Why it Pays to be a Foreign Talent PR in Singapore, Today!!

[makapaaa]

http://utwt.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/why-it-pays-to-be-foreign-talent-pr-in.html

[h=2]Sunday, February 26, 2012[/h][h=3]Why it Pays to be a Foreign Talent PR in Singapore, Today!![/h]

Singapore is a great place for foreigners to live, work and play! Just take the example of Mr Peter Breitkreutz, an Australian citizen who came to work in Singapore and who fell in love with the country!

Mr Peter Breitkreutz is an Australian citizen who attained his Singapore Permanent Residency (PR) in 2008. Mr Breitkreutz is currently a Senior Vice President of Citibank in Singapore, and is very proud about the fact that he is a Singapore PR. He owns a resale HDB flat in Sengkang West and is married to a Shanghainese wife, and they have two sons.

Mr Breitkreutz is the self-proclaimed "Singapore's favourite expat" and who writes the "most read and subscribed to expat blog in Singapore." He has won several blogging awards, and has even been recruited by the Singapore Government (MICA) to help promote Singapore to foreigners as a great place to live, work, study and play! The Singapore Government absolutely LOVES talented foreigners like Mr Breitkreutz, so much so that it has a special name for them - "foreign talent"!

If you are a foreigner like Mr Breitkreutz, ideally a citizen of a developed nation like Australia, UK or United States, there are several reasons why you should come to Singapore to become a "Foreign Talent" PR. If you are male, all the better, because you and your sons will get to partake of most of the benefits that Singaporean males and their sons get to enjoy, without having to pay the price that Singaporean males and their sons have to pay!

Mr Breitkreutz explains, in his own words, the benefits of becoming a PR in Singapore:

"The advantage of being a PR, ranges from slightly better tax rates, CPF (pension fund) program, and the ability to buy a resale 'HDB' apartment (which foreigners on EPs cannot do). The only disadvantage is that our son will be liable for NS (National Service) when he is a teenager."​

In another article he has further explained the benefits of being a PR:

"We are in Singapore for the long run," he said. "We planted our roots. The obvious attractions for anyone coming from Australia or a Western culture are the order, the education and safety and that everything is convenient.

"Becoming a citizen has entered my mind. The only issue is that Singapore does not allow dual citizenship. I couldn't see myself giving up my Australian passport at this stage."

He added: "By becoming (permanent residents) and making that plunge, we have invested in an apartment, and do almost everything citizens can do."​

You see, there are so many benefits to being a 'foreign talent" PR in Singapore! But wait, Mr Breitkreutz description of the benefits are incomplete! As a matter of fact, here are several more benefits and loopholes that you can exploit as a foreign talent PR in Singapore:

1. You do not need to serve any National Service (NS), unlike Singaporean males! Singaporean males have to sacrifice 2-2.5 years of their life in the army, and then they have to go back once a year for a further 10 years until they finish their NS liability! As a privileged foreign talent PR in Singapore, you don't have to do any of these things! You can partake of the country's excellent defence capabilities and all of the economic infrastructure that was painstakingly built up over the past 5 decades, without having to pay the price that loser Singaporean males have to pay!

2. Your son doesn't really have to serve national service if he doesn't want to, because he holds citizenship of the country that you came from, and Singapore cannot force him to serve NS if he doesn't want to. Unlike the sons of Singaporean citizens, your son can renounce his permanent residency when he comes of age and has the choice to go back to his father's homeland! In the meantime, he would have benefited from Singapore's excellent infrastructure, education subsidies and other benefits because he grew up as a Singapore PR, then he can just leave the country without paying the price that Singaporean males have to pay! Many second generation PRs have already done this and escaped NS, so don't worry, your son definitely can do this too!

3. When you finally grow old and want to retire, you can take out all your CPF (pension) money and return to your home country, simply by renouncing your PR. The only penalty is that you can never come back to Singapore to work, but of course, by the time this happens, you are already going to retire and are not intending to work anymore! In contrast, Singaporeans are forced to have their CPF locked up and can only withdraw it at the rate that the Singapore government allows them to! As a foreign citizen, you do not need to be subjected to any of these onerous conditions!

4. You most probably can sell your HDB flat at a profit and take the money back home to where you came from! You are not like Singaporeans, who will be stuck in their tiny HDB flats until the day they die. Furthermore, the money that you make from selling the HDB flat can buy a much bigger piece of property where you came from. Why would you want to stay in Singapore to retire when you can go home and retire in a much bigger house with a garage, a garden, and a much bigger living space?

As you can see, there are really many hidden benefits in addition to the ones that Mr Breitkreutz has been quoted as saying! Plus, there are hardly any true costs, because all you have to do to be relieved of the Singapore PR obligations is to simply renounce your PR and return home! Furthermore, Singaporeans are too foolish to change their Government or to get their Government to plug these loopholes, so you can be sure that these benefits are here to stay!

So, what are you waiting for? Send in your application to Singapore, and become a foreign talent PR today!!

References:
Expat Interviews.com (Oct 2008) "Australian Expat Peter's Life and Times in Singapore"
Straits Times Indonesia (Nov 28, 2011) "More Australians Choosing to Move to Singapore"

 

[Rogue Trader]

PAP special FT Aussie Pete

 

[AktifSingh]

Bhai, is this guy our ex-forummer, baya AussiePete, who quitted the outback, bummed around Shanghai and ended up in free-for-all Singapore? I hope he doesn't mind me taking over his holy cow cattle ranch in Queensland in 5 years time. No hard feelings please. Namaste.

http://utwt.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/why-it-pays-to-be-foreign-talent-pr-in.html

[h=2]Sunday, February 26, 2012[/h][h=3]Why it Pays to be a Foreign Talent PR in Singapore, Today!![/h]

Mr Peter Breitkreutz is an Australian citizen who attained his Singapore Permanent Residency (PR) in 2008. Mr Breitkreutz is currently a Senior Vice President of Citibank in Singapore, and is very proud about the fact that he is a Singapore PR. He owns a resale HDB flat in Sengkang West and is married to a Shanghainese wife, and they have two sons.

 

[youtalkcock]

Bhai, is this guy our ex-forummer, baya AussiePete, who quitted the outback, bummed around Shanghai and ended up in free-for-all Singapore? I hope he doesn't mind me taking over his holy cow cattle ranch in Queensland in 5 years time. No hard feelings please. Namaste.

No but i know that you are a clone of Velma

 

[makapaaa]

http://utwt.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/foreign-talent-issue-really-is-power.html
[h=2]Thursday, February 16, 2012[/h][h=3]"Foreign Talent" Issue is a Symptom of the Power Struggle between the Political, Corporate Elite and the Working Class[/h]

There has been a lot of argumentation about whether the "foreign talent" policy is the right policy for Singapore and the PAP Government as the primary proponent of Singapore's hyper liberal immigration policies, has given all sorts of reasons why Singapore needs a massive influx of foreigners. These reasons consist of arguments regarding Singapore's need for foreign labor to supplement economic growth, and to "top-up" the shrinking population." Meanwhile the opposition and other critics of the foreign talent policy usually fall into the trap of engaging the PAP on their terms and use counter arguments as to why the policy doesn't really work. Such arguments usually run along the lines of foreigners overloading the infrastructure, depressing wages, lowering the standard of living, lowering productivity etc.



While these counter arguments are mostly valid, harping on the illogical nature of the policies often misses the point, and the point that I would like to make is that the "foreign talent" policy is in place because large segments of the corporate and political elite benefit from the policy and have the power the implement it. To illustrate this point, all that is needed is an enumeration of the benefits of the policy and the parties who benefit from the policy:

• Business owners and managers benefit because they are able to increase their profits by cutting their labour costs using cheap foreign labour
• The list of low productivity, labour intensive industries in Singapore is long and many of these industries include some of the largest Government linked corporations in Singapore, and the list includes:

1. Property developers and construction companies (Capitaland, Keppel land)
2. Shipbuilding (Keppel Corp, Sembcorp
3. Transportation (SBS, TIBS)
4. Banks & Telecoms companies benefit greatly from cheap call center personnel, IT back office personnel (DBS, SingTel, Starhub)
5. Hawker operators & restaurants (cheap waiters, burger flippers)
6. Retailers (cheap sales staff)
7. Hotels, Casinos & hospitality (cheap bell boys, cleaning staff, counter staff etc.)

• Businesses are able to expand their operations faster using foreign labour inputs and do not need to focus on the difficult process of training and productivity enhancement
• Perversely, some businesses benefit from the massive influx of foreigners because it creates increased demand for the goods & services that they produce! Instead of having to compete in new markets in order to acquire customers, why not bring the customer to your front door where you already have a dominant competitive position! Great examples of companies which benefit from this include the transportation companies (SMRT, Comfort, SBS), telecoms companies (SingTel) and the property developers (more people in the country means more demand for residential real estate at higher prices!)
• Rapid expansion of GDP brought about by the foreign labour influx allows the ministers to pay themselves BIG GDP BONUSES!!!

It is clear to see that large segments of the corporate and political elite in Singapore have lots to gain by the 'foreign talent' policy, whether or not the policy is truly beneficial to Singapore as a whole and whether or not there are segments of society which suffer as a result of the policy. Once we understand this, it is easy to realize that the politicians do not really have the interests of the working class (which forms the majority of Singaporeans) at heart, but instead are acting out of their self-interest. At the same time, it is also easy to realize that there is significant regulatory capture in Singapore, and that instead of acting in the public interest, the PAP Government has been advancing the special interests of a small minority of corporate elite that has come to dominate economic policy agenda setting.

The close intertwining between the political elite and the corporate elite exacerbates the regulatory capture and incentivizes politicians to act in the corporations' interest rather than in the interests of Singapore as a whole. Just consider how many retired politicians and civil servants have proceeded to take up senior positions in GLCs, and how many corporate executives there are who have taken positions as MPs in parliament, and it is clear that the corporations and the PAP are in bed with each other.

But such a phenomenon is not an anomaly. According to Wikipedia, regulatory capture occurs because groups or individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the outcome, will ignore it altogether.

Regulatory capture has been well studied, and the economist George Stigler has won the Nobel prize in economics for his work in the field. But even thinkers as far back as Adam Smith anticipated the phenomena. Rick Bookstaber notes that "Smith recognizes that workers and employers would jostle for an advantage by using political influence, and he also recognizes that this would be an unfair fight, with the employers having stronger influence and, because they were a far smaller group, being better able to do their lobbying behind closed doors."

So where do we go from here?

Well if the foreign talent policy is ultimately a power struggle, then the working classes need to struggle for their power. That means standing up against the oppressive talent policy, whether through voting for opposition politicians or through other means. If the corporations want to play dirty, then the people need to call them out on their bullshit and put them in their place.

Harping on the logical fallacies of the foreign talent policies seems like the right thing to do, but is ultimately ineffective, and falls on deaf ears. The only effective way to reverse it is to repel the private vested interests by force and to hit the politicians where it hurts the most. There is no other way, and the sooner Singaporeans realize this, the better.

References:
Wikipedia (2012) "Regulatory Capture"
Rick Bookstaber, Credit Writedowns (Feb 15, 2012) "Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter on
the Bifurcation of Society"