Nowadays, only food in SG is cheap, but not for long

$9 and comes with 2 bowls of noodles

Today I sat down to have a nice breakfast of Kway Chup for two (without innards) and it cost a decent $9. Perhaps recent claims that inflation won't affect the majority of Singaporeans are true.

As long as you bought your flat in the golden days of 100 per sq ft HDB, and are content to take peak-hour public transport (or, by the grace of God, still have a car from the days of 20k COE).

On previous days, I even enjoyed $1.50 meat porridge, and $2.50 fishball noodles with generous portions and huge fishballs! (you can check my earlier blog entries)

But I wondered, how much longer would such low prices at hawker centres like Ghim Moh and Holland Drive last?

And in recent debates about "inclusive growth" and increasing income inequality, is it even fair to be expecting such low food prices from hawkers?

As for me, I'm enjoying the cheap prices, although I know this rosy state of affairs is transient, much like things that are "cheap and good", like high salaries and low cost of living. Do we try and keep attempt to keep the cost of living artificially low by using transient labour from abroad? Or pay more for the sake of inclusive growth?

Anyhow, I think once this current older generation moves on, given the higher opportunity cost of a hawker, and the inevitable increases in rental, $1.50 porridge with real meat will soon belong in the heritage centre :)