Anything, Whatever

Recently, the Anything/Whatever drink has been in the news, and it was reported that the companies involved have had to pull out their ad campaign because people were ripping off the empty aluminum cans from the ad panels.

The thing that comes to my mind is this... This shows that there are people out there who are desolate, desperate and poor enough to have to resort to doing such a thing. All this while some people are there happily giving themselves a hefty pay raise and increasing welfare to some folks at $1/day. WTF is going on???

Then there's the recent bank decisions to make NETS chargeable, which caused an uproar with retailers. I'm no expert in human behavior, except maybe just an amateur in my own behavior, but let's say I am in this situation:

- I want to buy something in a shop, but don't have enough cash for it.
- Normally I'd pay by NETS, but since NETS ain't free anymore...
- I then head to the nearest ATM to save that bit of money (a bit here and there makes up for a lot in the end)
- On my way to the ATM, I decide that "Ah, actually I don't need the thing I wanna get"
- So I go elsewhere and probably end up getting nothing.

Let's see, if this happens everytime, or at least, very often, that means that retailers will suffer. I'm no expert in economics either, but I think sales will drop, losses will increase, and the good ol' gahment will probably have to again implement some way to tax poor ol' S'poreans more and squeeze more out from them.

Maybe daily necessities like food, water etc etc will be the main sources of income for the gahment to keep things going the way they like. So, maybe they'll start making those things more expensive to support their current lifestyles.

Hefty pay raises, anyone?