Wee Shu Min [Politiks][Singapore][Policy]

[BlueFlix]

Increasing productivity in Singapore

http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2010/03/ ... apore.html

There is now a strategic thrust to improve productivity in Singapore, to become less dependent on low cost foreign workers. Some people are sceptical. They say that this slogan is nice to say, but difficult to achieve. In some respect, they are right. The productivity campaign was first launched in Singapore three decades ago. Why has it not made much progress during this time?

I want to give a honest view, although some people may not like to hear it. We have a culture in Singapore of saying nice things, but not addressing the root of the problem. This is why we were not able to improve the birth rate, in spite of top level priority and massive effort expended for more than two decades. Improving productivity is another challenge that has not been overcome.

What is the root of the problem? We tend to take a theoretically approach towards solving our problems. We can say nice things and adopt strategies crafted by consultants, who do not really know the problem. Their solutions come from the text books, but are not practical. Some people say that this is the price to pay for letting scholars run the country.

We need to look at the root of the problem, before we can understand and find lasting solution. To improve productivity, we have to overcome the risk adverse mindset of Singaporeans.

Many people feel safe in keeping the status quo and are quite good in identifying reasons to keep the status quo. They will not make a change, unless the decision is made by someone at the top. Singaporeans are generally good at identify problems, including imaginary problems, rather than implementing change and improvements .

Singapore is also a wasteful society. We spend a lot of money on technology and management consultants, instead of implementing simple and practical improvements. Many people do not want to take the responsibility, so they pass the buck to the consultants, who take the big fees and also do not find any solution.

Can this mindset be changed? Yes, it can. The best way is to require a change to be done and to give a small budget for the change. You will be surprised how resourceful people can be, if they have limited budget and the responsible to solve the problem. i.e. no excuse accepted.

Tan Kin Lian


Ex-Con said...
Actually I would say that this productivity is NOT really the problem at all!!

The fall in productivity did not happen by chance, neither by singaporeans suddenly becoming lazy or stupid. It is merely a side-effect of a policy to open the flood gates to foreign workers at all levels.

The productivity drive largely succeeded in the 70s and 80s becoz there was a limited supply of workers. This time round, as long as PAP refuse to dramatically close the gates to foreign workers and impose things like minimum wages and strict labour ethics, this productivity drive will be just a big fat wayang.

In fact, PAP is merely using this productivity as a distraction for fundamental problems with their labour policies. And lagi best, the govt throws the problem at us --> see, you people better work harder and smarter, otherwise if no improvement in productivity we will continue to mass import foreigners!

It is the stubborn refusal by PAP to admit that uncontrolled influx of cheap foreigners led to the drop in productivity. And they would love to continue their old ways, except for the upcoming GE acting as a speed bump.

[boing]

Lower income also saw incomes rise: Tharman

By ANGELA TAN

SINGAPORE - Allegations that the government's growth at all costs policies in the last decade depressed the incomes of low income groups is 'wrong and misleading', Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Finance told Parliament on Thursday.

Mr Tharman said over the last decade, Singapore achieved a healthy average growth rate of 5 per cent - a rate few economists would consider to have been excessive or beyond Singapore's potential.

He said Singapore was able to achieve this healthy average growth because it grew much faster from 2004 to 2007, when GDP grew at an average of 8 per cent per year.

This offset the series of downturns that experienced earlier in the decade - the global dot-com bust in 2000, then with 9/11, and again when SARS hit the region in 2003.

Mr Tharman said by allowing the economy to grow rapidly in the second half of the decade, the government was able to bring unemployment down and grow the incomes of Singaporeans.

'The resident unemployment rate, which was above 6.0 per cent in late 2003, gradually fell to 2.4 per cent by the end of 2007,' he said.

He said lower income households saw their incomes rise, although by less than the median households, i.e., the 50th percentile of Singaporean households.

The lower income households saw all their increase over the three years from 2006 to 2008, when their incomes grew by about 16 per cent in real terms.

'Taking into account the decline in their incomes earlier in the decade as well as during last year's recession, they ended up the decade with total growth of incomes of about 7 per cent in real terms,' Mr Tharman said.

------------ End of Article ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really? As an example, my father is a blue-collar worker and he earns the exact same monthly basic pay as he did 20 years ago. Taking into consideration bonuses, CPF cuts, and overtime pay, his gross pay has actually dropped significantly. I understand that this is the same for many, if not most, low-income workers.

"Wrong and misleading"? I certainly do not think so.

[BlueFlix]

The TRUTH about Productivity....

http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ivity.html

When they talk about increasing productivity, it always about how the Singaporean worker should work harder and better. The poor Singapore elderly cleaner should be more efficent and work faster otherwise he should be replaced by a young foreign according to MP Ong Ah Heng - that was what he did to old cleaners after a single complaint from his residents.

“I know of one family who complain the cleaners in their precinct are lazy and too old. They don’t want local workers who are old, they want young foreign workers. To satisfy the demand, I changed the local workers to foreign workers. Foreign workers are not a burden to us. Their presence here is not negative. Without foreign workers, things will be worse,” - MP Ong Ah Heng in Parliament.

Yes, even when you're in your seventies, you should be as fast and as nimble as the 20 year old from China that is what the PAP govt expects of you otherwise you don't have spurs in your hide and will be seen as lazy. It is interesting that MP Ong chooses to use cleaners who are paid $800 a month to illustrate his point ....Before I go on to the points I'll be making, let me ask you a simple question : how productive was President Nathan last year to deserve his $3M paycheck? Let us not fall into this trap - that our well being is linked to our productivity and if we have not been paid well it is we haven't been productive enough....
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Kenneth Feinberg[Link] is Obama's "pay czar". After the US govt bailed out major banks, Fienberg was appointed to make sure bankers don't go back to their old bad habits of paying themselves tens of millions given the outrage among the general public for the bailout. Yesterday Fienberg appeared on CNBC because Maria Bartiromo was doing a segment on Wells Fargo executives wanting to double their own pay. Because Wells Fargo had already returned the TARP money, Feinberg has no juristriction over them and can't do anything about it - all he could do was give his opinion on the matter. This was what he said. Very often bankers would come to him to authorise fat bonuses or pay hikes saying that the executive is "especially talented" or he might be poached up by a foreign bank. He would ask for proof this "talent" and in every single case he found the person replaceable without loss to the company. It was mostly, in his own words,"spin" - bankers over the years have been very creative at manufacturing justifications for their high salaries even as they were about to cause a lot of economic pain to the rest of the population through their careless lending. Buffett asked why the CEO pay has gone from 50 times the lowest paid worker in the company in the 1950s to 500 then to 5000 times - is the CEO today 100 times more productive today? Not possible.
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When the issue of Singapore's competitiveness surfaced again this year, our leaders cited as examples how waitresses at restaurants can be more productive, our $800 a month aged cleaners should work faster and harder, etc They have implicitly put the burden of competitiveness on the shoulders of ordinary Singaporeans - calling upon the lowly salary earners to gear up ...upskill, reskill, multi-skill, (Lim Swee Say has shown many skills to earn his millions?). Singapore has the highest income inequality in the developed world with the highest income earners forming a disproportionate amount of the cost in our system. We shouldn't be worried whether the $800 a month cleaner has done enough to deserve his pay - we should be asking what President Nathan has achieved last year to get his $3M. Are our ministers productive?..Are they multi-skilled? Have our bankers monopolised the NETS payment system and are making easy money by charging for every NETS electronic transaction? Should anti-trust regulation be used on them? Does the SMRT CEO who is granted a monopoly to operate our trains deserve her millions for squeezing us like cattle during the rush hour? Why is the burden of competition put on ordinary Singaporeans yet again? Why isn't anyone asking if we can be more competitive by slashing govt fees, cost of services provided by state own monopolies, etc. Scrutizing the performance of our cleaners, factory workers, waitresses and the ordinary Singaporeans and asking them to be cheaper, better, faster is going to do little for our competitveness when the fat unproductive over-compensated segment of our economy drives up our costs.

[BlueFlix]

Bankers Blow $20 Billion Faster Than Gamblers

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... DrNA3i.4uY

March 4 (Bloomberg) -- The big buzz in Singapore is about the casinos beginning to dot the city-state.

Singapore prefers to call them “integrated resorts.” Gambling is what it is, though. Welcoming Las Vegas tycoons Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn is intended to woo tourists and diversify the economy.

It’s not exactly a new idea. The truth is that Singapore has been gambling for some time now, and not very well.

The die was cast when the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., which manages more than $100 billion of state currency reserves, bet big on Zurich-based UBS AG. It took three days to agree to prop up debt-laden UBS in 2007. It may take 10 years to recoup that $10 billion.

Singapore isn’t alone in massive losses that may reshape markets -- and perhaps for the better.

Two years ago, sovereign wealth funds were heralded as saviors of world markets. That was when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. seemed too big to fail. It was a quainter time, when Iceland was a country, not a failed hedge fund, and American- style capitalism still had some appeal.

The thinking then was that the trillions of dollars that resource- and cash-rich governments were pouring into markets would out-Greenspan the “Greenspan put.”

Safety for Gamblers

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan liked to rescue markets with lower rates when things got dicey. Likewise, investors figured this almost infinite source of demand would support riskier assets and stabilize markets. Capitalism suddenly seemed safe for all gamblers.

Markets had a new shock absorber and it appeared to work brilliantly. As the global crisis heated up and banks shuddered, government investment arms helped support Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS, as well as Barclays Plc, Credit Suisse Group AG and Morgan Stanley.

Then the roof fell in. Investments totaling more than $69 billion by state investment funds produced $20 billion in realized and paper losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Blowing that much money means managers of these funds will be under greater scrutiny than ever.

China Investment Corp. is the big money in this tale, since China has $2.4 trillion of reserves. It still has explaining to do over a $3 billion investment in Blackstone Group LP in 2007. Blackstone shares have fallen 52 percent since Jan. 1, 2008.

$4.8 Billion Loss

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority may face a $4.8 billion paper loss when it’s forced to convert its so-called Citigroup equity units to shares starting this month. In Singapore, Temasek Holdings Pte, a state-owned investment company that oversees $120 billion, sold its shares in Bank of America Corp. -- BofA bought Merrill Lynch, in which Temasek invested -- for a $4.6 billion loss in early 2009.

Such investments may pay off in the long run. For example, in the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.’s annual report, published in September, Chief Investment Officer Ng Kok Song said he still has “confidence” in the long-term prospects of the UBS investment. GIC declined to comment for a March 3 Bloomberg article.

Expect to see far greater conservatism on the part of governments investing overseas. It’s not such a bad turn of affairs. This whole idea that massive state investment funds would save capitalism was always a bit surreal. It’s a wonder the free-market crowd was ever peddling it.

Reverse Thatcherism

Let’s call it what it is: Thatcherism in reverse. During the 1980s, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher championed a process of selling national assets, arguing that private managers create more wealth than public ones. Recently, we have seen a kind of renationalization of companies across borders. Is this how capitalism is really supposed to work?

If so, tensions will rise markedly. Would the U.S. sit idly if China went shopping for big stakes in Silicon Valley? What about Australia, New Zealand and Canada as foreign governments consider buying key resource companies? How might Japan or South Korea react to acquisitions of their banks?

These questions were touchy before the worst global crisis since the 1930s. Its fallout makes them even harder to tackle as nations turn inward to boost employment and shelter populations from global shocks.

This year has served up its fair share of disorientation. Look no further than market chatter about Greece turning to China for a bailout. After all, China’s cache of reserves dwarfs what the International Monetary Fund has on hand to deploy.

Looming Crisis

If the doomsayers are correct that an even bigger crisis is looming, sovereign wealth funds may be expected to save the day. As the world shifts from economies that are too big to fail to those that are too big to save, it will be tempting to access all that state money sitting around. Greece is one thing. Think of the cost of bailing out a $1.6 trillion economy like Spain or even larger ones.

Governments aren’t meant to dominate markets in the long run. The global crisis brought them in to stabilize things, and greater regulation is needed to avoid another meltdown in the not-so-distant future.

When we talk about exit strategies, though, we should think about more than winding down stimulus efforts. We also should consider whether governments really should dominate the global finance game in the years ahead. Talk about gambling with capitalism’s future.

[BlueFlix]

Some solutions to population growth and foreign workers

http://treeofprosperity.blogspot.com/20 ... h-and.html

Today I will present a solution for population growth and foreign workers.

Population Growth

Population growth can stimulated by asking ourselves firstly, how much GDP will we allocate into having future generations of Singaporeans. Russians, apparently, are willing to allocate 1% of to stimulate population growth. Whether this 1% comes from education or defense, it does'nt matter, figure this number out and stick with it for the next 10 years.

When a Singapore couple have a baby, the mother gets up to 6 months no-pay leave. They need to raise the kid for a year on their own, but one year later, the parents can receive a bonus equal to the pool divided by the number of new babies made last year. This is a one-shot, bullet payment into their bank accounts. At 1% GDP, this number should be quite significant.

This will incentivise Chinese couples to have kids in inauspicious years, prevent overcrowding of resources and eliminate discrimination against working mothers.

Foreign workers

Yes, foreign workers keep many Singaporeans poor by lowering costs but they also contribute to the dynamism of the Singapore economy. When the government raise the levies, they get hammered and lose votes.

Let's look at Low Thia Khiang's solution of the dependency ratio and then add a price setting mechanism to push the onus of cost setting to employers. This is much like the COE mechanism but now its applied to foreign workers.

Governments should only decide how many foreign worker permits Singapore can accept based on the tolerance of the citizens. Every year, HR companies will bid for foreign worker permits. They will set a number of licenses and how much they are willing to pay. Bidding is done in one pool and banks bid in the same category as the construction sector. Minimum bid per head is a low $100.

Price discovery of the value of the foreign worker is based on the bids of the employer. They decide how much they are willing to pay for foreign workers, after which they will pay in one lump sum of the bid.

The government will stop screening foreign workers and instead screen for criminal records and diseases. Employers will bid for licenses and then hire from abroad, approval will be streamlined and determined by whether employers have the permit or not.

Proceeds from the bids will determine how much governments should pay for productivity improvements.

By the same token, rather than spend money paying civil servants to screen foreign workers, allow them to pay for PR status. Allow about 10k to 15k of foreign workers who have spent at least 2 years in Singapore to take up PR status by bidding for this. When they succeed, their employer will no longer need to have a permit to hire them so they can get higher pay. This may even force competitive bidding to become more than $50,000 per PR status.

For citizen conversion, allow PRs of at least 2 years to bid for citizenship. Have a low number 1,000 citizenship licenses for bidding. This number can even hit $200,000 in a bullish economy.

Share proceeds with existing Singaporeans with income tax offsets or CPF credits.

[BlueFlix]

Breeding a subsidy mentality in housing

http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2010/yax-1098.htm

Amid the hue and cry about rising home prices and all the speculation as to whom to blame for pushing up prices, I think Singaporeans are failing to see a monster of a problem developing before our very eyes.

We have become addicted to government subsidies. Experience from everywhere else has shown that subsidies are very hard to wean people off from. Even when they undermine the fiscal position of the state, a huge political cost is involved in trying to end them. Governments have fallen, riots broken out, blockades erected and the entire stability of the state sent reeling when attempts are made to remove subsidies.

Over the long term, subsidies are untenable. Over the short term too, they have damaging effects: they distort what should be rational economic decisions.

What is even crazier is that this has happened under the watch of the People's Action Party, whose political philosophy, we are have been told over decades, is that of self-reliance and hard work.

By now, I think, almost all Singaporeans are familiar with the various grants given out by the Housing and Development Board. This webpage from the HDB gives the details:

http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10321p.nsf ... enDocument

The main grant is for family units whose two core persons are both Singapore citizens and who have never enjoyed a grant before. They get S$30,000 towards buying their first flat.

They get S$10,000 more if the flat is within 2 kilometres of their parents' home.

The income ceiling is the same as that for getting an HDB flat: household income of S$8,000 a month. At this level, a great majority of Singaporeans will enjoy this subsidy when they make their first HDB purchase. This is not a subsidy for the needy; it is for nearly everybody.

There is also something called an Additional Housing Grant, which is a separate grant on top of the aforementioned. Households whose monthly income is under S$5,000 are eligible, though the grant quantum is on a sliding scale up to a maximum of S$40,000 for the lowest-income (S$1,500 or less).

In late January 2010, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, in announcing the increase in the Additional Housing Grant from the previous S$30,000 to S$40,000, said that with the increase, some 8,000 households annually would benefit. [1]

What does "8,000 households annually" mean? What percentage of Singaporeans would qualify for the Additional Housing Grant? Is that a large percentage or not?

In attempting to grasp the significance of this figure, I tried to compare it to the annual demand for ownership flats as reported by the HDB in their Annual Report. Over the last three years, this has averaged about 10,000 flats per year. The HDB defines "demand" as "bookings received by HDB for 2-room and bigger flats under the various allocation exercises, as well as bookings for Design, Build and Sell scheme flats." [2]

At first glance, 8,000 eligible out of an annual demand of 10,000 suggests that even the Additional Housing Grant is a scheme that throws money like confetti to all and sundry.

However, the details complicate such a simplistic conclusion. The Additional Housing Grant can be used for resale flats, but not for second-time purchases, whereas HDB's 10,000-figure for demand includes second-time purchases, but excludes resale transactions. Hence, it is not possible to compare the two figures. Nevertheless, one is left with the distinct impression that not only do all Singaporeans' first-time flat purchases get an assist from the first grant, perhaps a majority also get the Additional Housing Grant.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the great majority of Singaporeans depend on subsidies to get a roof over their heads. We're breeding a culture of dependency.

This cannot be tenable. I'm not against subsidies in principle, but it should only be for a small percentage of the population to mitigate extremes of poverty. Dishing out subsidies -- and the schemes are permanent -- to well over half the population cannot be fiscally responsible.

Unless.... they are not subsidies.

* * * * *


For the discussion below, let P be the price that Singaporean first-time buyers pay, and Q be the price others pay. Let G be the difference between P and Q. Therefore G represents the various grants.

What do I mean when I say unless G is not a subsidy?

One can see it another way -- as a dual pricing scheme, under which Singaporeans who are first-time home-buyers pay prices that are S$30,000 to $80,000 less than non-Singaporeans and Singaporean second-time buyers.

This changes one's understanding of it completely, and now it sounds defensible. Why shouldn't a state favour its own citizens? Isn't there a social good to help first-time buyers acquire a home to raise a family?

Yet, it is not just another way to look at it. There is a right way and a wrong way. Which is right depends on what the cost of building the flats is.

If the cost is P, then selling the flats to first-time buyers does not involve a subsidy. P is then a discounted price that represents a waiving of profit. The corollary is that when flats are sold to non-citizens and second-time buyers at price Q, the HDB makes a profit equivalent to G.

But the HDB has maintained for years that it does not make a profit on its prices. If we give credit to these denials, than Q -- the usual prices -- represents more or less the cost of building the flats. P is a below-cost price, in which case G is a real subsidy from the common national purse, a habit that eventually will lead to fiscal suicide.

* * * * *


But what else can be done? How else are first-time buyers going to be able to afford their first home?

This is where the HDB needs to reevaluate its mission. It needs to set lower cost targets for design. For example, do we really need the thick reinforced concrete "household shelters"? Do we need brick walls to separate the various rooms? Can't we use lightweight partitions like in the offices where we work? Won't putting up lightweight partitions also increase productivity, to use the latest buzzword?

We need to be able to build cheaper flats. Too much of Singaporeans' disposable income is spent on an investment that does not give productive returns.

The policy direction should be not to build costly flats with bells and whistles and then dishing out subsidies so people can buy them. Instead, it should be to build them at an affordable cost, so that no subsidies are necessary.

[BlueFlix]

Wrong answers from the wrong questions

http://callantham.org/blog/2010/3/9/wro ... tions.html

The Straits Times, true to its form of operating as a government mouthpiece, publishes this gem of an opinion piece disguised as "Prime News":

MR I.B. YUSOF, a father of four young children, sold three Housing Board flats in nine years, netting $90,000 in profits.

Flush with cash after the first two sales, Mr Yusof, 44, took out a hefty bank loan and upgraded to a four-room flat in 2005. At the time, the sole breadwinner, who has a hearing-impaired wife, earned only $800 per month. He hoped to get a better job to pay for the new flat.

Unlike in some countries, where people are often too poor to rent - let alone buy - their first home, homelessness in Singapore is often the result of personal irresponsibility, stemming from avarice or divorce and dysfunction.

The story of Mr Yusof is true, but the conclusion is a swing and a miss. Miss Basu, the author of the opinion piece, made the conclusion that homelessness is self-inflicted in most cases when he can neither prove nor disprove the claim, and also manages to define divorcee as a "personal irresponsibility". ST publishing this as "Prime News" is just further proof that journalism is not practised at the paper that most Singaporeans "trust".

Aside from the willful redefinition of personal irresponsibility, it is also apparent to me that Miss Basu has failed to ask the right questions. HDB policies allowed Mr Yusof to sell his flats in order to realise a profit on his assets; this has been repeatedly heralded by the PAP government. If HDB confined itself to its original goal of providing functional and affordable public housing for citizens, this scenario might not have materialised.

Instead, HDB flats are marketed as "assets that grow over time", not the neccessity that a roof over your head is. This strategy has been largely successful, and we are now reaping the whirlwind with increasing costs of new and resale flats. The HDB policies do not encourage home ownership, but instead promotes the use of a flat as an asset that can be used to increase personal wealth.

Other policies such as denying access of rental flats to single parents, based upon the fear of "an explosion in divorce rates or illegitimate births", discloses the naivete in policy planning. Divorce is an unfortunate circumstance, but hardly an irresponsible move, and does not merit penalties. The undeserved social stigma is absurd enough without further punishment in national policies. And this goes without being questioned by Mr Basu but used as an unflinching justification of the policies.

This article is almost a personification of why the public remain largely uninformed and uneducated on policy issues due to dogmatic defense of the PAP's policies, and further evidence, if we need any more, of why a free press would do more to elevate political discourse one controlled by governmental interests.



I don't understand the "$90,000 in profits" What is there to profit if now you pay $200,000 more just to lease another HDB flat. I would say that flats are pretty much unaffordable now, and as a graduate, earning $3000 a month, (Family making $72k a year) a HDB flat is easily 5 times annual salary of a couple, or 10 times that of a Single breadwinner, don't forget there are other expenses in having a family. If housing is more than 7 times that of annual salary of other countries, there would be a riot!

I don't understand Mr Lee's policy that "owning" or rather leasing a Flat and "having the price appreciate" over the years is a good policy. It just means that now, prices of homes are so expensive that young people who do not have rich parents can never afford homes except for those in far away places where they have to pay ERP and lots of $$ for transportation to get to work. I personally don't care if my home appreciate as I still have to live in it not matter what price, and if it appreciates and I don't own many many homes, it just means that the other rich folks who are renting or buying more homes and selling them are at a much more advantageous position. Housing price appreciating only matters for PRs who want to buy a home, rent it out and selling it with a notion of never returning to Singapore again, to realize the profit.

On a side note, I realize that public transportation is getting a lot more expensive than before too.

[BlueFlix]

Productivity! Productivity! Productivity!

http://www.bradleyfarless.com/2010/03/p ... qus_thread

That's a word you see constantly in the newspapers here in Singapore lately. The government wants Singaporeans to be more productive. If Singaporeans don't become more productive, the world will end. Singapore Inc. will fall to ruin and the country will have to shut down. Well, that's the picture they're painting, but is it really that serious?


The Government wants Singaporeans to double their productivity this year, so that it can slow down growth of the foreign-labour workforce, and become less dependent on foreign workers, he said.

But, even if this is achieved, it would still result in a trade-off - fewer foreign workers would mean slower economic growth in the short term of just 3 to 4 per cent per year in the coming decade, he said.

via my paper, Monday January 25, 2010

Lowering Singapore's reliance on foreign workers is something that most Singaporeans want to have happen. Why shouldn't they? Singapore is Singapore after all. It's a country, not a company, and Singaporeans want that country back.

In the quote above Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said that Singaporeans have to double their productivity before they will start lowering the importation of foreign labor. Otherwise, Singapore's economy will stop growing as quickly. I'm no economist, but what's wrong with having a lower economy growth rate for a few years if it will give Singaporeans what they want? It's common sense that there will be a trade-off. You can't empty a country of thousands of workers and expect everything to be the same. But, that doesn't mean Singapore will go bankrupt and fall into the ocean. It just means that things will have to slow down and develop at a more natural pace.

Singapore's been developing at a breakneck speed, unnaturally, through the importation of foreign labor. There will come a point where foreign labor importation will have to be stopped for Singapore to assume a natural growth rate using its own people. There has to come a point where the sacrifices Singaporeans have made to build up their country will have to pay off, so that future generations of Singaporeans can enjoy a prosperous country.

This massive growth cannot go on forever. As much as I enjoy the idea of Singapore providing opportunities to people from poorer countries, it will have to eventually focus on taking care of its own people. The current policy is damaging to the morale of native born citizens who have to compete with foreigners in their own country just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. I just don't understand why there are foreigners getting jobs in Singapore when every single citizen isn't accounted for first. Isn't the purpose of government to see that the needs of citizens are met?

Also, I question his claim that productivity needs to be doubled. There's only so much work one person can do in a given time period. What is he expecting? For Singaporeans to work 16 hours per day, 7 days a week? There's a stereotype that Asians work themselves to death, and it's lines of thought like this that lend it weight. Think of all of the first world Western nations. How many of them have work hours that are anywhere close to what already exists in Singapore? And they want Singaporeans to increase their productivity on top of that?


He cited from personal experience a woman whom he met in a cafe in Brussels, Germany, who served 10 customers by herself and multi-tasked as cleaner, cashier and coffee-maker.

"Here, you have one person serving one customer. We're not fast enough."

via my paper, Monday January 25, 2010

Seriously? Where does he go that each person at each table has their own personal server, that stands by through the entire dining experience to handle their every need?

Everywhere I've been in Singapore I've seen people performing multiple tasks, and in almost any restaurant, the waiters and waitresses double as cleaners after the store closes, and a shift manager may double as a cashier. In most establishments here in Singapore I even see the manager taking orders and clearing tables.

There's no person that's hired just to make coffee in the morning before the restaurant opens and then to stand around observing the coffee pot all day.

Again, how much work do they expect one person to do? Perhaps some time in the future we'll develop technology that will allow people to have four arms, or to be in two places at once, but until then, a realistic approach has to be taken.

There are people all over Singapore doing just as much as that German waitress, and for longer hours each day. Whether those people are foreigners or locals is irrelevant, since in that quote he's talking about increasing productivity with what's already available in the country.


"Productivity means working smarter, working harder, but it's not good enough, so we have new skills. What that would be, we have to try and discover, what can we do," he added.

To that end, Singapore must acquire new capabilities in new areas, which the Economic Strategies Committee will recommend in a report to be released next Monday, he said.

via my paper, Monday January 25, 2010

So, what does this mean? They're trying to find a way for a person to be a janitor and do data entry at the same time? I know that's a simplistic view of it, but I don't think any business in Singapore is letting employees idle away their hours doing things that aren't relevant to what they were hired for.

Like I said before, I'm no economist, at least not in the professional sense, but all of this seems like rubbish to me. It seems like a fluff issue that was created just to give politicians something to talk about as an excuse for why foreign labor can't be reduced, or at the least be maintained at the current level. The continued importation of foreign labor means faster economic growth, higher property costs / values, more taxes being paid, and higher government salaries.

[BlueFlix]

PAP Minister dodges the question by pretending to answer a different question

http://singaporeanskeptic.blogspot.com/ ... on-by.html

Look at how that crafty PAP mini-star Lim Hwee Hua answered a question regarding GIC's dismal performance. She mentions that losses do happen otherwise GIC wouldn't be able to grow. Yes, losses do happen but the issue is not whether GIC can totally avoid losses. The real issue is why GIC consistently loses a lot of money and underperforms against the market indexes. This is a serious issue which our crafty mini-star dodged and which PAP MP Ho Geok Choo didn't push further. Both politicians didn't do their job in addressing a serious issue but why should they care? They are getting a nice 'performance' based raise in their pay.

No GIC losses? 'Not realistic'
THE Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) takes it 'very seriously' every time there is a decline in the value of its portfolio or an individual investment, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua said yesterday. But it is 'not realistic' to avoid losses on every investment as that would require GIC to be completely risk-averse, added Mrs Lim, who is Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport. Responding to Madam Ho Geok Choo's (West Coast GRC) request in Parliament for an update on GIC's investments, Mrs Lim said that while the state investment agency has made losses on some investments, it has made gains on others. GIC's portfolio slumped 20 per cent in the financial year ended March last year, but it said in September that it had recovered more than half of those losses. Since then, some GIC losses have hit the headlines: its investment in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, an apartment complex in Manhattan that was foreclosed on, and a paper loss from its investment in Swiss banking giant UBS. But Mrs Lim reiterated yesterday that the Government will not judge GIC's performance by individual deals but rather on how well its overall portfolio has done across market cycles.

[BlueFlix]

Government Statistics

http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/03/11 ... tatistics/

In the recent Budget speech 2010, the Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam claimed that the lax foreign workers policy had reduced unemployment and raised wages for Singaporeans. He said the huge influx of foreign workers had enabled the median income per household member to rise significantly for the four years from 2005 to 2008. Median income grew by 20%, adjusted for inflation.

Minister Tharman added that lower income households also saw their incomes rise which took place over the three years from 2006 to 2008 – when their incomes grew by about 16% in real terms. They ended with total growth of incomes of about 7% in real terms over the 10 year period from 2000 to 2009.

Based on the simple observation that “the three years from 2006 to 2008 in which wages showed healthy growth for our lower income families corresponded to the period when the foreign workforce was growing most rapidly”, the Finance Minister claimed that the foreign workers policy had raised wages for Singaporeans.

This brings to mind the Progress Report of the Ministerial Committee on Low Wage Workers released in June 2009. In that report, the high-level committee claimed that low wage workers have seen increase in their wages. It suggested that monthly wage for the 20th percentile employed resident had seen a 9.2% increase in monthly wage from $1,200 in 2006 to $1,310 in 2008.

However, the claim was soundly debunked by netcitizens[1]. The reported monthly wages were in nominal terms, i.e. they were not adjusted for increases in the prices of goods and services over the two year period. Using the inflation rate of 9.5% experienced by the lowest 20% income group, low wage workers were in fact worse off in real income terms.

One cannot help but notice the two different statistics used in measuring the income of Singaporean workers in the two government reports. It is most puzzling why the Finance Minister chose to use average income per (working and non-working) household member as a proxy for wages for working Singaporeans when there are far more appropriate statistical data available.

Even if we were to choose to give Minister Tharman the benefit of the doubt, the statistics used could not convince that there is definite rise in the living standards of the median Singaporean citizen. Two points were aptly provided by the Reform Party in its Response to the Singapore Budget, 2010[2].

Firstly, the definition of residents includes PRs and not just citizens though the minister talked about Singaporean households. Over the past decade the resident population grew by 15% while the resident labour force grew by approximately 25%. This was undoubtedly due to the surge in new citizens and PRs as a result of the government’s liberal immigration policies. The majority of these new residents did not have dependents (hence the much faster rise in the resident labour force than the resident population) and all of them would have had jobs so the proportion of working adults in the average resident household would have risen. As a result we would have seen an increase in real median income per household member without any real increase in the median incomes of Singaporean citizens.

Secondly, the Minister’s figure excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60. If their incomes fell during this period or their numbers increased as a proportion of total households), due not only to the aging population but also because of the diminished employment opportunities for senior citizens as a result of the government’s open-door foreign worker policy, then excluding this group would distort the figure for median income per household member and make it look better than it really is.

Finally, Correlation does not imply causation. It is spurious to suggest the high growth in foreign labour force increased the wages of Singaporeans simply from the correlation between the two variables. As we know, our exported-orientated economy is highly leveraged to the global economic environment. The exogenous factor we all know is the higher external demand which resulted in increased demand for labour resources in the Singapore economy. Wage increases would have been higher had it not for the lax foreign labour policy which capped the wages of lower-end and middle-level Singaporean workers.

In the progress report of the Ministerial Committee on Low Wage Workers mentioned earlier, it glaringly failed to take into account the impact inflation on nominal earnings. This and the inappropriate statistics used in the Budget speech call into some serious questions on the misleading use of government statistics, which may misrepresent the situation on the ground to Singaporeans.

[BlueFlix]

Homelessness Is Not A Dirty Word

http://lianain.blogspot.com/2010/03/hom ... -word.html

In 2006, we moved to Hong Kong and spent the better part of our year there getting to know a group of homeless people. Their stories were complex, their personalities as diverse as their backgrounds.

There were 19-year-old boys and 65-year-old grandfathers. Truck drivers, deliverymen, chefs, waiters, factory workers, failed businessmen… you name it. Some had never attended school. A few had been to college. There were gambling addicts, and recovering drug users. One man we met was battling mental health issues. Still others had simply lost their jobs and fallen on hard times. Some people were easier to like. They genuinely wanted to turn their lives around and were willing to do whatever it took. But there was also a handful who could not be helped, was impossible to help. They were lazy and manipulative and had adopted a crutch mentality.

The point I’m trying to make is that no two homeless people are alike. There’s no single reason why they’ve ended up on the streets; no one-size-fits-all solution to all their problems. It’s like that in Hong Kong, like that in Singapore. Like that the world over.

Surely anyone who’s bothered doing any research into the issue of homelessness should know this? Surely The Straits Times’ Radha Basu should know better?

In a recent article, Ms Basu points out that the number of homeless people in Singapore has doubled in the past two years, and that in 2009 alone, some 300 individuals and families sought help from the government.

All fine and good. But then she jumps straight to this conclusion:

“Unlike in some countries, where people are often too poor to rent - let alone buy - their first home, homelessness in Singapore is often the result of personal irresponsibility, stemming from avarice or divorce and dysfunction.”

Reading between the lines, Ms Basu is essentially saying that people who wind up on the streets in Singapore deserve to be homeless. It’s a standard line the government’s been trotting out for the past few weeks now. The typical tent-dweller in Sembawang, or East Coast Parkway, or Changi or wherever, is according to them, someone who has sold his HDB flat at a profit, squandered the cash, and thus has no choice but to be homeless. He has no one to blame but himself for his lack of financial planning.

Ms Basu expands the definition a smidge by including “divorce and dysfunction” as possible reasons for homelessness. As if people who refuse to stay married should somehow expect to be thrown out onto the streets. It is not entirely clear what she means by “dysfunction”.

Somewhere in the middle of her article, Ms Basu states that “further changes - both at the personal and policy level - could help nip this nascent trend of homelessness in the bud.”

I love how she calls it a “nascent trend”. It’s like how the government likes to describe Singaporeans living in shelters as “temporarily homeless”. As if poverty isn’t a genuine problem here. As if the destitute never existed before... now.

It’s a myth so well perpetuated, most Singaporeans believe it to be the truth. I remember telling Wai Tung, the social worker in charge of the Hong Kong Dawn Homeless Football Team, that there were no homeless people in Singapore.

The look on his face was priceless.

“But that’s impossible!”

“No, it’s true!”

He must have thought me terribly deluded then. How right. Over the past eight months, I’ve learnt that our homeless shelters are bursting at the seams, that the happy people hanging out at campsites in parks and beaches actually have nowhere else to go, that some families sleep in the back of lorries, that hundreds of abandoned or abused migrant workers huddle up at night in the alleyways and back lanes of Little India.

And that no two stories are ever the same.

Ms Basu brings up the element of personal responsibility. Sure, every adult is responsible for his or her own actions. Take a financial risk? Bear the costs. But there is a growing sense that the system penalises too many too severely, and helps too few.

Mrs B and her cancer-striken husband. The pregnant young mother camping out with her two kids on Sembawang Beach. The divorcee whose ex-husband cheated her off her share of the proceeds from the sale of their HDB flat. The couple who lost all their savings in a failed business venture. These are real life people whom we’ve actually encountered in the past three months alone. Why does our government think them undeserving of help? The answer seems to lie in this overwhelming fear that the poor will develop a crutch mentality and become a burden to the state and the taxpayer.

No one’s saying that the homeless should be coddled. No one’s suggesting anyone go on the dole here. But surely, we can give those in need the barest necessities to help them get back on their feet?

Homeless shelters in Singapore already operate on this philosophy. Three families typically share a three-room HDB flat – hardly the most comfortable arrangement. Facilities are basic and everyone is expected to follow a set of house rules. A community worker once told me the idea was to create a safe environment – a place for families in crisis to evaluate their options and find solutions - but not one that would induce the homeless to decide to stay on forever.

Why can we not have more such shelters?

Tucked deep within Ms Basu’s article are three paragraphs that really, should have been the cut and thrust of her entire story:

“Meanwhile, families who are already homeless or on the verge of losing their homes also need more help.

The only two temporary shelters for such folk are packed, with dozens of families on the waiting list. More shelters are needed so that the children of the homeless, in particular, have a home, as social workers sort out the mess in their parents' lives.

The allocation of rental flats could also be made more flexible and fast for those who lose homes through no fault of their own - such as the elderly, divorced mothers and, above all, children. Contrary to popular belief, not all those in danger of losing their homes are feckless folk caught in an endless cycle of over-consumption.“

Yes indeed. For now though, for a lot of these families, no help is forthcoming. Their last resort is a tent on the beach, or in a park. Desperate measures. Yet we’ve heard how NParks officials seem to enjoy clamping down on these campers, unzipping their tents to check in on them, confiscating blankets and other property when they “breach rules”, slapping fines on already penniless people, and driving them away when they overstay their permits.

Are appearances that important? Why work so hard to preserve a myth? Are we that bent on deluding ourselves?

Wai Tung is right. It is impossible for a country to not have any homeless people. Acknowledging their presence is not a sign of weakness. Taking some collective responsibility for their plight doesn’t mean we descend into welfarism. It merely means we’ve evolved, that we’ve learnt to be a little bit more compassionate, that we understand that the poor and homeless are not undeserving of help.

[BlueFlix]

Some Singaporeans are Real Bastards

http://singaporeanskeptic.blogspot.com/ ... tards.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6kqvZx1Bzw

Watching the way Singaporeans treat their maids made me think that some Singaporeans are real bastards. Even the maid agency is crazy.

Interesting things in the video that opened my eyes:
1. In one training session, the maid trainer warns the maids about foreign construction workers. She points to a picture of foreign construction worker and tells the maids to avoid them because they are "very dark and dirty". (2min 10 sec into the clip)

2. It is not uncommon for maids to sleep in the kitchen or underneath the table. (4min 25 sec into the clip)

3. An employer refused to give a day off to a maid because she is an Indonesian not a Filipino. She did not have a day off for 2 years. (5 min into the clip)

4. The maid agency refused to allow the maids to practice their religious beliefs (Christians, Muslims etc..). It is stated explicitly in their contract. (7 min 26 second into the clip)

5. There are cases of children hitting maids. (15 min into the clip)

6. The PAP government is silent on the plight of maids. The journalist suggests that it could be due to conflict of interest since they take a tidy profit from them. They earn more in taxes for each maid each month than the women take home themselves. (16min 30 second into the clip)

[BlueFlix]

COE: Another solution that may make more money, but may not solve the problem?

By Leong Sze Hian

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/03/coe ... e-problem/

I refer to the report “LTA announces changes to Vehicle Quota System” (Channel News Asia, Mar 11).

The report states that the number of COEs is likely to be reduced, which means car prices may go up.

Will higher COE prices mean more revenue for the LTA?

The report also states that the annual allowable growth rate of vehicles halved from 3% to 1.5% last year. This begs the question: Why did we take so many years to finally decide to half the allowable growth rate?

Transport Minister Raymond Lim explained to Parliament on Thursday how the LTA persistently over-projected the amount of cars to be scrapped each year.

He said that the reason was that LTA persistently over-projected every year.

In his own words:

“Let’s say last year we over-projected for the current year, if we over-project it again, we add to the problem”.

So, it would seem from the remarks in Parliament that the LTA allowed the vehicle population to grow at double the sustainable rate, because it persistently “over-projected” the number of vehicles to be scrapped year after year.

Has the LTA performed to expectations in managing sustainable vehicle growth?

Probably not.

Minister Lim also said: “This direct replacement system is similar to that implemented before 1999. But back then, as quota numbers were released annually, there were complaints from industry players that the time-lag was too great”.

Why are we going back to the original system we used before 1999? Since, according to Minister Lim, “there were complaints from industry players that the time-lag was too great”, why didn’t LTA simply change it its policies earlier?

What has been the outcome of all this “self justification”? Why is it assumed that what didn’t work in the past would once again become the best way to make it work in the future?

Well, perhaps a lot of money?

Let’s look at the Budget.

Which ministry has the highest estimated Operating Revenue (other than the Ministry of Finance at $35.9 billion) for FY2010 of $2.7 billion? Answer: The Ministry of Transport.

For revenue from Excise Duties, the highest contributor is Motor Vehicles at $425 million, a whopping increase of 17.5 per cent over FY2009.

For Licenses and Permits, the highest contributor is Transport and Communication at $1.2 billion, a whopping increase of 34.1 per cent.

What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) do we use to evaluate our transport ministry?

Maybe there is something wrong with the KPIs?

Did persistently over-projection resulting in much higher vehicle population growth lead to higher revenue?

Would reducing supply of COEs now also lead to higher revenue?

Would returning to the original system before 1999 lead again to higher revenue?

As an analogy, if a company pays its CEO more money when the traffic that he is supposed to regulate becomes more congested, when customer satisfaction declines because they keep having to pay more for a deteriorating service, and alternative public transport options are also declining in service standards and public transport fares keep rising, what is the incentive for the CEO to improve his performance?

Perhaps we need to align the KPIs with the desired outcomes.

How about penalizing the LTA when traffic congestion increases by transferring some of its revenue to subsidize or improve public transport, give more incentives for “green” vehicles if vehicle pollution increases, demand more subsidies if public transport service standards decline, and demand more transport infrastructure spending if traffic benchmarks deteriorate, etc ?

Normally, most countries have to spend money to solve a problem, but in Singapore, too often, the solution makes more money instead, and the problem never seems to go away! Uniquely Singapore

[BlueFlix]

HDB: Homelessness due to policies? BTS better than BTO? 31,000 flats unsold, but nobody knows?

By Leong Sze Hian

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/03/hdb ... ody-knows/

I refer to the article “Life’s a beach, but it’s no holiday: Parents’ irresponsibility, greed and policy are depriving kids of homes” (ST, Mar 9).

The article begins by mentioning how a certain Mr Yusof lost his job as a technician in early 2006 and was unemployed for the next nine months. Living expenses ate up most of his savings. Unable to pay his loans, he was forced to sell his home in 2007.

But how can this case be cited as an example of an irresponsible parent whose greed deprived his children of a home? Isn’t this an example of a parent who was forced to sell his home by external circumstances?

The article also states that Mr Yusof was given a bank loan large enough to buy a four-room flat when his $800 a month income was the only source of revenue for his family of six”.

Had the Government not allowed banks to indiscriminately grant housing loans for HDB flats from 1 January 2003, tens of thousands of Singaporeans may not have ended up in arrears, lost their HDB flats or CPF savings, or made bankrupt.

To some extent, the woes of the homeless cannot be attributed entirely to them, as Government policy may have played a part too.

Mr Yusof was said to have sold three Housing Board flats in nine years, netting $90,000 in profits, before taking out a hefty bank loan to upgrade to a four-room flat in 2005, a move that cost him dearly.

In this instance, wasn’t Mr Yusof simply subscribing to the government’s much touted asset enhancement policy which involves constant upgrading and ever rising HDB prices?

If you have a policy that allows Singaporeans and permanent residents (PRs) to buy any number of resale HDB flats and sell after only one year of MOP (Minimum Occupation Period), can you fault people for trying to make money in this manner?

Mr Yusof’s main problem wasn’t due to his profiteering from HDB flat sales, some of which he may have ploughed back into subsequent flat purchases. His problems arose because he lost his job and could not find another one for nine months.

Even if he had bought just one flat in his lifetime, he may still have lost his flat and became homeless when he lost his job.

Since his pay was only $800, maybe he was trying to get some cash out of his HDB flat to supplement his meagre income. Otherwise, how do you feed a family of six and make ends meet with a salary of $800 before CPF deductions?

As banks generally do not lend more than a third of one’s monthly income for the mortgage monthly repayment, what exactly was the quantum of the “hefty” bank housing loan?

Mr Yusof could not even get a job that paid the paltry $800 that he had lost. Why is it that the highest unemployment rate among all the categories of workers belong to the cleaners, labourers and general workers?

To what extent has Government’s labour policy on foreign workers contributed to Mr Yusof’s problem, such that he could not even get an $800 job?

Why is it that those jobs which we are constantly told that Singaporeans do not want have the highest unemployment rate? Does it mean that even cleaners can’t compete with foreign workers to get a job after they lose their current cleaner’s job?

The article also mentions: “Some time ago, HDB discovered that one retired couple in the rental flat queue had no income, but owned nine private properties worth $6 million. Such people delay the truly needy from getting shelter”

Instead of just citing examples like this couple or Mr Yusof, can the HDB provide statistics on the percentage of rental flats whose owners are similar to the couple mentioned, or what percentage of rental flats are occupied by people who are in Mr Yusof’s situation?

By the way, why do we always get examples of irresponsible Singaporeans who lost their HDB flat due to bank loans and not that of a HDB loan?

As more people have an affordability issue with rising HDB prices due to HDB policies, as evidenced by the 30,770 HDB loans in arrears over three months as of September 2009 (not including HDB bank loans), more people will become homeless.

The article goes on to mention the case of a 27-year-old divorcee who earns $800 a month and has never taken an HDB loan, but who has been repeatedly denied the chance to rent or buy a resale flat with her six-year-old daughter because the child was born out of wedlock.

The article stated:

“The duo shared a one-room flat with her siblings for a year. But the others drank and smoked heavily and brought home strangers at night. After this newspaper inquired about her plight with the HDB, she was told she would be given a rental flat on ‘compassionate’ grounds. She faces a year-long wait for a home – no thanks to those who could find some other place to stay but who try their luck for a rental flat.”

If the HDB did not give 2,200 SERS acquisition flats to managing agents like EM Services to rent out to tenants like foreign workers, would this mother with a six-year-old daughter have to wait a whole year for a home?

As I understand that the current rental queue is about 4,000 plus, with each flat housing two to three families, does it mean that no needy family may have to wait at all, if all the flats rented to foreigners were given to Singaporeans?

The root cause of the problem of the homeless, or absence of rental flats available for the homeless, may be due to the HDB’s poor planning in projecting supply to meet demand, and policies that keep driving up prices like its Market Subsidy Pricing policy.

In support of my above remarks, I would like to refer to media reports on the debates in Parliament, in which it was said that the HDB will not go back to the former Build-to-sell (BTS) system from the current Build-to-order(BTO) system.

The reasons given was that in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1977, the HDB was at one point left with 31,000 unsold flats which took five years to clear, and that the waiting time for BTS was six to seven years compared to the shorter BTO waiting time of around 3.5 years now.

I think the reason why the HDB was left with 31,000 unsold flats was due primarily to the fact that the wrong type of flats that were built.

Had the flats built been 2, 3 and 4-room flats, instead of 5-room and executive flats, there may not have been so many unsold flats.

As to the BTS waiting time being six to seven years, I think this was the longest waiting time in HDB’s history because of the relatively lower HDB prices then and thus the high demand at that time.

In fact, the waiting time was zero during the period when there were unsold flats.

The problem with BTO may be that since we are not projecting demand in the future, and given that the typical Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) is five years, it may take about 8.5 years (3.5 years to build plus 5 years MOP) before a flat is available for the resale market.

This may have lead to the high increase in resale prices in recent years, with 79,000 and 59,500 new permanent residents (PRs) in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

Since new HDB flat prices are pegged to resale prices under the Market Subsidy Pricing policy, this may also have caused the affordability of new flats to be an increasingly contentious issue.

The HDB should not take the easy way out by not planning ahead, as no private developer or public housing authority in the world can do away with the need to project demand and supply.

For without planning and projections for the future, not only will PRs but also foreigners who may need to rent HDB flats may find the supply so inadequate, that prices of both new and resale flats, and rentals, may continue to escalate in the future.

Moreover, under a “BTO only” system of public housing, down-graders and those who cannot pay like the 30,770 flat-owners who were over three months in arrears, as of September 2009, may have no new smaller flats to down-grade to.

Finally, why is it that there is such a high number of 31,000 flats left unsold, and why was never disclosed until now?

[BlueFlix]

HDB flat prices to remain high, COV to stay

http://callantham.org/blog/2010/3/17/hd ... -stay.html

National Development Minister, Mah Bow Tan has reiterated the wish of the government to keep flat prices high in an interview with Channel News Asia.

Mr Mah revealed that HDB will continue to built the majority of the flats in non-mature estate and to ensure that prices continue to stay up.

“We make sure we don’t overbuild because once you overbuild, you’ll make flat prices in future go down, and that’s not what we want”, he said.

Mr Mah also repeated the mantra that the cash-over-valuation (COV) component that makes resale flat prices even higher than they should be is here to stay.

He also declined to banning COVs as it will not be in the interest of homeowners:

“When people talk about controlling COV … they’re talking about dampening prices, they’re saying let’s ban COVs…..If we control resale flat prices, we’re actually moving away from the free market, which fundamentally would not be in the interest of homeowners.”

If there should be any doubt that HDB is no longer oriented towards providing an affordable roof over the head of Singaporeans, let it be dismissed now. In a country where 90% of the popualation is dependent on public housing, the primary goal of HDB should be provding affordable public housing for Singaporeans, and pegging public housing prices to that of private housing is the opposite of that goal.

Putting the blame on the free market, and trumpeting the value of HDB flats as growing assets, shows an abject failure in supplying a basic need for Singaporeans, and not understanding that housing is a need that must be satisfied instead of an asset to be cashed in.

[BlueFlix]

"From an elite school";《名校出身》

http://searchingforenlightenment.blogsp ... chool.html


What follows below is a translation of a short piece by the writer "He Meng" (I am assuming that this is a pen name), in yesterday's (15/3/2010) "ZbNow" (《早报现在》), recounting his or her experience with a young teacher newly posted to his or her school.


"From an elite school";《名校出身》


Hearing that a new teacher, recently graduated from NIE, will be posted to my school, I eagerly waited in my office for him, expecting to have a succesor who will share with me the noble mission of education.

Expecting him to be full of youthful drive and idealism since this was his first job, I immediately started to brief the new teacher about his job scope when he arrived. However, I realised that he was unusually quiet and expressionless. He slowly explained: "Sorry, I will be posted to another school in two days' time. I have already requested for a transfer from MOE; I am now awaiting the re-posting".

"Oh, I see!" I was greatly puzzled; why was he applying for a transfer when he have not even started work at the school?

He explained with great honesty: "When I received the notification that I will be posted to this school, I immediately went to apply for a transfer with the HR department. I have heard that neighbourhood schools, such as this school, have a lot of 'problem students'. I am from XX Junior College, I would not be able to adapt to such an environment".

A prestigious graduate of an elite school cannot teach in a neighbourhood school? I was greatly saddened for the sake of my neigbourhood school and for the sake of the many "problem students" under my charge. Admittedly, they are a misbehaving lot: fooling around during lessons, not handing in assignments, playing truant, getting into fights, smoking and even drug-taking; they are in greater need of education and rehabilitation. But I did not expect that a new teacher will despise them and avoid teaching them.

On the first day of school, being unable to get his request for a transfer approved, the new teacher still reported to work. This was what I expected! Barring you having "special connections", which employer will allow you to freely choose where you want to work at?

After a few days, he came to my office, dejectedly saying: "I am about to have a mental breakdown, I cannot tolerate the students' misbehaviour anymore. I want to quit, I do not want to fritter away my life, I do not mind contravening my contract and paying reparations..."

After my initial shock, I replied: "Young man, you are very fortunate to be able to enjoy being educated in 'elite' schools since young, to have a good family and schooling environment, to live in such a protected and happy environment and not come into contact with those from another socio-economic milieu. Before coming to this school, I was also unaware that Singapore has so many low income families which are struggling to survive. 60% of the students here have parents whom only have primary school education, 30% of them come from single-parent families; having a hard life, these children already have a bad starting point and live in a maladjusted environment, thus bringing all kinds of bad habits and problems to school. Hence, in order to bring them onto the correct path, we need to approach and teach them with greater love and patience".

At this point in time, an expression of doubt and shock was on the new teacher's face. I told him: "Go see a doctor and take a few days' break. When you have considered carefully and made a decision, then come and discuss with me".

Unfamiliar with the purpose of education and unaware of the hardships of being a teacher, this new teacher has entered into the world of teaching. Was this because he was attracted to the high salaries in the teaching service or was he unable to find another job due to the economic recession?

In the end, the new teacher did not resign. However, a year later, he was transferred to an "elite" school to teach a "gifted" class; perhaps "elites" are more compatible with "gifted" people. Yet, if every teacher was like him, who will educate the students in neighbourhood schools?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personal remarks: While I know that not every individual joining the teaching service is like the teacher described above, I cannot help but wonder how many are like him or joined the teaching service due to the monetary benefits or their inability to find another job. What implications will this have? In the end, as cliched as it may sound, being a teacher is a calling, not just a job.

Also, on the wider level, I cannot help but wonder if there are structural reasons behind the attitudes of the teacher described above.

[BlueFlix]

The TRUTH about Housing affordability in Singapore.....

http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2010/ ... e-few.html

In a recent parliament speech, Minister Mah spoke again about HDB flats being 'affordable'. To support his assertion he gave a few examples to illustrate what affordable means:

"In the case of new HDB flats in non-mature estates, the average mortgage payment for new flats in non-mature estates sold in 2009 was 22% of monthly household income, which translates to a DSR of 22%. This is 1-2% marginally higher than the level seen in the last decade, but well within the affordability benchmark of 30-35%. This also means that about 80% of Singaporean new flat buyers are able to service their housing loans entirely from CPF without any cash payment. In my opinion, this is a significant fact and a very real measure of affordability" - Minister Mah's Speech in Parliament 5 March 2010[Link].

Do go through the other examples in his speech to fully understand what he means by affordability. He is basically saying if you can service your 30 yr mortgage loan today, things are okay...the HDB has done its job well and there are no real issues here. You noticed he used 'average' mortgage payment ...hmm so what happens to the 500,000 families who are below average? What happens to the bottom 20-30% where income has fallen off steeply due to the income gap? Public housing is for everyone right? Not just the average and above average families. His choice of using the average to demonstrate affordability is just a small spin ....I'll show you why this whole affordability argument from Minister Mah is bogus. Our public housing is the most expensive in the world and it causes Singaporean households to be deep in debt putting them at risk - 8% of HDB loans were in default in late 2008 even before the recession started[Link:HDB Mortgage Defaults Up 33,000 in October]. The need to service a debt over 3 decades make Singaporean households financially vulnerable - but there is something that make such loans even more dangerous......

How did people buy homes in the past anyway? My grandfather his home by leasing a piece of land from a landlord and he paid a house builder to build the attap house. I lived in it for 15 years - my grandpa was a baker, he had 6 children and never spent one day in debt. My father bought his HDB 4 room HDB flat in the early 80s. Those days HDB build 4 room flats the size of an $800K-$900K condo today. My dad paid of his housing debt in 7 years. His CPF was intact because they did not allow CPF to be used for housing in those days. Some time in the later half of the 1980s the CPF was liberalised for use in housing and this was what happened:

The surge in property prices was caused by the CPF liberalisation (according to this research paper[Link]. The housing loans to GNP ratio went up from 0.1 in 1980 to a whopping 0.49 in 1997 [Link]- a 500% jump! So CPF was emptied for purpose of buying homes and households became highly indebted - now housing becomes intertwined with retirement.

...Some of you may be asking what is wrong with debt anyway? You have a steady job, you make more than enough to cover your monthly instalments ...so what is the big deal about borrowing $300K to buy a flat or $500K to buy a condo if you're making $5-8K a month...30 yrs later you will be off the hook and along the way there is a good chance you can off-load to some other person for a profit of $100-200K if the timing is right. What is the problem...everyone else is doing it anyway....besides job loss, falling prices, illness, etc, there is something sinister I find most young people don't take into account when they take up, say, a $500K loan - its seems so routine these days given the high cost of housing....let me tell you a story...

Late 1998 during the Asian crisis, prices for property fell and I was persuaded to buy one. After I selected my property and booked it, I went around to shop for a loan. I found a bank advertising an 'unbelievably low rate of interest'. The offer was so good, the bank kept its doors opened on Saturday to deal with surge in loan applications. I went to the bank very early but found a long queue of people ahead of me. I waited for 5 hours before my turn. When the officer saw me, she said, "Mister, this type of good deal for housing loan you will probably never see again in your lifetime". So what was this good deal? The bank was offering an interest rate of 5.25% for housing loans - the lowest in recent years. Many people today taking up housing loans forget that the 3-4% housing loan interest we see now is artificially low and not the norm if you look at interest rates in the past 3 decades. During the Asian crisis, housing loan interest rates went up to 8% i.e. if you have a housing loan of $500K you will be paying $40K a year or $3.3K a month on interest along without reduction in principal. One of my friend paid close to $200K in total instalments to service a $700K housing loan in 1996-1998 only to see the principal fall by $50K as interest ranged from 5.5-8% during that period.

Talking a 30 year loan is not a trivial thing - during the 30 years, many things can happen include the high likelihood of interest rates going up, job loss, illness, etc and Minister Mah is incorrect to say it is affordable and okay for people to take up these loans when we were already seeing a default rate of 8% in 2008 when the interest rate and job environment was relatively benign. Debt = risk and a public housing program that requires buyers to take up 30 yr mortgages to stretch their loan so they can afford the month instalments puts the ordinary people at risk while it maximises the govt revenue by putting heavy burdens on Singaporean households.



"In the case of new HDB flats in non-mature estates, the average mortgage payment for new flats in non-mature estates sold in 2009 was 22% of monthly household income, which translates to a DSR of 22%."

you know that old saw, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

first, the statistic that mah quotes is for non-mature estates, where prices are in fact lower than "average", since the average must take into account more expensive, centrally located property. why doesn't mah just come right out and say that you have to be rich to afford 'subsidised' public housing in the central areas, since that is the unspoken subtext.

second, total household income is factored into the mortgage payments stated above. single income families are no longer viable economic entities in the government's calculus.

third, it's not clear what mah meant by "average" mortgage payment or monthly household income. is that a mean or a median? this is highly pertinent when we boast one of the world's highest gini coefficients. the mean will skew higher than the median when income inequality is high.

fourth, what exactly does "average mortgage payment constituted only 22% of household income" actually mean? if i were a truthful statistician wanting to shed light on housing affordability, i would report a figure such as of families residing in non-central regions, those in the 50-51st percentile income bracket of this group spent a mean X% of their total household income on their mortgage.

if i instead wanted to deflect away criticism, that's done easily enough. take the lowest "average" measure (could be mean, mode or median) of income for the population living in non-central hdb flats, and then divide that by the MEAN of the total household income for the whole island (which of course includes people living in districts 9,10,11). i can still pass off that figure as, say 22%, and conclude housing is affordable. and i technically wouldn't be lying.

[BlueFlix]

Mega-churches ....Mega-finances...

http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ances.html

"Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. " - Luke 18:22
.
When I was in secondary school, I helped out at a Christian charity. I was not a Christian but the Christians in the group liked me so much, they made me their student rep. As the rep, I had to attend workshops, seminars, organise activities etc. What was deeply etched in my mind was the idea of helping the poor and distributing (all) your wealth which was so much a key part of the religion. Distributing ....not accumulating.
.
I guess these days things have changed somewhat. New style churches collect tens of millions, invest hundreds of millions in real estate deals including shopping centers & restaurants[Link] and start to look like business enterprises. How much goes to charity?
City Harvest in 2008[Link]:
.
Local Community & Charity Work : $2.9M
Staff Salary and Allowances : $9.29M
.
City Harvest is now involved in $310M real estate deal [Link]. They are not building a shelter for the homeless or hospital for the sick...
.
“For Singapore Expo, we are in a lease-only business model. As such, what is being paid out does not have any returns or profit-sharing for CHC. The Board and the Building Committee discussed and concluded that with an ‘ownership-and-license’ business model, the rent we pay out will be recovered by CHC in the form of profits and dividends. It’s perfect for our church”
- Senior Pastor Tan Ye Peng[Link]
.
City Harvest Church will fund this mainly through donations from its church goers[Link]. I'm sure CHC will be able to raise the funds given its enthusiastic congregation. What they willingly give out of their own free will is none of our business - many probably consider the religious experience (joy, happiness) invaluable and they will have their spirits elevated to a high every weekend by inpiring sermons. The issue really is it is registered as a charity and enjoys a tax-exempt status because of this. CHC, however, pays out 3 times more as salaries to its staff than it gives to charity. These days it is impractical to expect religious leaders to live in modest homes and take public transport and honour a vow of poverty so they can give out more to those who are poor and sick knowing that what is important are the treasures that await them in heaven...we should, however, have the same level of transparency, accountability and regulation as big business enterprises because some of these mega-churches operate like businesses.

[BlueFlix]

The problem with government forums

http://callantham.org/blog/2010/3/29/th ... orums.html

No one challenges the responses by the ministers.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong "wants to strengthen the CPF route in the buying and selling of flats" to reinforce "the aim of these homes as assets for life":

"When we help people to own a home, it's really for you for life," Mr Lee said. "When you're not so old, and you've bought the house, and now you see that the pot of gold is down there and you ignore the 'please don't break the glass sign' and you break the glass and take the money out straightaway, then what happens to you? Or more importantly, your children and your dependents? Where do they go?

"If you sell the house, the money goes back into the CPF. So if you're buying another house, you can use that for another house. If you're not buying another house, the money is there for your old age."

Again, it is the old PAP card of "personal irresponsibility". Continuing his analogy, why is that flat regarded as a pot of gold, and why is it protected by glass that has a glaring sign on it, tempting you to break it? This would not happen if HDB flat prices are not pegged to private property prices, or if the COV component is completely done away with, and it certainly ignores the reasons behind Singaporeans being in debt.

It is inevitable that people will want to take advantage of high flat prices, which means they need to be controlled. You cannot tout the high prices as a sign of "a growing asset" and expect Singaporeans to just sit on it. Forcing flat sales proceeds back into CPF will only cause the COV component to rise. This does not benefit Singaporeans in the long-term. It is just bad policy.

National policies created the mindset that debt is acceptable: student loans and HDB loans take ages to pay back and is an accepted fact of life in Singapore. As long as we deny the impact of policy on national psyche, we will not move forward and find a solution. And PM Lee neatly sidestepped that, preferring not to address why Singaporeans are in debt, or even recognising that debt and income inequality is the issue, and cannot be solved by current policies.

Instead, he reiterates that access "to a good education and a high rate of home ownership are two of the best things the government has done". In other words, it is not their problem, it's our problem.

And Dr Vivian Balakrishnan delivers the conclusion:

"If you were a poor person, anywhere on this planet, Singapore is the one place where you will have a roof over your head, where you will have food on the table. Even if you can't afford it, we will have meals delivered to you. You will get healthcare."

The minister is still in denial about homeless Singaporeans, even after he and his ministry chased them off beach camp sites. While I cannot deny that we have access to healthcare, it is misleading: it will cost you. Just like a roof over your head, and food on the table. Nothing is free in this country. Andrew Loh jumps in.

The minister would do well to not claim credit, on behalf of himself or the PAP government, for delivering food to the poor and hungry. No government ministry I know of delivers food to those who can't afford it. There are volunteer welfare organisations (VWOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who do that, and lots of religious organisations who do that.

So when the minister says "we", who is he referring to?

[BlueFlix]

Scoring high in grades but not in values

Elite school students who never mix with others lose perspective

By Sandra Leong
03 April 2010

http://guanyu9.wordpress.com/2010/04/05 ... in-values/

Over the past two weeks, the words ‘meritocracy’ and ‘elitism’ have stirred feelings of loyalty, indignation and dismay all at once.

Just ask the old boys of St Joseph’s Institution (SJI), who have been making a very public case for and against the lowering of the school’s entry requirements to enable more students from its feeder schools to make the cut.

Meritocracy must prevail, argues one camp. Easing entry requirements will only cause academic standards to slip. But SJI must not become elitist, counters the rival camp. Boys from the Christian Brothers’ schools, based on that affiliation alone, should qualify.

The imbroglio once again puts the focus on the uneasy relationship between meritocracy and elitism. A cynical take is that the race to the top will always leave behind stragglers, and those who cross the line first are bound to look down on their weaker counterparts. Given this attitude, it does not surprise me that some SJI alumni are campaigning fiercely against the ‘E’ word.

I attended Raffles Girls’ School (RGS) and Raffles Junior College (RJC), both elite institutions. I confess that as a young adult, I was conceited and felt unsympathetic to the world around me. These days, when people ask me what is my alma mater, I often say I’m a Rafflesian – but a ‘recovering’ one.

Before I incur the wrath of Rafflesians past and present, let me say I am grateful for the all-rounded education I received. Way before the term ‘holistic learning’ became a Ministry of Education catchphrase, my $300-a-month secondary school fees in RGS paid for classes in speech and drama, etiquette and philosophy.

My teachers did not teach us to be snobs. But neither did they teach us not to be snobs. As a Rafflesian, one never spoke in terms of examination pass rates. It was the number of As one got that signified one’s mettle.

We felt entitled to big things in a merit-driven society where mental dexterity equated strength of character and virtue. We felt so because we had trumped the system, even if it was the ‘system’ that had allowed us to get this far in the first place.

Intellectual snobbery can be a scary thing. A running joke when I was sitting for the A-level examinations in RJC was that the National University of Singapore law faculty half consisted of Rafflesians. The other half came from ‘students from OJ’ – other junior colleges.

I did not have a single friend from a neighbourhood school. In our world, we did not see a need to venture beyond what we knew.

Many of my friends came from rich families and lived in the Orchard or Bukit Timah areas. I remember a then 15-year-old friend asking me where I lived.

‘Siglap,’ I said. She asked quizzically: ‘That’s where all the Malays live right?’

I never learnt that failure was sometimes an unavoidable option. Two years ago, I sank into a funk when I did not get a scholarship. A non-Rafflesian friend jolted me to my senses when he asked: ‘How many people even get to think about doing a master’s?’

Growing up this way, you lose perspective. You forget that you belong to a privileged minority, that in the real world there are those for whom a C grade (and not an S-paper distinction) represents the pinnacle of academic achievement – but who may be wiser in many ways than the academically gifted.

It was only when I left the comforts of my flock that I realised how close-minded I was. Unlike some of my peers, I did not win a scholarship or study overseas. I studied at Nanyang Technological University, where classmates told me they were initially wary of me because I was a ‘Raffles girl’.

I learnt that brandishing my elite school background, from the way I spoke ‘proper English’ to wearing my RJC physical education T-shirt around my hostel, rubbed people the wrong way. I learnt there were other ways to win respect without riding on the coat-tails of a brand-name education.

My work as a journalist also quickly brought me crashing down to earth. Loftiness goes out of the window when you have to talk to everyone from politicians to cancer patients to victims of natural disaster.

I hasten to add that for every misguided smart-aleck I encountered among Rafflesians, there were others who were humble and well-adjusted. Still, an Old Rafflesians’ Association president once quoted in this paper defined the Rafflesian character as ‘predominantly achievement-oriented and goal-driven’ – traits I dare say which tend to create a type of ultra-competitiveness that leaves little room for empathy and humility in the absence of a countervailing value-system.

Many of my schoolmates went on to become civil servants, lawyers, bankers and doctors. They keep to the same small social circle they grew up in, married within it and will probably wish the same life for their offspring as well.

I’m not saying they grew up into mean-spirited, Ayn-Rand spouting adults just because they excelled in what they did. The pursuit of intellectual excellence is a virtue that our educational system quite correctly promotes. But the pursuit of intellectual excellence to the exclusion of character or value excellence breeds an exclusionary attitude to the rest of society. Many of the products of our top schools forget they have to give back to the society that allowed them so many opportunities.

It is especially worrying when the exclusionary attitudes bred in school become accepted life values. You judge success using markers that only you and your like-minded friends agree upon. For example, my unmarried girl friends tell me they will never date a man without a degree, a car or a ‘respectable’ job – and they are entirely unapologetic about it.

These are people who live for years without having to step outside their comfort zone, leading a bubble-wrapped existence.

The sooner that wrap is removed, the better.

[BlueFlix]

Wary of a Bubble at Home, Chinese Diversify by Buying in Singapore

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/great ... l?emc=eta1

SINGAPORE — For some time now, China’s property market has looked like a bubble about to pop. As a result, many Chinese have been putting their wealth into real estate markets further afield, notably in Singapore.

The Chinese ranked No. 3 among foreign buyers here in 2009, making 15 percent of all foreign purchases, according to Chua Chor Hoon, head of Southeast Asia research at the property consultancy DTZ Debenham Tie Leung.

That share of foreign purchases, which totaled only 8 percent as recently as 2005, put the Chinese just behind Indonesian buyers, who held the No. 2 spot. Malaysians led the rankings.

And China’s rising impact on the market looks set to continue this year.

Tay Huey Ying, director of research at the local Colliers International agency, estimates that Chinese buyers accounted for almost 16 percent of the foreign sales in the first two months of this year.

Ong Choon Fah, DTZ executive director, says Singapore is attracting the Chinese because its prices have not recovered “to the extent seen in gateway Chinese cities and Hong Kong.” According to DTZ, Singapore luxury condominium prices averaged 1,456 Singapore dollars, or $1,140, per square foot for prime units in the first quarter of this year, while luxury unit prices in Hong Kong in January averaged 11,863 Hong Kong dollars, or $1,527, per square foot.

While the Lion City’s market began to recover from the global downturn during the third quarter, 2009 prices were up only 1.9 percent year on year, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority. The property consultancy Savills said the high-end residential sector outperformed expectations last year, with prices rising 3.9 percent year on year.

But data show the majority of Chinese buyers actually are buying from Singapore’s mass market sector rather than the luxury end.

“Compared to other foreign buyers, Chinese buyers generally have a lower preferred price band of 500,000 Singapore dollars to 1 million dollars, and in terms of unit price, they are also more conservative,” said Chua Yang Liang, head of research for South East Asia at the Jones Lang LaSalle real estate agency.

As an example, he said some of the projects that might interest this group included The Vision at West Coast, a new 255-unit development, and the 765-unit Waterfront Gold.

According to detailed data by Savills, more than half the homes bought by Chinese in 2009 ranged from 500,000 dollars to 1 million dollars, while about 20 percent were 1 million to 1.5 million, and less than 20 percent were 1.5 million to 5 million.

Brokers say the Chinese are buying properties to live in while they seek employment. “Singapore is an easy place to settle in, in terms of culture and distance from China,” said Mrs. Ong of DTZ. “Many are also buying for their children who are, or will be, studying here before they head west for further studies.”

And while mainland Chinese buyers remain rare at the top end of the market, meaning properties valued at more than 5 million dollars, some have bought prime properties like the bungalows in Sentosa Cove, the only location where foreigners who are not permanent residents are allowed to buy property with land.

[BlueFlix]

Probably the best ST Forum letter I've ever read

"I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

http://gssq.blogspot.com/2010/04/probab ... -ever.html

***

Diary of a reformed elitist

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Onl ... 11656.html

I AM as Rafflesian/Raffles Girls' School (RGS)/'elite' as they come. My father was a Raffles Institution boy; I went through Raffles Girls' Primary School (RGPS), RGS, then Raffles Junior College, then on to the National University of Singapore, boarding at Raffles Hall. My sisters went through much the same route. My little girls are in RGPS.

I recognise the syndrome Ms Sandra Leong talks about ('Scoring high in grades but not in values', last Saturday). I live it, breathe it. Most of my friends are like me, graduates. Most of us live in landed property, condominiums or minimally, executive condos or five-room flats. None of us talks about making ends meet, or how we must turn down medical treatment for our aged parents because we cannot find the money.

But I will add to her essay: that those traits, that aura is not unique to RGS girls. It resonates within a social group, and its aspirants, the well educated or well endowed. I hang out with so many, I have stories by the barrel.

- My doctor friend, non-RGS and one would even say anti-RGS, was shocked when she found out how many As I got in my A levels, since I opted to do an arts degree. In her words, 'I thought all arts people were dumb, that is why they go to arts'. Her own family boasts only doctors and lawyers - she said they would never contemplate any other profession - and by implication, all other professions are below those two.

- A church-mate who lived in a landed property in District 10 - definitely not an RGS girl, and I venture to guess, not even a graduate - once, in all sincerity and innocence, prayed for all those who had to take public transport and live in HDB flats, for God to give them strength to bear these trials.

- Another friend, also non-RGS and a non-graduate, shudders when she recounts the few months she lived in an HDB flat. And that was a five-room flat. Imagine the culture shock if she had lived in a three-room flat.

I continue to meet people who never visit hawker centres, who wonder why the poor people do not work harder to help themselves, who fret if their children do not get into the Gifted Education Programme (reserved for the top 1 per cent of nine-year-olds).

The pattern repeats itself in the next generation. When my 11-year-old had to go on a 'race' around Singapore, using only public transport, the teacher asked for a show of hands on how many had never taken public transport (bus and MRT) before. In a class of 30, five raised their hands. I think if the teacher had asked for those who had taken public transport fewer than 10 times in their young lives, the number would have more than doubled or tripled.

Many of us live in ivory towers. I know I did. I used to think Singapore was pretty much 'it' all - a fantastic meritocracy that allowed an 'HDB child' from a non-graduate family to make it. I boasted about our efficiency - 'you can emerge from your plane and be out in 10 minutes' - and so on.

It was not that I thought little of the rest of the world or other people; it was that I was so ensconced in my cocoon, I just thought little of anything outside my own zone. 'Snow? Yes, nice.' 'Starvation in Ethiopia? Donate $50.' The wonders of the world we lived in, the sufferings and joys of those who shared this earth were just academic knowledge to me, voraciously devoured for my essays or to hold intelligent conversations at dinner parties.

Then I lived in China for seven years. I looked on in amazement as the skinny tree trunk in front of my yard blossomed and bore pomegranates when spring thawed the ground. And marvelled at the lands that spread east, west, north and south of me as we drove and drove and drove, and never ended. I became friends and fans of colleagues and other Chinese nationals, whom so many Singapore friends had warned me to be wary of.

I realised it was not the world and other people who were limited in their intellect, in their determination, in their resourcefulness; it was me and my world views which were limited. I also know full well that if I had stayed in Singapore, in my cushy job, comfortable in my Bukit Timah home, I would have remained the same - self-sufficient. I had always believed that if I put my mind to it, I could achieve anything. For example, I used to look at sick people and root: 'Fight with all your willpower, and you will recover.' And when they did not, I'd think they had failed themselves. I, like Ms Leong, believed 'mental dexterity equated strength of character and virtue'.

But those years in China taught me terrible lessons on loneliness. I learnt that money (an expatriate pay package) and brains (suitcases of books) did not make me happier than my maid who cycled home to her family every night in minus 20 deg C on icy roads to a dinner of rice and vegetables. The past few years, I have known devastating loss and grief so deep I woke up in the morning and wondered how the sun could still shine and people could go on with their lives.

And so perhaps I have learnt the humility I lacked. Humility about how small I am in the whole schema of things. About how helpless I truly stand, with my intellect in my hands, with my million-dollar roof over my head. To remember, in the darkest valleys of my journey, it was not Ayn Rand or other Booker list authors who lifted me, but the phone calls, the kindness of strangers, that made each day a little less bleak.

And perhaps finally, to really see other people, and understand - not deflect, nor reflect their anger and viewpoints, but see their shyness, pain, struggles, joys. Just because I was 'fortunate enough' to have trawled the bottom levels. And perhaps that is the antidote to the oft unwitting elitism so many of us carry with us.

Sim Soek Tien (Ms)

[BlueFlix]

Random rant: Our lovely transport system

http://tattooedbanker.blogspot.com/2010 ... ystem.html

Just came back after meeting a few ex-colleagues earlier today. Haven't been taking the public transport at this kinda peak hrs for some time and wasn't expecting what I am about to experience.

It was 6pm at AMK station, heading towards Jurong East with one of my colleague staying in the same direction. As its the peak hour (or so I assumed), I expected the train interval to be like 2-3mins each. To my surprise, the board indicated 6 mins. Nevermind lor, just wait... and while waiting, crowd kept piling in. We were standing at the arrows pointing in, but soon people starting standing right smack where the door is gng to open, with the arrow pointing out. Train was packed to the brim and we couldn't squeeze in at all, only those *mumble Mumble mumBle* ugly singaporeans (and/or foreigners) whom squeezed their way in without waiting for the people to alight first managed to get in. Fuckers.

Next train took another 6 mins. 12 min of *mumble Mumble mumBle* waiting time during peak hour. Nice.

Jammed packed again, managed to squeeze in this time, but it was so bloody packed that me and my ex-colleague's lips were almost touching. No joke. It was damn embarrassing for both of us. Luckily for us both, our breath didn't stink.

Anyway, we tried to make some conversation during the journey and the issue of single gender train carriages came up. She wished that there will be a carriage entirely for women and perhaps the old folks.

"Imagine its you right now so its not so bad, but there are times where I'm being packed so closed to a stranger that we're almost kissing, its not alright at all" she laments.

I can understand where she's coming from but a couple of reasons seem to make this impossible.

Looking at the load right now, imagine a female only carriage is half empty, who is to stop anyone from packing into them? how are you gng to enforce it? Will in results in fights/arguments?

Others such as the wheelchair bound and family with kids etc will start to demand their own carriages. Can I than request that we ban eg kids strollers from entering any other carriages? While we're talking about kids strollers, i think its ridiculous when they enforce strict requirements on foldable bicycle but not strollers. Have you ever seen the size of one of those 3 in 1 kinda stroller?

I just wish we had a better system with more trains and shorter waiting time.

[BlueFlix]

Life Before Lee: When Singapore Had a History
By Ben Bland

http://globalasia.org/V5N1_Spring_2010/ ... 5ca1eef931

Every authoritarian government worth its salt understands the importance of commanding the national historical narrative. It is a concept that was perhaps best encapsulated by George Orwell in his classic dystopian novel 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.”

Countless one-party states and banana republics have banned books, banished professors and pumped propaganda into the education system. But few have managed so successfully to stamp their imprint on their nation’s history as Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and his ruling People’s Action Party (PAP).

Just as Lee dubbed his two-part memoirs The Singapore Story, so many Singaporeans perceive their own history to be little more than the Lee Kuan Yew story, with a bit of Sir Stamford Raffles thrown in for good measure.

The well-rehearsed official narrative tells of a Singapore that was little more than a sleepy fishing village until Raffles, a representative of the East India Company, arrived in 1819 and planted the British flag there. Raffles built Singapore into a successful trading outpost, but the vast majority of its people remained disenfranchised and mired in poverty until Lee took control amid the social and political turbulence that buffeted the city after the Second World War. Lee then dragged the people of Singapore, initially kicking and screaming, “from third world to first,” as he himself puts it in the sub-title of the second volume of his memoirs.

Given the government’s hegemonic control over the school curriculum, universities and the mass media — and its belief that these institutions must perform a “nation-building” function — this narrative has become deeply entrenched and gone largely unchallenged.

But a new book, Singapore: A Biography, makes a concerted if subtle attempt to wrest Singapore’s historical memory from Lee Kuan Yew’s unyielding grip. Turning the state-sanctioned timeline on its head, the authors begin their study of the island in the 14th century and draw it to a close in 1965, shortly after Lee’s accession to power. There are not many books about Singapore where the first mention of Lee comes on page 327.

The authors, Hong Kong-based academic Mark Ravinder Frost and Singaporean writer Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, delve into Singapore’s distant and little-known past in an attempt to challenge the orthodoxy that the Southeast Asian island was a stagnant backwater before it was pulled up by the PAP.

Self-consciously following in the footsteps of historian Simon Schama — who believes history should “bring a world to life, rather than entomb it in erudite discourse” — the authors draw vivid portraits of a Singapore shaped by pirates, prostitutes and prima donnas as well as the usual cast of colonial officials and Chinese businessmen.

Much history is invariably written by the victors, but Frost and Balasingamchow try to draw attention to the underdogs and their vital contribution to Singapore’s cultural, economic and political development: the Indian convict laborers who built some of the city’s better-known colonial edifices such as the former Government House (the present-day Istana or president’s residence) and St Andrew’s Cathedral, the opium-sustained Chinese coolies who kept Singapore’s people and goods moving and the Japanese prostitutes who serviced a population dominated by single men away from their families, whether they were colonial officials or rickshaw-pullers.

Aimed at the general reader, the volume is nicely designed, with paintings, photographs and reproduced documents giving an added richness to the many fascinating tales that the authors recount.

There’s Daing Ibrahim, who was effectively deprived of his hereditary right to rule Singapore when his father ceded control to Raffles and the British in 1819. He fell into piracy before being “turned” by the British in the late 1830s and leading the charge that eventually made the waters off Singapore safe for the shipping that was vital for trade.

Then there’s William Pickering, the first European official in Singapore who could speak Chinese, who discovered in the 1870s that local translators were mocking the colonial regime in their translations of official documents, calling officials “red-haired barbarians” (“ang moh” in the Hokkien dialect, a term still used to describe Westerners in Singapore), judges “devils” and police “big dogs.”

Pickering suspected that the system had been infiltrated by Chinese secret societies and, in his later role as the so-called Protector of Chinese, would attempt to stamp out the simmering inter-society violence that was undermining the colony’s development. Despite his best efforts, he ultimately failed, and his career was ended in 1887 by an axe-blow from a disgruntled Chinese carpenter and apparent secret society member.

One of the strangest stories is the mutiny by the men of a predominantly-Muslim Indian regiment in 1915, partly fueled by German propaganda that Kaiser Wilhelm II had converted to Islam and would lead a global jihad against non-believers. The British eventually put down the rebellion, with the help of some Russian, French and Japanese troops, but not before 40 Europeans, both civilians and soldiers, had been killed in the fighting. Of the 201 Indian soldiers found guilty of participating in the mutiny, 47 were executed by firing squad.

Although the book grew out of research for an interactive history gallery at the government-controlled National Museum of Singapore, it is something of a Trojan horse volume. It masquerades as little more than an interesting collection of stories, while shedding light on the deeper historical roots of modern Singapore.

On the economic front, the book argues that Singapore’s status as an international trading center stems from a combination of the rigid British promotion of free trade and the deepening of long-standing trade routes operated by Chinese junk-owners and traders from across the Malay archipelago. Fourteenth century Javanese jewelry and Chinese coins and pottery found in Singapore point to the existence of a successful entrepot long before early Singapore succumbed to a mysterious fire around 1611.

The city’s reliance on cheap, imported labor, which has become a testy political issue in contemporary Singapore, had its origins in the 19th century. The stories of migrant laborers worked to the bone to pay off the debts incurred in paying labor agents, entrenched racism toward domestic workers and tensions between recent and more-established arrivals may be historical but they would ring true in present-day Singapore.

The authors also try to remind depoliticized Singaporeans of an interwar past when “political debate was everywhere, not just in classrooms, in newspapers or reading rooms, but everywhere.”

A walk through interwar Singapore, Frost and Balasingamchow argue, would be “an alien and confusing experience” for the city-state’s modern-day residents, with impromptu political gatherings, radical newspapers and would-be revolutionaries taking to the streets.

In a cosmopolitan colonial city that was increasingly dominated by ethnic Chinese, debates about race and nationality, largely considered taboo in today’s Singapore, abounded.

In 1914, a group of Asian and Eurasian businessmen launched the Malaya Tribune, one of several vibrant newspapers, which openly debated what it was to be a “Malayan” and whether the Malays, the region’s original inhabitants, ought to be given special status — issues that continue to wrack Malaysia and Singapore today.

But colonial officials were hardly more enthusiastic about promoting the liberal values of free speech and political engagement than the PAP, and the interwar period saw the beginning of what became Singapore’s ultra-efficient machinery of repression.

Like contemporary Singapore’s Internal Security Department, which recently hauled a Christian evangelist preacher over the coals for making disparaging remarks about Buddhism and Taoism, the colonial Special Branch kept up surveillance on “all racial, religious and social activities.”

The authors argue that the Japanese occupation, following Britain’s humiliating capitulation in 1942, had a profound impact on Singaporean society, hinting that Japanese militarism and autocracy laid the foundations for the domineering rule of the PAP. The period of Japanese rule was, according to Frost and Balasingamchow, “the first encounter with intense state propaganda” for many Singaporeans. “Japan’s efforts to establish tight administrative control over its conquered territories brought the government closer to an average Singaporean resident than at any point in the island’s previous history,” they write, presaging “the birth of the territory’s first bureaucratically obsessed state.”

Unfortunately, and as a likely result of the self-censorship that continues to pervade Singapore, the authors never draw out any of these themes explicitly. And once Lee’s domineering presence pops up in their account, they seem to abandon the critical lens through which they so adeptly examined the pre-independence history of Singapore. Whereas other first-person accounts are analyzed and deconstructed, extracts from Lee’s memoirs and speeches are taken at face value.

Some of the commentary on Lee and the PAP is fawning, to say the least. The authors describe his 1963 election campaign as “an unscripted, unrehearsed drama of national proportions,” led by the man who was an “on-screen idol” to his adoring people. Never mind the admission in the next paragraph that Lee had gone for media training with BBC interviewer Hugh Burnett.

There’s also the bizarre statement that, despite the many challenges facing newly independent Singapore in 1965, there was “grounds for optimism” in the fact that the PAP had managed to crush the parliamentary opposition, having rounded up many of its leaders and jailed them indefinitely without trial.

It is almost as if Frost and Balasingamchow are paying the necessary dues to ensure their book is published and marketed in Singapore, their biggest potential market. Closing the book, they rue the PAP’s determination to set the historical clock “back to zero,” warning that “if we fail to comprehend what happened in the ‘old’ Singapore — fail to understand its passions, dream, failures and accomplishments — then we can never fully appreciate the extraordinary change that followed.” What they don’t say is that Singaporeans need to develop a better understanding of their own history not so much to “fully appreciate” what the PAP has done for them but to understand the limitations of their rigid political system and how they can improve it.

Ben Bland is a freelance journalist in Jakarta, formerly based in Singapore. He blogs at http://asiancorrespondent.com/the-asia-file

[BlueFlix]

The Elitist Chauvinist Pig

http://nabbedd.wordpress.com/2010/04/15 ... inist-pig/

Ah, Elitism is breeding amongst us. It is a disease that infects us subconsciously and we only realize it when reality strikes. Recent articles by Ms Sandra Leong and Ms Sim Soek Tien really put things into perspective does ‘nt it? And who would forget the infamous blogger Wee Shu Min, daughter of an MP, labelling a struggling worried Singaporean concern about his job security as “one of the sadder class”? The out-pour of emotions among netizens were overwhelming to say the least.

Elitism is inevitable especially in society where meritocracy is prevalent. Just refer to our educational system. We’ve been streamed or “put into our places” since primary school, you’re smart if you land in EM1, screwed if you’re in the Accounts or Arts class in secondary school. I was from the Accounts class, and we were told that being in the “last” class, we have already closed many doors in life — Oh come’ on… ! Coming into adulthood, the pain is more evident. There are annoyingly sanctioned paths to success in Singapore. Private/Investment Banker, Doctor, Lawyer, are all the desired paths. Take the boom of the financial sector in the last 3 years or so. Every university grad wanted to get into the banking band wagon. Never mind if you’re not suited for the position or it isn’t your passion, status co is more important. (one of the reasons why bad banking practices occur – my previous article) Such society pressures actually restrict talent to be harnessed in the most efficient way. Our government is not really concerned actually. Lack of sporting or artistic talent? Import blatantly.

I totally detest the fact that streaming of students is being done at such an early age of education – Primary school. While the government’s intention would be to cater for the different learning efficiency of a student, I beg to differ. Basically, the society pressures by especially your teachers, parents and fellow students contribute to the feeling of condemnation if you are being placed in a less desired stream. Such bashing of self-esteem at such a young age can result in a domino effect which translates into the influence of people he mixes with and the perceived “route” that he should take in the future. A good number will grow out of it and excel in the later stages of their life, but the rest especially from the lower-income group where the environment at home is not stimulating enough to push oneself to excel will further fall through the system. I can certainly attest to that.

Such meritocracy makes us Singaporeans painfully aware of our relative positions in society. We just need a form of measurement and feedback to satisfy our need for status co. A MNC company, a corporate rank, your office address, will quench that need. No where in the world will being an insurance agent, or doing sales for a multi level marketing firm bring about such social stigma. It’s really astonishing sometimes. Such jobs to me are totally respectable.

Adding to that ingredient of elitism is that we are insufferable materialist. Nothing titillates our senses more than the Bang & Olufsen system, BMW car or Hermes bag. It is actually very human and even more so for Singaporeans. How about the 5Cs, something we all aspire to attain once we enter the workforce? Basically such superficial items helps you differentiate yourself and put you in an elite class of citizens.

Our free market economy, capitalism, materialism and government direction all contribute to the elitist chauvinist concoction.

In retrospect,can we really fault the Singapore government? Human capital is our one and only resource. We must stay competitive externally and internally. Performance triumphs all else. Lure of the elite class will attract more wealth, talent and lead the nation to its development path. But will stellar GDP figures translate into a world-class, developed society? Remember, what great leaders like Churchill, The Pope, Truman and Ghandi preached; a society is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

On a personal level, I am guilty in certain aspects. Being educated in Singapore Management University, it is real simple to identify with the elitism mindset. Almost everyone is fighting for that management trainee spot in JP Morgan, Mckinsey, GE, just to name a few. Most of us come from the upper or middle upper class families, and traveling to places like Eastern Europe or America on a study exchange is becoming more of a norm. We are marketed as the best, and thus we think we are the best. All I can say is thank God I am free now.

Here’s my take on how to eliminate the elitism mindset in us. An attempt.
1) Be aware of the difficulties of others. We don’t have to look too far. There are many needy families in Singapore too. My university professor once mentioned that the gross average/mean monthly income of a Singapore household is a mere $2500. Go figure.
2) Volunteering. Being aware is not enough, action is required, and definitely not to merely boost your resume/CV. Intention is very important.
3) Appreciate a person for who they are. Character, passions, interests should take precedence when we want to know a person. NOT where he works or studied or whether he drives.
4) Finally, to totally get out of the rat race and for a total change of mindset, I suggest to relocate to another country for a period of time, take in fresh perspectives.