In cyberspace, from the early noughties onwards, S’poreans were telling him and his millionaire ministers that we needed better quality FTs, not Trash by the cattle truck load. Err we were “unhappy” people according to him.
Only yesterday did he agree with us saying
“We have to manage the inflow carefully, and make sure that the people who come can integrate into our society, make sure they have the abilities and skills to contribute to our economy, and make sure their hearts are in the right place and they will become good Singaporeans. We are a country, not simply a city or an economy.”
Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-has-to-manage-population-growth-carefully-pm-lee-8888750
What took him so long?
Worse, despite his double first in Maths, he got problem in counting, a bit like Uncle Leong:
About 30,000 babies are born as citizens every year and, to top up, about 20,000 foreigners become new citizens annually.
With about 50,000 new citizens every year, Singapore can “almost sustain a stable population”, he added.
Err what about the PRs and those on employment passes? Why they not included in the 50,000 bodies needed to “sustain a stable population”. After all, PRs are part of the resident population.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 
Actually he is being very analytical about it, or his scholar running dogs are the ones feeding him the happy juice.
As he mentioned in same speech, TFR is about 1.3 — which means the current 30K babies per annum represents 1.3.
Add to that is 20K of new citizens. Hence total of 50K is equivalent to roughly TFR of 2.1 which is the population replacement rate for developed countries.
This is what he means by “almost sustain a stable population”, with population referring to citizens.
But really, most of the new citizens are economic refugees. When bad times hit or better opportunities occur elsewhere, many will up & go. Many are also 1-citizen families with a spouse maintaining native passport, and not registering sons as Sinkies to avoid NS.
Hey yr maths pretty good. I’m not asking u to calculate but how would I go about calculating the population of S’pore (citizens) if birth rate had been 2.1 since the 70s.
Juz trying to see if population would be around present total population.