PM Lee: We do “a lot†for the poor
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During a dialogue session yesterday with the PAP’s “feedback” unit REACH, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong tried to downplay the significance of Singapore’s widening income gap when asked by one of the participants.
He claimed that what’s really “important” is not the “absolute gap”, but whether those at the bottom are being helped to move up.
“Supposing the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, comes to live in Singapore. The Gini coefficient will get worse. But I think Singapore will be better off. Even for the lower-income Singaporeans, it will be better. This is because people like Mr Slim, a businessman and philanthropist, could start businesses here and create more jobs and prosperity for Singaporeans,” PM Lee was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.
The Gini coefficient measures the income gap between the poor and the rich within a country. Saved for a slight dip in 2008, Singapore’s income gap has widened in the last ten years due to the PAP’s liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies which have brought an relentless influx of foreign workers into Singapore.
Singapore has the largest income gap between the rich and the poor among the 30 most developed economies in the world after Hong Kong.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the easy availability of foreign workers in Singapore has depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living and led to an overall decline in the standards of living.
Singapore’s remarkable GDP growth in the last decade or so was fueled largely by foreign workers which help keep labor costs low thereby inflating the GDP output artificially in the process.
An unknown percentage of PAP ministers’ multi-million dollar pay package is pegged to GDP growth – the higher the growth, the more money they bring home.
Prime Minister Lee earns about $3 million dollars annually or more than 6 times that of U.S. President Barack Obama. He is expected to get a 8.8 percent pay rise this year even as the real earnings of Singaporeans continue to decline by 3.2 percent.
Like his father PAP strongman Lee Kuan Yew, PM Lee does not appear to be too worried by Singapore’s widening income gap.
“What really matters is whether we can benefit the low income Singaporeans so that they have a decent standard of living, and hope for a better future, for themselves and their children,” he explained.
He also proclaimed that the PAP has done “a lot” for the poor:
“We are not doing badly. We do a lot for them.”
During a ministerial dialogue at NUS last year, the elder Lee said that the income gap matters “little” so long the government continues to create jobs for Singaporeans.
With no alternative news source to counter PM Lee’s arguments, many Singaporeans will continue to believe PM Lee’s assertion that the PAP has indeed done “a lot” for poor and needy Singaporeans.
Perhaps the state media should consider interviewing Madam Zheng below and hear her views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwmVcb9cyFA&feature=player_embedded
TR March 28, 2010
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First of all, dialogue is mend to be a two way communication on equal time and footing, why everytime i go for dialogue, i see one person asked a question and the PM or ministers will talk for an hour, and before the second question or dialogue from the audience is table, we are left with another 1hr, i think dialogue should not be listening to the govt, but instead, govt should listen more to the audience/citizens, take notes and give short reply and go to the next one...and i can also see people on the floor with pieces of paper standby to ask the Minister, are these premediated questions??? Go KFC better lor
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I see the PM has taken on a new hobby, that is entertaining the citizens with warped humour.
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but we are still poor leh?? u help alot, but also take alot
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Help the poor??? u siao ah?! He help the rich lah! U got pay taxes meh???
Pay how many?Dun talk so much if u dun pay taxes.Thats wat he trying to tell u.
Ppl who talks a lot of crap is to prevent u from asking a lot of questions he cant answer u.
He just wan to see who is not happy with him.Then he can do something to torture u mah.
Put a few poor ppl in a TV show.Give them some money.See their happy face.The whole nation thinks our government is doin a lot of things alrdy.Its all PR lah.Bullshit loh.Then u wan wat.Our society is as fake as it is.U got to embrace it or go eat shit.
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Looks like GST will be raised higher soon.
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Originally posted by angel7030:
but we are still poor leh?? u help alot, but also take alot
Perharps now you can take a fresh approach to productivities lesson....he do "A lot" but you are still poor.....So maybe he is not productivities in his doing "A LOT" ......
another slogan for Cheaper, Faster, Better......
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Thou shalt not question thy divine leader....who came from above(must be for a good reason why they dumped them here)
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Was he speaking in Punjabi ??
Yes means No.
.. and No means Yes.
PM Lee: We do “a lot” for the poor
Yes... Yes.. I believe you.
.. as do most Singaporeans.
Thank you for looking after our interests instead of the interests of FWs / FTs / PRs.
We are so thankful for having such a wonderful and caring PM.
Please also give our heartfelt thanks to Ministers Wong Kuum Seng, Mah Bok Tan, Lim Suay Say... and that most beautiful-face and elegant MP Lee Beat Wah.
We are so lucky to be born a Singaporean.
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We do “a lot” for the poor
yap right - the only problem is - up to them to define who is consider poor !!!
Yeap they decide PM is poor & ministers are poor last time - so raise salary till till - US president Obama is consider poor when standing beside our PM .
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little wonder why mediacorps has so much programmes how to help the super poor.
maybe PM lee is the definition of poor is those that are dying of hunger. or singapore rich that are not as rich as the western rich.
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we do alot to the poor.....in correct sense.
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Originally posted by Arapahoe:
Perharps now you can take a fresh approach to productivities lesson....he do "A lot" but you are still poor.....So maybe he is not productivities in his doing "A LOT" ......
another slogan for Cheaper, Faster, Better......
you take the notion of a holed rice bag, Govt pour in the rice for you, but the rice just go out thru the hole and back to them, this is what i interpret in our Govt praising themselves for helping the poor. -
Originally posted by TERMINATOR3000:
we do alot to the poor.....in correct sense.
we do alot to produce more poors in Singapore will be more precise. -
Originally posted by assolingam:
Was he speaking in Punjabi ??
Yes means No.
.. and No means Yes.
PM Lee: We do “a lot” for the poor
Yes... Yes.. I believe you.
.. as do most Singaporeans.
Thank you for looking after our interests instead of the interests of FWs / FTs / PRs.
We are so thankful for having such a wonderful and caring PM.
Please also give our heartfelt thanks to Ministers Wong Kuum Seng, Mah Bok Tan, Lim Suay Say... and that most beautiful-face and elegant MP Lee Beat Wah.
We are so lucky to be born a Singaporean.
I beg yr pardon, even punjabi also understand yes and no...i think he is speaking a special Tamil Nadu language, no offend
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Originally posted by charlize:
Looks like GST will be raised higher soon.
not now. after election
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def of poor. when they no longer pay any form of tax. hence, gov dont see a problem. everyone in SG taxed due to GST. where got the poor.
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well, base on the concept that poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer, our Govt will continue to tax the poor to make them poorer in definition and the richs richer.
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Why isn't this post in the Humor section?
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Originally posted by Fallen-Angel:
Why isn't this post in the Humor section?
Because it is a fact that PM said it, it is current affairs and not some April 1st chit chat with reporters.
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Originally posted by Samuel Lee:
Because it is a fact that PM said it, it is current affairs and not some April 1st chit chat with reporters.
LOL okie loh. I guess not everyone find it funny.
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"gods help those who help themselves."
that means PAP is larger than gods!!!they help those that gods do not help.
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“We are not doing badly. We do a lot for them.”
Yes, he and all in the same team are doing a lot for us, doing a lot of dramas after dramas. They do so much for us that we have to "pay" them so much money.
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Originally posted by angel7030:
you take the notion of a holed rice bag, Govt pour in the rice for you, but the rice just go out thru the hole and back to them, this is what i interpret in our Govt praising themselves for helping the poor.Your entire interpretation is so wrong.....when the rice bag open the first tier is always on the rich man palm the spillover flow down to the ground is the next level of food chain.
the poor will always be at the end.....of the food chain.
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Oh, so if you talking about food chain, the poor are part of the lower food chain, therefore in term of ecology is concern, the rich must survive, and inorder to survive, they need more poors. With more getting poorer, the lost from the poors will be channel to the rich.
In conclusion, govt/society needs poor peoples to start the ecology of human food chain, meaning to say that they must create poor people inorder to survive. And is precisely what our govt is doing, they dun make you die out, just make your poor will do.