invest in malaysia. let all the malls and properties and businesses collapse.

sg can simply buy fruits and food from thailand or indonesia instead, sg doesnt need malaysia for anything, including water these days.

go go go  rclxms.gif  rclxms.gif
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No, Singapore is still not self sufficient in water on their own. If it is, there is no point for them to defend the very unfair agreement.

Singapore cannot afford to send back Malaysians working there because they have a huge baby shortage problem.

Yes, Singapore can always buy food from Thailand or Indonesia but that simply means higher prices because of higher transportation and storage costs. Is that going to help the most expensive city in the world?


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:05 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 03:55 PM)
a war may see peninsula malaysia including KL being ceded to singapore forever.

malaysia stands no chance against sg in a war. 100 state of the art fighter jets will be over msia's skies 5 mins in and johor will be lost in 2 days. usa/australia may help and the seventh fleet with another 200 airplanes and ships will block out the sunlight in peninsula malaysia.

not to mention sg is one of the biggest investor in msia, and many msians work in sg to send money home.

msia economy will collapse first, not that it has much of a high-value-services sector to begin with.

many msians will want to be singaporean citizen rather than msian citizens as well.
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I don't think Malaysia would be stupid enough to go to war without somebody else backing us up. What happens if Russia and China backs Malaysia? Just shoot some rockets at all the power stations in Singapore and the island is totally paralysed.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:12 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 04:00 PM)
sg has been self sufficient 10 years ago, sg only imports water because it is cheaper. sg can produce water to cover 2x-3x of what it uses.

sg can send all malaysians back home and replace them with 1 billion indians or chinese or thais EASILY, just cancel all their work visas and within a year all gone. many chinese/indians/filipinoes, all want to work in SG. there is no lack of low skilled workers wanting to work in SG

buying food from thailand is not much more expensive than buying from msia, thai rice and msian rice same price anyway.
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Self sufficient? Singapore produces its own oil and gas to power the desalination plants? They cannot afford to totally depend on desalination because it is too costly.

Without many Malaysians travelling to work everyday at the island, how is Singapore going to solve the huge housing problem if they import others to replace all the Malaysians? Anyway, how do you replace hundreds of thousands of skilled people overnight?

I didn't know Singaporeans only eat rice alone everyday.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:18 PM

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QUOTE(wanted111who @ Mar 3 2019, 04:06 PM)
See their game? Buying raw water from us, treated it and selling it back to us, now, we are paying them instead of they paying us.

Singapore pays 3 sen (1 Singapore cent) per 1,000 gallons of raw water, and sells treated water back to Johor at 50 sen per 1,000 gallons.

Singapore drawing up to 250 million gallons a day (mgd) of raw water from the Johor River, and Johor entitled to 5mgd of treated water from Singapore.

Per above, SG buying raw water from us @ rm 7500, they are selling treated water to us @ rm 2500.
In the video, the minister admitted that they are selling more than the agreement of 5mgd @ 16 million gallons of treated water back to us. So they paid us rm7500, we pay them rm 8000.00. We actually paying then rm 500 daily.

Walao, we give them 250 m gallons, they give us back 16 m gallons and we need to pay them at the end of the day. Win liao lo.

We don't know how to treat water? We don't have land to build water treatment plant? We don't have money? Don't have technology? I suggest no more exporting raw water to sg, they want buy, buy treated water from us @ rate 40 cent / 1000 gallon (20% below what they selling us) we will build water treatment plant in johor.
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It was a clear-cut con job by the British, just like the building of the Causeway. Too bad we didn't realised that back then and got trapped.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:27 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 04:21 PM)
sg has no need for msia for anythiing, from food to workers.

everything can be swtiched to another source.

the only need was water but that has ceased 10-20 years ago. even before that, 30-40 years ago, with some water rationing, sg will be okay even if water was cut.

sg will hit gdppc 80k in 2030, while msia will still be stuck at 15k, and politicians will still talk about sg being 'little brother' lol.

sg just got 4 new submarines and will be getting f35 soon. the japanese are getting 100 f35s as well.

good luck  unsure.gif
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Haha. Then why the UK gave back HK island to China in 1997 when they don't have to. They only need to give back the New Territories.

Like you said, Singapore can get their food and water from elsewhere. Same with HK island, right? Of course, but the costs would be many, many times higher. Get it?


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:28 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 04:23 PM)
ships can use any malaysian ports now but msias ports cannot compete with sg or even china.

sg is more efficient, no corruption (wont go missing), can transport out better.
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Transfer pricing lah.

They are stealing our profits.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:39 PM

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QUOTE(wannastudy @ Mar 3 2019, 04:34 PM)
even the nice properties in kl or johor, who do you think are buying them?

1 million ringgit, can the average msian afford?

or sporeans buying second homes (300k sgd)?
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Totally no need Singaporeans to buy. China investors can snap them all up if DrM decides to find fault with Singapore rather than China.




Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 04:50 PM

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QUOTE(wanted111who @ Mar 3 2019, 04:45 PM)
The foreigner property investors per above, is benefitting Malaysian or benefitting Singaporean?  Sure, they paid taxes, but are they paying taxes without making any profit?

As of investment, as long as there are money to be make, anyone will make it, don't necessarily only come from SG people. And to be honest, I don't think they will give up making money and investing in Malaysia just because of water deal and crooked bridge.

As of tourist, who is the one get bored and wanted to find some entertainment? Have you heard how Malaysian are complaining about how Singaporean driving up the cost of living in JB?
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I think if crowded Singapore is situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, most of the inhabitants would have gone mad if there is no cheap budget flights out of the island.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 05:09 PM

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QUOTE(aniaaw325 @ Mar 3 2019, 04:48 PM)
And we bloody hell said this is SG fault?

Our JB MB had jux admitted that we will plan to reduce dependence on SG on treated water😡

We are behaving like master race accusing other race of doing well because they work hard?
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Not sure if it was naivety, greed or laziness that got us trapped by the British.

If the British can even cut off the thumbs of Indian mill workers in order to destroy their textile industry, we are probably lucky just to kena conned by them.




Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 05:26 PM

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QUOTE(gogocan @ Mar 3 2019, 05:07 PM)
Trump pull out of a fair agreement all the time no problem..why malaysia pull out of illogical agreement causing problem?

Malaysia so soft..why not stop the water and bring the case to ICJ? I confident even the judge there will find the term in the agreement ridiculous
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So far I noticed in history that many would break agreements (fair or unfair) it they are or have become militarily stronger.

The United States broke many treaties with many Indian tribes because its army was far stronger.

The Communists in China ended many unequal treaties after they defeated the Nationalists.


Artus
post Mar 3 2019, 05:35 PM

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QUOTE(AllnGap @ Mar 3 2019, 04:52 PM)
I knew it was low, but not so low. No wonder there got so much of cash stashed in their banks
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This kind of bloodsucking behaviour should be stopped. I hope the income tax department comes out with a policy to audit every year every company that have invoices that originate from Singapore.



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