Estonia doing it, S’pore still talking about it

The inventors of Skype came from Estonia. More importantly, the economy there is using IT to leverage its productivity. Not like S’pore where FTs are thrown at any problem.

Estonian schools are teaching children as young as seven how to programme computers.

Estonia’s e-revolution began in the 1990s, not long after independence. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, then the country’s ambassador to the United States, now Estonia’s president, takes some of the credit … He read a book whose “Luddite, neo-Marxist” thesis, he says, was that computerisation would be the death of work.

The book cited a Kentucky steel mill where several thousands of workers had been made redundant, because after automatisation, the new owners could produce the same amount of steel with only 100 employees.

“This may be bad if you are an American,” he says. “But from an Estonian point of view, where you have this existential angst about your small size – we were at that time only 1.4 million people – I said this is exactly what we need.

“We need to really computerise, in every possible way, to massively increase our functional size.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22317297

Err, why not invented here?

This was republished from a UK paper by MediaCorp’s free sheet. I think it was meant to show that we can make things cheaper (all those FTs by the cattle-truck load) and better than the UK:http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/why-we-invent-britain-build-spore .

But, a true blue S’porean might wonder why despite all the money thrown on R&D, and all the praise that our MSM reports on our “innovation”, things like this get invented in the UK, a place that one LKY used to rubbish regularly.

 

Subsidising wage rises good, Minimum Wage bad

As usual the grumblers are out on TRE, TOC and Facebook. The question they are bitching out loud is, “Why is the govt spending our money on subsidising wage increases?”. And asking, “What about introducing a Minimum Wage?”

I’ve this fantasy that when the govt introduces a Minimum Wage scheme, these same people who say that this scheme is bad for S’pore: which it is*.

Coming back to subsidised pay rises, other than to win votes from the many S’poreans who don’t belong to Team “Govt, PAP are bastards” or “PAP govt is always wrong” or “We always bitch against the PAP, govt”, there is a good economic reason for the govt subsidising wage rises.

Rising wages give employers an incentive to increase the return to recruiting and training, if they can no longer bring in FTs by the cattle-truck load to off-set rising wages for locals. At the same time, rising wages make it more attractive for older S’poreans to look for work, rather than go online and complain about everything, while making it more attractive for employers to drop their prejudices and discrimination against the elderly.

(Having said all that, there is an educated oldie at the Marine Parade polyclinic that I wish wasn’t working there.)

And given that the SMEs are screaming that the govt is killing them by cutting off the supply of FTS, how else to give S’poreans a wage rise, on top of CPF employer rate rises.

And better to spend our money on fellow S’poreans rather than giving it to our SWFs who will spend some of it on ang moh investment bankers who bring them lousy deals.

Post on Workfare: http://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/minimum-wages-missing-the-point/

—

*I wish all those MPs who talked cock about a Minimum Wage would read http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/02/minimum-wage and I’m shocked that the PAP didn’t ensure that its MPs understood elementary economics. (BTW, the piece is entitled “The minimum wage- The law of demand is a bummer”)

Most relevant excerpt: There are conditions under which raising the minimum wage will increase demand, as well as economic efficiency. According to one story, monopsony conditions for low-wage labour, ie, imperfectly competitive labour-market conditions in which there is but a single buyer of low-wage labour (or a colluding band of buyers) that is able to set wages at a level workers have little choice but to accept. Good old Econ 101 shows that under such conditions, a bump in the minimum wage, within a certain range, can boost employment and enhance efficiency. So there’s that. And such conditions no doubt exist in some sectors at some places at some times. One famous, and egregiously misused, study suggests that monopsony-like conditions applied to fast-food restaurants in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the mid-1990s. But there is basically no reason whatsoever to think that such conditions apply generally, across all sector and regions of the American labour market.

In the absence of special conditions, we have every reason to expect the law of demand to hold, such that raising the minimum wage will make it harder for inexperienced workers—workers whose output is worth less to employers than the mandated wage, and especially teenagers from low-income families looking to get a first footing in the labour market—to find work. And this is, in fact, what empirical studies tend to conclude. A comprehensive 2008 survey of the empirical literature from David Neumark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and William Wascher, an economist for the Federal Reserve, found that, as one would expect, “[M]inimum wages reduce employment opportunities for less-skilled workers, especially those who are most directly affected by the minimum wage.”

Again, it doesn’t have to work this way. Employers can cut hours rather than hiring fewer workers. They can turn down the air-conditioner, strictly police the length of breaks, and otherwise reduce the cost of amenities previously enjoyed by employees. They can shift to off-the-books employees willing to work for less than the legally-mandated minimum. They can raise prices, passing on increased labour costs to consumers. It’s conceivable that the only consequence would be that a larger share of profits gets distributed to low-wage workers. Conceivable and exceedingly unlikely. In reality, we probably get small adjustments along each of these dimensions.

Of course, there is some newish empirical research contesting the disemployment effect of increases in the minimum wage, and then there is even newer research debunking it.

S’pore can learn from BMW

And Western countries on how to create the conditions to optimise the working environment for an older work force. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21535772

ST editor calls leading economists and us daft

According to ST editor Han Fook Kwang in his weekly SunT column (pg 37) “it isn’t possible for ordinary Singaporeans to absorb and fully understand all the arguments and implications. arguments and implications highlighted in the Population White Paper”. Hence our opposition. Hello Mr Han, so how come four leading S’porean economists, scholars all wrote this http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/02/09/economics-myths-in-the-great-population-debate/ (I’m linking to this republishing ’cause of the comments section)

So these four are daft too?

He was riffing on what the PM said, “Govt could have presented Population White Paper better”. And going further anddaring to call us openly what PM didn’t dare?

So how come,

– the Chief Communications Officer of the govt, s/o the former disgraced president,

– an unemployed MP who was the head of the regional business of an int’l PR firm,

– the editorial teams at SPH and MediaCorp,

– CoC Yaacob and his team at the Ministry of Truth & Spin, and

– the numerous PR senior managers in the govt and its agencies,

didn’t advise the PM and DPM Teo to take account of our daftness when presenting the PWP?

They too out of touch with us daftees? Or they dafter than us? Or did PM and DPM Teo ignore their advice? Hence they more dafter than everyone else in S’pore.

The ST Managing Editor, as a member of the Dark Side, should be using his skills to prevent us from thinking? Not provoking us to think “unhealthy”, non-constructive tots: like there are daft Men In White on the Dark Side.

Wanted: Expertise on organising a legal strike

Late last week, four FT PRC SMRT drivers appeared in court again. They had been charged for inciting and participating in an illegal strike.

On Sunday, I read the following on Facebook: “What a tale this is. Clandestine meetings with ministers, secret agreements with shadowy power-brokers. The Last Great strike is an uplifting, thoroughly Singaporean story that belongs on the shelf of every Singaporean home and classroom.- Singapore’s top-selling author NEIL HUMPHREYS commenting on THE LAST GREAT STRIKE.”

As I’ve written before, this book is written by a friend, Clement Mesenas. His dad grandfather was a Pinoy FT who came here in the 1930s early 20th century. The book “looks back on eight eventful days in 1971 when a group of young reporters staged a historic strike that shut down The Straits Times” for the first time ever in its 120-year history.

I joined the two dots: the book should have been subtitled: “How to organise a legal strike”.

I mean, Clement and his other Indian Chief friends (no Indians among the core team, so no racism intended) were so good that Labour Minister Ong Pang Boon told the Indian Chiefs: “All right gentlemen, let’s plan a strike.”

Wow! That’s endorsement! That’s support!

So social activists and other kay poh do-gooders, go buy and read the book. And don’t be put-off that LKY’s “favourite editor”, Cheong Yip Seng,says good things about the book: http://www.ilovebooks.com/ebooks/home/BB13CC1B-D14B-455B-A4F5-E78C2F6FB53F/The_Last_Great_Strike

And so should the rumoured wannabe prime minister, MOM Tan, his MOM bureaucrats, SMRT’s managers, other managers, and NTUC officials, go buy and read the book, because the book explains why strikes happen:

– poorly paid workers (“Most of us in the newsroom were broke well before the end of the month … An egg could be cracked onto roti prata for an additional 20 cents, but that was a luxury as those 20 cents could be saved for the bus ride home.”); and

– “parsimonious, disdainful … management”, Tan Wang Joo, former editor of The Sunday Nation, and a deputy editor of The Straits Times.

Sounds familiar?

Thinking about it, so should the PM. Someone pls send him a copy. LOL

(Earlier version got it wrong about his ancestry)

White Paper fiasco: Who goofed?

So we now know that the 6.9m figure in the White Paper is a “worse-case scenario”

– “Reiterating that the 6.9 million figure should be viewed as “the worst-case scenario”****, Mr Khaw wrote: “We hope we do not reach that figure; we may never reach that figure.”

–” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said … he fully agrees with Mr Khaw’s explanation that a 6.9 million population is not a target, but just a worst-case, aggressive scenario the Government must prepare for.”

(Excerpts from MediaCorp)

So why didn’t the media tell us this when the media reported the White Paper? The media reported the figure of 6.9m as though it was set in reinforced concrete that had platinum bars rather than steel bars. Surely when the staff of the s/o the disgraced president, and Yaacob*gave the local media their instructions local journalists and editors the customary briefing, they made it clear that the 6.9m figure is a “worse-case scenario”? And that the figure was used to ensure that there would be adequate infrastructure should this happen, which the government didn’t want to happen. And that if it didn’t happen, S’poreans would have even better facilities for which they should thank the PAP on bended knees.

But these messages were never reported. They came to the attention of “the inhabitants of cowboy towns” who were happily shooting holes into the White Paper, and other S’poreans only when the PM Facebooked and Khaw blogged these messages.

Then the local media parroted reported what the PM and Khaw had said.

Either the local media are staffed by stupid people, or are full of subversives, who take their 30 pieces of silver ** while saboing the PAP government. Or maybe the going rate is a lot more than 30 pieces of silver? And they are not getting it? Hence the government’s messages didn’t get broadcasted.

Or were the minions of s/o Devan Nair, and Yaacob, incompetent, stupid spinners? Journalists and editors are claiming that they were never ordered briefed that the 6.9m figure was a “worse-case scenario”. They claim to be as surprised as us netizens that the PM and Khaw are now making this claim.

Whatever it is, if WP Low is to get his wish of continued PAP hegemony, PM should get a grip on the PAP spin machine. He and his ministers can’t do all the spinning themselves. Maybe Auntie Sylvia or Show Mao, in emulation of a Tang dynasty official, can whisper this to the PAP, “behind closed doors”. Remember WP, yr mission is to preserve PAP hegemony.

–

**He used the phrase “worse-case scenario” when one LKY gave his Hard Truth on Malay Muslims not integrating.

Book PM could cite in validation of “Growth, ‘cheong’ all the way”

In “Planet of Cities”, by Shlomo Angel*, a professor of urban planning at New York University, argues that cities must prepare themselves for rapid growth, citing New York and Barcelona: In the 19th century both cities decided to prepare themselves for rapid growth. In 1811 New York’s city council approved a plan which allowed all of Manhattan to be built up and included the island’s now famous street grid. In 1859 Barcelona followed suit with a similar concept to expand the city nine-fold.

Err PM not planning to increase the population that much.

And on why working-age population matters:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2013/01/demography-0

Netizens, pls realise that the intellectual underpinnings are there for the White Paper. It’s the conventional wisdom. Raving, ranting and screaming will do no good.

Nothing will, not even the ballot box: “A vote for the WP is a vote for the continuance of PAP policies” says WP Low. So lie back and enjoy being raped. Think of the value of your property when you cash out and move on overseas.

PM, what about asking the right questions? Or at least different ones

“Do you want faster growth or do you want fewer foreign workers? Do you want more hard work or more leisure? Do you want more competitive schools and good results and good futures, or more relaxed schools and fall behind? How can we find that balance in between?” the Prime Minister asked. Whatever the hurdles, he emphasised that the PAP had always been open with Singaporeans, even when these trade-offs may be unpopular – SPH.

I got two gripes with the above remarks by PM.

Firstly, as usual he is framing* the issues in such a way so as to try to get us to answer the way he wants us to answer them. Dad used to do this successfully when we didn’t have the best education system in the world, when issues were less complicated, and when there wasn’t the internet. But times have changed, but PM hasn’t shaken off daddy’s influence.

– “Do you want faster growth or do you want fewer foreign workers?” Well how about asking, “How can we have faster growth without FTs? Can we substitute robots, or pay higher wages?” And more fundamentally what about, “Do we need faster growth? What about better quality growth?”

– “Do you want more hard work or more leisure?” What about asking,”Can we work smarter to have more leisure?” Or more fundamentally, “Are we working smart? Or are we working harder because we are not working smart?”

– “Do you want more competitive schools and good results and good futures, or more relaxed schools and fall behind?” Shouldn’t we be asking, “Are there other ways of educating S’poreans that ensure national prosperity and self-development?”

Now the answers to these alternative questions may well be those that the PM thinks are the solutions to the problems that we face. Fair enough, then. But let’s ask alternative questions, think thru the answers, and also think blue sky. The great and the good don’t always have the answers. Even Bill Gates got Google wrong, badly wrong http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/prophesies-made-in-davos-dont-always-come-true/

And lest the PM forget, the PAP has not always been open with us.

The FTs came pouring in on the quiet. The government was not open on this issue, public housing and transport, and inflation.

Mah Bow Tan was telling us that his HDB building programme was sufficient when S’poreans were saying it was insufficient. Well fact that Khaw has accelerated and expanded the building programme shows that Mah was wrong, if not in denial.

And remember Raymond Lim said GST had to rise when we bitched about overcrowded trainds and buses: he implied that we juz wanted more comfort and so should pay for it. He was wrong or in denial about the problem. Well the massive spending plans, shows that we were right to get upset.

And inflation. I’ve gone on and on about Tharman and Hng Kiang saying that higher inflation doesn’t affect S’poreans who don’t buy cars. That is obfuscation, not openness.

But never mind, the PAP can remain complacent because Low has publicly implied that a vote for the WP is a vote for continued PAP rule.

Not that I’ll complain too much. The low-tax environment and the emphasis on making sure property prices “cheong all the way” have allowed me to stop working in my 40s. And have the time to think; and grumble, constructively, I hope.

And oh, keep on spending our money on ourselves. And double it, or triple it. Better return on investment for the PAP, then letting Temasek lose it like in here http://www.breakingviews.com/tpg-runs-rings-around-li-ning-shareholders/21064940.article. And anyway, , potential returns for investors are not going to be that great anyway http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2013/01/investing. So it’s a better investment for us and the PAP: make life more comfortable for us using our money.

—

*Read this on the science of framing questions, to get the “right” answers http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20512743

When 55% of voters were FTs

(Update on 29 January 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-21/singapore-turns-against-itself-as-pressure-for-babies-irks-women.html

http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/01/29/population-white-paper-projecting-6-9m-u-turn-on-influx-of-foreigners/)

TRE readers are forever screaming that the PAP govt wants to swamp S’pore with citizens born overseas. They might like to know that  in 1959, according to the u/m book, only 270,00 out of the 600,000 voters were born here. If TRE readers are correct, the PAP is only restoring things to as they were when the PAP came into power. Is that so wrong? LOL.

Interestingly the author reported that when one LKY revealed the above fact in 1959, LKY also said,”we must go about our task (of building up a nation) with urgency … of integrating our people now and quickly”. Maybe he repented building up a nation?

Singapore Correspondent. Political Dispatches from Singapore (1958-1962)

(http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/mai/new-book-singapore-correspondent/)

by Leon Comber*

Publisher:  Marshall Cavendish International Asia

“Singapore Correspondent” covers five years of Singapore’s colourful political past – a period of living turbulently and sometimes dangerously. It is a collection of eye-witness dispatches, sent from Singapore to London, spanning a time when Singapore was emerging from British colonial rule and moving forward to self-government and independence. Many of the early struggles of the People’s Action Party (PAP) are described as the focus is on the political struggle taking place in which the PAP played a major part. Many important events which have long been forgotten are brought to life. These dispatches prove that political history need not be dull, and indeed can sometimes be entertaining and lively.

* MAI Adjunct Research Fellow

 

.

More FTs on way, a lot MORE!: DBS

OK, OK, I exaggerate: only 8% more of population if S’poreans don’t start breeding like rabbits.

DBS Vickers expects an upcoming white paper on Singapore’s population to raise its population target to 7 million from 6.5 million, which will benefit construction, land transport, property and healthcare companies. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/18/markets-singapore-stocksnews-population-idUSL4N0AN3GR20130118

SMRT is not on the “buy” list. It too has concerns about SMRT, like me and many others.

Govt may be right on limiting access to uni education, discuss.

Given that Christmas is the season of goodwill to all men (including the PAPpies) and given that the PAP has had a torrid time, and given that Fabrications about the PAP is not doing its job, I tot I should post some facts and analysis (not Hard Truths) that support a policy that has pushy parents and netizens upset.

Sometime back, when

– PM said the desire  for “personal growth” 9i.e. a university degree has to be balanced with jobs; and

– the education minister said that while the govt would increase the number of places in local universities for locals, there would be a limit (I think he said 40% of some “mark”),

both were given a hard time by netizens and pushy parents.

I was reminded of the above recently, when I surfed across a few articles recently that discussed the skills needed to get jobs in a developed economies.

In a McKinsey survey of Western countries, nearly 70% of employers blamed inadequate training for the shortfall in skilled workers, yet 70% of education-providers believe they suitably prepare graduates for the jobs market. Similarly, employers complain that less than half of the young whom they hire have adequate problem-solving skills, yet nearly two-thirds of the young believe that they do have such skills.

Perhaps the young and their teachers need to take a reality check said the Economist writer who reported this.

Then there is this: As some Canadian industries struggle to find skilled workers, others face a glut of qualified candidates and not enough jobs to go around. University professor Peter Fragiskatos says emphasising the importance of a university education only makes the problem worse.

He writes: Notions of success in Canada have been, and remain, intimately connected to obtaining a university degree. Why? After all, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger can be discovered just as easily at a public library and for a much cheaper price.

All of this might sound strange coming from someone who teaches at a university. While the joy I feel when working with my students cannot be put into words, the experience has made me realise that a love for learning is not their leading motivation, if it ever was.

Most have been raised with the idea that a secure future will only be possible with a BA or a BSc, and they enrol in university for this reason. As they get older, today’s students are likely to pass along the same message to their kids.

The reality is that Canadians are living in a new era, one where a technical education – usually obtained at a community college – has the prospect of delivering not only a steady job but better pay than what university graduates typically make.

Engineering, mining and many health-related professions – the three areas identified by Tal’s report as most in need of qualified applicants – do not require a university degree.

Finally from an Economist blog  the work of Cambridge economist Chang Ha-Joon, has noted that Switzerland*—one of the richest countries in the world and the nation with the third-highest ratio of Nobel scientists per person—has a lower rate of college enrollment than every other rich nation, as well as other beacons of prosperity like Argentina, Lithuania, and Greece. In fact, once a country has crossed some very low threshold, there is no relationship between the number of graduates and national wealth. The explanation is simple: a typical college education does not linearly increase labor productivity. This is not necessarily a bad thing—there is more to life than making money, after all.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/09/college-enrollment

So maybe, the govt is right to put the emphasis on vocational education, with scholarship schemes like this?

Fat chance that most readers of TRE and TOC, and pushy parents would concur. For the former, the govt, PAP, NTUC and related entities are always wrong. Take Zorro Lim’s statement that NTUC says ‘no’ to equal pay for all nationalities because “Same job-equal pay” rule will put local workers and families at a disadvantage. Facebookers and some bloggers were bitching about this. If he had said “yes”, they would be bitching too.: S’poreans must come first. Wonder how these people feel, now that ST (whom they rightly bitch abt) agrees with them that sMRT should only use the English station names in its public announcements. LOL

—————————–

*S’pore’s spending on education is only around 3% of GDP (about halve of Switzerland which is in line with developed countries), so we got to spend a lot more to have a Swiss-style standard of education. Unless the govt wants us to be third world in education, like on workers’ and refugees’ rights.

 

Meritocracy’s feet of clay: Ong Ye Kung

(Update on 3 January 2013: He has joined Keppel Gp, a TLC, and not as expected his father-in-law’s property company. I’ll be blogging on this next week. Want to try to find out if his in-laws scared that their workers’ will go on strike or be unhappy if he joined them. I mean his record at SMRT/ NTUC not too good.)

Our nation-building constructive media are ignoring the white elephant in the space where of the circles of TLCs/GLCs, PAP, NTUC and the civil service meet: sometimes also known as S’pore Inc.

Once upon a time, Ong Ye Kung, was S’pore Inc’s poster boy of meritocracy.

Just in April 2011, before the May GE, our nation-building constructive media praised him as an example of meritocracy at work. Son of a Barisan Socialist MP (and no friend of one LKY), he was a scholar* who rose to a senior civil service post**, then became a senior NTUC leader, and then a PAP MP candidate. It was whispered that he was Zorro Lim’s anointed successor as NTUC chief; and was tipped by ST as a future candidate for ministerial office. He did became the NTUC’s Deputy Secretary-General in June 2011.

But by then his slave worker drawn chariot had gotten stuck in the mud . He was a member of George Yeo’s losing Aljunied GRC team. Worse was to follow in 2012: the wheels came off his chariot of gold and ivory and he was thrown-off, and cast into the darkness and mud and became a person that the constructive, nation-building media knew not.

Earlier this year, SMRT’s S’porean drivers made known publicly their unhappiness over pay proposals that had his endorsement as Executive Secretary of NTWU (Nation Transport Workers’ Union). As he was also a non-executive director of SMRT, if he were an investment banker, a US judge would have rebuked and censured him for his multiple, conflicting roles.

Then he resigned, effective last month, from NTUC to “join the private sector”.

In perhaps a farewell, good-riddance gesture, FT PRC workers went on strike (illegally) and we learnt:

– they lived in sub-standard accommodation (SMRT admitted this);

– unlike most SBS FT PRC drivers, most of SMRT’s PRC drivers were not union members; and

– Ministry of Manpower reprimanded SMRT for its HR practices.

All this reflects badly on Ong: NTUC’s Deputy Secretary-General,  Executive-Secretary of NTWU and SMRT non-executive director. And on the system that allowed him to rise to the top. After all his ex-boss said the following reported on Friday, which given Ong’s multiple roles in SMRT, can reasonably be interpreted as criticism of Ong:

In his first comments on the illegal strike, which saw 171 workers protesting over salary increases and living conditions, the Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said the labour dispute “shouldn’t have happened” and “could have been avoided”. [So where was Ong: looking at his monthly CPF statements and being happy?]

NTUC is thus reaching out to SMRT’s management to persuade them “to adopt a more enlightened approach to embrace the union as a partner”, he added. [Hello, NTUC's Deputy Secretary-General was on SMRT's board, so what waz he doing?]

Mr Lim, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Labour Movement Workplan Seminar, cited the example of SMRT’s rival SBS Transit where nine in 10 of its China bus drivers are union members. Only one in 10 of SMRT’s China bus drivers are union members, according to union sources. [So, why didn't Ong advise SMRT to help unionise these FTs, and if he did, why didn't NTUC push harder ehen SMRT refused?]

SBS Transit’s management “recognised the constructive role of the union”, while union leaders “played the role of looking after the interests of the drivers”, said Mr Lim.

“And as a result … they work very closely as one team, it’s a win-win outcome. In terms of how workers are being treated and respected, how management are responsive, how they work together, I think it’s a kind of model that we ought to see more and more in Singapore.” (Today)

Apparently, Ong is supposed to join his father-in-law’s property development business: but with this revelations, it should come as no surprise if his in-law’s family has reservations about him: he might mismanage and upset the workers. Property development companies are fragile because of their leverage: they can’t afford executives who can’t execute.

And if anyone is wondering about the origins and meaning of the term “feet of clay”:

Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. (Daniel 2:31-33)

…

And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)

…………………….

*From 1993 to 1999, he was in the then Ministry of Communications, where he helped develop the Land Transport White Paper and was part of the team which established Singapore’s Land Transport Authority. Taz right, he was there at the beginning of the great SMRT cock-up.

**He was the Principal Private Secretary to one Lee Hsien Loong, then became the CEO of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.

S’pore: A great place to be born in

In 1988, S’pore was the 36th best place to be born in: same as East Germany. M’sia was 38th and HK was 7th. In 2013, according to an article (The lottery of life) in an Economist publication, S’pore will be the 6th best place to be born in, M’sia will be 36th and HK 10th.

Switzerland will be 1st, followed by Oz, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Bang yr balls in frustration S’porean self-loathers: KennethJ, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Kin Lian, Tan Jee Say, Ravi, and born- loser readers of TRE and TOC.

Maybe the WP MPs have a point in being so supportive of the PAP govt? Maybe NSP is right that the party is not ready for govt: PAP still going strong?And maybe PM Lee and Chief Clerk Goh ain’t that bad?

I’m surprised that ST didn’t see fit to publicise this. Must be full of subversives.

But this good ranking does raise a question: If so good leh, home come S’poreans are refusing to breed? Shumething must be wrong? Maybe with S’poreans?

Or do the stats leave out things that matter most to S’porean couples that decline to breed or stop at one.

NatCon: Dialogue in the Dark

“Dialogue in the Dark (DiD) is a social enterprise that aims to educate the public on the experience of blindness, ” writes MSF S’pore (Kee Chui Chan’s ministry)

Tot it should be appropriated as a description of NatCon.

Now to more serious matters.

PM on Wednesday talked of the need to have a government prepared to plan long-term. Bit rich of him to talk about this given the admitted problems in public housing and public transport that the govt’s policy of bringing in FTs by the container-loads have caused. I mean what were Mah Bow Tan and Raymond Lim doing? They even denied there were problems in public housing and public transport.

And waz the point of long-term planning if the plans are  lousy or execution bad? I’ve remarked before that the drive for greater productivity began around the time I started work: in the late 1970s. I’ve retired since then, and still there is a problem about productivity. And in the early 1980s, one LKY was ordering graduate S’porean mothers to breed, lest S’pore depopulates. His son is pleading with S’poreans to have more babies.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the National Conversation important in govt’s decision making. So important that the govt finds it necessary to frame the questions that we can ask it? “By early next year, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat expects to announce themes which the committee spearheading a national conversation about Singapore’s future will focus on,” CNA report.

Might as well prepare model answers? From the papers coming out from the Institute of Policy Studies (like the one setting out various growth scenarios dependent on the level of immigration) and government ministries (like the one on growth and population by the National Population & Talent Division of the PM’s office), and the articles in the constructive, nation-building ST by its economics correspondent and various senior writers, I will not be surprised if “model” answers will soon be available.

(Even the BBC and BBH, an ad agency, are helping out on the birth rate issue.)

And there will be prizes for the WP MPs who recite these answers perfectly. Yes, yes I know WP will not take part in NatCon, but they regularly support the PAP, after saying they disagree with the govt (instances).

And yesterday, PM highlighted three key goals (OB markers?):

–  ”a vibrant economy by creating good jobs for everyone, as well as a harmonious society where people can enjoy a balanced and fulfilling life.”

– “a meritocratic system where people succeed based on their effort and contributions, along with special effort to help those who start off with less to do well in school and upgrade at work.”

– “to build a Singapore where citizens belong and feel as one, as well as an open, cosmopolitan city that welcomes foreigners with the skills and talents to help the country succeed.”

“Mr Lee said the balance between these goals — just like yin and yang elements — will change will over time.The government, he said, is in the process of adjusting them.”

Right, so on top of given questions and model answers, boundaries are set. We can only talk about asking govt to adjusting them.

Err, is there anything left to discuss?

And if get scared by all the talk about the future doom and gloom if the PAPpies don’t the rule the roost, this is a useful antidote from America: it may not be our problem. We might be dead by then.

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind”

Well, well. So 102 FT drivers recruited from China (5% of all SMRT’s drivers) refused to work yesterday, disrupting SMRT bus services. They were not happy about their pay. Happily for commuters using the affected bus services, they agreed to return to work while talks continue.

Whither the FT policy, and LKY’s pride in FTs? Striking was a no-no for workers (except, as I recounted yesterday, when the govt had another agenda). S’porean sheep workers did not strike partly because they were afraid of retribution. Now FTs have led the way and have so far got away with it. They might even get more money. If they do, will locals realise that they too can get away with striking? If immigrants whom LKY respect can strike, why can’t they?

And if S’poreans start striking, will the MNCs move on?

Something for the cabinet, PM and his dad to ponder.

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”

As for SMRT, time to forget about the stock. Management is still dysfunctional, despite having a ex-SAF chief and scholar in charge. Err might even turn into another NOL, where as I have recounted another ex-SAF chief and scholar has run it aground (Search “NOL”  on this site).

Typical S’porean way

In a 2010 paper in the journal Tobacco Control, a group of Singapore-based cancer specialists proposed phasing-out tobacco by denying access to tobacco for anyone born from the year 2000 onwards. The researchers said their idea introduced the concept of tobacco-free generations that would “never legally be able to take up the harmful habit of smoking, at any age”

So very S’porean.

I came across the above when I read Should you need a licence to smoke?  This is something experts in the West are now thinking of recommending.

S’pore’s juz the place to introduce it, less draconian than banning youngsters from smoking.  We got licences to own cars (COEs) , licences to drive into the city (ERP charges),  licences to buy “subsidised” public housing (got to have marriage licences first), and local media journalists need licence to think (juz kidding).

And the govt could introduce the mandatory death penalty for smoking without licences. Shan could justify it on the grounds that smokers are all going to die one day, anyway.

Pricing is not the only way PM! Try cooperative game theory?

The Economist, a British weekly newspaper, seems to the PAP’s bible*. It believes that pricing is the best way to allocate scare resources and long before the government introduced road pricing, the Economist was advocating it: just like high taxes on petrol (we got this) , permits to drive cars (our COEs), consumption taxes with rebates for poor (GST and rebates) , low rates of corporate and personal income taxes, and no tax on savings (All present and reporting). Oh yes and it believes low fertility rates are bad and that immigration is to be encouraged, screw the social problems.

But even the Economist accepts that there are limits to using prices to allocate resources. It recently wrote:

– People often exclude financial considerations from their most important decisions, from the person they marry to the foster child they adopt. Even some transactions that do involve money are not really about price. Universities in America do not admit students based on who pays the most, for example. Rather, they select students based on complex criteria that include grades, test scores and diversity. Similarly, students choose their university on more than just financial factors.

Money is not essential to a market. After all, economics is about maximising welfare, not GDP. But the absence of a price to allocate supply and demand makes it harder to know whether welfare is being maximised. This year’s Nobel prize in economics went to two scholars—Alvin Roth, who has just joined the economics department at Stanford University, and Lloyd Shapley, a retired mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles—who have grappled with that very problem http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21564836-alvin-roth-and-lloyd-shapley-have-won-year%E2%80%99s-nobel-economics.

– Mr Shapley’s and Mr Roth’s Nobel prize illustrates a larger point about economics. Undergraduates often study “utility functions” to learn how people choose alternative consumption baskets in a way that makes them better off. Once they go on to graduate school and then a job, they deal almost exclusively with priced transactions: for wheat, autos or equities.

Yet in countless private and public policy questions, welfare can be improved in ways that do not show up in the price. Mr Roth’s work on public school admissions and kidney donations are an obvious example, but there are countless others.  I recall reading that Starbucks had a plan that would let an employee in one store trade jobs with an employee in another so that both could work closer to home. The result would not change either employee’s output or wages, or Starbucks’ profits. Conceivably GDP would fall because the employees would spend less on petrol or bus fare. But provided the swap was voluntary, the welfare of both would without question rise http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/10/understanding-economics.

(Cooperative game theory is waz the above is all about. It looks at how well people can do when acting together; by examining all the possible combinations, theorists can spot outcomes that individuals acting alone cannot achieve http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/10/microeconomics)

Well one hopes that the government too recognises the limitations of using prices to allocate everything. And that bit about “maximising welfare, not GDP”. It’s in the PAP’s bible. Juz read it, not juz Hard Truths which incidentally is derived from this book book.

—

*Where they differ is on democracy and a free media. The Economist is a strong advocate and proponent of both these principles, unlike the PAP. BTW I used to joke that the government doesn’t need high-salaried ministers and civil servants to think up policy. They need to read the Economist. Declaration of interest: the Economist is my favourite source of info and analysis. I like its combi of social liberalism and conservative economics and its style of prose, entertaining, and irrelevant irreverent.

It says things like: “The branding function of philosophy in politics is to give individual conscience a form congruent with group interest, to transform the mathematical necessities of coalitional partisan politics into many millions of separate acts of self-congratulating private virtue. It’s a neat trick. It would be neater still if fewer pundits played along.”

Dr Goh’s Diamond Hard Truth reaffirmed

As a retiree, I was getting worried that PM, Tharman and gang had abandoned a Hard Truth that Dr Goh Keng Swee had laid down (and which has served us well, unlike some of Hary’s Hard Truths): Singapore’s exchange rate policy cannot be used as a tool to manage the country’s export competitiveness.  It was a Diamond Hard Truth, engraved in granite, that the Singapore dollar is a key macro-economic policy tool to keep inflation under control.

Increasingly based on the comments of forecasters and the central bank’s actions, I had gotten the impression that the exchange rate policy was being used as a tool to manage the country’s export competitiveness.

This worry got worse earlier this year with inflation above 5%, ministerial jokes about inflation (that even BT contradicted), and the tightening of the FT policy that had employers screaming.  

Until last Friday that is, when the central bank, in a decision that surprised the market, decided not to ease its monetary policy in spite of slowing exports due to a weaker global economy. (The S$ has appreciated since January by 6% against US$.)

And the  Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang said on Monday, ”The [central bank] recognises the need to strike the right balance between ensuring exporters are not unduly hurt by a stronger currency in the short-term, and capping underlying price and cost pressures in the economy. However, the exchange rate cannot be used as a tool to manage Singapore’s export competitiveness.”

 Over the longer term, he added, competitiveness could only be achieved through higher productivity and innovation such as creating new products that the market demands. (Ya been hearing this rubbish since the 1980s but the new products and productivity never appear, bit like Godot)

(He could, and should, have added that S’pores exports require imports. Dr Goh used to emphasise that a cheap S$ means export costs go up because the prices of imports used to make the exports goes up. Minister Lim did not make this point. He should have reminded S’poreans of this Hard Truth.)

Mr Lim was responding to a question posed by an economic literate NMP, Tan Su Shan, who is MD of wealth management at DBS Bank. She asked if the central bank would “consider recalibrating its strong Singapore dollar policy and allow the Singapore dollar nominal effective exchange rate to appreciate at a slower pace”.

“The strengthening of the Singapore dollar is a key macro-economic policy tool to keep inflation in check over the medium term,” he added.

Finally, readers might want to send this BBC clip  about local inflation fears to the junior minister who talked rubbish on inflation in August http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/err-lee-what-did-you-say-abt-food-inflation/. It’s not juz me, it’s the BBC

A plug for something S’pore from Chilean official

Hernan Cheyre, the boss of CORFO, a government body that oversees Start-Up Chile and other initiatives to support entrepreneurs, argues that while Brazil will inevitably be seen as the China of Latin America given its size, Chile can become the region’s Singapore, which has prospered by welcoming foreign talent and providing businesses with a stable, well-regulated base for their operations throughout Asia.

Singapore, however, has a long track record. Start-Up Chile is only two years old, and it is closely identified with the current centre-right government, which may be turfed out at the polls next year.

(Excerpt from article in Economist’s latest issue)

I’m sure those S’poreans who hate S’pore’s success (thinking of the many TRE readers) will be banging their balls.

Cost effective ways of keeping us healthy?

Yesterday, I read that the government is planning to do more to help the depressed and I remembered that I chanced across this (see below) response to an Economist blog piece on escalating medical costs in the developed world. It suggests (among other suggestions) adding various soluble drugs to the water Americans drink as a way of keeping healthcare costs down: one of the drugs is Prozac which is a drug that helps control mild clinical depression. Other drugs suggested are statins and aspirin.

Now that VivianB (a MD) is water minister, he may want to help out the Health minister. These measures seem to be in line with S’pore’s policy of spending as little as possible on health (around 4% of GDP) without upsetting economic efficiency or upsetting the masses compared say to Switzerland (around 8%).  And we already drink recycled water. LOL.

Seriously I hope the SDP looks into these suggestions. SDP has a very gd team of doctors helping out. (BTW what do these MDs have to say about:

– this plug for govt health policy;

– the latent flaw in any public health insurance scheme; or

– innovative ways of helping the elderly in ways that don’t cost too much money?)

(Note writer below is talking of the US, where fluoride is already added to the water they drink. Always wondered why this doesn’t happen here.)

America comes up short in international comparisons of health statistics principally because life expectancy lags despite the highest spending for healthcare. For less than one dollar per capita , I propose Ten Inexpensive Health Interventions WILL Improve Health Outcomes. These will lengthen life expectancy, improve health, increase happiness and decrease dysfunctional behaviors.

We already fluoridate the water to prevent dental caries. And chlorinate to reduce bacteria. We can use the water supply as a medication distribution network by introducing very tiny or trace amounts of medicines that have been known to reduce major diseases.

1.) Simple cheap ASPIRIN dramatically cuts rates of Strokes, Heart Disease and now recently proven in a longitudinal study, reduces Cancer death rates by 20%! Put ASA in the water supply–if would be cheaper than fluoride.

2.) Put STATIN drugs in the water supply. Heart disease and stokes are declining for the first time in history. And it is despite the epidemics in Diabetes and Obesity. It is due to widespread use of effective anticholesterol drugs known as ‘statins.’ ie. Lipitor. High cholesterol is endemic and contributes to strokes and heart attacks. Just about everyone benefits from lower cholesterol.

3.) Water Born Oral VACCINES. Up to 30% of parents do NOT believe in the value of vaccinations and many act on this belief. Utilize water borne vaccinations in the water supply, such as the oral polio Sabin Vaccine. Put Folate in H20 to prevent neural tube defects in fetuses.

4.) PROZAC to decrease Dysfunctional Behaviors and improve Mental Health. Far more common than crime is non-criminal personal dysfunctions. Up to 40% of Americans will experience a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime including Depression, Alcohol abuse, illicit Drug abuse, Anxiety disorder, PTSD, Obsession-Compulsion, Eating disorders. Half of these will remain undiagnosed. And love ones suffer by enduring the mental ill relative like an affliction. Virtually all these maladies would benefit from Prozac type drugs which increase brain serotonin neurotransmitter. It is a vital tool in psychiatry: ‘Vitamin P’. Put Prozac in the water supply and we will be less sad, less depressed and less dysfunctional. It will shrink dysfunctional behaviors, criminal behaviors, afflictions and addictions. It would save BILLIONS in the Criminal Justice System. Lead to more productive fulfilled citizens who are happier. Less alcohol and drug addictions. Less DUI, trauma and killing sprees.

5.) Perhaps an effective future drug to treat or prevent Diabetes or Obesity–put it in the water. We have a new Epidemic of Obesity never before seen in the history of civilization. All interventions have been stymied to reverse the epidemic. We have to be creative about how to address this problem. The water supply is a simple and effective vector that treats the entire population. Observe the effectiveness of fluoridation on cavities for pennies per capita per year.

6.) Ban Tobacco Products, the leading Preventable cause cancer deaths, heart attacks and strokes. It would cost nothing in health care but would literally overnight vault the US life expectancy over the #1. Japan.

7.) Restrict television broadcasts to 2 hours a night of quality programming from 8 pm to 10 pm. We get 24 hours of 1000 channels–98% is garbage programming. It would force Americans to find other more healthy forms of recreation like walking, exercising, reading and even talking with each other. We undersleep and spend 4-6 hours of waking hours watching TV.

8.) Make Supermarkets reflect a Vegetarian Diet. 80% of floor space for Produce. 10% for dairy. 10% for the meat department. Vegetarians live longer and are more active. We have to make it easier and more desirable to enjoy vegetables Likewise encourage walking, exercise, and activity.

9.) Tax Alcohol extremely regressively to the point that consumers have to hurt to make a purchase. They will value that little sip of brandy or Chardonnay even more. Make bottles much smaller at around 100 ml. Like a Coca Cola at the turn of the century: medical tonic amounts. Yes people can drink, but moderation(less than two drinks) is best.

10.) Milk-Based Nutrition/ Beverages. To increase calcium in young persons, make all flavored beverages and hydration drinks MILK BASED. A milk based Coca Cola. We will see taller, more active, healthier citizens. Perhaps the best way to combat osteoporosis in the elderly is fortifying bones in teen age girls. And using high impact sports like simple rope jumping. This will make a difference in the wide spread osteoporosis of the elderly. Your skeleton will thank you decades later.

This is a radically different way of thinking about Public Health, Medicine and Wellness.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures.

Make Public Health medication an automatic feature by incorporating it into normal plumbing.

Let people OPT-OUT by buying their own water and we will have 95% participation.

We now have an OPT-IN system for medicine that is not working.

Healthcare delivery is a complex problem requiring smart solutions, but sometimes solutions can be as simple as fluoridating water. We need a Fluoridation System for the 21st Century.

PAP-like quotes on Salaries

PAPpies will agree that these three quotes apply to the masses but that the second one doesn’t apply to ministers, the senior civil servants or senior GLC executives.

“Senior management’s job is to pay people. If they fuck a hundred guys out of a hundred grand each, that’s ten million more for them. They have four categories: happy, satisfied, dissatisfied, disgusted. If they hit happy, they’ve screwed up: they never want you happy. On the other hand, they don’t want you so disgusted you quit. The sweet spot is somewhere between dissatisfied and disgusted.”  Greg Lippman, banker, quoted in The Big Short by Michael Lewis (2010)

“Currencies fluctuate; commodity prices fluctuate. Why should we expect earnings to rise in a straight line upward?”  William Shenkir, academic

“The real minimum wage is zero.”  Thomas Sowell, economist (1930–), Controversial Essays (2002)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/10/z-business-quotations-0

Tot those of you slaves who have to go to work need shume cheering up.

A natural topic for national conversation

An article in SunT ST last week on farming on the rooftops of HK reminded me that I had written in My S’pore: A greener & more pleasant land about using the roofs of our HDB blocks and other high-rise buildings to create a greener S’pore using examples from Switzerland. I also added, “This being S’pore, we could use HDB roof-tops to be self-sufficient in basic veggies, and range-free eggs.”

Well not only are the Hongkies now farming on the top of high rises, but I have since learnt that the Americans were already doing it for some yrs now: The idea to grow more food within city limits has spread in recent years along with increased awareness about the quality of our food and where it comes from. Advocates say urban farms can also provide important green-space and, when built on roofs, help reduce energy use and storm-water runoff. In dense cities like New York, with high real estate prices, rooftops represent enticing, unused space. Several cities, including New York and Seattle have revised zoning and building codes to help encourage the practice.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/us-farms-urban-idUSBRE86I0U120120719?type=smallBusinessNews

Maybe Khaw can get his planners to see if leasing out the roofs of HDB blocks to wannabe farmers can help lower the cost of the HDB flats to S’poreans?

And this is a natural topic for our National Conversation (Ya silly pun, I accept). It is a non-political topic of conversation for the S’pore of 2030.

Only SDP and NSP activists, Ravi the lawyer, KennethJ, Goh Meng Seng and TJS will strain out gnats to find a political angle to this issue. LOL.

Related link: Parks along abandoned railway tracks in the sky (NY) and on the ground (England)  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19872874

A plug for Team PAP

Many have castigated (self included) the ruling PAP for being mean to S’poreans despite its our money that it refused to spend. Things are changing as I’ve been blogging recently (example), even if others don’t appreciate or notice it.

But here’s shumething to reflect on from  a blog of PAP’s favourite “running dog” int’l publication (it advocates things like CoEs and road-pricing and GST and low corporate taxes):  Here lies a problem that has dogged nations all through this crisis (and still dogs nations outside the euro zone like Britain and America). The collapse of tax revenues in 2008 and 2009 caused deficits to soar, and made public finances look unsustainable. But when you start from a very large fiscal deficit, it is hard to get back to balance. Do it too quickly and you squeeze the economy too hard; do it too slowly and the markets may not finance you. I am not aware that Keynes dealt with this problem (although I’m happy to stand corrected, if anyone has chapter and verse). Of course, the best answer is growth (a consummation devoutly to be wished) but we are very good at talking about it, and a lot less good at producing it.

The PAP avoids fiscal deficits. So taz one problem we don’t have. But look out for my Monday piece on the problems that the government created for the economy. Not me but from DBS Bank.

“Honest conversation” on FTs: Let’s have it, not juz pretend that we’ve having it, Iswaran

S’poreans must have honest conversation about immigration: S Iswaran late last week. But will we be allowed to, minister?

No, I’m not talking abt what Uncle Leong pointed out about the growth in FTs despite all the talk of by the government of it being curtailed. The analysis and comments of Uncle Leong and many others based on the government’s very own data has resulted in this attempt via originally new media (then amplified by the constructive, nation-building media) at damage control.

And let’s ignore what rogue scholar, TJS, has somewhere analysed*: that it’s not true declining population lead to economic ruin. He is after all, as Lawrence Wong, would put it “anti-PAP”. And he could even, at a stretch, be classified as one of Sim Ann’s  demons who  ”spew hate and prejudice against individuals or groups”. Remember, he bitched against bungalow owning ministers, when, I’m told, he too has a bungalow.

No: My complaint is why don’t we get told how well Japan is doing?

A country has three choices when its TFR (total fertility rate) drops Get the TFR back up; encourage immigration; and do nothing i.e. let the population age.

Most countries try to increase TFR, some succeed. Japan tried it, failed and as it doesn’t do immigration, it prefers to use robots, it is managing the decline in population.

Japan has shown, a country with a declining population can still do better than other developed countries as figures from HSBC (published earlier this year) show which contradict the doom and gloom that one LKY says abt Japan.

Growth per capita in the 2001-2010 decade

Japan 1.6%

UK 1.2%

Germany 0.8%

US 0.7%

France 0.6%

And looking at the overall GDP numbers, Japan’s record is as good as that of the Germans, who now have created the Fourth Reich in Europe.

US 1.6%

UK 1.5%

France 1.2%

Germany 0.8%

Japan 0.8%

So the Japanese have well, considering their aging and declining population. Perhaps our PM should be listening to them, and trying to take some tips, especially on the use of robots (say to replace Lawrence Wong and Sim Ann who seem to be stuck with some PAP robotic messages that are a throwback to when LKY ruled the roost. And get dad to stop talking rot on Japan.

As to the need of the elderly population needing younger S’poreans to pay taxes to keep the place going, that both PM and Tharman mumble about, ain’t the governing PAP forgetting that it instituted the CPF system precisely to avoid a “Pay as You Go” social security system. (OK, OK, I’m unfair on the PAP on this but two can play the BS game.)

It’s you die, if you got no CPF (Don’t look to VivianB for help. He will only sneer at you for being poor) So by the PAP’s own account, the elderly (like me) don’t need a growing and younger workforce to support.

So Minister, although you are a Hindoo, somehow I think this verse from the bible is applicable to you (and your fellow ministers) when it comes to having an “honest conversation” about FTs:

(Note “mote” means “a particle of wood or chaff” i.e. it’s very, very tiny) 

Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

—–

*Sorry no link as I’m not too impressed by his analysis. He left out that his favourite Nordic countries tax its people too much for my taste.

SDP groupies, other do-gooders and TJS ACHTUNG

Read this http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/09/fiscal-policy

[M]odern states have tended to extend benefits to the better-off, partly because of lobbying and partly as a way of buying the support of the wealthy for the welfare state. All this is well illustrated in Suzanne Mettler’s book “The Submerged State”, which shows how these hidden subsidies can distort voters’ view of the way that government policy works; a 2008 poll found that 57% of Americans denied ever using a government programme. But when shown a list of 21 actual programmes, including student loans and home-mortgage interest deduction, 94% of the deniers turned out to have benefited after all.

[Would be interesting if TJS's research centre could do something on whether the middle class benefits from govt subsidies: could kill the PAPpies pt abt housing and education subsidies]

Universal benefits are very expensive. But targeting benefits requires means-testing, an instrusive process that causes hard cases at the margin. And restricting benefits to the poorest may weaken political support for the whole system, along the lines highlighted by Mr Romney; people may believe that the hard-working “us” are subsidising the feckless “them”.

 

Why the moderately well-off don’t feel that rich

The rising inequality of incomes mean that even moderately well-off people do not feel that rich; not least because the elite have driven up property prices in desirable areas … to levels that those not working in the finance sector cannot afford. Meanwhile, the very elite can insulate themselves from everyday life. Think of the experience of the average first, or business, class air passenger. They sit in a different lounge from the other passengers, enter the jetway through a different door, sometimes enter the plane through a different door as well, sit in a curtained-off section and then leave the plane before everyone else. They could make an entire transatlantic flight without coming into contact with the hoi polloi.

The problem is that the political elite tend to mix with the financial elite … and, for security reasons, also have to cut themselves off from the average voter. So it may be doubly hard for them to understand the pressures of those who are actually on median incomes.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/09/economics-politics-and-financial-markets

Rewriting LKY’s views on FTs? And, if so, why?

(Or “LKY has repented? No we got him wrong” or “LKY, no FT lover, no hater of locals”)

I came across this about a month ago, but didn’t comment, waiting to see if anyone other self had picked it up No blogger did, and I forget abt my plans to blog on it until a few days ago.

“If we go on like that, this place will fold up, because there’ll be no original citizens left to form the majority, and we cannot have new citizens, new PRs to settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms …
accept migrants at the rate at which we can assimilate them and make them conform to our values, ” LKY.

I was stunned and shocked to hear him talk of  wanting “original citizens” (who he said need spurring ’cause they are less hard-working than his beloved FTs)  ”to form the majority”, and that his beloved FTs (“new citizens, new PRs’) cannot and should not “settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms”.

I had tot he wanted S’pore to be over-run with FTs because he was liked the solution proposed (ironically) in this poem

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers Union

Had leaflets distributed …

Stating that the people

Had thrown away the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?

(The writer, Bertolt Brecht, was a famous playwright,  a Hollywood screen writer in the golden years of Hollywood in the 1930s) and a Marxist activist.)

What next from him? Malays are loyal to S’pore?

A few days ago, I was reminded of the above remark when I read this from a PAP apologist from the top of our constructive, nation-building ST: seems as far back as 1971, LKY has been concerned abt FTs over-running S’pore. If so how come his acolyte Wong Kan Seng when he was head of Home Team allowed PRC hawkers, a slutty looking, violent, cheating shop assistant, and an ang moh awaiting trial for beating up a S’porean PR status? Or that the government from the late 1990s onwards imported FTs by the cattle truck load.

Well the piece fooled many thinking S’poreans.  S’poreans who saw it as vindication that even a worm like a true blue ST man can turn on a  PAP policy i.e. ST is changing for the better. I had no such tots. I focused on the dates when LKY said:

– “And if you take too many, then instead of our values being superimposed on them, they will bring us down to their values because it’s easier to be untidy, scruffy, dirty, anti-social than to be disciplined, well-behaved and a good citizen.” (1971)

– “There will be cultural, linguistic, social and political problems. /Well, those cultural, linguistic, social and political problems have now come to roost, 40 years on.” (1978).

Err, these were the two examples quoted in 1971 and 1978. Then we have to jump to to August 2012 for the third one which I quoted above. Nothing in between?

A cynic could conclude that there is some rewriting of history, that despite all his praise of FTs and denigrating locals, and the pro FT policies, LKY cared about S’poreans being swarmed by FTs, and that he expressed this in 1971 and 1978.

Possible motives:

– To correct the perception (or is it misperception?) that LKY prefers FTs to S’poreans in S’poreans. The aim is to protect his legacy as one of the founders of modern S’pore. Bit difficult to have an icon of S’pore who prefers FTs to locals, even if he did a lot for S’poreans, which he did, and all but the likes of KennethJ and Dr Chee would agree he did.

– Another could be to show that when he was in charge, he had different views on the role of FTs then Goh Chok Tong or his son.

The spin doctors have to do better. They had better look for statements post 1978 but pre August 2012, expressing the view S’poreans should not be swamped by FTs. LKY was PM until 1990, and S’poreans believe that until recently, he had the final say on any important policy. And then there are all the pro-FT statements. And those denigrating locals.

Whatever it is, join me in a belated birthday greeting to LKY. The team that he headed in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and S’poreans made S’pore a developed world city. Too bad abt the team in the 90s and noughties, of which he was a part. And the son’s doing a decent job of correcting the mistakes of the 90s and noughties (despite being a leading player in the mistakes). But I wish he hadn’t started NatCon.

BTW, I taking up the challenge of compiling a list of things that the WP did not do in response to a challenge from a WP groupie upset with last Fri’s piece. Looking for sponsors to fund it (No peanuts pls). Or for help to draw up the list. Against my principles to do anything for free for the PAP, who always say, “No free lunch”. But who have a freebie via the PA, widely perceived as an arm of the PAP, even if it is tax-payer funded.

NatCon: What Dale Carnegie & dad can teach PM

Two quotes from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, that could teach PM, Heng, Sim Ann and other ministers a trick or two:

– “No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our thoughts.” (Actually Auntie Sun’s hubby, pastor Kong, could teach them this, what with his Sentosa Cove penthse to prove it. But PAPpies prefer to learn from FTs.)

– “The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”

The second quote explains why PM’s dad (and a hero, flawed, of mine) was successful in getting S’poreans to vote for him and the PAP despite his bullying, thuggish ways.

He spoke to S’poreans of his and older generations what they wanted to hear: “A better life for yrself and yr family.”

And how to achieve it: “Vote for the PAP and accept my policies be they throwing dissidents into prison without trial (anyway they are commies who want to steal yr money or work you to death), and have union leaders like Devan Nair who are my running dogs, and accept my lectures, hectoring, thuggery and bullying.”

He got the message right* and delivered the prosperity bit (whether or not the prosperity was the result of his** policies and methods is open to debate***) for most elderly S’poreans. True, there are some elderly S’poreans who missed the prosperity (and who now need to be helped), but in general, many are reasonably well-off, especially if they suffer from severe illnesses. I’ve relations much older or juz slightly older who have benefited from the then HDB housing policies of the 70s and 80s. And who are benefitting from the present healthcare system.

(One said during the Chinese New Year, “We were poor when we were young. Thank the Lord (her family are Christians) that in our old age we are comfortable. Nothing worse than being poor when old.”)

They are the first to admit it, their children and grandchildren are not finding life that easy. But hey LKY’s only a mortal, even if at times the constructive, nation-building media, esp ST, portrayed him as a demigod.

———————–

*And he is a genius when it comes to marketing “Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make.” Philip Kotler, academic (1931–), Marketing Management (1967)

Above and more marketing quotes from http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/09/z-business-quotations

The problem. is that since the late 1980s or early 1990s, the PAP wants S’poreans to do want the PAP wants them to do; but it is unwilling (and unable) to promise S’poreans material prosperity in return. It is only willing to say,”We will try to help you achieve material prosperity. But we still want yr soul.”

The governing PAP used gimmicks, like asset enhancement inflation and indiscriminate importing of , that have backfired on the PAP because of their negative consequences, intended or otherwise, on S’poreans.

**And don’t forget the role that Dr Goh Keng Swee, Lim Kim San, Hon Sui Sen and Ngiam Tong Dow played in the economic policies. They wisely left the bullying, lecturing hectoring and thuggishness to LKY.

***Remember that in the 1960s and 1970s, S’pore was one of the few places (HK was another) that welcomed MNCs to set-up factories. MNCs were looked upon as a form of neo-colonialism by most of the developing world. Today, every developing country wants MNCs to set-up factories. So credit must be given to the PAP for this policy. But as we know, this policy resulted in the lack of home-grown companies like Foxcomm and HTC in Taiwan and Samsung in Korea. But breeding these cos led to problems in these countries.

More tots on the National Conversation

Shumething I came across on Facebook: To be frank, I think the default is now, “Why should we listen to the government?” and we should all realise that they’re listening more and we’re listening less. Old knee-jerk political reflexes are not useful anymore. We need to be clear-minded and work on both qualitative and quantitative data and input, not just the same old stories on all sides.

He is spot-on.

Then this: “S’poreans [are] urged to share and listen with open minds and  hearts” said Education Minister Heng Swee Keat who “is heartened by the many conversations that are going on about the national conversation and follows them with great interest.” Mr Heng had been tasked by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to lead a team of younger ministers to engage Singaporeans in a national conversation about the country’s future direction.

So how come

– a “CNA producer rescinds invite to bloggers to a forum with Prime Minister because her ‘bosses bosses have decided not to have bloggers on the forum because apparently bloggers have already had a private session with the Prime Minister already” http://www.raviphilemon.net/2012/09/because-pm-has-engaged-dr-jiajia-he-has.html

–” TOC was uninvited to the Singapore National Games”

Now to a suggestion of a topic.

The conversation, to be meaningful, must include the issue of public access to govt data bases. This explains why it should give access: In knowledge discovery in datasets, the major barrier to entry is access to the data. When corporations, governments or other private firms jealously guard their proprietary data, the number of people playing with the data and trying to discover valuable things, or putting that data to good use, will remain small. When data is made public, anyone can put that data to work. In recent years governments have begun making large troves of their data publically accessible. The U.S. government’s open-data project, data.gov, for example, has begotten over 200 citizen-developed apps. Similarly, the city of Vancouver, an early mover in the municipal open-data space, opened up their data in 2009, spawning valuable mashups of transit data, the water grid, and common spaces.

It’s gd for a knowledge-based economy.

Netizens who want to take part should take time to read this http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/ips/docs/events/p2012/SP2012_Bkgd%20Pa.pdf. Written by some of the best economists in S’pore (Jedi Knights all: wonder who is their Yoda? Tommy Koh?), it gives plenty of information to counter the governing PAP’s Hard Truths.

Finally, the calls by some netizens for a debate rather than conversation are misguided. Debates are by their nature rigid. The emphasis is on point scoring. This format suits the government. So better to keep it at the conversational level.

Related post: http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/nation-conversation-nah-sounds-like-another-attempt-at-conversion/

PM’s speech: Not juz a change of format

(Or “Why LKY would not have made this speech” or “Two cheers for PM”)

It’s been five days since the speech and the air is thick with analyses and commentaries of what PM said last Sunday. Most of them are noise or smoke or hot air.

While the constructive, nation-building media gushed (like a teen-ager about her puppy love) over the PM’s speech, netizens were not too impressed. Typical reactions:

“PM Lee, to no one’s surprise, did not address the root cause of the many issues troubling Singaporeans. The lack of accountability and transparency, civic and political freedoms, freedom of the media, human rights failings, gerrymandering and discriminatory upgrading projects have their roots in repression.“

How can there be hope, heart and home when the real issues – foreigner, infrastructure, housing, transport and healthcare – are still outstanding?

Come on netizens: Look on the bright side. He

– pledged to ensure sufficient affordable housing for citizens, and built more nursing homes for the elderly.

– said the government will decide on measures to encourage Singaporeans to marry and have more children after consulting the public. Areas being considered include better work- life balance, flexible work arrangements, priority housing for couples with young kids, paternity or shared maternity leave, defraying childhood medical expenses, better pre-school, childcare and infant care, and improving cash benefits for having children known as baby bonuses, he said.

– pledged Singapore will have two more universities to increase educational opportunities and the government will invest S$60 billion over ten years on the island’s subway system. Bloomberg report.

What this means is that the government is finally going to spend our money on us. No more of his dad’s ”frugality”* on spending S’poreans money on S’poreans.

He is saying, “It’s yr money, let’s spend it on making you happier”.

To reinforce the point, he implicitly promised that there would be no near time tax rises, saying (correctly) that Singapore will need to raise taxes in the next two decades (but not now) as the government boosts social spending to support an aging population.

In the past ministers like Tharman and Raymond Lim (remember him?) threatened to raise GST whenever S’poreans asked for more govt spending.

So netizens, give the PM more rope to hang himself or show us that things are a’changing. The assumptions and prejudices of the PAP remain (see here) but at least he is spending our money on things that we want or need to make life more comfortable.

For that let’s give him two cheers. Give him a third if he rethinks the aforesaid prejudices and assumptions inherited from dad.

—

*An economist lecturing at SMU once commented (when LKY was MM and in rude health) that LKY would die if the government spent a cent more than absolutely necessary on making life more comfortable for S’poreans. Having read his daughter’s comments on his wanting Mrs Lee to change the elastic band on his underwear when she was recovering from her stroke, I think the economist had a valid point, and wasn’t joking.

Kindergartens & the ruling PAP

So the PM in yesterday’s speech promised that the government will play a more active role in pre-school education to help S’poreans “level up”*. Actually it already has a very active role**.

Ever since the Lien Foundation came out with its report earlier this yr which in its media released stated, “Singapore’s preschool education placed 29th amongst 45 countries on the Starting Well Index” and reported that  South Korea (10^th) and Hong Kong (19th) were ahead of us,there has been the usual hot air from the government, the constructive, nation-building media, and S’poreans, largely off-line via the media***.

One issue that all three groups skated around are the two elephants in the ice-rink: the PAP Community Foundation (PCF)  which is the dominant provider of kindergartens in S’pore, and its smaller cousin NTUC; and the ring-master (the governing PAP). Remember that the NTUC and PCF are “teeth” to the lips of the governing PAP.

It’s not surprising that the government and its minion, the media, avoided talking abt the role of the PCF and NTUC (until last night) and the government in the failure of kindergarten education here (PM skated over why the system needed fixing). So let me lay it out thickly.

The report says that where S’pore falls short is on quality issues: “Most of Singapore’s weaknesses showed up in the area of‘quality’, which includes factors like ‘student-­‐teacher ratio’,‘average preschool teacher wages’, ‘preschool teacher training’and ‘linkages between preschool and primary school’. All top ten countries on the Index have ratios ranging from one teacher to five to 11 children, compared to Singapore’s 1:20 ratio.”

It’s a question of funding.

While the NTUC and PCF cannot be blamed for the lack of funding because they are, unlike private kindergartens serving the moneyed, trying to serve the masses, not the children of elite, middle class bloggers: they can be blamed for not lobbying the government for more money to rectify ‘student‐teacher ratio’,‘average preschool teacher wages’, and ‘preschool teacher training’.

So until the government increases its funding (which the PM now has), the children of S’pore’s masses will continue suffering from low quality kindergarten education.

———

*He said: “First of all, we’ll establish a new statutory board to oversee pre-school education. Secondly, we’ll provide and upgrade pre-school teacher training to raise standards. Thirdly, we’ll bring in new anchor operators, in addition to PCF and NTUC.

“And fourthly, we’ll upgrade the anchor operators — the existing ones as well as the new ones — so that they can improve the careers they can offer the teachers.

“They can offer structured development opportunities for the staff, they can introduce creative learning methods for the students but to raise the base — the quality of the mass market.” CNA

**I read with amazement last week the spate of articles in, and letters to our constructive, nation-building media on whether kindergarten education should be “nationalised”.

***Not surprised netizens have been quiet. They don’t breed. Or if they do, they send their kids to gd, expensive kindergartens. They are middle class elitists.

Why Tharman will be the next PM

(Or “How S’pore’s PMs are chosen”)

We know that Tharman as finance minister has failed to control inflation (Yes, yes, I know latest number is 4% but remember grain prices are flying), when all he can do is to make jokes about it, and that the government (where he is now the senior most minister in charge of the economy) has consistently failed to raise the productivity of S’pore workers* despite talking the talking on this since I started working in the late 1970s. I’m now a man of leisure and the government is still talking about raising productivity. SIGH.

I was reminded of another failure of the government’s economic policies when the July export data came out last week.  No it wasn’t the failure of the government policy to diversify away from electronics. If S’pore has a comparative edge here, so be it.

No, it was the failure many yrs ago to realise that pill-making is not a steady business. Example: in July, while pharmaceutical shipments were up 1.3% after rocketing 24% in June. It was brought in to smooth the volatility of an economy dependent on the export of electronics, a volatile commodity.

It didn’t work because while selling drugs is a steady business in gd times and bad (unlike electronics), making pills is not. It’s a very volatile business. Drug cos are forever tweaking their supply chains to minimise production costs and inventories. Production is not smooth.

So while pill-making has become an important driver of economic growth, it has not made the economy any less volatile. In fact combining it with the manufacturing and export of electronics causes the economy to gyrate wildly at times.

Guess who introduced pill-making? One Lee Hsien Loong. He was once responsible for raising the productivity of S’porean workers? In the UK, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, who goofed on two major policy decisions, would not get to be PM.

Looks like better not bet against Tharman being PM. With the failures on inflation, productivity and the following on his CV, nap that he will become PM:

– Another failure is the rise in the number for homeless S’poreans at a time of reasonably gd economic growth.

– They are exemplars of the “working poor”, something articulated so well here. Read it.

– Article also explains why Workfare, as it is constructed, doesn’t help the poor. Related posts: http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/budget-a-plague-on-both-your-houses/

http://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/minimum-wages-missing-the-point/

Update after posting: Promotion here is via failure? Presidency of S’pore and Temasek. So the PAP’s meritocracy is achieved via failure, not success? So Orwellian. Reminds me of Beckett’s, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Macau: NO FTs as croupiers, dealers

And local poly provides training to work in casinos.

Citizenship has its privileges in Macau (and there is no NS).

Yet casinos are still expanding in Macau despite not having cheap FTs as croupiers and dealers.

Must have lessons for S’pore?

 [I]t’s a world where young people like Tommy hold all the cards. With the law favouring local workers, jobs are handed to the polytechnic’s graduates on a plate. Many receive offers of employment from casinos long before they finish their courses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18099525

When will S’pore become part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem?

When SVB Financial Group’s banking unit Silicon Valley Bank opens a branch or office or j/v here, we will know that S’pore has made it into the Silicon Valley ecosystem. It has juz opened its first int’l branch: in London. It will target Britain’s technology, life science, private equity and venture capital sectors

Silicon Valley Bank counts Cisco Systems, Mozilla and Pinterest, among its US clients.

Silicon Valley Bank also has offices in Israel, India and is expected to open a joint venture bank in China with Shanghai Pundong Development Bank.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18368713

When it comes to town, bang balls KennethJ, TJS, TRE, TOC, E-Jay, SDP etc.  But don’t worry guys, it’ll be a long time, if ever, before the PAP government’s rhetoric becomes a reality*. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll link to stories which show how competitive Vietnam is becoming in software development to places like India, and that even Cambodia, with an American’s help, can use the internet get into a global biz competing with China and India.

—

*I mean juz see the BS around the comment made on LSD use, and on sex between adults juz because they are not married. So intolerant.

Government right on need to raise retirement age

The issue of changing the rules on the access to our CPF funds is one that upsets many S’poreans, even those who support the PAP. The imposition of Minimum Sum and CPF Life are lazy solutions to a problem that needs to be addressed: longevity.

But while we should, disagree and row with him on the access to our money, we should not be in denial that we (me excluded) have to retire only in the 60s. The issue is longevity, not the amounts we have in our CPF accounts and how the cost of housing erodes the amounts left over for retirement, or access to our money.

According to a new report from the OECD, increases in the official retirement age are planned or underway in 28 out of its 34 member countries. As can be seen from the chart in the link, pensionable ages have failed to keep pace with longevity http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/daily-chart-5

S’pore bashing at its worst

Reading this, one ends up asking, “If things are so screwed up here, why isn’t S’pore as poor as Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia or Burma?”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NF05Ae01.html

There are problems: rising inequality, persistent low productivity (despite all the govmin talk and campaigns), lack of local entrepeneurs complacent BSing ministers, and bad public transport. But taz not the same as saying that S’pore is an economic disaster like Bangladesh.

What the fall of Roman empire can teach the PAP

(Or “Why group feeling is so impt” or “How times have changed since the late 70s (Worth of being a S’porean)”) 

Reading the u/m, I was reminded that Ngiam Tong Dow (Sparta, Athens and the Chinese imperial exam system) and the PAP (George Yeo and his mis-readings of history, one being why Venice did better than Genoa*) have used history to preach to S’poreans

First was the widening gulf between the social classes, rich and poor. When rich and poor start to live completely different lives this leads (then as now) to the poor opting out of the state. All studies today show that society is happier when the gap between rich and poor is reduced …

Widen it and you affect the group ethos of society, and also the ability to get things done through tax.

In the Roman West real wealth lay more in land and property than in finance (though there were banks) – but in the 300s the big land-owning aristocrats who often had fantastic wealth, contributed much less money than they had in the past to defence and government.

That in turn led as it has today to a “credibility gap” between ordinary people and the bureaucrats and rich people at the top.

Other strands in the collapse of the Roman West are more difficult to quantify, but they centre on “group feeling”, the glue that keeps society working together towards common goals. Lose that and you get a kind of nervous breakdown in the social order, which leads to what archaeologists call “systems collapse”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18159752

The growing inequality in S’pore society we know and bitch about, but the loss of “group feeling” is shumething “we see through a glass, darkly”.  We sense it but we have problems articulating this loss of group feeling. Symptoms of it are often ascribed as the problem. Examples: The

– unhappinness that male FTs (like PAP MP Puthu) have a free ride here because they don’t have to do NS;

–  resentment against the PAP government because it appears to elevate FTs to a higher status than locals; 

– resentment against one LKY who called S’poreans “daft”, who needed to be “spurred”,

are symptoms of this loss of group feeling, not the problems themselves.

The government is largely to blame for this loss of group feeling thru its strategy of keeping the economy growing by using FTs to keep wage costs down because otherwise the strong S$ would make S’pore an uncompetitive economy.  Its asset enhancement policy and forcing S’poreans to leverage to their foreheads to buy property, has it made it impossible for S’pore to have low economic growth without triggering serious problems for the PAP and S’poreans. Imagine all HDB owners having -ve equity on their flats?

The sad, funny thing is that the PAP government fostered the sense of collective identity through schemes like NS to strenthen its grip on power after S’pore was ejected from M’sia. Older S’poreans like me can remember the days when the government told us that we S’poreans were special, compared to the Indons and M’sians. Look at the M’sian and Indon Chinese trying to get in. Today, according to the then PM, S’poreans are “daft”, and need “spurring” (or is it to be “spurred”?).

Oh and as the extract showed, “group feeling” is linked to wealth inequality. The bigger the gap, the less “group feeling”.

—————

*Actually, I’m surprised that he didn’t put in down to the Venetians having a more authoritarian form of republic with power centralised in the doge). A rebuttal.

PngGate: Nothing more than a distracting sideshow

Ah so, so selling one’s soul is pointless. The person who leaked the WP’s minutes of meeting which showed that Png had misrepresented when he said he had removed his name from the ballot must be banging his balls in frustration. Png and WP cocked-up in the handling of DPM’s Teo comments abt Png, but thaz abt all. I doubt this would affect the voters views, even though the constructive, nation-building media (see today’s ST) is bitching about “dishonesty”, being more PAP than DPM Teo.

I have a shrewd guess on who leaked it. His hatred of Low has perverted the character of a decent, fair chap, turning him into a “I hate Low” zombie. I wish him a speedy recovery from his fixation.

On a separate issue, what I found most interesting abt the minutes was that it showed that Eric Tan had decent support for his bid to be NCMP but that GG had more votes. So Eric had supporters on the central executive council who appreciated his hard work and wanted to recognise his efforts. And not all the WP CEC members are cold, rational, calculating machines (Let’s face it, even as Eric’s friend, I think that giving the post to GG was in WP’s long-term interest, and still do despite GG’s “C-” performance in parly), or Low’s acolytes.

Back to Png and WP. WP has “malfunctioned” again, despite, or because of, having three lawyers as MPs. I hope the WP starts repairing and oiling its machine ASAP before something serious happens like getting disqualified in an election (2001). Both in the handling of YawGate and PngGate it made silly, avoidable mistakes. WP needs to get the machine to function as it did in 2006 (Garbra Gomez’s antics notwithstanding: BTW he took responsibility for the 2001 mess-up) and 2011 GEs.

Update

Nice to hear that Eric Tan has confirmed that Png told him before meeting that he didn’t want NCMP post.

Remind yrself, not us PM

(Or “Is PM on the same channel as S’poreans?”)

“Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said the Hougang by-election should not distract the country from focusing on national priorities and building an inclusive Singapore,” CNA reports.

Either this is the latest of PM’s tasteless jokes in his attempt to outdo Tharman as the cabinet’s and PAP’s mgt committee’s stand-up comic, or it shows us that he doesn’t even bother to glance thru the nation-building constructive local media.

Because if he does, he would realise that “national priorities and building an inclusive Singapore” are at the top of most voters’ concerns: the state of the economy and public transport infrastructure, and of family finances. Examples:

– a MRT system that does not breakdown almost every other day,

– less crowded trains and buses,

– lower inflation (even the crown prince of jokers says the latest inflation number is ”a high figure” though he quickly quipped that it didn’t affect most of us “lesser mortals” (my words not his),

– how to earn more money,

– how to afford to own a HDB flat on $2,000 a month,

– how to buy a van (what with escalating COE prices), or

– worrying that ”Our system of integration doesn’t work. Why? Because before we were able to integrate those who were received on our territory, others arrived. Having taken in too many people, we paralysed our system of integration.”

A worrying tot has juz struck me. What if his (and the PAP’s) ”national priorities and building an inclusive Singapore” are different from us “lesser mortals”? He wants faster economic growth via becoming a low-cost producer as “national priorities”, while “building an inclusive Singapore” means treating FTs better than locals?

Integrating FTs: It’s our problem now cont’d

Remember a few days ago I ranted abt the comment by DPM Teo* that, “Singapore needs to pay extra attention to facilitating the new immigrants who are ready to sink roots here, so that they integrate into society more quickly … urged Singaporeans to do their part to make newcomers feel welcome, and to help them imbibe the values that have made Singapore strong as a society”? It was the fault of the governing PAP, so it should fix it, not pass it on to us.

Well this morning, while scanning thru BBC Online, the following comment by France’s president leapt at me,  ”Our system of integration doesn’t work. Why? Because before we were able to integrate those who were received on our territory, others arrived. Having taken in too many people, we paralysed our system of integration.”

In view of DPM’s Teo  passing-the-parcel, our problematic MRT system, crowded buses, and expensive public housing one could say that his words describe what has happened here.

——————————

*I think he is one of our “betterest” ministers along with Tharman, Khaw and VivianB (so long as you keep him away from the poor and needy and give him engineering tasks). Gan, Chan and Tan seem to be coming along nicely.

Burma: Wake up S’pore

Japan has agreed to write off more than US$3.7bn of debt owed by Burma and to resume development aid.  The leaders of both countries  also agreed to plan a special economic zone near Rangoon.  This could give Japanese firms a head start in winning business in what is seen as one of Asia’s last frontier markets.

Hey could have been S’pore planing a SEZ with Burma! We are “old friends” of Burma. And GLCs and TLCs got experience of building biz parks in Vietnam and China. Come on Georgie Boy. Go broke deals between S’porean cos and Burmese ones and the government. Too comfortable, what with big fat pension? Or planning to reform PAP? Or planning to be president?

(Ya aware that three postings in row abt Northern ASEAN countries. But taz where the biz and investment opportunities are coming from in this region.)

Mandarin Ngiam on “elitism”, “social divide”, education etc

(or “Analysing Ngiam Tong Dow’s March 2012 speech (Part II)”)

As I wrote in Part I, because Professor Lim Chong Yah’s “shock therapy” proposal is a variation of what was implemented the early 1980s (until the 1985 recession: neutral article on the recession and one blaming it on the original “shock therapy”), when one Ngiam Tong Dow* was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, I thought it would be interesting to reread a speech Ngiam made in March because MTI had once upon a time analysed the problem of severe manpower shortages and the economy’s increasing reliance on lowly paid foreign workers. Its solution was to restructure the economy by raising wages substantially to dampen employers’ demand for lowly paid workers, what Professor Lim is recommending.)

The speech is long and can be broken down into a sociopolitical analysis of S’pore, and an economic analysis of S’pore.

 This post reports and comments on the sociopolitical aspect of his speech**. In Part I, I did the same on the economic part of the speech.

—————————

Colonial system

Although this appears in mid-speech, it’s a good introduction to his sociopolitical thoughts.

“When Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819, his town planner demarcated the town into several ethnic enclaves. Kampong Glam (Malays/Arabs), Chinatown (Hokkiens, Cantonese, Teochews), Little India (Tamils), and Tanglin (Europeans). Empress Place on the left bank at the mouth of Singapore River was the administrative and civic centre. The British governor presided from the Istana … Each racial group was free to conduct their own trades, practice their own religions, set up their own schools, and largely married within their own race and ethnic group. The colonial government provided the overarching framework of law and order and schooling in the English medium.

‘Being a British colony, the language of administration was English. Access to English medium schools was open to all races. English became the lingua franca acceptable to all the races as none has any
in-built advantage over the other.”

Differences in the body politic

He talked of the difference between his generation of undergraduates at the then University of Malaya (NUS today) and those of today, “Except for the few activists of the University Socialist Club, my contemporaries at university were politically passive but not naive. In the political environment … we thought it prudent to keep our thoughts to ourselves.”

(So they were not sheep, just cautious, crafty mouse-deer of Malayan folklore?)

But “NUS undergraduates today are more articulate. They have courage of their own convictions,expressing their views vigorously at tutorials or the cafeteria.” (But are they wiser than Ngiam and his contemporaries, or just more noisy? “Remember “Still waters run deep” and “Empty vessels make the most noise”.)

He pointed out that the PM “has to deal with an electorate that is vastly different from … his father’s generation”. “The command politics of his father no longer works … PM has … to appeal to reason”. What surprised me was his comment that Lee Kuan Yew “appealed to emotions”. What I respect abt LKY’s speeches from that era are their simplicity and internal logic.

Uniquely S’porean

“[C]an Singapore be considered a democratic state?”. His answer was it can’t. “We are not a theocratic state like the Vatican or present day Iran. We are … not ideological states like North Korea, Cuba or China.”

He compared the western concept of democracy (“government of the people, by the people, for the people”) with that of the Chinese imperial system, “China’s emperors had to gain the consent of the people to earn the mandate of heaven to rule.” He seems to imply they are somewhat similar.

A difference is that losing heaven’s mandate often involved some form of violence. Mind you, in places like Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh and India, democracy often involves violence.

He went on to say, “In my view the core purpose of government is to raise the livelihood of the people.” and says, “The PAP won the mandate to govern because it delivered jobs and housing”, pointing out that the PAP has “won every one of the seven general elections since independence in 1965.” Can’t argue with these points.

“There are two competing strands in our body politic.”

“ The first strand is meritocracy. It is modelled on the Chinese imperial scholar system where the best minds compete in nationwide examinations presided over by the emperor himself. The Singapore President Scholar is akin to the Chinese Imperial Scholar.

‘Both systems aim at identifying the best talent to serve the country.” What he missed out is that the Chinese intellectuals and activists (admittedly they usually had some form of Western education often via Christian missionaries) who wanted to reform and modernise the Chinese system in the late 19^th and early 20^th century criticised the imperial examination system for producing people who were only good in memorising the set examination texts (Classics like the Analects of Confucius). These “modernisers” argued that rule by these scholars under the Manchus led to the decline of China as a military, economic and scientific superpower, repeatedly being bullied and humiliated by the Western powers and Japan. The facts seem to support this analysis.

If the Chinese system was meritocracy at work, give me something else, please. Enlightened nepotism or Plato’s philosopher king, anyone?

Also selection by examinations should not be the only criteria of identifying “the best talent to serve the country”. What abt execution of duties? Or courage or integrity? Or manners? Or even sexual restraint?

“The second strand relates to the system of selecting leaders. It is modelled on Plato’s Republic [where] peers select their own leaders until the philosopher king emerges. As the first among equals, he is accountable to no one but himself. Over time, peer selection breeds a leadership that becomes complacent. Though our state is rooted in meritocracy, we must beware of the dead hand of peer selection. Elitism creeps in imperceptibly.”

He gave an example,“The recommendation by the ministerial salaries review committee to peg ministerial salaries to the median income of the top 1,000 income earners reflects an elitist mindset which is troubling. If the primary purpose of government is to raise the livelihood of the people, a better statistical measure of livelihood would be the median income of all workers, not just the top 1,000 income earners or the MX9 salary scale of the Civil Service.”

He pointed out the WP shares this elitism, “Curiously, both the government and the Workers Party accept that ministerial salaries be pegged to high income earners rather than the median of the work force, which is [US]$3,070 a month as at June 2011.” (WP is close clone of the PAP?)

He said that bonuses for the Cabinet should be pegged to increases in the median income of the work force, rather than the GDP.

Social divide

Much later in the speech, after talking about the economic situation here (covered in Part I), he returned to the theme of the social divide caused by the “widening income gap”.

“In 2012, what will be the threat to social stability? …Future social unrest will arise not from racial or religious differences [He had reminded that even though from its founding 1819 to when Singapore was granted self-government in 1959), S'pore's races lived lives of passive co-existence, S'poreans witnessed the three racial riots in the 1950s-60s] but from the growing class divide caused by widening income gaps.”

‘The top 1,000 earn million-dollar annual salaries while the rest a monthly median income of US$3,070. The gap is untenable. In the past, equal opportunities in education have provided the social mobility to enable the bright boy from a poor family to make good … The spread of private tuition has changed the [level] educational playingfield.”

He said that during his school days in the 1950s (and mine too in the early 1970s), “only the academically weak students of rich parents take remedial tuition … Today, any parent who can afford the fees will send their children not for remedial but enhancement classes to give their children a head-start”.

This means that, “Though there will still be the exceptional individual who triumphs against all odds, more and more of our state scholars will come from upper, middle income families with professional parents.”

“There is no easy answer to the problem of an uneven playing field in our schools.”

His solution? “The challenge is to level up, not to level down. One suggestion I have is to make classes for academically weaker children smaller. The student-teacher ratio should be more favourable than in brighter classes so that the teacher can give more personal attention to each student, which is what private tuition is all about.”

He acknowledged that the government is doing something about the income gap, “The 2012 budget is politically adroit, replete with spending proposals which basically are income transfers from the taxpayer to the poorly paid, the disadvantaged and the aged.” But there is a hint of criticism, “Income transfers are palliatives, temporary reliefs to abate rising social discontent.”

Fostering entrepreneurs

He said that spending money to expand the then industrial training centres fostered entrepreneurs,

“[O]ur ITC [Industrial Training Centres, the precursor of today's Institutes of Technical Education] trainees with barely O levels went on to start their own factories producing parts and components for MNCs.” (Bit of an exaggeration this. These entrepreneurs included teachers who were recruited to be managers, then moving on. In the 1960s and 1970s, MNCs recruited teachers because the workers were young and inexperienced, and teachers were experienced supervisors of the young. But the teacher-managers who moved on were often the non-graduates.)

Higher education not compatible with entrepreneurship

“It is hard to find the university graduate who becomes a successful entrepreneur. The prevailing reward system drives our graduates to become bureaucrats/managers both in government and business. White collar jobs pay better than blue collar jobs”

Overeducating

I’ll end with this remark, “[W]hy our concentration on engineering and science-based education is not yielding dividends in productivity and innovation. Instead, the employment share of low-wage, low-skilled personal services is rising. Are we overeducating our children? This is a heretical thought contrary to all my basic EDB instincts. In EDB, our article of faith is that the higher the education level, the more rewarding will our jobs become.”

He tried to answer this issue when he talked of S’pore’s reliance on “low-wage, low-skilled foreign labour to drive economic growth” and why S’pore should be“raising total factor productivity” a priority. I covered these in Part I.

————–

*Ngiam was in the 1980s one of Lee Kuan Yew’s and Goh Keng Swee’s most trusted civil servants and if anyone, could be called a co-driver of S’pore’s drive from third world to first world, it would be he.

**The quotes are taken from a transcription published in BT.

Analysing Ngiam Tong Dow’s March 2012 speech (Part I)

Given that Professor Lim Chong Yah’s “shock therapy” proposal is a variation of what was implemented the early 1980s (until the 1985 recession: neutral article on the recession and one blaming it on the original “shock therapy”), when one Ngiam Tong Dow* was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, I thought it would be interesting to reread a speech Ngiam made in March because MTI had once upon a time analysed the problem of severe manpower shortages and the economy’s increasing reliance on lowly paid foreign workers. Its solution was to restructure the economy by raising wages substantially to dampen employers’ demand for lowly paid workers, what Professor Lim is recommending.)  

Rereading Ngiam’s speech, I don’t think he would agree with Dr Lim’s proposal because Ngiam says, “Rising productivity enables workers to be paid more. Inflation sets in only when wages are raised without any increase in productivity.” So productivity comes first, then wages rise as a consequence. Dr Lim would go back to the 1980s plan of raising wages to force up productivity.

(BTW, the government, especially Tharman, keeps “talking the talk” of raising productivity, despite not walking the walk. I’m sceptical of its announced plans to cut the “FTs are betterest” policy until I see how it is being implemented.)

The speech is long and can be divided into an economic analysis of S’pore and a sociopolitical analysis of S’pore,

In this post (Part I), I report and comment on the economic part of the speech**. In Part II (later this week), I will report and comment on the sociopolitical aspects of his speech.

——————————————–

Evolution of the policy of importing cheap foreign labour

“Singaporeans of my generation remember vividly the slums, joblessness, dirt and disease of the 1950s. Through dint of hard work and discipline, we moved rapidly from a labour to a skill-intensive economy. By the early 1970s, we achieved full employment with an unemployment rate of 3 per cent.

‘In the early 1970s when we achieved full employment, some of us in the EDB began to ask the question about the critical size of populations. We did some desktop research and found that there were several industrialised European countries with population size of around 5-6 million. These were Israel, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Our town planners went to work and concluded that Singapore with a land area of 670 square kilometres can comfortably accommodate a population of 5-6 million … we allowed in one million foreigners in the last decade.”

He went on, to give another reason for the FT policy, “As our births fell below replacement levels, we resorted to immigration as an instrument to top up the babies that young Singaporean couples are not having. There are also elements of political re-engineering. Submerged in our immigration policies is the belief that to maintain racial harmony, we need to keep the current population balance constant.”

He challenged the premise that S’pore needs a bigger population pointing out that

– “Singapore is already straining at the seams with a current resident population of five million … The economic assumption is that we can increase our GDP if we can accommodate more people … even doubling our population to 10 million people will not make things better. More likely, a larger population can only make matters worse.”

– “[C]omputer technology has made many manual operations in production obsolete. The key is to produce more with less manpower.”

Knowledge-based economy

“The great challenge … is that we have reached the limits of our skill-based model of growth. Singapore has to move from a skill to a knowledge-based economy. The products and services … are characterised by high technological content. To position ourselves for such an economy, Singapore devotes the greater part of our national budget to education and training.”

“When I was in school in the 1950s, only three out my O level class of 40 went on to university. Today, 30 per cent of a primary school cohort enrol in tertiary education. Raising our average educational level from primary to post-secondary should make a world of difference for our international competitiveness.”

“Our higher education levels and superior infrastructure enable us to compete in knowledge-based industries and services.”

Productivity

“I observe with some dismay that the manufacturing share of our GDP dropped from a high of 30 per cent in the 1980s to 20 per cent currently.”

“Our total factor productivity should be rising not stagnating. In my view, productivity and real wages of the bottom 20 per cent of our work force have not risen because our labour policies allow employers easy access to low wage foreign labour.”

He explains that for S’pore as a whole, there are costs to this easy access to cheap foreign labour, “If we add the cost of housing, transportation, health and other social services which employers have to provide for their foreign work force, they may be better off training and equipping their Singaporean employees to raise their productivity. Rising productivity enables workers to be paid more. Inflation sets in only when wages are raised without any increase in productivity.”

“Productivity can only be raised when CEOs … take direct charge of the production process. They have to be hands on, not resorting to outsourcing. Productivity should be the key KPI (key performance indicator) for the award of bonuses to CEOs and management.”

“Like any other country in the world, Singapore now competes in a global economy. In such an economy, importing cheap foreign labour is no longer a viable strategy. It is a dead end.”

“We have to grow through raising productivity, not higher headcount. We need to be smart enough to produce more with less. Our higher education levels and superior infrastructure enable us to compete in knowledge-based industries and services. We transformed ourselves in the 1970s from a labour to a skill-intensive economy.”

But he accepted that “raising total factor productivity .. is not easy. A Japanese scholar pointed out … that the optimum rate of productivity increase achieved by [Japan] averaged 4 per cent annually … Japanese are one of the most diligent people in the world.”

Why importing cheap labour is not the solution – it’s a race to the bottom

“Singapore now competes in a global economy. In such an economy, importing cheap foreign labour is no longer a viable strategy.  It is a dead end.”

“In a global economy, you will be competing not only with friends and classmates but with the best and brightest of your generation in India, China, Brazil, Russia and Eastern Europe. University graduates in China and India are willing to work for a tenth of what our young engineers and scientists expect. If we fail to raise our total factor productivity, Singapore would just be an also-ran in the race to be a knowledge-based economy. The window to raise total factor productivity through application of knowledge and training is fast closing with the opening up of India, China and Indonesia. Singapore has lost two decades relying on low-wage, low-skilled foreign labour to drive economic growth.”

What can help

– “Our managers and administrators are among the best paid in the world. They will have to get off their high horse and personally lead the drive for higher productivity. Outsourcing is a bad word in my vocabulary. Companies and government ministries should figure out how to train their staff and redesign jobs and processes to achieve more with less.”

– “[I]nterest free loans should be given to enterprises with clear roadmaps to re-equip and raise the productivity of their workers.

What he is against

“Grants should not be given to management (consultants) to do a job they are already paid to do.”

‘I am against job credits in any form because they are simply wage subsidies which do not raise productivity in any way. My personal observation is that job credits simply add to the bottom line for payment of bonuses to management who do not have to lift a finger to raise the productivity of their enterprises.” Based on this, I suspect he would also be against having a minimum-wage.

“The 2012 budget is politically adroit, replete with spending proposals which basically are income transfers from the taxpayer to the poorly paid, the disadvantaged and the aged. Income transfers are palliatives, temporary reliefs to abate rising social discontent. They do not help to raise productivity.”

Final warning

“We failed to bite the bullet in the 1980s to restructure our economy. There may be no second chance the next time around.”

————————-

*Ngiam was in the 1980s one of Lee Kuan Yew’s and Goh Keng Swee’s most trusted civil servants and if anyone, could be called a co-driver of S’pore’s drive from third world to first world, it would be he.

**The quotes are taken from a transcription published in BT.

S’pore is tops, but MSM does not report it

Analysts Maplecroft rates five countries at the “extreme” level of risk for the pandemic spread of influenza, with Singapore top, followed by the UK, South Korea, the Netherlands and Germany.

Singapore is rated the highest for the speed at which influenza could spread, because of its dense population (all those FTs?) and its status as a global travel hub.

BBC article.

Behind the $83 a month HDB flat

(Or “Mixed thoughts about the poor having to take out a HDB mortgage” or “What the HELL? PAP misses the plot!”)

In, I suppose, an attempt to show that ministers were not talking rubbish about someone earning less than a $1000 being able to afford a HDB flat (thanks be to a government subsidy, and forced savings via the CPF system), the constructive, nation-building ST had an article on how Mohammad Charlie Jasni who is earning $850 a month is able to afford a two-room HDB flat.

The analytical, compassionate, risk-adverse part of me agreed

– With the view articulated by TOC’s Uncle Leong that it would be better if Mohammad was allowed to lease, and not have pay a mortgage ($44 versus $83 a month)

  — It’s cheaper.

  — There is a possibility of him defaulting and losing all that he and his his wife have put in ($40,000 in CPF savings), “the probability of job loss, pay cut, sickness or accident, may be relatively higher than others … the likelihood of him defaulting on his mortgage over the next 30 years may be high”.

  — He and his wife would have some savings for the couple’s old age. He is only able to pay only $83 a month because his and his wif’e's CPF savings of $40,000 have been used up, reducing the amount owed to slightly more than $20,000.

– And with this comment on this TOC article thread, “I find it very CHILDISH for the government to glamorise a policy that enables a low income earner to own a HDB flat, and yet ignoring the fact that the same low income earner will face the bigger problems of making ends meet on the daily basic necessities like food and transport.

‘These low income earns may own a HDB flat but cannot survive paying the basic expenses in our daily life, and then end up dying of hunger… good policy meh? …”

On the other hand, the analytical, risk-taking side of me thinks that here is a couple who because of the CPF grant and forced savings have been given the chance to better themselves.

The couple can sell off the property after five years and make a good profit (at least $100,000) on the flat, even assuming a slightly weaker market. They can move to Johor, rent a place there, and he can commute. Alternatively in five years time, assuming he is allowed to rent the place out, he can use the rent money to rent a place in Johor, and commute. He could even go into business, while living in Johor.

The couple has options that leasing does not give them, albeit at greater risk. Many of the comments I read on this issue on the internet portray people like Mr Mohammad Charlie Jasni as passive and helpless. The one good thing the ST article shows is that this is not true. They are just as keen to better themselves as better-off, more fortunate S’poreans. In its Alice-in-wonderland way, the government is trying to help them out of a surreal place that is largely the creation of the government.

The issue is why is public housing so expensive: a two-room flat costs $99,200?, Note after $40,000 grant, the HDB loan is $59,220. On a 30-year mortgage at the HDB Concessionary Loan rate of 2.6%, the monthly repayment is $237. Mohammad is only able to pay $83 a month because the mortgage was reduced to slightly more than $20,000 because he and his wife have used up their CPF monies of $40,000. If they default …

But let’s celebrate Mr and Mrs Mohammad Charlie Jasni. They give the lie to the Hard Truth that only immigrants work harder and aspire to have a better life. They also give the lie to the casual assumption of many do-gooders that the poor are passive and helpless.

A reason not to help SMEs

Well when PAP and WP MPs. SDP activits and Tan Jee Say are worried about the fate of SMEs,all saying shumthing must be done to help the SMEs, then something must be done to help them?

Maybe not: Where small firms are most common, as around Europe’s southern periphery, their prevalence is sign of uncompetitive markets and low productivity … examines the problem of the stunted European business http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/03/productivity

Ah, what about the German SMEs? Well the Germans are different. They stated two world wars in the 20th century, lost both of them but 67 years after failing to create a Third Reich is now the dominant European power; restructured their economy when Eurozone interest rates were too high for Germany (they cut real wages and welfare payments, and raised productivity, unlike the lazy, lying, thieving Greeks who only know to riot, lie and steal); and sell to China the machinery to make goods that China exports.

S’poreans are not Germans. For starters, the German government, like the Germans, doesn’t believe in FTs to solve Germany’s vanishing workforce problem: 20% over the coming decades. The Germans believe in robots and moving manufacturing to eastern Europe (their M’sias and Indonesias).

Also unlike our SMEs, the most succesful German SMEs are global leaders in their very specialised fields. Finally most of our SMEs would not fit the German definition of SMEs. Ours would be classified as micro enterprises

Not quite correct, Tharman

(Or “Wrong, Minister”) (Updated at 9.20 am to explain the “premium”)

“The bequest goes to your loved ones, not to other CPF members and not to the Government. You get all of your capital back either through your monthly payouts or in a bequest that you leave to your family and loved ones.”

Err you don’t. What about the “premium”* that one pays to ensure that one is covered for life? This is “lost” if one dies too early to benefit fully from the annuity. The “premium” amounts to 10% of the amount in the Retirement Account (at age 55) for the Basic Plan and 30% for the old Balanced Plan. Both are not “peanuts”.

BTW1, I was not one of those who criticised or raised an eyebrow at Tharman’s remark that one could earn only $1,000 a month and still buy a HDB flat.

BTW2, I know that Tin Pei Ling is not helping to create sound-bites for Tharman, juz as she isn’t helping Vikram Nair with his jokes, Hri Kumar Nair with his research and MoE with gathering data on FT government scholars. She is focusing on helping the uncles and aunties in her self-styled SMC. By all accounts, she is doing a good job.

——-

*”Premium” is the amount that a CPF holder has to pay from his minimum sum in order to get life-long “assurance” of an annuity till death.I put the word “assurance” within quotation marks because technically if the CPF Plan that one is in goes bust, one’s annuity payments ceases. Taz the law.

“Subsidy” is NOT a four letter word

Many bloggers are upset that the govmin is giving S$1.1bn to SMRT and ComfortDelgro to help improve bus services. Seems to them, “subsidy” is a dirty word. Hmm, didn’t they get the idea that subsidies are always bad from the PAP idea, particularly one LKY?

But maybe, the PAP has changed its mind that the word “subsidy” is a dirty word. Reminds me of what Keynes is supposed to have said In response to an accusation of inconsistency: Keynes is often reported to have said “When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?”. More to the point, he is reputed to have said: “When circumstances change I change my mind. What do you do?”

Well the facts and circumstances have changed. The PAP’s share of the popular vote is only 60% and its perceived presedential candudate won by just 7000 votes or less than 1%.

I’m not complaining that the PAP is being pragmatic by addressing the hot issue of overcrowded public transport: I take the bus. I’m not one of those who don’t take the bus regularly, has one car per family member, doesn’t pay income tax, and bitches abt this subsidy.

BTW, I don’t own shares in either company, nor in SBS Transit. I never bot as I tot dividends might not be sustainable. Juz look at the share prices in recent years. The yield remains highish because share prices have collapsed i.e. dividend payments have fallen.

But now the 2011 dividend payments for ComfortDelgro and SBS Transist look sustainable.

Anyway, here’s an example of a subsidy. I own shares in HSBC which I’m glad took advantage of the European crisis to get a subsidy from the European Central Bank. Let the BBC’s Robert Preston tell the story,

“HSBC, widely perceived to be the strongest of the UK’s banks and one of the strongest in the world, borrowed €5.6bn from the ECB … The reason it may be controversial that British banks have borrowed so much from the ECB – a bit less than 4% of all the money on offer – is that the interest rate is so low, just 1%. So arguably eurozone taxpayers are subsidising UK financial institutions.

Global & ASEAN perspective on S’pore’s vanishing workforce

“Singapore labour force to start shrinking: DPM Teo” was the healine in Friday’s Today. The next decade will see the Singaporean workforce start shrinking, while more go into retirement, such that come 2030, there will be only six citizens starting their working lives for every 10 going into retirement. And beyond that, the Republic’s population will start to “decline sharply”. Article

 

The chart here shows that the following nations are all set to see declines of more than 10% in the expected change in working age population between 2010 and 2035. ; Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Poland, South Korea, Russia, Japan and Germany. In the last two cases, the decline is set to be 20%. Despite the comments of one LKY, the Japanese are happy and properous, happily ignoring his advice on demographics.

Well I don’t see waz wrong being in the company of  Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, South Korea, Japan and Germany. S’pore’s decline is much less than 10%, and it has the company of HK, Thailand, Denmark, Finland and China.

But maybe the government is worried about Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines? Don’t want them to be more successful than S’pore?

Whatever it is, maybe it’s about a variation of the theme behind this poem by Bertold Brecht, a famous playwright and Marxist activist (he was even a Hollywood screenwriter in the golden years of Hollywood in the 1930s):

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers Union

Had leaflets distributed …

Stating that the people

Had thrown away the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?