http://www.tremeritus.com/2015/09/03/rebutting-a-government-supporter/
[h=2]Rebutting a government supporter[/h]
September 3rd, 2015 |
Author: Contributions
Below is an extract from an email communication released by a government
supporter in Singapore, and by someone who categorically rebutted his points
(in italics and parenthesis).
Subject : WHY I SUPPORT THE PAP……
There
is so much negativity about Singapore and our government, especially in the
internet forums. So I decided to compile a list of debating points for the
government supporters now that elections are in the air again.
Singaporeans are fond of complaining and they end up forgetting what a great
country we have. Here is a list of all the great things that our country has
achieved.
Singapore’s achievements under the PAP
1) We are the 3rd richest country in the world. The richest is Qatar which is
heavily dependent on its oil wealth. (With oil price declining as a result of
fracking, they may not remain on top for much longer.) It is quite an
achievement for us to reach the 3rd place without any natural resources.
(Based on average per capita income, we are indeed the third richest
nation. But our tremendous disparity in income distribution makes it such that
90% of such income went to the pockets of 30% of the population, leaving the
masses of 70% suffering. Certain industries were sacrificed in FTA negotiations
in exchange for the opening of foreign markets for our corporate titans, leading
to foreign dumping for some in Singapore, creating obvious misery for folks of
such industries. For example, stockbroking.)
2) Our education system is ranked 1st in the world by the OECD.
(We have forced our educational system to the forefront, no doubt.
However, it was undisclosed that more than half of existing mental patients in
the Institute of Mental Health are students. With the kiasu mentality, our
education advisers adopted a maximization approach when introducing the syllabi
to our curriculums. They plucked everything from the air to be included in a
subject on a “play safe” mode, to protect themselves. Whilst most western
nations chose the optimization approach whereby only largely relevant areas were
picked for a subject, giving their kids ample time to digest, analyze and have a
creative mind. Generally, these foreign kids spent half the time on studies to
achieve the same results as ours. Our educational system must be fine-tuned to
remove the excessive and unnecessary workload required of our kids.)
3) The World Health Organization ranked Singapore’s health care as the 6th
best in the world. Our health care is rated most efficient in the world by
Bloomberg. This is in terms of getting value for money. We spend less on health
care, but still live longer. In fact, our life expectancy is the second highest
in the world at 83 years, exceeded only by the Japanese.
(What’s the point of having one of the best healthcare in the world and
yet, beyond affordability? In Malaysia, it costs RM$30 for medical and surgical
treatments at hospitals. We may not expect the government to over-subsidized us
here but a simple surgical procedure can run into tens of thousands. Not to
mention that one single treatment package for terminal illness can deplete all
our life savings. Unlike the average Singaporean, our aristocrats are unlikely
to complain over medical bills due to their significantly higher earnings. Some
of such folks are directors of hospitals where they commercialize the
institutions to earn foreign income, much at the expense of the locals. Our
medical sector is the victim of the over-relied notion of “Let market forces
decide”.)
4) The crime rate is low. How low? Since lesser crimes are sometimes not
reported, it is best to compare the murder rate because murders are always
reported. Singapore’s homicide rate is 0.2 per 100,000 people, making it the 3rd
lowest in the world.
(The British judicial system would forgo 9 possibly guilty persons than
to convict an innocent individual. In Singapore, its the reverse. We lock away
suspects prematurely and keep them away from the streets. This way, the rich
feels safe in Singapore. But wait till we see our love ones being trapped in a
legal system of double standards. Even people committing white collar crimes are
exposed to dual penalty of further being removed from their professional boards.
The police are housed in 5-star stations. Engaging their help is no easy feat.
Anyone got beaten up on the streets may not get police assistance as general
assaults are classified as “non seizable offences”. One has to apply for a
magistrate’s order before the police carries out any investigation.)
5) What about corruption? Transparency International has ranked us as a 7th
least corrupt country in the world.
(Yes, we are one of the least corrupt in the world. But not all evils
result from corruption. The concept of “Power Corrupts” extends far beyond just
the definition of corruption. What’s your take when a group dominates parliament
and passes whatever it wishes for. Ask any Singaporean how they feel about our
cabinet’s pays. Daylight robbery? Here, members of parliament are allowed to use
their “clout” in the commercial sector to earn extras. Some even hold a string
of independent directorships, albeit unproductively. Our SMEs are not spared
either. Regulations were passed to the effect that technical & capital
requirements for engaging certain businesses were impossible to meet, forcing
them to leave the lucrative sectors to the elites. CEOs of listed companies are
allowed to take tens of millions every year to the point that it becomes
meaningless to invest in shares.)
6) Another important measure of national well being is the unemployment rate.
According to the CIA Factbook, Singapore has the 9th lowest unemployment rate at
1.9% for the year 2014. A complementary statistic is the Labor Force
Participation Rate which measures the % of the population who holds jobs. We
have the 10th highest Labor Force Participation Rate.
(The 2% low unemployment rate is misleading. Most middle-age folks and
beyond amongst Singaporeans, and in particular, the PMEs, were deprived of
suitable jobs which largely ended up with foreigners. Imagine someone previously
drawing a $6,000 monthly pay being asked to settle for a $1,000 security job?
There is severe job mismatch here. One can easily estimate the unemployment rate
to be 30% if suitability of employment is to count.)
This statistic is used by economists to rectify the limitations of the
unemployment rate. The problem with the unemployment rate is that the
discouraged unemployed person who has given up looking for work is not counted.
It only counts jobless people who are actively seeking jobs.
(An unemployment statistic which excludes people given up seeking for a
job is never reliable and carries an agenda.)
7) Singapore’s taxes are low. The common perception is that our taxes are
high because of COE, ERP and PARF. The public image is that of a greedy,
grasping government out to take our hard earned dollars one way or another. This
is totally false. Our taxes are in fact one of the lowest in the world. See this
link comparing company, income and Good & Services (also known as Value
Added) taxes around the world.
(Value Added Tax is not another name for GST. It covers expenditure on
luxury items only, unlike GST which includes everything, even funeral director
charges. There’s a difference between taxing only the rich and taxing the poor.
Our COE remained relatively stable and low previously, shot up when we
started increasing our population in a big way. Foreign talents, too, need to
drive a car. The COE burden owing to increase in FT is now being shouldered by
locals.)
I will just compare GST for a few countries. In Singapore our GST is just 7%.
Value Added Tax (another name for GST) in the Sweden, Australia and China are
25%, 10% and 17% respectively. Admittedly, only Singapore has COE. So the best
way to compare how much money our government takes from us is to look at tax
revenue as % of GDP.
(Like I mentioned above, we must not compare GST to VAT. Further, the
Scandinavian countries are socialist with the governments paying for most things
under the sun, even family dentals besides a fat allowance to the whole family
for joblessness, etc., and we can’t compare things this way.
Looking at tax revenue as % of GDP only reflects the favoritism exercised
by the government over the rich whose estate duties are almost completely
waived. The average masses who can’t even afford to pay taxes are slapped with
indirect taxes like the GST. Need a car to ferry your 3-child family around?,
you pay the COE (otherwise, our taxis can’t take 5). The crux of Singapore’s
problems lies with income distribution with the average folks being taxed like
the affordable rich.)
All these statistics spell a good, competent government. Don’t just take my
word for it. The World Bank also thinks so. Each year, it sends out a report
card for each nation called the World Bank Governance Indicator. It rates each
country according to six criteria:
1) Voice and Accountability
2) Political Stability and absence of
violence
3) Government Effectiveness
4) Regulatory Quality
5) Rule of
Law
6) Control of Corruption
We scored better than 95 percentile for 5 of 6 categories. It is only in
‘Voice and Accountability’ that we got a middling score of 52 percentile. This
is like getting 5 ‘A’ and 1 ‘C’ in school. This is an excellent report card from
the World Bank.
(Criteria set by the World Bank superficially assess a nation’s success,
yet take no account of double standards and skewed rewarding structures that
exist which benefits only the top strata of a community.)
Yet, I have heard ceaseless complaints over minor things like MRT breakdowns,
too many foreigners, high ministers’ salaries and issues regarding the CPF. Such
things are minor issues compared to what we have achieved under the PAP led
government – a rich country with top notch schools, healthcare, low crime, low
corruption, low unemployment etc. Most of the complaints are in fact non-issues.
The unhappiness is due to sheer ignorance. I will go through all these hot
topics one by one.
MRT breakdowns
I don’t understand why some people think we got a bad government whenever our
trains break down. Train breakdowns happen in all cities and people in other
cities are less quick to complain. They seem to understand better than
Singaporeans that all electro-mechanical devices break down once in a while.
(Our trains breakdown to the frequency of 12 to 16 times a year. You are
less than impartial when you describe the breakdowns as happening “once in a
while”.
Do you take the train at all?)
Trains break down in the London Underground. They also break down in New
York. They also break down in Hong Kong. They also break down in Paris. I don’t
think it is possible for something so complex as a train system not to ever have
a breakdown. The key thing to ask is how often our MRT breaks down as compared
to trains in other First World cities.
(Yes, trains breakdown everywhere but their frequencies of breakdown
obviously pale in comparison to that of our world class MRT.)
The only statistic I could get was from the New York subway. According to the
New York link above, there was a mechanical failure for every 153,382 miles in
2013. I don’t have comparable statistics of our MRT. What we should do is to
learn from the best in the world and improve the reliability of our MRT. But
expecting it never to break down is unrealistic. The people who appreciate our
trains are the foreigners. One even said that the breakdowns are 100 times worse
in London.
(I stayed in the UK for 4 years and never experienced a single train
breakdown in London. The comments you heard about London breakdowns being 100
times ours is untrue.)
Following complaints about the train breakdowns, I am sure our government
will get MRT to do something to make our trains more reliable.
(Appropriate actions to rectify our MRT issues cannot be implemented
unless the authorities are prepared to lower their pride to learn from other
systems eg. Hong Kong. The direct answer to our regular breakdowns is the lack
of maintenance. To ensure adequate maintenance, the major shareholders
controlling the company have to agree to lowering their returns (on
shareholdings) to have them spent on maintenance. The dilly-dally approach to
solving our train issues only when there was a breakdown went to show the
process of raising efficiency were hampered by conflicts of interest.)
But remember, reliability, like all good things in life, costs money. They
have to install more backup systems which cost money. So expect the train
tickets to increase in price and don’t complain when it does. Because you asked
for it.
(The attitude of the service provider and, even the authorities, were
wrong from the start. The mindset, “You want good service, you pay more” is
misplaced. When we pay for something, e.g. transport, we reasonably expect good
basic services upon paying the existing prices. We can’t have people telling us,
“Unless you pay more, your service will not be up to standard”. Having a smooth
ride is the basic service of a train system. There shouldn’t be any demand for
extras. Yet, we keep hearing the authorities hinting that prices of tickets may
go up after certain breakdown issues were resolved.
Huge profits were made each year by SMRT on commercial leasing,
advertising, etc from their station premises. The big question is whether income
from these areas were used to subsidize the additional expenditures required to
upkeep a good train system. Yet fares were being increased despite SMRT making a
net profit of $62m in 2014.)
Complaints about foreigners
The common complaint is that there are too many of them and they are taking
away our jobs. The problem is that most people are like a rabbit on the ground
while they should be a bird. A rabbit on the ground can only see a short
distance ahead. His vision is blocked by nearby obstacles. So it cannot see that
beyond a mound, there are fresh carrots growing. A bird in the sky can see the
big picture, but not the rabbit.
The big picture is that Singaporeans are not reproducing ourselves. The
average birth rate per woman is 1.2. For Chinese Singaporeans it is even lower.
We need to have 2.1 to maintain our population.
(We Singaporeans are smart people. I don’t think your description of
rabbit & bird is appropriate. Typical complaints about foreigners refers to
the lack of control over their intake which deprives many locals of their jobs.
I agree with the need for import of foreign workers only subject to the
conditions that a) it is done to the extent of filling up the void of manpower
and population shortage, and b) we deal with the issues of white vs blue collars
separately. On the second point, the authorities can be misleading when they cut
down on foreign blue collar workers for problems brought about by the overuse of
foreign white collars which is the focal issue.
The underlying reasons for the indiscriminate intake for esp. white
collar foreign workers are their affordable cost, lesser disruption from NS, the
need to create a “comfort zone” required by existing senior foreign bosses,
etc.
The government has recently shown signs of doing something, esp. during
the pre-election period. But so far, little significant has been done and
transparency on local vs foreign employment statistics for the public is sadly
lacking.)
This means that we need to ‘import’ 0.9 person per woman in order to maintain
our population. Those with Employment Pass may apply for PR and later for
citizenship. Of course, these 0.9 people per woman will compete with native born
Singaporeans for jobs. But had this 0.9 person been born in Singapore, you still
have to compete with him/her for the job. The point is that if Singapore does
not have such a low fertility rate, we would not need so many foreigners but
competition for jobs will be just as fierce.
(The low procreation rate is a headache for our government but importing
white collar foreign workers is taking the easy way out. This postpones the
problem to the next generation than to solve it. We encourage large families but
stinge on the procreation package for such families. The meagre few thousand
dollars for a baby is grossly inadequate considering the huge sums needed to
raise a child. Try to ask if they agree to reward every 3 child family with a
free COE. Other points like work and educational stress also do matter besides
financial issues.)
There is one other point that the ‘rabbits’ on the ground cannot see. While
foreign workers compete with Singaporeans for jobs, they also keep costs down.
For example, our SBS buses are driven mostly by foreign workers. They are also
repaired by foreign workers. That is why our bus tickets are cheap compared with
other global cities. In London, a bus ride cost at least 2 British pounds or the
equivalent of S$4.
(We should stop making comparisons with extreme cases or the most
expensive cities in the world. This way, we will only always look the best and
never be wrong. For every higher priced city we quote, there are probably a few
lower priced ones around.)
High Ministerial salaries
Yes, our ministers enjoy the highest salaries in the world. But they are
probably among the poorer ministers in the world. The dirty secret is that
politicians all over the world get rich one way or another. This is the big
picture.
I would love to know how rich our ministers are compared to those of the rest
of the world. It is difficult for anyone to assess the wealth of all the world’s
leaders. But every now and then, we get an inkling of how much money politicians
make. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that the PM of Malaysia, Najib
Razak received US$700 million in his personal bank account. This has sparked off
a political crisis in Malaysia.
In 2012, the New York Times reported that family members of former Chinese
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao have billions of dollars of assets. How did his 90
year old mom, who was only a schoolteacher before her retirement become so rich,
so fast? Of course, the Prime Minister is not so stupid as to put the money
into his own bank account. Only the Malaysian PM does that.
I think our Lee Hsien Loong is poor compared to these leaders.
(The idea of paying more so that our civil servants will not be corrupt
should not be the premise of having high ministerial pay. This can be insulting
to potentially capable Singaporeans who truly love their country. The world
should work towards preventing and punishing politicians for enriching
themselves by virtue of their positions, than to reward them heavenly for not
doing so. The politician’s job is not meant for opportunists. Ministers should
be paid reasonably rather than exorbitantly, or to use a blunt word,
“ridiculously”.)
Jimmy
Ho
* Submitted by TRE reader.
[h=2]Rebutting a government supporter[/h]
September 3rd, 2015 |
Author: Contributions
Below is an extract from an email communication released by a government
supporter in Singapore, and by someone who categorically rebutted his points
(in italics and parenthesis).
Subject : WHY I SUPPORT THE PAP……
There
is so much negativity about Singapore and our government, especially in the
internet forums. So I decided to compile a list of debating points for the
government supporters now that elections are in the air again.
Singaporeans are fond of complaining and they end up forgetting what a great
country we have. Here is a list of all the great things that our country has
achieved.
Singapore’s achievements under the PAP
1) We are the 3rd richest country in the world. The richest is Qatar which is
heavily dependent on its oil wealth. (With oil price declining as a result of
fracking, they may not remain on top for much longer.) It is quite an
achievement for us to reach the 3rd place without any natural resources.
(Based on average per capita income, we are indeed the third richest
nation. But our tremendous disparity in income distribution makes it such that
90% of such income went to the pockets of 30% of the population, leaving the
masses of 70% suffering. Certain industries were sacrificed in FTA negotiations
in exchange for the opening of foreign markets for our corporate titans, leading
to foreign dumping for some in Singapore, creating obvious misery for folks of
such industries. For example, stockbroking.)
2) Our education system is ranked 1st in the world by the OECD.
(We have forced our educational system to the forefront, no doubt.
However, it was undisclosed that more than half of existing mental patients in
the Institute of Mental Health are students. With the kiasu mentality, our
education advisers adopted a maximization approach when introducing the syllabi
to our curriculums. They plucked everything from the air to be included in a
subject on a “play safe” mode, to protect themselves. Whilst most western
nations chose the optimization approach whereby only largely relevant areas were
picked for a subject, giving their kids ample time to digest, analyze and have a
creative mind. Generally, these foreign kids spent half the time on studies to
achieve the same results as ours. Our educational system must be fine-tuned to
remove the excessive and unnecessary workload required of our kids.)
3) The World Health Organization ranked Singapore’s health care as the 6th
best in the world. Our health care is rated most efficient in the world by
Bloomberg. This is in terms of getting value for money. We spend less on health
care, but still live longer. In fact, our life expectancy is the second highest
in the world at 83 years, exceeded only by the Japanese.
(What’s the point of having one of the best healthcare in the world and
yet, beyond affordability? In Malaysia, it costs RM$30 for medical and surgical
treatments at hospitals. We may not expect the government to over-subsidized us
here but a simple surgical procedure can run into tens of thousands. Not to
mention that one single treatment package for terminal illness can deplete all
our life savings. Unlike the average Singaporean, our aristocrats are unlikely
to complain over medical bills due to their significantly higher earnings. Some
of such folks are directors of hospitals where they commercialize the
institutions to earn foreign income, much at the expense of the locals. Our
medical sector is the victim of the over-relied notion of “Let market forces
decide”.)
4) The crime rate is low. How low? Since lesser crimes are sometimes not
reported, it is best to compare the murder rate because murders are always
reported. Singapore’s homicide rate is 0.2 per 100,000 people, making it the 3rd
lowest in the world.
(The British judicial system would forgo 9 possibly guilty persons than
to convict an innocent individual. In Singapore, its the reverse. We lock away
suspects prematurely and keep them away from the streets. This way, the rich
feels safe in Singapore. But wait till we see our love ones being trapped in a
legal system of double standards. Even people committing white collar crimes are
exposed to dual penalty of further being removed from their professional boards.
The police are housed in 5-star stations. Engaging their help is no easy feat.
Anyone got beaten up on the streets may not get police assistance as general
assaults are classified as “non seizable offences”. One has to apply for a
magistrate’s order before the police carries out any investigation.)
5) What about corruption? Transparency International has ranked us as a 7th
least corrupt country in the world.
(Yes, we are one of the least corrupt in the world. But not all evils
result from corruption. The concept of “Power Corrupts” extends far beyond just
the definition of corruption. What’s your take when a group dominates parliament
and passes whatever it wishes for. Ask any Singaporean how they feel about our
cabinet’s pays. Daylight robbery? Here, members of parliament are allowed to use
their “clout” in the commercial sector to earn extras. Some even hold a string
of independent directorships, albeit unproductively. Our SMEs are not spared
either. Regulations were passed to the effect that technical & capital
requirements for engaging certain businesses were impossible to meet, forcing
them to leave the lucrative sectors to the elites. CEOs of listed companies are
allowed to take tens of millions every year to the point that it becomes
meaningless to invest in shares.)
6) Another important measure of national well being is the unemployment rate.
According to the CIA Factbook, Singapore has the 9th lowest unemployment rate at
1.9% for the year 2014. A complementary statistic is the Labor Force
Participation Rate which measures the % of the population who holds jobs. We
have the 10th highest Labor Force Participation Rate.
(The 2% low unemployment rate is misleading. Most middle-age folks and
beyond amongst Singaporeans, and in particular, the PMEs, were deprived of
suitable jobs which largely ended up with foreigners. Imagine someone previously
drawing a $6,000 monthly pay being asked to settle for a $1,000 security job?
There is severe job mismatch here. One can easily estimate the unemployment rate
to be 30% if suitability of employment is to count.)
This statistic is used by economists to rectify the limitations of the
unemployment rate. The problem with the unemployment rate is that the
discouraged unemployed person who has given up looking for work is not counted.
It only counts jobless people who are actively seeking jobs.
(An unemployment statistic which excludes people given up seeking for a
job is never reliable and carries an agenda.)
7) Singapore’s taxes are low. The common perception is that our taxes are
high because of COE, ERP and PARF. The public image is that of a greedy,
grasping government out to take our hard earned dollars one way or another. This
is totally false. Our taxes are in fact one of the lowest in the world. See this
link comparing company, income and Good & Services (also known as Value
Added) taxes around the world.
(Value Added Tax is not another name for GST. It covers expenditure on
luxury items only, unlike GST which includes everything, even funeral director
charges. There’s a difference between taxing only the rich and taxing the poor.
Our COE remained relatively stable and low previously, shot up when we
started increasing our population in a big way. Foreign talents, too, need to
drive a car. The COE burden owing to increase in FT is now being shouldered by
locals.)
I will just compare GST for a few countries. In Singapore our GST is just 7%.
Value Added Tax (another name for GST) in the Sweden, Australia and China are
25%, 10% and 17% respectively. Admittedly, only Singapore has COE. So the best
way to compare how much money our government takes from us is to look at tax
revenue as % of GDP.
(Like I mentioned above, we must not compare GST to VAT. Further, the
Scandinavian countries are socialist with the governments paying for most things
under the sun, even family dentals besides a fat allowance to the whole family
for joblessness, etc., and we can’t compare things this way.
Looking at tax revenue as % of GDP only reflects the favoritism exercised
by the government over the rich whose estate duties are almost completely
waived. The average masses who can’t even afford to pay taxes are slapped with
indirect taxes like the GST. Need a car to ferry your 3-child family around?,
you pay the COE (otherwise, our taxis can’t take 5). The crux of Singapore’s
problems lies with income distribution with the average folks being taxed like
the affordable rich.)
All these statistics spell a good, competent government. Don’t just take my
word for it. The World Bank also thinks so. Each year, it sends out a report
card for each nation called the World Bank Governance Indicator. It rates each
country according to six criteria:
1) Voice and Accountability
2) Political Stability and absence of
violence
3) Government Effectiveness
4) Regulatory Quality
5) Rule of
Law
6) Control of Corruption
We scored better than 95 percentile for 5 of 6 categories. It is only in
‘Voice and Accountability’ that we got a middling score of 52 percentile. This
is like getting 5 ‘A’ and 1 ‘C’ in school. This is an excellent report card from
the World Bank.
(Criteria set by the World Bank superficially assess a nation’s success,
yet take no account of double standards and skewed rewarding structures that
exist which benefits only the top strata of a community.)
Yet, I have heard ceaseless complaints over minor things like MRT breakdowns,
too many foreigners, high ministers’ salaries and issues regarding the CPF. Such
things are minor issues compared to what we have achieved under the PAP led
government – a rich country with top notch schools, healthcare, low crime, low
corruption, low unemployment etc. Most of the complaints are in fact non-issues.
The unhappiness is due to sheer ignorance. I will go through all these hot
topics one by one.
MRT breakdowns
I don’t understand why some people think we got a bad government whenever our
trains break down. Train breakdowns happen in all cities and people in other
cities are less quick to complain. They seem to understand better than
Singaporeans that all electro-mechanical devices break down once in a while.
(Our trains breakdown to the frequency of 12 to 16 times a year. You are
less than impartial when you describe the breakdowns as happening “once in a
while”.
Do you take the train at all?)
Trains break down in the London Underground. They also break down in New
York. They also break down in Hong Kong. They also break down in Paris. I don’t
think it is possible for something so complex as a train system not to ever have
a breakdown. The key thing to ask is how often our MRT breaks down as compared
to trains in other First World cities.
(Yes, trains breakdown everywhere but their frequencies of breakdown
obviously pale in comparison to that of our world class MRT.)
The only statistic I could get was from the New York subway. According to the
New York link above, there was a mechanical failure for every 153,382 miles in
2013. I don’t have comparable statistics of our MRT. What we should do is to
learn from the best in the world and improve the reliability of our MRT. But
expecting it never to break down is unrealistic. The people who appreciate our
trains are the foreigners. One even said that the breakdowns are 100 times worse
in London.
(I stayed in the UK for 4 years and never experienced a single train
breakdown in London. The comments you heard about London breakdowns being 100
times ours is untrue.)
Following complaints about the train breakdowns, I am sure our government
will get MRT to do something to make our trains more reliable.
(Appropriate actions to rectify our MRT issues cannot be implemented
unless the authorities are prepared to lower their pride to learn from other
systems eg. Hong Kong. The direct answer to our regular breakdowns is the lack
of maintenance. To ensure adequate maintenance, the major shareholders
controlling the company have to agree to lowering their returns (on
shareholdings) to have them spent on maintenance. The dilly-dally approach to
solving our train issues only when there was a breakdown went to show the
process of raising efficiency were hampered by conflicts of interest.)
But remember, reliability, like all good things in life, costs money. They
have to install more backup systems which cost money. So expect the train
tickets to increase in price and don’t complain when it does. Because you asked
for it.
(The attitude of the service provider and, even the authorities, were
wrong from the start. The mindset, “You want good service, you pay more” is
misplaced. When we pay for something, e.g. transport, we reasonably expect good
basic services upon paying the existing prices. We can’t have people telling us,
“Unless you pay more, your service will not be up to standard”. Having a smooth
ride is the basic service of a train system. There shouldn’t be any demand for
extras. Yet, we keep hearing the authorities hinting that prices of tickets may
go up after certain breakdown issues were resolved.
Huge profits were made each year by SMRT on commercial leasing,
advertising, etc from their station premises. The big question is whether income
from these areas were used to subsidize the additional expenditures required to
upkeep a good train system. Yet fares were being increased despite SMRT making a
net profit of $62m in 2014.)
Complaints about foreigners
The common complaint is that there are too many of them and they are taking
away our jobs. The problem is that most people are like a rabbit on the ground
while they should be a bird. A rabbit on the ground can only see a short
distance ahead. His vision is blocked by nearby obstacles. So it cannot see that
beyond a mound, there are fresh carrots growing. A bird in the sky can see the
big picture, but not the rabbit.
The big picture is that Singaporeans are not reproducing ourselves. The
average birth rate per woman is 1.2. For Chinese Singaporeans it is even lower.
We need to have 2.1 to maintain our population.
(We Singaporeans are smart people. I don’t think your description of
rabbit & bird is appropriate. Typical complaints about foreigners refers to
the lack of control over their intake which deprives many locals of their jobs.
I agree with the need for import of foreign workers only subject to the
conditions that a) it is done to the extent of filling up the void of manpower
and population shortage, and b) we deal with the issues of white vs blue collars
separately. On the second point, the authorities can be misleading when they cut
down on foreign blue collar workers for problems brought about by the overuse of
foreign white collars which is the focal issue.
The underlying reasons for the indiscriminate intake for esp. white
collar foreign workers are their affordable cost, lesser disruption from NS, the
need to create a “comfort zone” required by existing senior foreign bosses,
etc.
The government has recently shown signs of doing something, esp. during
the pre-election period. But so far, little significant has been done and
transparency on local vs foreign employment statistics for the public is sadly
lacking.)
This means that we need to ‘import’ 0.9 person per woman in order to maintain
our population. Those with Employment Pass may apply for PR and later for
citizenship. Of course, these 0.9 people per woman will compete with native born
Singaporeans for jobs. But had this 0.9 person been born in Singapore, you still
have to compete with him/her for the job. The point is that if Singapore does
not have such a low fertility rate, we would not need so many foreigners but
competition for jobs will be just as fierce.
(The low procreation rate is a headache for our government but importing
white collar foreign workers is taking the easy way out. This postpones the
problem to the next generation than to solve it. We encourage large families but
stinge on the procreation package for such families. The meagre few thousand
dollars for a baby is grossly inadequate considering the huge sums needed to
raise a child. Try to ask if they agree to reward every 3 child family with a
free COE. Other points like work and educational stress also do matter besides
financial issues.)
There is one other point that the ‘rabbits’ on the ground cannot see. While
foreign workers compete with Singaporeans for jobs, they also keep costs down.
For example, our SBS buses are driven mostly by foreign workers. They are also
repaired by foreign workers. That is why our bus tickets are cheap compared with
other global cities. In London, a bus ride cost at least 2 British pounds or the
equivalent of S$4.
(We should stop making comparisons with extreme cases or the most
expensive cities in the world. This way, we will only always look the best and
never be wrong. For every higher priced city we quote, there are probably a few
lower priced ones around.)
High Ministerial salaries
Yes, our ministers enjoy the highest salaries in the world. But they are
probably among the poorer ministers in the world. The dirty secret is that
politicians all over the world get rich one way or another. This is the big
picture.
I would love to know how rich our ministers are compared to those of the rest
of the world. It is difficult for anyone to assess the wealth of all the world’s
leaders. But every now and then, we get an inkling of how much money politicians
make. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that the PM of Malaysia, Najib
Razak received US$700 million in his personal bank account. This has sparked off
a political crisis in Malaysia.
In 2012, the New York Times reported that family members of former Chinese
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao have billions of dollars of assets. How did his 90
year old mom, who was only a schoolteacher before her retirement become so rich,
so fast? Of course, the Prime Minister is not so stupid as to put the money
into his own bank account. Only the Malaysian PM does that.
I think our Lee Hsien Loong is poor compared to these leaders.
(The idea of paying more so that our civil servants will not be corrupt
should not be the premise of having high ministerial pay. This can be insulting
to potentially capable Singaporeans who truly love their country. The world
should work towards preventing and punishing politicians for enriching
themselves by virtue of their positions, than to reward them heavenly for not
doing so. The politician’s job is not meant for opportunists. Ministers should
be paid reasonably rather than exorbitantly, or to use a blunt word,
“ridiculously”.)
Jimmy
Ho
* Submitted by TRE reader.
