6 years after being conceived at a Dinner Party in San Francisco, the famous video-sharing platform has finally officially launched in Singapore. What does this mean for us video-hungry Singaporean dwellers?

Besides being able to access Singaporean Content directly via Youtube.SG, it probably means that Singaporean Youtube channels can now apply to be a Youtube Partner and can start to put up advertisements before their videos.

Which also means that we are probably going to be pushed with more ads when we watch videos.

Jialat liao.

The last Eastern and Oriental Express (E&O) train left Tanjong Pagar Railway station for the last time on the 5th of June 2011. The railway station will be closing its doors on the 1st of July 2011 after a landmark landswap agreement between the governments of Singapore and Malaysia.

The station have been in operation since 1932 and will be gazetted as Singapore’s 64th National Monument.

Giving away used ground coffee to its customers for gardening, collecting rainwater for lavatory use and switching to LED bulbs for energy conservation are just some of the very cool green initiatives being spearheaded by one of Starbucks Malaysia’s Setia Alam outlet.

Judee Tan, popularly known in most mainstream circles as “Kim Bong Cha”, the eccentric North Korean newscaster from the TV series, The Noose, has been raising a lot of eyebrowns online with buzz over her performances on the stage after videos circulating around the Internet have been picked up by Netizens and reposted on popular forums like Hardwarezone.

We too are really impressed with her bi-linguistic command of English and Hokkien as well as her stage flair and charisma that we had to share those videos here.

“Kim Bong Cha” Debut

Rendition of popular Hokkien favorite ‘Na Si Wa Wu Ji Pa Ban’ and ‘Billionaire’

Did you also know that she also sings?

Just do a simple search for ‘Judee Tan’ on Youtube and you’ll probably find much more videos.

As for us, we can’t wait to see what else she has to offer, but so far its pretty darn good.

Image at the top of the page taken from Mr Tan Shou Chen’s blog

NTUC Fairprice Co-operative, the supermarket chain under the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), has announced plans to roll out more self-checkout systems into its other stores in a bid to improve productivity and reduce costs.

According to this article by the Straits Times, it is being reported that hawkers who signed up under the Government’s Retail Price Watch Group program which started early this year, are now facing a situation of being unable to cope with the rising operational costs.

Under the program, hawkers had pledged to hold their prices for 6 months but many hawkers that The Straits Times interviewed have expressed concern that they are not able to cope as the prices of raw material have been on the increase.

This may see these hawkers who originally volunteered under the program to pull out of the program prematurely.

Image originally posted on Flickr.

Straits Times wrote a report today about how for each eligible credit card holder in Singapore, they would each on average own 6-7 credit cards. Combine that information with another seemingly unrelated forum post by Mr Kuo How Nam, President of Credit Counselling Singapore, who writes that consumer loans has grown over 18% over the past 3 months compared to just 10% for the previous year, is a worrying trend for the state of debt in this country.

Mr Kuo explains that the sharp increase is probably due to the increase in housing loans figures (which I infer, could be correlated to the rising property prices) which he continues by also highlighting that credit card rollover figures (money that has not been repaid by cardholders and are as such charged typically around 24% per annum) have been growing at an average rate of 11.5% every year for the past two years.

In November 2010, the rollover balance has crossed the $4 billion mark.

Is Singapore moving away from its traditional ‘save for rainy days’ mentality which has helped spurred on the country’s extraordinary economic growth over the past few decades, towards the United States’ style of increasing consumer debt, and subsequently foreclosures and bankruptcy?

Straits Times – Number of credit cards charges past 6 million mark
Straits Times Forum – Personal debt bomb

Image originally from Flickr. Creative Commons License.

In an article by theonlinecitizen, Leong Sze Hian writes about how earnings have dropped for the 2nd consecutive quarter based on the Ministry of Manpower’s latest Q3 2010 Labor Market report.

Average (Mean) Monthly Nominal Earnings Singapore $ Per Employee, has continued to fall from $4,310 to $3,819 and $3,754, for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Qtrs, respectively.
With the economy booming and expected to be the fastest growing in the world at 15 per cent GDP growth, and media reports reporting that the job market is bursting at the seams, why has earnings continued to fall for the second consecutive quarter?

Since Q1 2010, nominal wages have dropped by $556 or approximately 12.9%. With our previous story about how Singapore’s inflation for 2010 (till November) have increased by 3.8% year on year, will Singapore’s workers be able to afford to keep spending in the local economy? If our workers are being forced to scrimp and save for more rainy days ahead, will we end up seeing slower economic growth in the coming year?

Originally from Flickr. Creative Commons License.

Consumer Price Index for Singapore rose 3.8% year-on-year in November compared to 2009 according to a press release by the Singapore Department of Statistics. Higher cost in housing, recreation and transportation are cited as reasons for the jump.

Transport costs led the charge, showing a 9.4% increase compared to prices in 2009. Higher prices of cars and petrol were given as the reasons. Housing costs increased by 4% compared to the previous year due to higher electricity tariffs in 2010 and accommodation costs.

SingStats Press Release

Image originally from Flickr. Creative Commons License.