So much talk about inflation recently, e.g. Singapore’s inflation rate hitting 26-year high, rising commodity prices, electricity tariff and food prices… Even car wash charge at the petrol kiosk was up. Some said, ”maybe the only thing that is not inflated is our salary”
However, at least one thing has inflated related to job.
I was doing two bulletins, 9pm and 11pm, for the past two weeks. This explains why I have not been diligent with my blog recently.
While I did my trailer voice-over one day, bs grinned at me and said, “wow, is this job inflation or what?”
Yeah, I had an interview with a lawyer at 1pm before I started my presenting shift. Work continued as usual after that. Trailer, voice-over, make up and meeting… Just that I needed to change my outfits twice, visited make-up unit twice instead of once, voiced scripts and trailers for two bulletins instead of one. Not forgetting the News Analysis story I had to script, edit and telecast for 11pm News that night.
BS was right. Work load seemed to have inflated that day compared to normal days. During many good normal days, I only needed to present one bulletin.
Isn’t it like daily life? We are facing with crunches in expenses now but are we forgetting freebies we have received? ERS, GST offset-packages and etc. Didn’t you receive the pamphlet titled “Benefits for all Singaporeans in 2008″?
I guess, like most people, I threw the pamphlet soon after giving it a glimpse.

However, I dug it out soon after I threw it. The caption said, “The government will share over $3 billion with Singaporeans in 2008. Most household will receive benefits that are higher than the increase in cost of living”
Where does the $3 billion go to? Workfare income supplement, GST credits, property tax rebates, medisave and income tax rebates ad etc.
My recent tax assessment showed that I had some 20% tax rebate; I checked against my bank account, there were two deposits from the government in April. One of which was ERS with over a thousand dollars. It was indeed generous for the government to do so.
I do not live in other countires and do not know what other governments are doing. However, I do know that no one is obliged to give me even a dollar if I do not do anything to worth the money. Well, yes we did place a lot of our money with CPF. Does it imply the government should rebate us? Hmn, nothing should be taken for granted, right?
So, prices of food, fuel and almost everything have gone up, shouldn’t we try harder to make sure the value of our money does not get smaller? I think this is more practical.
I found some interesting suggestions at lowem.log:
“What kinds of jobs will help you beat inflation? This one’s easy - that would be CEO’s, top lawyers, bankers, and those government ministers whose salaries are pegged to them. The people holding these jobscan look forward to, say, 33% pay rise, which puts them in a very good position to cope with rising costs of living. Well, not that they were in any sort of shabby position in the first place.
Okay, but what about the rest of us? I could look at this roughly the way that the S&P 500 stock sectors are sub-divided. With a looming economic slowdown, you might probably want to avoid jobs in the consumer discretionar industry which would be most sensitive to pullbacks in consumer spending. For obvious reasons, such as the subprime / credit / CDO / etc. financial meltdown going on, you might want to avoid looking for a job in the financial industry (unless you are a top banker but maybe not even then - just ask the top people at $2 Bear Stearns, for example). You’d want to be in companies which are able to pass on increased costs to the consumer, or that are protected in one way or another from rising costs. You could try consumer staples, or healthcare, or materials (which includes commodities - I hear that good geologists and petroleum engineers practically get to write their own pay cheques nowadays). You could try the government (which is the causeof inflation in the first place and is quite good at matching their own pay to compensate) or the military (which doesn’t cause inflation per se, but is also very good at the latter). Call me biased, but I do have a vested interest in the last three sectors above.”
The author suggested one to Join or form a club to to make wise investments and fight inflation as a group. Just for your reading pleasure.
这么巧,昨晚的《财经追击》也谈到要怎么样在高通胀和低利率的情况下确保钱包的钱不会缩水。为房贷再融资是其中一个途径。当然,妥善规划手头上的投资组合也是另一个好办法。
上个贴子里我说,应该好好做做中长期的规划,就包括财务方面的规划。最近比较忙,除了 “job inflation”, 也因为目前正朝人生另一个目标迈进。人生每个阶段都有不同的目标,过去4年,我为5年前定下的目标冲刺,现在也一样。
别问我目标是什么,我脾气古怪也迷信,不喜欢在还没把握时就大大声的说。不过,应该不是很多人想象的,我会令你们失望,因为我不是传统派。
我不否认我是爱定目标、爱规划人生的人,虽然我明明晓得很多时候人算不如天算。在我人生的头20年,我大部分时间是为我的学业做规划。无可否认我是一个好学生,课业都准时交,考试成绩也不错。然而,我还是在一些重要的时刻妥协了,这些妥协造就或成就了今天的一些事情。
这些事情的结果不见得是我很想看到了,可是我必须为我当初的决定负责,做好今天我扮演的角色所应该做的事。我今天的角色,家庭、工作、朋友、个人,一个影响另一个。我想过我想过的日子,所以先要做好我的本分,我的本分就包括我的工作。
我告诉自己,工作再忙、再多,总会有做完的时候。而且,工作只是推动生活的其中一个引擎。生活不能只靠一个引擎推动,增加其他引擎的力量和效率,生活才会更平衡。
过去的无法改变,明天的无法预知,可是明天的结果,我还是抱有希望的 — 因为如果连希望都没有,我也不必继续这么忙了。