You ask yourself: Is it fair? When you say Government, ultimately the people pay for it

In practice, just because the government is not paying for it doesn’t mean that the people aren’t paying for it. The average econs student should realise that putting the onus entirely on SMRT will only result in the increased cost of operations being transfered to the consumer (especially when demand is relatively price-inelastic!). In less economic jargon without drawing a graph, if SMRT has to pay more for security, it will simply raise prices of transport, in the same way that levies make cigarettes expensive. So we’ll end up paying anyway. After all, the law minister Shanmugam called SMRT a private organisation which is profit oriented and makes money for their shareholders. I foresee that transport costs will hike again if SMRT had to bear the entire brunt…by sharing some of it with the commuter.

In fact….if I were SMRT, I will intentionally raise price since I have an excuse to and can direct political flak to the government for not subsidising the increased security cost which is a deviously vindictive response for the current criticism! (I scare myself with what I can come up with sometimes..)

And if either way someone has to pay for it — better the taxpayers (which at least  includes the richer income groups) than commuters pay for it. After all it is those that take public transport and not drive around that need the money more and feels the pinch.

Although there is an unpalatable argument that since the rich aren’t the ones using public transport, they shouldn’t be paying for it.  But think carefully whether the government paying equates to the taxpayer paying. I am inclined to believe lately that the two are distinct. But leave this for another day (or domain).

In principle, we can subcontract the work , but we cannot subcontract the responsibility (as I have learnt from the privatisation of things like the cookhouse and clothing store!). Especially given the ‘security‘ which we speak of is not one over private property where we try to keep the thieves or mere vandals out — the moment it involves the public security, it is an entirely larger sphere. As debate rhetoric teaches me: “it is lives that we are talking about here“.

At the end of the day, it is public transport, isn’t it? Surely this is a big difference between your everyday train service and Keppel/DBS.

And on a final tier, even if it really isn’t public, since when has there been a problem in stepping in anyway?

So if the government isn’t going to pay, who really is going to? I am guessing if not the government, then in reality, when you say SMRT, ultimately it is your ah gong, ah po , market-going aunty and you who will pay for it when you next tap your card.

*****

And I might not even be doing anything econs-related at uni….I hope. But anyway, the above is all economic speculation which is always on a myriad of inconsistent assumptions, which means I might be wrong…I hope (My disdain for economic thought is clear)

I seriously hope my speculative guess will be disproven…simply because I don’t pay tax but I top up my own EZ link card with my miserable…nevermind. T_T