MM: We're not easily copied

[makapaaa]

Lucky for the rest of the world when Sporns are dying to get out of the nose snot!

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_277236.html

Sep 10, 2008
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : start --></TD></TR><TR><TD>MM: We're not easily copied <!--10 min-->
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Sue-Ann Chia
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Mentor Lee Kuan Yew (left) said that it is not easy to copy another country's policy, because each country has a different starting point. -- ST PHOTO: STEPHANIE YEOW
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SINGAPORE's economic model combining a good social safety net with low tax rates is not easily copied as each country has a different starting point, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on Wednesday.
But one advice he can give is: You cannot take back what is given.
'You start off with the premise that once given, if you take it back, there's a tremendous penalty in the votes that you'll get. So once given, it cannot be taken back,' he said at the Forbes CEO global conference.
This was Singapore's position from the day it became independent, he said, after having watched the British implement some of their policies here in the 1950s which he described as 'the way to ruin'.
So when the People's Action Party took charge, it stopped 'free prescriptions for medicine...started putting charges on them which we kept on making more and more realistic'.

 

[makapaaa]

As in lagi worst, u have a void deck to sleep in?​

 

[madmansg]

not easily duplicated as got uniquely retarded NS slaves willing to toll for 2 years without proper wages while FT come in free with scholarships and jobs.

 

[kiwibird7]

Lucky for the rest of the world when Sporns are dying to get out of the nose snot!

<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->
SINGAPORE's economic model combining a good social safety net with low tax rates is not easily copied as each country has a different starting point, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on Wednesday.
But one advice he can give is: You cannot take back what is given.
'You start off with the premise that once given, if you take it back, there's a tremendous penalty in the votes that you'll get. So once given, it cannot be taken back,' he said at the Forbes CEO global conference.
This was Singapore's position from the day it became independent, he said, after having watched the British implement some of their policies here in the 1950s which he described as 'the way to ruin'.
So when the People's Action Party took charge, it stopped 'free prescriptions for medicine...started putting charges on them which we kept on making more and more realistic'.

What REALLY are the S'pore Safety Nets? The inadequate for retirement CPF? The market rate 'subsidies'? The paltry social welfare laden with restrictions assistance?

Wasn't some of PAP's own policies also the way to ruin for some also;
1. Bilingual policy for the less than linguistically gifted who cannot go on to Tertiary Education.
2. The Stop at Two Policy

Expats with foreign degrees are able to provide their expertise, function, work and reside amongst S'poreans without the need of mastering any of the so called Mother Tongue.

Only the rich could send their linguistically inapt children overseas for a foreign degree and these eventually led to the start of the S'porean exodus by emigration.

How many local talents (thus deprived of a Tertiary Education) were lost in this PAP initiated educational wastage caused by the Mother Tongue Policy?

Has the forced imposition of the learning of the Mother Tongue improved social cohesion or has it sharpened the racial divide and reinforced the racist mentality between the English Educated/Chinese Educated and the rest?

The FT situation currently faced is the direct consequence of the 'ruinous' STOP at TWO policy.

Stopping free prescriptions altogether may have stopped widespread abuse by those who can afford, but leaves those who are really poor in dire straits. This mentality eventually leads to the present 'uncaring' elite class and the lack of social graces mentality amongst S'porean of " You die is your business".

Govt agencies are not supposed to proudly boasts of ever increasing profit margins year after year. They are supposed to break even or sometimes even go into the red. That is what income taxes and GSTs are meant to be used for. Setting realistic or market rates are the hallmarks of private business concerns NOT govt agencies who are there for the service of citizens and not to test the pain thresholds of affordability!

How quickly the ungrateful LKY forgets that the well oiled Civil Service machinery, judiciary and ISD from the British whom he now criticises but he now uses to crush the opposition. It was the British who started the pension system which would have provided a useful backup to the CPF system but it was also LKY who terminated the pension system for the rest of S'poreans but retained it only for the elite (namely Parliamentarians like himself).

It was also LKY who terminated the Pension widows would automatically get in the event that the husband dies first, S'poreans would be enlightened to know that in Malaysia, wives of pensioners would still get their husbands pensions should their hubbies die first.

With all the above in mind, only an authoritarian dictatorship govt would want to copy. Woe betide the citizens of any nation wanting to follow LKY's prescription, let alone copy. Thanks but NO thanks!

 

[blackmore]

Only difference between us and the Holy land is that we have Make Up Pay while they only have bus fare for reservist. Arse Aye F must have learnt a thing or two from these scoorages.

 

[johnny333]

Another LKY editorial?

I thought he'd be busy looking after his wife or mentoring the PM. With each of these articals we can see how out of touch he is. He's obviously in some la la land.

 

[Alu862]

True we have no same starting point, and true that democracy is not always the path to development but that does not mean openess destroys everything