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Response to PM Lee’s NDR 2010 speech
September 6th, 2010 |
Author: Your Correspondent
Dear PM Lee,
I refer to your National Day Rally speech televised live on 29 Oct 2010.
You said there is a trade off between high growth and the acceptance of more workers. However, we should not grow for growth’s sake but should seek prosperity instead. Many first world European cities do not resort to the mass importation of workers to sustain their strong economies and their high standards of living. There is no reason why we can’t be likewise.
You said the winning design of the Duxton plain site has led to it becoming one of the most sought after HDB projects in Singapore. In case you’re not aware, existing flats around the Duxton plain are also amongst the most sought after in Singapore. Nearly all record HDB transactions come from that area. So it begs the questions of whether Duxton Plain is most sought after because of a winning design or because of its location.
You said foreigner influx is not uncontrolled because we have dependency ratios and foreign worker levies. But having those measures in place does not guarantee that the control will be well functioning just as having drains doesn’t guarantee that floods will be well controlled.
You said Texas’ many immigrants contributed to its vibrancy as well as its cutting edge in medical research. There are many European countries that do not have as many immigrants and yet are also at the forefront of scientific research. You said Texas benefitted from immigration even as neighbouring states like California and Arizona have tightened up. But the per capita GDP of both California and Arizona are higher than that of Texas. So being open to immigrants did not make Texas better than California or Arizona.
You referred to Microsoft’s setting up of an office in Vancouver, Canada across from Redmond, USA as an example of how Canada has benefitted from liberal immigration policies and how the US has suffered from its strict policies. But what exactly are those benefits to Canada and those losses to the US? As far as employment of citizens in rich software development jobs is concerned, neither Canada nor the US will benefit because the bulk of those jobs are going to foreigners regardless of whether the office is in Canada or the US. The most tangible benefit therefore has to be the auxilliary services to these foreigners in terms of the sale of groceries, meals and other daily expenses. These are largely low value added jobs. So if our concern is on the high value added jobs that Microsoft offers, then it makes no difference whether the office is in Vancouver or Redmond.
You said we should cheer for our national sportsmen even if they are foreign born because when they win, the Majulah Singapura is played. When Ben Johnson won gold in 1988 and the Canadian national anthem was played, no doubt all Canadians cheered. But when Ben Johnson was subsequently found to have cheated and stripped of his Olympic Gold medal, it means all the cheering had been in vain. So playing the national anthem doesn’t automatically warrant cheering. Ultimately, the people must feel the legitimacy of the victory.
You said we have given $400 million to 400,000 workers on Workfare and that that’s a lot of money. But on average, each worker gets only $1,000, a pittance compared to SM Goh’s wife’s definition of peanuts.
You said we have 22,000 new flats coming along but we don’t have 22,000 new couples getting hitched every year. Nevertheless, there is a huge backlog of couples who are currently putting up at their parents’ homes because they hadn’t been able to secure a place of their own. If you add those backlogs, 22,000 many not be sufficient.
You referred to MM Lee’s generation of leaders as the founding fathers who built our nation. You are wrong. There is one and only one founding father of Singapore and that is Sir Stamford Raffles. Our nation did not suddenly spring up from nothing in 1965. Behind 1965 were many more years of toiling without which 1965 would not have been possible.
You said the people who came before MM Lee’s generation had separate loyalties to different countries. Are you saying that Lim Bo Seng who died for Singapore while fighting the Japanese had no loyalty to Singapore? While Lim Bo Seng fought the Japanese, your father worked for them instead. Now, as we celebrate national day, Lim Bo Seng is all but forgotten but your father has become the ‘founding father’. We should not whitewash the contributions of the Singapore pioneers who came before MM Lee. If the conceiving and championing of a Malayan identity is an important contribution of the so-called ‘founding fathers’, then it seems odd that our first Chief Minister, Mr David Marshall was not even mentioned at all. There was hardly any fight for independence as far as MM Lee and his comrades are concerned. No blood was shed by him or his comrades. Also, there is no fighting of ‘communists’ as far as the term ‘communist’ is concerned. Even until today, even after locking them up and robbing them of their most fruitful years of their lives, we still have not been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they had been ‘communists’. Yet we continue to label them as ‘communists’.
So it is important to not just remember our founding fathers properly but to recognise that they span many generations stretching all the way back to 1819.
Ng Kok Lim
Dear PM Lee,
I refer to your National Day Rally speech televised live on 29 Oct 2010.
You said there is a trade off between high growth and the acceptance of more workers. However, we should not grow for growth’s sake but should seek prosperity instead. Many first world European cities do not resort to the mass importation of workers to sustain their strong economies and their high standards of living. There is no reason why we can’t be likewise.
You said the winning design of the Duxton plain site has led to it becoming one of the most sought after HDB projects in Singapore. In case you’re not aware, existing flats around the Duxton plain are also amongst the most sought after in Singapore. Nearly all record HDB transactions come from that area. So it begs the questions of whether Duxton Plain is most sought after because of a winning design or because of its location.
You said foreigner influx is not uncontrolled because we have dependency ratios and foreign worker levies. But having those measures in place does not guarantee that the control will be well functioning just as having drains doesn’t guarantee that floods will be well controlled.
You said Texas’ many immigrants contributed to its vibrancy as well as its cutting edge in medical research. There are many European countries that do not have as many immigrants and yet are also at the forefront of scientific research. You said Texas benefitted from immigration even as neighbouring states like California and Arizona have tightened up. But the per capita GDP of both California and Arizona are higher than that of Texas. So being open to immigrants did not make Texas better than California or Arizona.
You referred to Microsoft’s setting up of an office in Vancouver, Canada across from Redmond, USA as an example of how Canada has benefitted from liberal immigration policies and how the US has suffered from its strict policies. But what exactly are those benefits to Canada and those losses to the US? As far as employment of citizens in rich software development jobs is concerned, neither Canada nor the US will benefit because the bulk of those jobs are going to foreigners regardless of whether the office is in Canada or the US. The most tangible benefit therefore has to be the auxilliary services to these foreigners in terms of the sale of groceries, meals and other daily expenses. These are largely low value added jobs. So if our concern is on the high value added jobs that Microsoft offers, then it makes no difference whether the office is in Vancouver or Redmond.
You said we should cheer for our national sportsmen even if they are foreign born because when they win, the Majulah Singapura is played. When Ben Johnson won gold in 1988 and the Canadian national anthem was played, no doubt all Canadians cheered. But when Ben Johnson was subsequently found to have cheated and stripped of his Olympic Gold medal, it means all the cheering had been in vain. So playing the national anthem doesn’t automatically warrant cheering. Ultimately, the people must feel the legitimacy of the victory.
You said we have given $400 million to 400,000 workers on Workfare and that that’s a lot of money. But on average, each worker gets only $1,000, a pittance compared to SM Goh’s wife’s definition of peanuts.
You said we have 22,000 new flats coming along but we don’t have 22,000 new couples getting hitched every year. Nevertheless, there is a huge backlog of couples who are currently putting up at their parents’ homes because they hadn’t been able to secure a place of their own. If you add those backlogs, 22,000 many not be sufficient.
You referred to MM Lee’s generation of leaders as the founding fathers who built our nation. You are wrong. There is one and only one founding father of Singapore and that is Sir Stamford Raffles. Our nation did not suddenly spring up from nothing in 1965. Behind 1965 were many more years of toiling without which 1965 would not have been possible.
You said the people who came before MM Lee’s generation had separate loyalties to different countries. Are you saying that Lim Bo Seng who died for Singapore while fighting the Japanese had no loyalty to Singapore? While Lim Bo Seng fought the Japanese, your father worked for them instead. Now, as we celebrate national day, Lim Bo Seng is all but forgotten but your father has become the ‘founding father’. We should not whitewash the contributions of the Singapore pioneers who came before MM Lee. If the conceiving and championing of a Malayan identity is an important contribution of the so-called ‘founding fathers’, then it seems odd that our first Chief Minister, Mr David Marshall was not even mentioned at all. There was hardly any fight for independence as far as MM Lee and his comrades are concerned. No blood was shed by him or his comrades. Also, there is no fighting of ‘communists’ as far as the term ‘communist’ is concerned. Even until today, even after locking them up and robbing them of their most fruitful years of their lives, we still have not been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they had been ‘communists’. Yet we continue to label them as ‘communists’.
So it is important to not just remember our founding fathers properly but to recognise that they span many generations stretching all the way back to 1819.
Ng Kok Lim
