本帖最后由 choi 于 9-15-2018 10:26 编辑
(c) "By many measures the system is a success. * * * It is also a good deal for the state. In 2015-16 the treasury put aside S$1.8bn, or 2.4% of the national budget, for housing, which was enough to cover HDB’s annual deficit. (The agency itself had a budget of S$17bn * * * The government says it has paid a little over S$28bn in grants to HDB since its founding in the 1960s. Handouts [ie, freebies] linked to housing are one reason Singapore manages to do without a conventional tax-funded pension scheme. The theory is that almost all Singaporeans will own apartments outright by the time they finish working, in addition to having savings of their own. Those willing to downsize upon retirement—or 'right-size [no Chinese words],' as the government likes to say—do best. Singaporeans are granted an extra discount if they choose to buy property located in the same neighbourhood as their parents, nudging them to help with care that could otherwise fall to the state."
(d) "extremely high rates of home-ownership have helped make Singapore's electorate unusually risk-averse. In election campaigns, PAP [People's Action Party] candidates have often noted that HDB buildings in constituencies that vote for the opposition go to the back of the line for government-funded upgrades. Moreover, the government uses its control of the housing system to help shape how Singaporeans live. * * * Most sweeping is the priority granted to married couples, justified in recent years by Singapore's eagerness to raise its low birth rate. Loners can apply for flats of their own, but only if they are still unwed by the age of 35. [The same for gay couples (both are Singaporean citizens and older than 35 under Joint Singles Scheme (JSS), though same-sex marriage is not permitted) and mothers of young children born out of wedlock (as well as divorced or widowed parents with children; neither has age requirement plus citizenship).]
Ochiai Emiko and Hosoya Leo Aoi (eds), Transformation of the Intimate and the Public in Asian Modernity. Kyoto University Press, 2013, at page 74
https://books.google.com/books?i ... 201990s&f=false
("births out of wedlock are still extremely rare in East Asia. The ratio of births out of wedlock in 2005 was 2.0% in Japan, 1.5% in South Korea, 4.0% in Taiwan. and 1.3% in Singapore (Suzuki 2009). In Europe, births out of wedlock count for more than half of all births in Northwestern Europe, and it rapidly increased even in Southern Europe (20.7% for Italy, 28.4% for Spain and 31.6% for Portugal), a great contrast with East Asia (Suzuki 2009). Instead, what we find is an increasing number of so called 'shotgun marriages,' or to be more faithful to the Japanese expression, 'oops marriages' ")
(e) "Provisions for the poorest look meagre compared with social-housing programmes in America or Britain. Subsidised rental apartments are generally only available to those with household incomes below S$1,500 a month who are unable to bunk up with relatives. They consist only of studios and one-bedroom flats * * * (HDB says that people earning only slightly more than that should be able to afford to buy [perhaps 'buy' in Singapore means, say, a 99-year, long-term lease, whereas 'rental' means an annual contract] a home through the usual schemes.)"
bunk up (vi): "to share a bed or sleeping accommodations, especially temporarily"
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bunk+up
(f) "older Singaporeans have turned out to be keener than expected to hang on to their homes, rather than release capital by moving in with their children or 'right-sizing' to smaller flats. * * * HDB-owners are still coming to terms with the idea that their properties could be worth nothing when their 99-year leases expire. (Whether and how leases will be renewed is a growing concern for all sorts of HDB-buyers, given that some blocks are more than 40 years old.) * * * a system fixated on home ownership and dismissive of renting"
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发表于 7-13-2017 15:30:46
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