People who know me will know that I am stridently anti PAP and Lee Con you. However, Con You mentioned recently that because the birth rate was so low, and that Singapore women were not reproducing enough, it will be the end of Singapore. His exact words were “If we go on like that, this place will fold up, because there'll be no original citizens left to form the majority”
I happen to agree with his statement. I am not here to say who was to blame or what can be done, but rather I want to highlight what the govt. says it wants to do. I use the word say, because many times, the govt. floats up trial balloons to test the public’s reaction. Whether they actually implement this will be another thing.
Some of the things the PAP has bantered around centre on things like paternity leave, and other things they are doing now is giving baby bonuses of $4000, and $6000 for those with 3 or more kids. Does this sound like serious measures that might reverse the birth rate? What is a pathetic $4000 going to do for a family with a baby?
Other countries that do not have such a serious low birth rate problem as we do have such policies as:
- Up to 1 year maternity leave for the mother with guaranteed employment at the same employer when she comes back.
- Up to 6 months paternity leave
- Large tax deductions for childcare expenses
- Totally free medical and school for children
- unemployment benefits of 50% of the mother’s base salary for 6 months while she is on maternity leave
- subsidized childcare facilities
- in western countries, it common to have a childcare facility in the same building that the parent works in, so they can drop of and pick up their children easily
Many more ideas and policies along the lines above are practiced in many countries.
If your low birth rate is such a serious problem, why is the PAP not pulling OUT ALL STOPS NOW. A child takes something like 20 years to be a mature contributor to society. Every day the PAP delay is added to this time. Why not go all in now and try and solve the problem, instead of the bullshit half measures they are proposing now? 20 years from now, We want to be able to say that we tried everything, gave it our best short and it did not work. Or we can say we gave it everything, and it worked. These crappy half measure will not work, they have seen it not work, and yet are still sitting on their asses with no drastic measures in sight. This will turn into a tragedy of epic proportions, in a couple of generations, a native born Singapore might be a rarity and almost certainly a minority in his own country.
What is the reason for the PAP’s intransigence to take real action? Well, real action costs money. And the PAP is all about profit. This govt., run by a tight fisted hakka jew is so cheap, they will not put money into any endeavours, unless they can see a short term or medium term return on their investment. Therefore, they are not willing to put money into programs that take such a long time to mature and that will eat into the profits of their beloved GLCs and the govt. coffers. Instead , they will hang the old scare tactic of “we don’t want to become a socialize welfare state” by offering all these benefits to women. Well, as Con you has said, in a few generation, there will be no state, welfare or not.
There is a business adage that says “it takes money to make money”. The short sighted PAP do not understand this. Look at how much a native born Singaporean spends throughout his lifetime in Singapore, versus the job stealing FT who leaves after lining his pocket, and spends the money he earned in Singapore on his family and economy in china or india. A Singaporean has to buy a flat, pay for all of his goods and services till the day he dies. An FT comes here, rents a flat with 8 other FTs from his own town, and spends as little as possible in order to save more and send back to his family. Other FTs with more money or higher paying job, do buy a flat when they get their PR, but as soon as their children become NS age, they leave and renounce their PR. Hence taking out CPF money from the system and spending it in their own country, and selling their flats for a profit and taking the money out of the Singapore economy to spend on their native country too. Lets be clear here, I will venture a guess, but I would not be surprised if for every $1 that an FT spends in Singapore, a native Singaporean will spend $3 over his lifetime. Imagine if there was a population of 4 million Singaporeans, their spending power would be equal to perhaps 8 million FTs. If the PAP can see this, they will think twice and perhaps spend some money on real incentives to have babies.
Herein lies my problem with the PAP. Their ability to tackle such a serious problem I fundamentally damaged by their money first attitude, but on the other hand, things that are not as important, they lavish billions $. Why spend $10 billion on the defense budget when there are already not even enough NS manpower to man all the equipment? If you reduce the defence budget by 10%, you have $1 billion that you can spend on solving the birth rate issue.
In summary, if you think you are getting the brightest and most brilliant minds because they are getting the highest salaries in the world, than u would be wrong. They clearly cannot focus on the real problems at hand due to blindness from greed.
I happen to agree with his statement. I am not here to say who was to blame or what can be done, but rather I want to highlight what the govt. says it wants to do. I use the word say, because many times, the govt. floats up trial balloons to test the public’s reaction. Whether they actually implement this will be another thing.
Some of the things the PAP has bantered around centre on things like paternity leave, and other things they are doing now is giving baby bonuses of $4000, and $6000 for those with 3 or more kids. Does this sound like serious measures that might reverse the birth rate? What is a pathetic $4000 going to do for a family with a baby?
Other countries that do not have such a serious low birth rate problem as we do have such policies as:
- Up to 1 year maternity leave for the mother with guaranteed employment at the same employer when she comes back.
- Up to 6 months paternity leave
- Large tax deductions for childcare expenses
- Totally free medical and school for children
- unemployment benefits of 50% of the mother’s base salary for 6 months while she is on maternity leave
- subsidized childcare facilities
- in western countries, it common to have a childcare facility in the same building that the parent works in, so they can drop of and pick up their children easily
Many more ideas and policies along the lines above are practiced in many countries.
If your low birth rate is such a serious problem, why is the PAP not pulling OUT ALL STOPS NOW. A child takes something like 20 years to be a mature contributor to society. Every day the PAP delay is added to this time. Why not go all in now and try and solve the problem, instead of the bullshit half measures they are proposing now? 20 years from now, We want to be able to say that we tried everything, gave it our best short and it did not work. Or we can say we gave it everything, and it worked. These crappy half measure will not work, they have seen it not work, and yet are still sitting on their asses with no drastic measures in sight. This will turn into a tragedy of epic proportions, in a couple of generations, a native born Singapore might be a rarity and almost certainly a minority in his own country.
What is the reason for the PAP’s intransigence to take real action? Well, real action costs money. And the PAP is all about profit. This govt., run by a tight fisted hakka jew is so cheap, they will not put money into any endeavours, unless they can see a short term or medium term return on their investment. Therefore, they are not willing to put money into programs that take such a long time to mature and that will eat into the profits of their beloved GLCs and the govt. coffers. Instead , they will hang the old scare tactic of “we don’t want to become a socialize welfare state” by offering all these benefits to women. Well, as Con you has said, in a few generation, there will be no state, welfare or not.
There is a business adage that says “it takes money to make money”. The short sighted PAP do not understand this. Look at how much a native born Singaporean spends throughout his lifetime in Singapore, versus the job stealing FT who leaves after lining his pocket, and spends the money he earned in Singapore on his family and economy in china or india. A Singaporean has to buy a flat, pay for all of his goods and services till the day he dies. An FT comes here, rents a flat with 8 other FTs from his own town, and spends as little as possible in order to save more and send back to his family. Other FTs with more money or higher paying job, do buy a flat when they get their PR, but as soon as their children become NS age, they leave and renounce their PR. Hence taking out CPF money from the system and spending it in their own country, and selling their flats for a profit and taking the money out of the Singapore economy to spend on their native country too. Lets be clear here, I will venture a guess, but I would not be surprised if for every $1 that an FT spends in Singapore, a native Singaporean will spend $3 over his lifetime. Imagine if there was a population of 4 million Singaporeans, their spending power would be equal to perhaps 8 million FTs. If the PAP can see this, they will think twice and perhaps spend some money on real incentives to have babies.
Herein lies my problem with the PAP. Their ability to tackle such a serious problem I fundamentally damaged by their money first attitude, but on the other hand, things that are not as important, they lavish billions $. Why spend $10 billion on the defense budget when there are already not even enough NS manpower to man all the equipment? If you reduce the defence budget by 10%, you have $1 billion that you can spend on solving the birth rate issue.
In summary, if you think you are getting the brightest and most brilliant minds because they are getting the highest salaries in the world, than u would be wrong. They clearly cannot focus on the real problems at hand due to blindness from greed.
