National Conversation : WHY WE CAN'T!!!!
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National Conversation : WHY WE CAN'T!!!!
Remember Obama's "Yes, we can" speech. In Singapore context, it is more appropriate to have a "Why we can't..." speech.
Two scores and seven years ago, our forefathers had nationhood thrust upon them. Little in the kitty, no oil in the ground and no gold in our vaults, we had only people with working hands and an island entrepot economy sustained carried on the backs of coolies. This was the humble beginnings of our nation from which our grand metropolis emerged.
Today Singapore is the wealthiest nation on earth....on paper. An average income that surpass Switzerland and per capita wealth that puts the Germans to shame. In just over 4 decades we went from living in wooden attap dwelling to million dollar homes. From worrying about food to worrying about obesity. From vacations in Malaysia to vacations in Europe. Singaporeans drive the most expensive cars in the world. Splurge on the most expensive wines, handbags and shoes - the Sauvignon Blancs, the Louis Vuittons, the Ferragamos. All this material wealth wrought by our worship of the capitalism. Capitalism has delivered, to some, the Singapore Dream. This dream in its most extreme form - a home in Sentosa Cove, a couple of Ferraris, children in private schools then Ivy League universities. We also have the highest paid leaders in the world.
Along side this vast wealth, among countries in the developed world we see the oldest working cleaners, the lowest paid bus drivers, the lowest paid kindergarten teachers, the lowest paid cashiers and lowest paid factory workers. Its like 2 parallel universe. So is it true our cleaners, bus drivers and cashiers are the least productive in the developed world that is why they are paid so little? Why is it these people deserve so little for doing the same jobs as their counterparts and our leaders are paid triple their counter-parts in other developed countries for doing exactly the same job.
I want to spend some time to explain to you "why we can't" pay these Singaporeans more and our leaders and the rich less under our current economic system.
This is about "why we can't...."
Our wealth is build and always been build on the back of labor that is cheap. Be it the 70s when we started attracting investments from Japan,USA and UK, our main selling point is hardworking people willing to accept low pay. How else do we attract capital?
In the 1980s, the National Wage council pushed wages up too quickly, we immediately see a repercussion - a recession due to loss of competitiveness. In the 90s, Singapore flew on the back of the electronic boom. Wages rose. China emerged as a cheap labor competitor. In order to continue attracting, we started opening the floodgates to foreign workers so that capital will still keep coming.
The heart of this model is dependence on foreign capital as driver of growth. Therefore the need to keep cost of labor low to keep it coming. But there is a clear conflict when China became part of the global eco-system. In order to grow, we have to keep labor so cheap, that growth no longer benefits a large section of the labor force whose wages became stagnant. The Singapore economy and society became split as a result of these changes - those lodge up in the hierarchy benefiting from the capital inflows and profits generated by exploiting this cheap labor. I say exploit because labor rules became relaxed Singapore workers are easy to fire, easy to retrench, no minimum pay protection, no pension, no medical benefits, no union....So the Singapore society became split between high and low income groups, rich and poor, labor and higher management. The PAP style policies to keep growing by importing labor is like a wedge driving the society apart in the center. Those who benefited from the influx hence embrace foreigners and those who suffered from it - now labelled as negative, xenophobic people by the leadership - further driving apart our society apart. The strategy now is to force this group to accept their suffering and their disadvantaged position.
This whole system is unsustainable, just like the slave economies of Confederate states in old America. When there are 400,000 workers in Singapore cannot make enough wages to support themselves and their families and depend on state Workfare to survive, something is wrong...very wrong. Today there is a band-aid of wealth transfer + workfare costing us $8B per year in social spending. This number will grow as the income gap grows, cost of living rises, and the need for social spending rises. There is nothing in our model - now made worse by dependency on foreign labor- that will lead to a good outcome. If the income gap keep growing, the social spending will rise because these workers cannot make enough when they work and they can't make enough to retire. Like one PAP MP once said these lower paid less educated workers are not going to just die off and solve the problem.
Our current $3B budget surplus will disappear and we will have to eat our reserves to keep going or raise taxes. Like Obama vs Romney hard choices will have to be made. But one thing you cannot do in a system where voting is still used to select leaders is to cut the minimal type of social spending in Singapore. If the govt did not give out Workfare, 400000 workers will not make enough to live - what do you think will happen at the ballot box?
In summary we have an economic system dependent on cheap labor i.e. low wages, this generates the need to raise our social spending, which in turn leads to a shift in our fiscal position from surplus to deficit. It is also an unequal system where there are too many working for low wages and a small number positioned high up in the wealth ladder creating significant advantages for their next generation. It has already destroyed our so-called meritocracy. Wealth transfers + social spending will eventually put us in fiscal dilemma - these should be done as a temporary stop gap measure so that we can find a way out.
How do we break this cycle -> high income gap--> Need for more social spending--> need for more foreign investments---> need more cheap labor---> even higher income gap. The model is generating very bad outcomes for a growing number of wage earners....a rising burden for the state...a social divide that is increasing, The whole sustainability of the system is in question. There is also a falling fertility rate to contend with. This vicious cycle also means the financial outcomes for a growing number of Singaporeans will worsen - unable to retire, shrinking middleclass, worries of medical costs, worries about cost of living. The social spending merely prevent families from drowning in hopeless poverty putting their heads just above water to take a breath.
The PAP solution to all this IMPORT MORE WORKERS. Look at the cycle...importing more workers is part of the vicious cycle. ..IT WILL NEVER LEAD TO BROAD PROSPERITY...only maintain the advantages of those who are today wealthy.
There are a few ways to break the cycle:
1. Stop importing more foreigners - live with the current size of workforce. No other country needs to expand workforce at the rate we had in the last few years.
2. Generate homegrown industry, drive domestic demand and investment to stop dependence on foreign capital.
3. Innovate, raise productivity and wages.
Unfortunately, none of the above will happen as long as we are in the current economic model. Businesses will pressure govt to stay on the vicious cycle and keep us in this loop. Some Singaporeans who are doing well because they are well positioned do not care about others will lobby to keep this system. Economists such as Lim Chong Yah has recommended wage shock therapy so we can go to (3) innovation, productivity...and force the wage gap to close. He idea and the basic principles of his idea was rejected by the PAP govt that tends to side businesses. But the more we enter the vicious spiral, the harder it is go get out....the more the PAP will stick to the model because problems become harder and harder to solve - they rather not solve it.
"WHY WE CAN'T" .....WE CAN TALK AND TALK...CONVERSE AND CONVERSE until the cow come home. But the boundaries preventing change is all there until we find a leader with strong and great vision to guide us out of this vicious loop. One who is daring to play the hand and not kowtow to businesses' greed for profits but steer them with the right incentives towards a more sustainable model that will result in shared prosperity and ultimately a long lasting prosperity. We cannot expect the workers to always shoulder the burdens of economic growth and companies always to reap the benefits disproportionately. This cannot continue for too long.
The reason WHY WE CAN'T is LACK OF LEADERSHIP and the COURAGE TO CHANGE. -
We already have Meet the Sinkie session, forums, blogs and FB.
We are not even living in the fishing village that we have to gather to talk.
So, why this big wayang ?
The point have already been made and economist have commented.
If no one is listening, please dun waste the money and our time.
If it is a large gathering of feel good and say yes session, then we can move on.
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I can't wait to see the bullshit packaged and ready to be injected into this "Conversation".
We can start with this:
Puthucheary:
"I think there is a little bit of disconnect between a very vocal small groups online and what I see on the ground... two examples you gave - housing and foreigners... you know, the common appeals I get at MPS, housing is one of them... No one...oh, I won't say no one, but very very few people are coming forward and complaining that the housing issue is that they can't afford a flat. Actually it's the other way around. They are complaining that they can afford a flat but they're not getting one fast enough...
Take foreigners, for example. I don't have people coming to me and say there are too many foreigners... but the people that I speak to are asking for the reverse. Most of the residents who are coming to me, their appeals are the reverse, they are asking for help in bringing their relatives in, on a long-term pass, or to get PR or citizenship. A significant number are business owners asking for help in bringing in foreign labour because they just can't employ Singaporeans."
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There are economic bands in the strata of our society.
Which band do you want to be in. Of course, in the top most band. If you can do it on your own, good. If you can't get there, then you want to government to put you there? What about the others?
All Singaporeans regardless of effort are to be made multi-millionaires, living in posh homes or condos, and no need to work. Work for Singaporeans are voluntary. All the other work that need to be done, like cleaning, construction, services, are to be done by foreigners.
The government should put all Singaporeans in the top band regardless.
THATS WHAT WE WANT.
Be honest with yourself.
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Originally posted by mancha:
There are economic bands in the strata of our society.
Which band do you want to be in. Of course, in the top most band. If you can do it on your own, good. If you can't get there, then you want to government to put you there? What about the others?
All Singaporeans regardless of effort are to be made multi-millionaires, living in posh homes or condos, and no need to work. Work for Singaporeans are voluntary. All the other work that need to be done, like cleaning, construction, services, are to be done by foreigners.
The government should put all Singaporeans in the top band regardless.
THATS WHAT WE WANT.
Be honest with yourself.
In the words of Tharman, the lowest stratums of our society have stagnant for the last ten years.
Widening income gap - that is the issue.
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OUR SINGAPORE CONVERSATION
Time for a new ideology
First, there was socialism that works. Then there were pragmatism and communitarianism. What ideology will take Singapore society forward, keeping the capitalist verve but preventing the excesses of the market?
BY ASAD LATIF
For The Straits TimesSINGAPORE was born on the crest of an ideological wave. It might be opportune to revisit those times as Singaporeans imagine their country two decades hence.
The founding wave was democratic socialism. Caught between the late-colonial state and insurgent forces committed to its overthrow, the People's Action Party (PAP) offered the people of Singapore a vision of independence in which socialism would be achieved through parliamentary means. That offer came to be encapsulated neatly in the formula "Socialism That Works".
Those three words distinguished Singapore from socialist systems which stifled private enterprise and failed to meet human needs, and from capitalist systems where entrenched economic interests created unconscionable disparities of wealth, power and opportunity.
Democratic socialism released the energies of the market, but only under the watchful gaze of the state. The guardianship of the state reflected the democratic principle because people vote for governments, not for markets.
An invigorating era of legislative radicalism followed.
The Housing and Development Board was set up in 1960 to produce a home-owning population. The Women's Charter was passed in 1961 to protect the rights of half the population. The introduction of national service in 1967 laid the basis of a people's army. The scope of the Central Provident Fund, in place since 1955, was expanded to help citizens purchase their homes.
Singapore came of age in that adventurous ideological space.
Four decades later, an eerie ideological silence has descended on Singapore. Democratic socialism is hardly even whispered about. The second and third overlapping waves following it - economic pragmatism and communitarianism - have receded as well from public discourse.
Pragmatism was a way of making the most of the international economic space available to Singapore at any given time.
Communitarianism sought to hold society together beyond the ambit of the purely economic. Each was justified on its own grounds, but they could not find common ground. Growth had social costs that communitarianism could not meet.
Of course, Singapore has national values. Multi-racialism and meritocracy are two of them, and they are rightly celebrated, but they are not ideologies: They are ideological strategies, meant to achieve a larger end. What is that end?
The Singapore Conversation provides a good opportunity of listening for an answer. Ideology focuses the mind on defining issues. It allows citizens to look beyond the minutiae of changing policies and judge their objectives and results against an overarching and relatively durable social purpose. By creating mental horizons, however diverse, ideology provides a sense of direction, however contested.
What could a new ideology be?
How about "Capitalism That Works"?
'Capitalism That Works'
THIS is just a name. Whatever the name, there is an insistent need for a new ideology today. Many regions of everyday life have been privatised across the breadth of the neo-liberal global economy, dispossessing or marginalising entire communities. As a result, anti-globalisation - stemming from nationalist resistance to the global market - is gaining ground profoundly both in geography and mindshare.
Although Singapore is not in the dismal league of failed market economies, disparities here, if left unchecked, could calcify into embittered social categories and undermine the achievements of 1959, when Singapore gained self-government, and when the PAP came to power.
At a minimum, "Capitalism That Works" would tilt the balance of power in favour of those who have been left behind by the wild march of the market. The instrument of that rebalancing would be an activist state.
Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam suggested exactly this recently without naming an ideology when he declared that Singapore's social compact could not be left to market forces because they would widen disparities.
This is a valuable starting point that could gain firmer direction by focusing on the ideological implications of concrete issues.
For example, the repossession of HDB flats of those who cannot keep up with their mortgage payments is an entirely justified outcome in a market economy.
However, that outcome is ideologically difficult to accept if public housing is seen as a social good, as it has been viewed since the formative years of Singapore.
When an HDB family loses its home, the market loses nothing, but home-owning Singapore loses a small but irreplaceable part of its social self.
Society, protected by the state, will have to prevail over the market in the new ideology. What form that protection should take, how far it could go without promoting irresponsible economic behaviour, how to pay for it - these are genuine issues.
But the main, ideological question that has to be answered first is whether public goods (such as public housing) should be protected from the excesses of the market.
There is a caveat, however. No political system can move faster than the collective momentum of public opinion. Therefore, any idea of a working capitalism can work only if Singaporeans are prepared to accept a different standard of living in the short term as the price of living together in the long term.
If higher taxes are anathema to us because we cannot countenance paying them to take better care of our frailer compatriots; if we cannot accept old-age homes in our neighbourhoods because they will drive down the prices of our flats; if Singapore to us is nothing more than a market masquerading as a nation, then there is hardly any place for ideology in the Singapore Conversation.
The real danger would be for us to become so accustomed to inequality in our midst that we begin to believe it is natural and that nothing can be done about it. Once this happens, the ideological clock will begin to tick backwards.
Several years ago, a little boy stopped me and said: "Uncle, can you give to charity?"
I asked: "Which charity is this?"
He replied: "Me."
There was no one at home, and he was hungry.
My tiny Singapore comrade absolved me ideologically for $2.
History might not be so kind to us collectively.
The writer, a former Straits Times journalist, is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Opinion, The Straits Times, Tuesday, September 11, 2012 Pg A16
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TS means Singapore Boleh?
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Originally posted by 4sg:
..., among countries in the developed world we see the oldest working cleaners, the lowest paid bus drivers, the lowest paid kindergarten teachers, the lowest paid cashiers and lowest paid factory workers. Its like 2 parallel universe. So is it true our ...
China woman : "Singapore has so many old people working, in China you don't see the same scenario. Kindergarten and childcare teachers are paid more than Singapore. Teahers in china need not change diapers for the kids in childcare, Singapore teachers need to. In China, they employ people to change diapers for the kids."
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this is wayang show only la. try talking to some opposition lah. tok to commoners for what?
oppo ask question i bet he also cannot answer arh.cheena has toomany people. even with the japs kiiling off those faggots after ww2 they procreate again, like rats, like cockoraches in the drains! population infestation is one thing their gahmen has no control over, added by their kumpung ideology and mixed batards cultures they call exotic to me in my eyes are rojak!
their gahmen will be happy to throw them to other countries and be other countries problem.
even if they go to war with another country's full of their people, they also won;t care if they die back in cheena or not. even with people going out, their population in cheena is still so dense and stinking packed!
we should not take in so many trash frm these countries!
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Originally posted by mancha:
TS means Singapore Boleh?
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just bear with it till 2016 ......
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Dun need to wait till 2016.
Singaporeans are a bunch of cowards.
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In 2016, Singaporeans will continue to vote to continue to be in the vicious cycle . . . . . . . . . . ..
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Maybe next time will be 80%?
6 million people soon.
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Singapore is the only country where Singaporeans are banned.
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Originally posted by SJS6638:
In 2016, Singaporeans will continue to vote to continue to be in the vicious cycle . . . . . . . . . . ..
not me, i am not one of the sgreans responsible to our plight now. -
Originally posted by troublemaker2005:
not me, i am not one of the sgreans responsible to our plight now.Big applause for you.
Same here. Hope people will not be prone to vote to support greed.
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Originally posted by Uraniumfish:
Singapore is the only country where Singaporeans are banned.
Life is surreal.
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2016, will more than half be troublemakers? got to face this fact..with so many nepeople, not much chance..maybe 2021? now got to pay until cannot tahan..