Singapore Citizenship: A National Credit Card?
-
http://enquirer.sg/2009/09/16/singapore-citizenship-a-national-credit-card/
The Enquirer, 16 Sep 2009
Singapore Citizenship: A National Credit Card?
How much money is a Singapore citizenship worth?
Budget packages, GST credits, CPF top-ups, subsidies for public housing, education, health and so on.
This slew of financial benefits offered to a Singapore citizen, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, is the reason why a permanent resident from Malaysia recently decided to apply for Singapore citizenship after living here for many years.
Speaking at Nanyang Technological University Student Union’s Ministerial Forum, he told the crowd made up mainly of undergraduates, “I asked her why do you need this? You are a PR, your family is here, there is no problem.”
“She said: ‘If you take citizenship, you get (financial) benefits!’”
While the former American president John F. Kennedy could once proclaim to his citizens to ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country’, such patriotic declarations today might simply drive people to immigrate elsewhere instead.
The onslaught of globalisation has shifted today’s dynamics of citizenship towards the people. The ease of uprooting from one country to another has made each of us consumers in a supermarket world of countries.
The product: Citizenship.
During the forum’s Question-and-Answer session, one international student asked PM Lee on the benefits of becoming a Singapore citizen.
Another haggled with PM Lee to provide affordable housing to attract foreign talent like him to stay in Singapore.
Citing his fiancée and him as an example, the PhD student from China said it was hard to make Singapore his home without a house. He could not afford a condominium, nor was he allowed to buy a HDB flat as both his fiancée and him were permanent residents.
Hence, in this global fight for talent, how can Singapore tweak its citizenship scheme to have an attractive card that a top talent would want in his or her wallet?
Show them the money.
The lure of low income taxes and attractive subsidies has definitely made Singapore the destination of choice for many. Thus, PM Lee pledged at the forum to sharpen the difference in these benefits so that “citizens come first”.
But how different would citizenship be from a credit card subscription then? If the choice of where to make a home boils down to the place that gives you the most monetary benefits – then what happens when there is no credit left?
To brand our citizenship by highlighting only its financial benefits surely attracts the wrong kind of people.
After all, a nation is nothing more than an “imagined community”. To tie the imagination entirely on money would mean the people, and the country, could be gone in one economic recession.
It is why the appeal of a Singapore citizenship must go deeper. People should want to be citizens of Singapore because of what they can and will do to make it their home.
The pink card in your wallet and the red passport you use to travel is not a key to more money. Rather, it symbolises where you’re from and who you are.
As a popular credit card advertisement puts it:
There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s a credit card.
----------------------------
Latest Updates @ Singaporenewsalternative.blogspot.com
1. Singapore Citizenship: A National Credit Card?
2. S'pore Govt U-Turn On Property Gains Tax Changes
3. PM Lee, if you are really interested in emulating Israel: KCR
4. Most Singaporeans not feel well prepared to retire: media
5. SIA's A380 fleet size surpasses 747-400 with latest delivery
6. Myanmar allegations highlight Singapore bank secrecy
7. Singapore: Maersk ship grounds off Sebarok island
8. Singapore's MoF Introduces TIEA Legislation
9. Singapore PM says to stem flow of foreign workers
10. Eyeing China, Singapore sees Mandarin as its future
11. Eircom lodges court appeal on ComReg charge ruling
12. Why Obama had to impose those Chinese tyre tariffs
. -
The lady obviously has not heard of the famous "There is no free lunch" from the PM yet.
-
ah tiongs are funny folk
-
Originally posted by charlize:
The lady obviously has not heard of the famous "There is no free lunch" from the PM yet.
sure or not? the mini-stars keep appearing at events all given free lunches
sometimes at the "national day observance dinner" even given free dinners too
-
its obvious singapore's attempt at nation building has been a complete failure
-
but PAP will get their votes
damn
-
"Citing his fiancée and him as an example, the PhD student from China said it was hard to make Singapore his home without a house. He could not afford a condominium, nor was he allowed to buy a HDB flat as both his fiancée and him were permanent residents."
wtf
want to work in another country u jolly well pay for rental, i'm sure he can get an affordable HDB flat when he stops looking at condos.
-
I thought they can just go and buy resale what..
-
Originally posted by Stevenson101:
I thought they can just go and buy resale what..
they talking cock one..then i bet lau lee's son will go tekan mabok tongue about this coz he's got no idea what's going on
-
Originally posted by the Bear:
sure or not? the mini-stars keep appearing at events all given free lunchessometimes at the "national day observance dinner" even given free dinners too
My bad.
Some people get free lunches.
Ironically, they are the ones who make the most money.
-
Originally posted by av98m:
its obvious singapore's attempt at nation building has been a complete failure
Totally failed!
Bunch of bastards who go and favour fucking foreign aliens.
we must get rid of traitors of singapore.
-
nabei last time the lower ranks combine money to buy dinner for this high rank fella just because he go visit them.
luckily i not there to kpkb to the farker who suggested treating makan to an overpaid piece of shit
-
Originally posted by kopiosatu:
nabei last time the lower ranks combine money to buy dinner for this high rank fella just because he go visit them.
luckily i not there to kpkb to the farker who suggested treating makan to an overpaid piece of shit
You are a cash cow to be milked.
Milked. Milked. Milked.
-
Originally posted by charlize:
My bad.
Some people get free lunches.
Ironically, they are the ones who make the most money.
actually, thinking about it, lau lee's son said "no free lunch" and failed to say the rest of the statement "except for us elite"soooo.. either way, he's saying they live in ivory towers and are exempt from their own proclamations, or they're lying.. or both?
-
Singapore citizenship should cost more then $10,000 because the fine for selling our Passport is $10K and a jail sentence.
-
Originally posted by the Bear:
actually, thinking about it, lau lee's son said "no free lunch" and failed to say the rest of the statement "except for us elite"soooo.. either way, he's saying they live in ivory towers and are exempt from their own proclamations, or they're lying.. or both?
Frankly, it has come to a point where Singaporeans just stop listening to the people at the top anymore.
It's not good because 1 out of 10 times, they may be speaking sense but because of their bad track record of talking nonsense, people will just ignore that 1 time.
-
Originally posted by charlize:
Frankly, it has come to a point where Singaporeans just stop listening to the people at the top anymore.
It's not good because 1 out of 10 times, they may be speaking sense but because of their bad track record of talking nonsense, people will just ignore that 1 time.
i guess so..i've stopped trying to even listen a long time ago..
is their chief liar still the mabok tongue? or is there now a liar chief-in-waiting?
-
fark mabok tan
-
Originally posted by the Bear:
i've stopped trying to even listen a long time ago..
but the rubbish they talk is always same rubbish.
so listen, don't listen, what's the diff?
-
I'm tired of their endless self-praising events.
-
Originally posted by the Bear:
i guess so..i've stopped trying to even listen a long time ago..
is their chief liar still the mabok tongue? or is there now a liar chief-in-waiting?
You know they are doing damage control these days when they keep repeating certain words like "affordable" over and over again to psycho the people.
Recently, I discovered another word they have been using non stop - "calibrating".
A few of them have been "calibrating" this or that policy.
-
i tired of fucking pap state fucking propaganda trying to brainwash me and dumb me down.
-
you can choose to not listen to them, and when elections come you know what to do..
unfortunately, the MIW's opponents are either trying to crack each others' skull open, or trying to become martyrs without a clue...
still, there is hope although one of them is pretty old now..
i hope there will be more and that the people out there don't get side-tracked by the sideshows put up by the MIW and their supposed enemies...
sometimes, the MIW's enemies are our enemies too..
-
Originally posted by angel3070:
i tired of fucking pap state fucking propaganda trying to brainwash me and dumb me down.
Don't worry they can never brainwash a brain twice but only those times when they hold GE.There not only wash but dry and iron for you guys.
-
Sg citizenship = credit card? How appropriate! The more you swap the more you pay and if you pay late you pay high penalty.