Cabby: I don't know why daily rental is $95

Taking a late night cab home some time last week, I got to engage in a somewhat lively conversation with a Mandarin-speaking cab driver. It was lively, considering it was almost 2 a.m. that night.

I generally ask cab drivers who I do talk to, two of three things:
1) How much do you earn a day?
2) How many hours do you work ?

Usually after these two questions, I can hear that they sound nervous and stop talking to me as they think I'm about to rob them or hit the ground running when I reach my destination because I sound like I think they have earned enough for the night.

But sometimes I proceed further and ask whether they know why they are paying close to $100 a day for taxi rental.

And the stock reply is a) COEs are high and cab operators would run a loss if rental was any lower or b) that they were not really sure but thankful for the current rental rates to remain as it is and not rise any higher.

But I never got down to asking the fourth burning question, which I think is highly impossible to answer even if I asked my friend who digs econometrics and financial analysis: Why isn't the onus on cab operators to provide a comprehensive breakdown of numbers on how much they are taking in from rental alone per month, and why is it never an option to lower the rental by, say, $10 a day?

Wouldn't this be a surer way for cabbies to take home more dough? Would they become lazier and services deteriorate just because they were making $10 extra a day?

The best answer I got so far is that the corporations operate according to the money-making ethos that more is never enough. The reason that corporations need to make more money is because there is always an anticipation for quarter-on-quarter profits to rise by its cherished stakeholders. No one is ever going to put a ceiling to how high it can go, but when it starts to go low enough, panic develops.

The health of the corporation is based on its performance, and the present is always spent trying to measure from the foreseeable determinants the likeliest outcome in the future. Issues involving people's disgruntled feelings can hardly be factored in as quantifiable elements and they are not allowed to make those disgruntled feelings known through a systematic and naturalised process of quashing all dissent, or more ingeniously, quashing all developments of dissent.

Which also explains why Singapore is a kind and ideal place for corporate investments. It is comforting for them to know that there is absolutely no hope in unionising blue collar workers such as taxi drivers because that scenario has long been removed from the consciousness of the populace.

So, quite remarkably, the issue at the end of the day really is not about cab drivers. And the way the mainstream media spins it into issues involving bread and butter is sickening. They know that it is about the workings of the money-grabbing antics of corporations, but they can never say it as it is.

From these points I can conclude: There is a need to admit that Singapore is no longer about citizens and identity formation as a nation-state because it has been overrun by businesses and banks and secondly, do tip the cabby the next time you ride a taxi.

That is the least you can do. A little from a lot of people goes a long way.