Millionaire ministers prefer to lock down economy to save lives seems to be the implication of u/m.
What do you think?
Dr Goh and his merry men
For all their academic brilliance Ah Loong and team have not advanced beyond tinkering with the framework that Dr Goh Keng Swee, Hon Swee Sen and Albert Winsemius devised. Evolution is fine to a point. But surely the world has undergone revolutionary change. When they were constructing their model of serving MNCs as a path to grow the economy, serving MNCs was “neo-colonialism”. Today even Red China serves as as the MNCs’ factory.
Problem S’pore, PAP face
Related posts
— Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh retired
— Dr Goh’s HK counterpart had similar views on MRT and other major issues
— Why S’pore industrialised in the 60s
— SG50: Three cheers for Goh Keng Swee
Remember, the 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)
And based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter
But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.
And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.
Part of Tharman’s FB post
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 
Eeerrrrrr….. something don’t looked right about the chart. Singapore have a smaller output loss than Japan and Germany? That cannot be right becos both of their Q2 GDP came in much better than SG’s.
yahoo (sg)/26 November 2020, 5:27 pm SGT/Rapid Transit System: LTA awards $932m building contract to Penta-Ocean/SINGAPORE – The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has awarded a $932.8 million civil contract for the construction of Johor Bahru–Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link to Penta-Ocean Construction.
It’s the virus, stupid!
Biden should have paraphrased Bill Clinton & used this as his campaign slogan.
Even if a country or city has totally zero regulations against the pandemic & full-on pro-biz policies, once a certain level of hospitalisations & deaths have been crossed (and keeps on rising), the general population will naturally cut back on daily & economic activities and go into siege mode.
The end result of demand destruction & job loss will still be the same, whether by fiat or by nature.
PS: The higher possible economic loss by Germany & Japan as depicted on FT’s chart might be due to including “debts and liabilities that govts took on”. So not just private or consumer sectors.
Not sure about Japan, but the German govt has already committed to over 1 trillion euros in debts & handouts, and has committed to borrowing/spending more next year.
output loss simply refers to the extent in the fall in GDP. Spending do cushion the fall in GDP but given the much larger commitments by both Germany and Japan, the output loss in these 2 cannot possibly be greater than Singapore’s. Debts / liabilities does not add or substract from changes in output.
You’re correct if we’re talking about output loss = decline in GDP & economic activity (as measured in $$$).
But the chart by FT above is talking about |GDP loss| + stimulus packages + govt debts/liabilities.
For this chart, FT’s definition of “total economic loss” (their words) is not the conventional economics textbook definition. LOL.