Ngiam Tong Dow on Employment and PR

[scroobal]

Ngiam Tong Dow - Business Times - 10 November 2011

"My plea is that we should not sell ourselves short. In the 1960s, I served as the EDB desk officer for the immigration deposit scheme. By depositing $1 million, entrepreneurial businessmen from Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong could obtain permanent residence for themselves and their families in Singapore. They were free to invest their funds in any industry which could create employment for Singaporeans.

The first factory in the Jurong Industrial Estate was established by a group of Indonesian Chinese businessmen.

Permanent residents today are no longer required to invest in industry. Most of them invest in property for capital gains. They do not create employment opportunities for our young graduates pouring out of our four universities and six polytechnics. As we are reaching the limits of expansion, we have to move up from a skill to a knowledge-based economy. We need to raise our level of competence.

In my view, the millions of dollars we are now devoting to R&D is only the means to an end. The end is not inventions or patents per se. The real outcome is raising our competence to solve complex problems, putting us ahead of our competitors.

This would be my definition of a knowledge-based economy. "

 

[Windsor]

In short, the Singapore government has sold their citizens out. Increasing the prices of land and property to foreigners are not beneficial to most Singaporeans, and only the rich and wealthy stand to gain from this policy change. I do not know much about other countries, but the countries I know that allow foreigners to buy properties are those that has 30 years lease and even then they were not given PR status.

 

[po2wq]

... The end is not inventions or patents per se. The real outcome is raising our competence to solve complex problems, putting us ahead of our competitors. ...

juz print mor 10 yrs series wil do ...

publishers wil make a roaring trade ...

 

[mojito]

Good call on conditions of residency. To be fair I suspect there is global competition for wealth and it is in line with criterias from advanced nations in the west.

Presumably wealthy new PRs would spend within our shores and trickle down to the rest of the economy. That is obviously not as direct as creating skilled employment providing exportable products and services. Trickle down is a highly speculative notion built on faulty premise, but that is a story for another day.

Rather enlightened view on R&D and the role of the state. Wonder what his views are on athletes representing Singapore. What are your views?

 

[Checker]

Well known that to survive in the future, need to build nation's capabilities in education, skills & knoweldge.

Some amount of FT is needed as in any major academic intellectual hub. But need home-grown or returning talent to anchor and build the culture that will endure for future generations. FT leave at moments notice. SG R&D is over-reliant on FT here because of short-term money being handed out. Just like in the gulf countries eg Dubai, Saudi - lots of money there to try to develop R&D and knowledge. Those who benefit say the right things about how promising it all is. Others say that unless the ground is fertile, nothing's really going to take root in the desert.

Question is how fertile is the SG intellectual culture for the type of R&D, knowledge economy that is needed for survival?

 

[scroobal]

One of the curious things about how cabinet works is the way that they try and avoid individual responsibility for policies. It is never associated with any minister or ministry. The Ministry and the minister however given the impression that they are there to implement and enforce the policies. It is something that I noticed with GCT becoming PM.

You do not get this kind of policy creation in the 1st world.

Then when they leave cabinet and stand for PE or other supra-national role, they will claim that it was a cabinet decision and tell all their supporters that they were not behind it.

 

[lee6100]

One of the curious things about how cabinet works is the way that they try and avoid individual responsibility for policies. It is never associated with any minister or ministry. The Ministry and the minister however given the impression that they are there to implement and enforce the policies. It is something that I noticed with GCT becoming PM.

You do not get this kind of policy creation in the 1st world.

Then when they leave cabinet and stand for PE or other supra-national role, they will claim that it was a cabinet decision and tell all their supporters that they were not behind it.

Part of a speech, How Singapore Uses Behavioural Economics, by Ravi Menon delivered last week (16th November) at the launch of the book Behavioural Economics And Policy Design: Examples From Singapore, edited by Donald Low and published by the Civil Service College, Singapore. (see full text - http://heshenchow.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-singapore-uses-behavioural.html):

Behavioural economics in S'pore
IN SINGAPORE, public policies have been strongly guided by the rigour of economic logic. Getting prices right, using financial incentives, making choices transparent and letting the market work are key ingredients of this approach. Economic rationality has generally served the country well.
But what is less well known is that policies have been shaped also by considerations of people's likely responses and reactions which may not be consistent with economic logic. Of course, it is not that the government had a deep understanding of behavioural economics, or even knew that it was applying concepts from behavioural economics. Rather, it was a pragmatic approach of learning from mistakes, of developing an intuition for how people will respond and continually adjusting policies in the light of experience.



Overall, a good speech by Ravi Menon also cautioning policy makers against biases and urging them to show humilty. We do have good civil servants like him. Unfortunately, we also have ministers, because they have all the As in exams and attend the best universities in the world, who seem to think that they have all the answers and know how people think and feel. Clearly, mental rigor mortis has set in just six months after their worst electoral performance in decades.

 

[brocoli]

 

[lockeliberal]

Dear Scroo

The collective responsibility theme of cabinet was part of the Westminster system, but within the collective system because of the "first amongst equals". We had individual cabinet ministers taking ownership of well successful policies and errr trying to distance themselves with the " collective responsibility " argument for unpopular ones. The principle of the PM was that he would take the leadership in popular decisions and well try to hide within cabinet ministers and collective responsibility for unpopular ones.

Singapore ahhhh Singapore, that paragon of virtue and depoliticized politics, where art the competition ? Because without competition, there would be no incentive to be popular or to care about being unpopular hence collective responsibility was an excuse for a seat at the highest policy table and to collect the pay and ERRRR NOT DO ANYTHING, play it safe.

Case in point , GMS made Mah Boh Tan an issue and made sure he was held personally responsible for the housing debacle, which KBW is now desperately trying to change, competition, political unpopularity , damage , lost of seats, fear of loss of seats, If George can go no one is safe.......and so it begins real politics and real costs of being unpopular.

I am amazed at how we bring the smartest well paid people to the cabinet table and they all end up singing the same tune in the face of MM, PM and Emertitus M. They seem to me like the proverbial councillors of OLD. " Change anything, change our basic formulae and YOU GUYS will fuck it up. " and yes ever since LKY refused to leave the cabinet unlike Deng, we have been unable to change. Or as Ngiam sees it grasping at the easiest decisions which do not affect our way of thinking ( conservative )



Locke

One of the curious things about how cabinet works is the way that they try and avoid individual responsibility for policies. It is never associated with any minister or ministry. The Ministry and the minister however given the impression that they are there to implement and enforce the policies. It is something that I noticed with GCT becoming PM.

You do not get this kind of policy creation in the 1st world.

Then when they leave cabinet and stand for PE or other supra-national role, they will claim that it was a cabinet decision and tell all their supporters that they were not behind it.

 

[MightyMouse]

I think she is in need of some exercise or dieting....

 

[kingrant]

I also sensed that when people think or talk of a knowledge-based economy, some even seemed to think it is about IT. And then they go and bring in so many Indians! As if Indians are the only ones good at IT!

We have surgeons, lawyers, ex-generals, bankers, and civil servants (except Ngiam maybe) who have never spent a day in private life in our Cabinet setting policies for a KBE without truly understanding what it is all about.

 

[mojito]

One of the curious things about how cabinet works is the way that they try and avoid individual responsibility for policies. It is never associated with any minister or ministry. The Ministry and the minister however given the impression that they are there to implement and enforce the policies. It is something that I noticed with GCT becoming PM.

You do not get this kind of policy creation in the 1st world.

Then when they leave cabinet and stand for PE or other supra-national role, they will claim that it was a cabinet decision and tell all their supporters that they were not behind it.

Do you not find it bizarre that a super-minister is overseeing three ministries and an international appointment with no trouble at all? What's more, a major ministry is left without a full minister for several months now (that one is acting minister). Do you know of any other first world nation where ministries could function without political appointees?

It takes one of the best civil service the world has to offer to trudge along on auto-pilot without a man at the helm. More importantly, it also implies that it is not impossible that a genius super-minister could in practice manage 7 ministries, the central bank, foreign reserves and the public pension plan without assistance.