Foreigners raised Singaporean wages challenged by Jeyaretnam
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Singaporeans outraged at PAP for providing free tertiary education to PRC scholars for them to work in China
Temasek ReviewTwo days ago, we published an article on PRC NTU scholars applying for positions back home in China instead of Singapore which has sparked an outcry in cyberspace. (read article here)We were tipped off by a reader who worked as a HR manager in China who received 78 resumes from PRC NTU students on government scholarships for positions in Shanghai, some of whom are on the Dean’s List.
The stunning revelation sparked a series of discussion threads in Singapore’s blogosphere with many netizens lampooning the ruling party for its pro-foreigner policy.
Some questioned why locals have to serve National Service while foreigners are given free scholarships to study at Singapore universities sponsored entirely by taxpayers’ monies.
Shutterx from Hardwarezone forum wrote:
“for 4yr engrg prog, what each china student gains and does not hv to contribute back:
[figures are approx]4yrs of full school fees = $33k * 4 = $132,000
on-campus housing = $10,320
4yrs of living allowance = $23,200
3 air tickets of $500 each = $1500
TOTAL = $167,000meanwhile, every SG kkj must go thru NS/ICT/RT to ’serve the nation’ and pay ur CPF/income tax…ur life is cheaper
may I suggest that our govt gives them FREE s’pore woman, FREE wedding dinner and a FREE flat, maybe more of them will stay here.”
gwzc wondered why local scholars are publicly shamed for bond-breaking while PRC scholars are allowed to get away “scot-free”:
“I still remember last time got some scholars break their bonds to join the private sector. tio flame and shame on national news like no tomorrow. now leh?? how many of these tiongs had come here on taxpayers’ monies/ tution grants/ scholarships to snatch places in our universities then run back to their countries when they finish their studies??”
Tsuteki summed it up nicely:
“1 thing can say Local is dirt and FT is treasure. full stop”
Over at Channel News Asia forum, netizens are equally incensed.
paladin126 wrote it’s true that the Singapore government has sponsored the tertiary education of PRC students:
“It is quite true that Sing Govt sponsor education of PRC students and gives them allowance of $500 per month. When I was in uni, my allowance from parents was less than that, and I just served NS. The next statistics we need is the percentage of PRC student who leave without fulfilling their bond because they have to work in Singapore for 3 years after their sponsored education.”
Molvis felt the government should have invested on its own citizens:
“Don’t be stupid….do you really think they will be grateful? Such money should be spent on Singaporean instead.”
Damnit added:
“Many using Singapore as a stepping stone including getting Singapore passport to apply for PR/Citizenship elsewhere. And the worse part is that the Singapore Government acknowledges this fact but hopes that many will fail and so “forced” to stay in Singapore. How did we as a nation end up being so pathetic? Don’t need Ah Tiongs to tell us we are stupid, our Gov. policy on this matter speaks for itself.”
Most of the comments are directed at the PAP rather than the PRC scholars. Some Singaporeans claimed that they would have done the same if they were in their shoes. After all, who doesn’t want a free lunch in this world?
Unfortunately, it appears that the PAP leaders are still blissfully ignorant of the reality on the ground.
PAP’s strongman Lee Kuan Yew said in an interview with the National Geographic magazine lately that it is a “good thing” that Singapore has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants (mainly from China) who are more “hard-driving” and “hard-striving” than locals.
Despite the desperate attempts of the PAP to attract mainland Chinese to study, work and live in Singapore, an increasing number are shunning the island state for other countries after witnessing for themselves how shabbily it treats its own citizens.
In a Gallop poll done in July last year, the top three emigration destinations for college Chinese students are United States, South Korea and France. Singapore was not even featured within the top five.
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Originally posted by speak:
Singaporeans outraged at PAP for providing free tertiary education to PRC scholars for them to work in China
Temasek ReviewTwo days ago, we published an article on PRC NTU scholars applying for positions back home in China instead of Singapore which has sparked an outcry in cyberspace. (read article here)We were tipped off by a reader who worked as a HR manager in China who received 78 resumes from PRC NTU students on government scholarships for positions in Shanghai, some of whom are on the Dean’s List.
The stunning revelation sparked a series of discussion threads in Singapore’s blogosphere with many netizens lampooning the ruling party for its pro-foreigner policy.
Some questioned why locals have to serve National Service while foreigners are given free scholarships to study at Singapore universities sponsored entirely by taxpayers’ monies.
Shutterx from Hardwarezone forum wrote:
“for 4yr engrg prog, what each china student gains and does not hv to contribute back:
[figures are approx]4yrs of full school fees = $33k * 4 = $132,000
on-campus housing = $10,320
4yrs of living allowance = $23,200
3 air tickets of $500 each = $1500
TOTAL = $167,000meanwhile, every SG kkj must go thru NS/ICT/RT to ’serve the nation’ and pay ur CPF/income tax…ur life is cheaper
may I suggest that our govt gives them FREE s’pore woman, FREE wedding dinner and a FREE flat, maybe more of them will stay here.”
gwzc wondered why local scholars are publicly shamed for bond-breaking while PRC scholars are allowed to get away “scot-free”:
“I still remember last time got some scholars break their bonds to join the private sector. tio flame and shame on national news like no tomorrow. now leh?? how many of these tiongs had come here on taxpayers’ monies/ tution grants/ scholarships to snatch places in our universities then run back to their countries when they finish their studies??”
Tsuteki summed it up nicely:
“1 thing can say Local is dirt and FT is treasure. full stop”
Over at Channel News Asia forum, netizens are equally incensed.
paladin126 wrote it’s true that the Singapore government has sponsored the tertiary education of PRC students:
“It is quite true that Sing Govt sponsor education of PRC students and gives them allowance of $500 per month. When I was in uni, my allowance from parents was less than that, and I just served NS. The next statistics we need is the percentage of PRC student who leave without fulfilling their bond because they have to work in Singapore for 3 years after their sponsored education.”
Molvis felt the government should have invested on its own citizens:
“Don’t be stupid….do you really think they will be grateful? Such money should be spent on Singaporean instead.”
Damnit added:
“Many using Singapore as a stepping stone including getting Singapore passport to apply for PR/Citizenship elsewhere. And the worse part is that the Singapore Government acknowledges this fact but hopes that many will fail and so “forced” to stay in Singapore. How did we as a nation end up being so pathetic? Don’t need Ah Tiongs to tell us we are stupid, our Gov. policy on this matter speaks for itself.”
Most of the comments are directed at the PAP rather than the PRC scholars. Some Singaporeans claimed that they would have done the same if they were in their shoes. After all, who doesn’t want a free lunch in this world?
Unfortunately, it appears that the PAP leaders are still blissfully ignorant of the reality on the ground.
PAP’s strongman Lee Kuan Yew said in an interview with the National Geographic magazine lately that it is a “good thing” that Singapore has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants (mainly from China) who are more “hard-driving” and “hard-striving” than locals.
Despite the desperate attempts of the PAP to attract mainland Chinese to study, work and live in Singapore, an increasing number are shunning the island state for other countries after witnessing for themselves how shabbily it treats its own citizens.
In a Gallop poll done in July last year, the top three emigration destinations for college Chinese students are United States, South Korea and France. Singapore was not even featured within the top five.
To further elaborate,
An overseas scholar has to serve 6 years in Singapore (their supposed bond), in whichever company they can get a job in, before they are considered to have paid off their scholarship.
However, there is very little consequence in breaking this 'bond'. The only consequence is that they are not allowed to come back to Singapore should they not complete 6 years, which, to me, isn't much of a problem. Who cares about a small little island?
That said, I do agree that the PRC students are not to be blamed. It's us cheapening our image, that has resulted in lowering ourselves as a good destination to be at.
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Perhap peoples here do not understand the important of our diminishing and old age population issue. Because peoples here don't think far with a narrow mind. With only a fraction of babies in comparing to the baby booming time, what can you visualise by year 2025 or 2030 , if we do not attract people here, companies would not be able to get people, our population would be just 2 millions and reducing, we would all went back to selling Otah, manufacture bata shoes and paint brushes and most probably i would became an old aunty selling papayas again.
Thus , it is of no choice that we have to attract foreigners here, and if u want to attract, you better get the younger ones with good potential. In order to compete with other countries to attract them, you have to let go a bit of slack in your rules and regulations, otherwise no one is coming. Once they are in, even if they move out later, we do expect them to do business with us in near future, but what we are hoping is not a 100% retention, but a mere 60% retention rate will be good enough, when they build their family here, bring their loves one in, our population increased, our economy willl have enuf people to mend it. The ultimate reaping part will be their decendents, who will be true singaporeans by 2030 serving NS.
Nobody like stranger to come to their house, but if the house is going to be empty soon, we need to get or adopt someone in to take care, the govt understand that this policy is not going to be a popular one, in fact, it has been one of the most unpopular one, but is there another choice?, as govt, they can alway abolish this policy to make citizens happy and vote for them, but that is not the way out for Singapore, the govt bite the bullet with this policy to the extend that they can even forgo seats in the parliament just to get the population in check and hopefully a future for Singapore in a long term view.
We hope that laymen and laywomen on the street understand this implication of old age and diminshing population isssue. If you are in your 50s, dun be so selfish to look at your own situaiton, think for the future of your generation, and to create a better generation for your youngs, is something a mature and gracious society citizens willl do, they build the furture for their youngs, not destroying it. And to do that, we have to solve the problem at the nick of the buds, not until the flowers had blosom, then it might be too late. Let welcome those foreign students.
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Another daily routine display of idiocy and irrelevance of the Taiwanese 'hum' to exercise its ‘Labia Majora’ and ‘Labia Minora’ - simply to attract attention to the itself as the resident 'Attention Seeking Whore'.
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Originally posted by angel7030:
Perhap peoples here do not understand the important of our diminishing and old age population issue. Because peoples here don't think far with a narrow mind. With only a fraction of babies in comparing to the baby booming time, what can you visualise by year 2025 or 2030 , if we do not attract people here, companies would not be able to get people, our population would be just 2 millions and reducing, we would all went back to selling Otah, manufacture bata shoes and paint brushes and most probably i would became an old aunty selling papayas again.
Thus , it is of no choice that we have to attract foreigners here, and if u want to attract, you better get the younger ones with good potential. In order to compete with other countries to attract them, you have to let go a bit of slack in your rules and regulations, otherwise no one is coming. Once they are in, even if they move out later, we do expect them to do business with us in near future, but what we are hoping is not a 100% retention, but a mere 60% retention rate will be good enough, when they build their family here, bring their loves one in, our population increased, our economy willl have enuf people to mend it. The ultimate reaping part will be their decendents, who will be true singaporeans by 2030 serving NS.
Nobody like stranger to come to their house, but if the house is going to be empty soon, we need to get or adopt someone in to take care, the govt understand that this policy is not going to be a popular one, in fact, it has been one of the most unpopular one, but is there another choice?, as govt, they can alway abolish this policy to make citizens happy and vote for them, but that is not the way out for Singapore, the govt bite the bullet with this policy to the extend that they can even forgo seats in the parliament just to get the population in check and hopefully a future for Singapore in a long term view.
We hope that laymen and laywomen on the street understand this implication of old age and diminshing population isssue. If you are in your 50s, dun be so selfish to look at your own situaiton, think for the future of your generation, and to create a better generation for your youngs, is something a mature and gracious society citizens willl do, they build the furture for their youngs, not destroying it. And to do that, we have to solve the problem at the nick of the buds, not until the flowers had blosom, then it might be too late. Let welcome those foreign students.
as again your miscule mind dose not seem to have the flexability to think "out of the box"
basically theres 2 ways to adress this problem: 1 is the above mentioned, the second way is a gradual increase while still keeping the ratio in check, stable jobs and citizenship also would have the same effect in not only retaining the people here, but also encourage them to have more, however failure to address this root is the present cause,by jump starting and pumping the population with a flood foriegners here is not going to cut it, in reality as you have witness yourself, the effect is reverse, making it more for the worse.small doses of foriegners intake in long gradual years do indeed do some good for the country, but flooding it in a short period of time would have a very vastly negative effect, which would also in turn affect productivity and efficiency of work, work quality would also be adversly affected.
many years ago when the productivity bee appeared , singapore was then quite a productive country,i was also a little proud back then as a citizen, but as time goes by, when the system start to go awary, i also am starting to lose faith in the country i used to believe in.obviously you have not gone thru a vicous cycle when you constantly have to make ends meet, but in a different manner, every time when you upgrade to a better educated level, the standard of living goes up again and you have to claw up your way for a few yearsto reach that level , but just again when you reach it, it goes out of your reach by a few years again.
i beleive i am not the only one having this problem at hand at the moment. so why don't you try this kind of like when to you it can be optional and can be shoved down to your face? i for one do not have this option to choose, it is being shoved to my face time and again.
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Originally posted by Annilator47:
as again your miscule mind dose not seem to have the flexability to think "out of the box"
basically theres 2 ways to adress this problem: 1 is the above mentioned, the second way is a gradual increase while still keeping the ratio in check, stable jobs and citizenship also would have the same effect in not only retaining the people here, but also encourage them to have more, however failure to address this root is the present cause,by jump starting and pumping the population with a flood foriegners here is not going to cut it, in reality as you have witness yourself, the effect is reverse, making it more for the worse.small doses of foriegners intake in long gradual years do indeed do some good for the country, but flooding it in a short period of time would have a very vastly negative effect, which would also in turn affect productivity and efficiency of work, work quality would also be adversly affected.
many years ago when the productivity bee appeared , singapore was then quite a productive country,i was also a little proud back then as a citizen, but as time goes by, when the system start to go awary, i also am starting to lose faith in the country i used to believe in.obviously you have not gone thru a vicous cycle when you constantly have to make ends meet, but in a different manner, every time when you upgrade to a better educated level, the standard of living goes up again and you have to claw up your way for a few yearsto reach that level , but just again when you reach it, it goes out of your reach by a few years again.
i beleive i am not the only one having this problem at hand at the moment. so why don't you try this kind of like when to you it can be optional and can be shoved down to your face? i for one do not have this option to choose, it is being shoved to my face time and again.
What do you expect from a secondary school drop out earning her living through the immoral earnings of prostitutes?
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What is missing in the productivity debate
February 26, 2010sgpolitics.net
Written by Ng E-Jay
26 Feb 2010Budget 2010 which was unveiled in Parliament by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Monday went to great lengths to emphasize the need to raise productivity in Singapore.
It was proposed that the government spend $5.5 billion over the next 5 years at measures to retrain workers and help companies improve their business operations. The government intends to spend further $1.5 billion on research and development, and will nurture industries and companies it thinks has the greatest chance of innovating and succeeding globally.
The solution, it appears, is based on greater government intervention in the private sector and increased micromanagement of the economy.
But the same has been tried before, way back in the 1990s when productivity had begun to stagnate after two decades of high growth, and again in the early part of this decade, with initiatives spearheaded by bodies such as the Economic Review Committee. The proposals laid out in Budget 2010 seem like a tired re-run of the schemes devised in yesteryears.
Why then is the government confident that it will succeed this time round? As the old saying goes, insanity surely is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.
Perhaps it is time to question whether excessive government intervention in the economy is the true killer of productivity growth, and whether the latest slew of measures will have the unintended consequence of further retarding the ability of Singaporeans to innovate and think out of the box.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and risk-taking are attributes developed not under the umbrella of a watchful and powerful regime that controls where the money flows and decides who should get what benefits and under what conditions.
Those are qualities developed in the free market where competition amongst peers is the main driver of higher output and productivity.
What is conspicuously absent in the productivity debate is the fact that after more than four decades of nation building under the PAP, Singapore as a country has become less entrepreneurial and less productive.
The bedrock of any dynamic economy lies in its small and medium enterprises, the mom and pop businesses, the heartland shops, stalls and emporiums that cater to folks from all walks of life.
In Singapore however, Government-Linked Corporations (GLCs) which account for 60% of the economy have crowded out many small players and stifled innovation.
Worse, because they are run not by seasoned businessmen but by bureaucrats from the establishment circles, wastage and poor allocation of resources build up over time, and the lack of drive and creativity puts an ever increasing dampener on the whole economy.
The suffocating entrenchment of GLCs in our economy must be drastically reduced before Singaporeans can break free from the economic chains that inhibit the full expression of their creative drive.
We are getting nowhere with the current productivity debate because the government has refused to acknowledge the root cause of poor productivity growth and the proposed measures will only serve to entrench the status quo and deepen our problems.
Ultimately the problem lies with what the PAP has done to, and will continue to do to, our minds.
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Originally posted by speak:
What is missing in the productivity debate
February 26, 2010sgpolitics.netWritten by Ng E-Jay
26 Feb 2010Budget 2010 which was unveiled in Parliament by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Monday went to great lengths to emphasize the need to raise productivity in Singapore.
It was proposed that the government spend $5.5 billion over the next 5 years at measures to retrain workers and help companies improve their business operations. The government intends to spend further $1.5 billion on research and development, and will nurture industries and companies it thinks has the greatest chance of innovating and succeeding globally.
The solution, it appears, is based on greater government intervention in the private sector and increased micromanagement of the economy.
But the same has been tried before, way back in the 1990s when productivity had begun to stagnate after two decades of high growth, and again in the early part of this decade, with initiatives spearheaded by bodies such as the Economic Review Committee. The proposals laid out in Budget 2010 seem like a tired re-run of the schemes devised in yesteryears.
Why then is the government confident that it will succeed this time round? As the old saying goes, insanity surely is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.
Perhaps it is time to question whether excessive government intervention in the economy is the true killer of productivity growth, and whether the latest slew of measures will have the unintended consequence of further retarding the ability of Singaporeans to innovate and think out of the box.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and risk-taking are attributes developed not under the umbrella of a watchful and powerful regime that controls where the money flows and decides who should get what benefits and under what conditions.
Those are qualities developed in the free market where competition amongst peers is the main driver of higher output and productivity.
What is conspicuously absent in the productivity debate is the fact that after more than four decades of nation building under the PAP, Singapore as a country has become less entrepreneurial and less productive.
The bedrock of any dynamic economy lies in its small and medium enterprises, the mom and pop businesses, the heartland shops, stalls and emporiums that cater to folks from all walks of life.
In Singapore however, Government-Linked Corporations (GLCs) which account for 60% of the economy have crowded out many small players and stifled innovation.
Worse, because they are run not by seasoned businessmen but by bureaucrats from the establishment circles, wastage and poor allocation of resources build up over time, and the lack of drive and creativity puts an ever increasing dampener on the whole economy.
The suffocating entrenchment of GLCs in our economy must be drastically reduced before Singaporeans can break free from the economic chains that inhibit the full expression of their creative drive.
We are getting nowhere with the current productivity debate because the government has refused to acknowledge the root cause of poor productivity growth and the proposed measures will only serve to entrench the status quo and deepen our problems.
Ultimately the problem lies with what the PAP has done to, and will continue to do to, our minds.
what minds??? such are the narrow minded people like you that think productivity will deepen your problem, there are much more meaning to the govt pushing of productivity then deepening your problem. Look at it and see it cleary, you can sense it, if not, i dun think you qualify to post such a statement -
Originally posted by speak:
What is missing in the productivity debate
February 26, 2010sgpolitics.netWritten by Ng E-Jay
26 Feb 2010Budget 2010 which was unveiled in Parliament by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Monday went to great lengths to emphasize the need to raise productivity in Singapore.
It was proposed that the government spend $5.5 billion over the next 5 years at measures to retrain workers and help companies improve their business operations. The government intends to spend further $1.5 billion on research and development, and will nurture industries and companies it thinks has the greatest chance of innovating and succeeding globally.
The solution, it appears, is based on greater government intervention in the private sector and increased micromanagement of the economy.
But the same has been tried before, way back in the 1990s when productivity had begun to stagnate after two decades of high growth, and again in the early part of this decade, with initiatives spearheaded by bodies such as the Economic Review Committee. The proposals laid out in Budget 2010 seem like a tired re-run of the schemes devised in yesteryears.
Why then is the government confident that it will succeed this time round? As the old saying goes, insanity surely is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.
Perhaps it is time to question whether excessive government intervention in the economy is the true killer of productivity growth, and whether the latest slew of measures will have the unintended consequence of further retarding the ability of Singaporeans to innovate and think out of the box.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and risk-taking are attributes developed not under the umbrella of a watchful and powerful regime that controls where the money flows and decides who should get what benefits and under what conditions.
Those are qualities developed in the free market where competition amongst peers is the main driver of higher output and productivity.
What is conspicuously absent in the productivity debate is the fact that after more than four decades of nation building under the PAP, Singapore as a country has become less entrepreneurial and less productive.
The bedrock of any dynamic economy lies in its small and medium enterprises, the mom and pop businesses, the heartland shops, stalls and emporiums that cater to folks from all walks of life.
In Singapore however, Government-Linked Corporations (GLCs) which account for 60% of the economy have crowded out many small players and stifled innovation.
Worse, because they are run not by seasoned businessmen but by bureaucrats from the establishment circles, wastage and poor allocation of resources build up over time, and the lack of drive and creativity puts an ever increasing dampener on the whole economy.
The suffocating entrenchment of GLCs in our economy must be drastically reduced before Singaporeans can break free from the economic chains that inhibit the full expression of their creative drive.
We are getting nowhere with the current productivity debate because the government has refused to acknowledge the root cause of poor productivity growth and the proposed measures will only serve to entrench the status quo and deepen our problems.
Ultimately the problem lies with what the PAP has done to, and will continue to do to, our minds.
In the world, an SME is defined as a business that has a turnover of $50m to $100m.
Everyone knows what an SME is like in Singapore. Small and insignificant.
I would also suggest that much of the reason for the failure of our businesses to grow, is due to the over-emphasis on cost. Because our govt forever cares about cheap (good is optional), our businesses also follow the same principle.
The result? You have people like Adam Khoo that laments about having to pay more for local labour, and no consideration of anything else.
In addition, there is also the consistent loss of talent to other non-SG corporations. I worked in a Singapore organization before, and moved on to US and European organizations, which pay well, and treat people better. The only reason why our large GLCs can survive is due to very strong systematic processes that are setup (I give due credit on this), where they can keep hiring fresh grads and use those processes to bring them up to speed.
Even so, hiring fresh grads usually requires a bare minimum of 2 years before they become truly effective.
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the PAP govt has been taking the short cut to achieve economic success the last few years. that is to get the work cheaply done.
i dont believe even a single statment what tharma has to say. single achieve 20% pay rises? maybe the raises are only restricted to the top management and top executives of company.
as far as i know, few engineers or middle executives got pay increase of that magnitude.
however what i can feel is that the last few years fuel high inflation in certain area which is the bread and butter of singaporeans. HDB flats. by putting an incapable ministers incharge of impt ministeries for singaporeans can tell what the PAP motive is. squeese and dry singaporeans. Mr Mah has been notorious since his days at the helm of land transport. ERP, COE has since been the laughing stock icon of singaporeans.
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Originally posted by Calvin86:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/02/26/kenneth-jeyaretnam-demolishes-finance-tharmans-assertion-that-foreigners-help-raise-the-wages-of-singaporeans/
Kenneth Jeyaretnam, the Secretary-General of the Reform Party has written a comprehensive response to Finance Minister Tharman’s recent Budget speech, demolishing his assertion that the government’s foreigner policy has raised the wages of Singaporeans.
Mr Tharman substantiated his claim by quoting the rise in median income per household member, after adjusting for inflation, of 20 per cent in the period 2005 – 2008, using it to demonstrate the “success of the government’s policies.”
Kenneth, who graduated with double first class honors in Economics from Cambridge University, argued that “this could have occurred without any rise in the living standards of median Singaporean citizen.”
He explained that the discrepancy can be attributed to two reasons:
1. The use of “residents” to compute figures in all official data used by the government which includes both citizens and PRs. Over the past decade, the resident population grew by 15 per cent due to the influx of new citizens and PRs and as the majority of them do not have dependents, the proportion of working adults in the resident household would have risen thereby contributing to the increase in real median income per household member.
2. The figure excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60 years of age which would have decreased due to the depressing of wages of senior citizens caused by the government’s pro-foreigner policy.
Kenneth added that Mr Tharman has painted an “exaggeratedly rosy picture of the government’s failed economic policies of the past decade while at the same time not even beginning to grasp the enormity of the transformation necessary in the economy.”
He also offered his own recommendations in the following areas of continuing education and training, growing globally competitive companies, boosting productivity and managing the inflow of foreign workers.
As expected, though the press release was made on 23 February 2010, it did not receive any coverage by the mainstream media which has been heaping generous praises on the Budget to give the false impression that Singaporeans are supportive of it.
Channel News Asia quoted a few PAP MPs singing in unison to lend their support to the Budget while the Straits Times put up a misleading article on Singaporeans posting comments supporting it on REACH forum when the majority of them are critical of it.
Though Kenneth’s initiatives are sound and good, they will never be highlighted by the pro-PAP media out of fear of putting its political master in a bad light.
Despite the lack of publicity, some of Kenneth’s suggestions may turn out “repackaged” in a different form a few months later as what happened to his call to boost productivity last year which is finally given due attention by the PAP now.
Read rest of Kenneth’s press release here
To Kenneth Jeyaretnam if he sees this: well said in terms of the maths and statistics!
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Originally posted by reyes:
the PAP govt has been taking the short cut to achieve economic success the last few years. that is to get the work cheaply done.
i dont believe even a single statment what tharma has to say. single achieve 20% pay rises? maybe the raises are only restricted to the top management and top executives of company.
as far as i know, few engineers or middle executives got pay increase of that magnitude.
however what i can feel is that the last few years fuel high inflation in certain area which is the bread and butter of singaporeans. HDB flats. by putting an incapable ministers incharge of impt ministeries for singaporeans can tell what the PAP motive is. squeese and dry singaporeans. Mr Mah has been notorious since his days at the helm of land transport. ERP, COE has since been the laughing stock icon of singaporeans.
"Mr Mah has been notorious since his days at the helm of land transport. ERP, COE has since been the laughing stock icon of singaporeans."
There is this growing numbers of Minister who are listening less but talking down more to the public. This phenomenon but puzzling affair are growing occurrences.
But if you see Malaysian-born Khaw, he is a different story altogether and I like him. His has sincere trait that is so hard to find in the local-born Ministers.
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Despite all this productivity talk, they still can't answer why there is a need for a MM, 2 SMs and a bunch of ministers without portfolio directly doing what the PM is supposed to be doing.
And we haven't even mentioned about the under productivity of those ministers with portfolios.
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What is conspicuously absent in the productivity debate is the fact that after more than four decades of nation building under the PAP, Singapore as a country has become less entrepreneurial and less productive.
I would just want to add another layer of observation to this statement.....
1st observation - Crowding out effect
This is a result of long term crowding out effect by govt high wage policies that cannibalized domestics social and human resources from the private sector. It is hard to directly proportion 1 to 1 relation to the effect.
(PS: govt ministeries goes overseas to recruit SG students to work in civil servant. I would rather that they invite Human resources of local SME to jointly do the recruitment drive to recruit SG rather than cream off the top candidates)
2nd observation - Rent Seeking public policies.
Rent seeking Economies....our government has created renk seeking policies to justify excessive consumption of imoral goods in the name of public. Instead of creating needed services in the economies, SG govt Create services to maintain Rent seeking policies.
Rent Seeking policies kill the fundatmental of Economics principle of allocating Resources by providing Needed Services and Goods thru market forces. Rather Monies is now to be "FIND" thru creative rent seeking policies vs "Produced".
Recently when LHL said that they would organized and fixed "Productivities" I am not sure if LHL comprehend the role of institution for the economies. In his current domain he can only organized Rent Seeking Policies by reducing rate to increase in productivities.
"Productivies" can't be fixed without a long term plan for a substained Economics Growth and the quinntessential ingredients on Growth is entreprenuership and innovation within the given resources. That is the bases of increasing productivities....it is not about organizing, cheaper, faster, better.....
Public sector economies is tricky excessive intervention particularly when SG govt operates like an corporation it is too big, too blind and become a moral hazzard for the goods of its people.
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
In the world, an SME is defined as a business that has a turnover of $50m to $100m.
Everyone knows what an SME is like in Singapore. Small and insignificant.
I would also suggest that much of the reason for the failure of our businesses to grow, is due to the over-emphasis on cost. Because our govt forever cares about cheap (good is optional), our businesses also follow the same principle.
The result? You have people like Adam Khoo that laments about having to pay more for local labour, and no consideration of anything else.
In addition, there is also the consistent loss of talent to other non-SG corporations. I worked in a Singapore organization before, and moved on to US and European organizations, which pay well, and treat people better. The only reason why our large GLCs can survive is due to very strong systematic processes that are setup (I give due credit on this), where they can keep hiring fresh grads and use those processes to bring them up to speed.
Even so, hiring fresh grads usually requires a bare minimum of 2 years before they become truly effective.
but once they are moled...it is not easy to get out from the mentality...
