Ease impact of food prices? How?

I refer to the recent claim by Mr Lim Boon Heng to ease the impact of high food prices on the people. As usual, the statement was made, without any links on how can this be done.

Frankly, I see no way of easing the impact. Singapore controls inflation by strengthening our currency. However, Singapore cannot strengthen it too much because this will affect Singapore businesses. A strengthened currency equate to lesser profits for companies here, especially those that sell their goods overseas, but expenses are in SGD.

They could go by subsidies to the poor. But then again, the qualifying income for subsidies have not kept pace with the standard of living, and many people are actually squeezed, but do not qualify for subsidies. It's especially tough for those who have children. Furthermore, the household income used for qualifying for subsidies is outdated, and it does not take into consideration how many members are depending on that household income.

Not to mention that the rise of standard of living was started by?? *drumroll* The government insistence on raising the GST.

Anyone who takes a slightest interest in world news will know that climate change is big news, and there are bad harvests around the world. Oil shortage has been evident since last year, US short-term view of using ethanol as their solution to energy which resulted in lesser farmland for food, and recently, 20%-30% increase of standard food items like flour, wheat, cooking oil, and now maybe even rice. All these can be derived since last year as the signs are all there. Yet, the government increased the GST.

They have also said that they want to tackle the problem of the growing income gap. What did they do? Give raises to the highest paid ministers in the world. That's tackling the problem?? If you want to tackle, you should give raises to the bottom rung civil servants first, not to the ministers.

Anyway, I'm going off topic. Back to easing the food prices. There's a world shortage of food and resources now. The growing economies of China and India does not help the food prices at all. Inflation will go up, and with the standard savings deposits rate of 0.25% p.a. here, we already have a problem of eroding purchasing power.

Food prices is just the least of problems. I'm curious on how they are going to resolve this problem. Well, the government just had a raise, so they better show that the raise is worth it. We based our system on meritocracy remember? You guys got a raise, so live up to that responsibility.