Old PAP and new PAP

I admit, there is a bit of bias as this article wrote about views that corresponds with mine. Still, no harm sharing the article that had been making rounds in the internet:

Singapore’s social policies are not future-ready, says former GIC economist. He talks to Susan Long about his new cause in life

Straits Times, Published on May 18, 2012

By Susan Long

Mr Yeoh feels that now is the time for the Government to embark on large-scale social reform because it can, adding that ‘we have extremely low taxes, such that we can afford to raise them somewhat and still remain very tax-competitive’. — ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO 

WHEN Mr Yeoh Lam Keong quit his job as chief economist of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation last June, his colleagues presented him with a T-shirt which read: ‘Buddha says: Stop wanting stupid shit.’

It’s a message that suits the 54-year-old to a T.

He lives in a Housing Board flat, takes public transport, and eschews holiday resorts with air- conditioning. ‘I don’t consider it spartan, it’s cosier and aesthetically more pleasing,’ he says.

He has not moved from the Marine Terrace flat he bought in 1987 because he wants his children to grow up in an HDB setting. ‘So they have a choice. They don’t have to live in private housing, they can go and live in a three-room flat in Sengkang if they need to and be totally comfortable,’ he says.

To his mind, he is not under- consuming. ‘Others are over-consuming. Most of us have enough resources to live comfortably, yet we kill ourselves to drive a Lotus, instead of an ordinary car.

‘We end up killing the environment and stressing each other out. Perhaps, as Lord Robert Skidelski, professor emeritus of political economy at Warwick University said, mass consumption capitalism has outlived its usefulness.’

Social awakening
MR YEOH grew up in a bungalow along Bukit Timah Road. He was the eldest of four children born to an orthopaedic surgeon and doctor-turned-housewife. His three siblings include Ms Yeoh Chee Yan, permanent secretary for Education.

His social awakening happened five years ago, when he was roped in to help analyse Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports data on poverty. As he examined the grim figures, he realised serious structural problems were creating a growing underbelly of poverty in Singapore.
Before long, he found a face to the problem.

While watching football with his son in a coffeeshop one evening, he chatted with a neighbour from a nearby rental block, and found out that the latter, after working as a cleaner for 10 years, earned $700 a month.

Mr Yeoh ventured in Mandarin: ‘That’s really tight, I don’t suppose you have kids?’ The guy’s response: ‘You mad, ah?’

His son, then 11, soon became aware of the substance of the conversation – that there were people too poor to have children. Later that night, he asked his father: ‘Pa, do you think the Prime Minister knows about people like him?’

Mr Yeoh said: ‘I hope so.’ His son prodded: ‘I think someone should tell him.’

Before long, father and son had added to their coterie of coffeeshop companions an odd-job labourer, who had been unemployed for 10 years because of a history of mental illness. The man had not eaten properly, surviving on a giant vat of green bean soup for days.

Mr Yeoh offered to go with him to see their Member of Parliament. But the man refused, fearing social workers ‘will bother my brothers and sisters’.

‘It became clear to me that the so-called social safety net was both undignified and insufficient. It was undignified where sufficient, or plain insufficient.

‘He didn’t want to be ashamed before family, or for government officials to bug his family to look after him, which he himself would not do,’ says Mr Yeoh, citing a 2009 Lien Foundation survey which showed that being a burden to family and friends was the top death-related fear of Singaporeans, followed by medical costs.

Early influences
HE CREDITS his Anglo-Chinese School mate and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam for first stimulating his social conscience.

He was all set on becoming a naturalist – and studying marine biology – but was persuaded by Mr Tharman that economics was more ‘socially useful’ . They both applied to the London School of Economics and were accepted.

In London, Mr Tharman encouraged his interest in the underprivileged, social issues and student activism. Mr Yeoh returned to Singapore in 1983, and worked at the Skills Development Fund in the Economic Development Board for two years, then left to become a senior economist at the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

He was soon seconded to help start up the Economics and Strategy Department at GIC and ended up staying a total of 26 years because the work was so riveting.

GIC, he says, taught him all about ‘real-world economics, politics, markets, people, policymakers, under the most extreme stress’. Six major financial crises unfolded during the time he was there. ‘It was a huge education in economic policy analysis, what could go right and wrong.’

The department he headed at GIC became infamous for its high-quality analysis, independence and daring to challenge convention, say Mr Yeoh’s colleagues.

GIC’s chief economist Leslie Teo says: ‘Lam Keong was never afraid to speak his mind even if his views were not popular or politically correct; he was not afraid to explore new and unconventional ideas. He always stood apart from the prevailing culture of the industry – big money, flashy, top of the world – by his concern for the average person and his simple tastes.’

He worked under Mr Lim Siong Guan, group president of GIC, whom he says drummed into him the importance of being ready to meet the future.

‘He taught me that being future-ready is being strategically on top of the most important relevant long-term trends even before they became conventional wisdom,’ he says.

‘Because catching up is the worst position to be in, you are chased and dragged and not the master of your own destiny. You become like Nokia, or Blackberry, as opposed to Apple.’

One of his top worries for Singapore today is whether its social policies are future-ready.

He worries that the old social compact is eroding, because the delivery of public services in social security, housing, health care, education and infrastructure is fraying at the edges, and excessive immigration has crowded out quality in such services.

‘It’s not ready for the world that faces us now; a world where median wages are stagnating, inequality is rising sharply, our population ageing, our maturing economy is growing much more slowly. And it’s not going to be ready for the decades ahead, or maybe even the next five years,’ he vexes.

Time for social reform
HE FEELS that now is the time for the Government to embark on large-scale social reform because it can.

Singapore is in a ‘uniquely privileged’ position to make these changes, he says. ‘We have extremely low taxes, such that we can afford to raise them somewhat and still remain very tax- competitive, and we are unnecessarily conservative in our budgetary accounting, even by International Monetary Fund standards.’

He notes that the Government’s spending, as a share of GDP, of around 17 per cent is among the lowest in the developed world, compared to 35-40 per cent in most OECD countries and 25-30 per cent in other advanced Asian economies.

‘Our current levels of spending are low even by our own historical standards of up to 25 per cent of GDP seen in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. These are levels of a public spending we can afford to return to while maintaining competitiveness and long-term fiscal sustainability,’ he says.

He applauds the Government’s pledge announced by Health Minister Gan Kim Yong to double health-care expenditure from $4 billion to $8 billion in 2017, which will raise it from 1.5 per cent to 2.2 per cent of GDP. However, he points out, Taiwan was already spending 3.5 to 4 per cent of GDP on health care in 2001.

Notwithstanding the superiority of quality and efficiency of Singapore’s health care, he asks: ‘Is it enough for Singapore, which is steadily ageing, to spend half of Taiwan’s 2001 budget in 2017?’

He adds that Mr Gan, to his credit, has assured that no Singaporean will be denied medical care if he or she needs it. ‘But rather than say it, why not design policy for someone to afford it, rather than have him deplete his own savings and his family’s Medisave accounts first?

‘The most important reform needed, which is still missing, is that we still do not have universal financial access to medical care for all citizens, which is politically unacceptable in most democratic developed countries.’

Citing figures, Mr Yeoh notes that a relatively large proportion of health-care expenditure in Singapore is still funded out of pocket, with 55 per cent of spending financed by patients, with the rest borne by the state or insurance.

In comparison, patients in other developed Asian economies like Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan pay about 15 to 30 per cent out of pocket. The World Health Organisation’s recommendation is 33 per cent and below.

He says the key driver of Singapore’s success, going forward, will hinge on how substantively the government can overhaul social policies and win back voters.

The Government still enjoys strong credibility and trust, he says, though he fears that too is eroding, ‘especially if they keep to their current course and the public continues to feel the level of provision of these basic needs is inadequate’.

‘It will take a decade to build up a credible alternative government capability as the opposition, while making impressive strides, is starting from such a low base.’

He worries that if the government continues with piecemeal tweaks but does not restructure sufficiently to meet the future, ‘it will be like a big company not doing enough to keep market share, like Nokia or Blackberry, which refused to go touch screen till it was too late’. Both are now eating the dust of Apple.

‘A key business of government is strategy, says US statesman Zbigniew Brzezinski. Right now, we are forgoing strategy for tweaks. The trouble with tweaks is that you are not spending strategically and not making headway in things that matter, you are just reacting to pressure from the ground,’ he says.

One example: The many rounds of cooling measures that have failed to arrest runaway housing prices.

Although most Singaporeans can afford $150,000 to buy a Build-To-Order flat in Sengkang, on a lower floor and facing a car park now, they worry that future HDB flats will be priced out of their children’s reach, he says.

‘They know that prices will converge towards resale and private residential prices which, at five to six times median annual household income, are extremely unaffordable. On current trends, how likely is it that HDB can keep prices at $150,000 if they price off market price plus costs?’

He thinks that HDB needs to abandon its ‘market fundamentalist’ pricing formula and revert to its original mission of meeting ‘social needs’. For starters, he suggests pricing entry-level three- room flats at around two times household income in all locations – only for citizens – which he says would be ‘in the spirit of HDB’s original inspiration and success’.

But will these sweeping changes he suggests – radically increasing health and housing subsidies – depart too much from the ethos of cautious continuity and fiscal prudence that the People’s Action Party has come to symbolise?

He disagrees: ‘The original brand of the PAP, as I remember it, was pragmatically meeting the needs of the ordinary citizen and often exceeding expectations in doing so on a universal basis. And it did so from the 1950s to 1980s.

‘Back then, their policies were revolutionary and ahead of time, because they anticipated and drove and mastered the future. I would love to see them recapture that original brand.’

Life after GIC
LAST June, Mr Yeoh left GIC to spend more time with his family, as well as outdoors, where he fishes, does ink sketches and pens poetry on nature. He intends to apply his economist training to ‘social investigation’ projects, especially on inequality and poverty.

He is a senior adjunct fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, a fellow of Civil Service College and an adviser to Singapore Management University’s economics faculty.

He is married to Dr Lai Ah Eng, a senior research fellow at the Asian Research Institute. Their son Lai Hsin, 16, studies at Victoria School, and their daughter Lai Lin, 19, at Cambridge University.
The self-styled ‘Engaged Buddhist’ says his goal in life is ‘to seek peace of mind, happiness and freedom from suffering, for all sentient beings’.

The person he most admires is Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who helped rebuild bombed villages, set up schools and resettle homeless families during the Vietnam War.

‘In his books, he describes movingly how he went about rebuilding villages each time they were bombed and destroyed. I am convinced you need these deep- seated values: compassion, reverence for life and its beauty and a sense of the eternal rather than just chasing money, power or fame.
Unless you have that spiritual foundation, it’s very hard to stay sane or be truly effective.’

***

TOP WORRY
It’s not ready for the world that faces us now; a world where median wages are stagnating, inequality is rising sharply, our population ageing, our maturing economy is growing much more slowly. And it’s not going to be ready for the decades ahead, or maybe even the next five years.
- Mr Yeoh, on Singapore’s social compact

VALUES TO LIVE BY
I am convinced you need these deep-seated values: compassion, reverence for life and its beauty and a sense of the eternal rather than just chasing money, power or fame.
- On how he chooses to live

**************************

In the meantime, we have news of how SMRT increased working days from 5 to 6 after a paltry increase of $225 for Singaporean bus drivers. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people? Didn’t the government forced tax payers to bail these inefficient transport operators out with more than $1 BILLION!???

The issue of Population, and gazing into a crystal ball

So this group of civil servants from the civil service, or to be more precise, the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) published a paper to support their own theory on how immigration will help Singapore. Sometimes you really have to hand it to this group of scholars (??) who have nothing better to do other than gazed into the crystal ball in the little comfortable room of their ivory towers. Seriously, extrapolating to 2060? Who do they think they are? God?

This is akin to playing TOTO or 4D. Nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone 48 years into the future. All they have done is plug into some figures into some self-made model, which I suspect with some (or rather, a lot of) oversimplifying assumptions such as linearity of variables interaction. This paper is redundant and serves no purpose except to support their own plans into allowing more immigrates into the country. This is also a paper that any secondary school student can create simply from shrinking the population at the constant variable of the difference between the replacement rate of 2.1 and the current birth rate of 1.2.

First of all, the government has to accept the fact that it is a worldwide trend for developed countries to have smaller families as more women joined the workforce and individuals treasure self-consumption more than simply having kids in an ever-increasingly expensive society. A country’s economic power and quality of life does not simply depends on labor force. We have seen nations with smaller population enjoying a higher standard of living than countries with large population. All things equal, while a larger population means larger economy, it does not mean that a larger economy equates to a stronger economy. The authorities should also be aware that come 2020, even China will start to age as well, thanks to their one-child policy.

Secondly, this paper talks about minting new citizens but ignore that there are non-citizens in the country. At any one point in time at the current moment, 1/3 of the country consists of foreigners and we have yet to take into account tourists. Singapore is only an island that is barely visible on a paper world map. How much are the authorities willing to push until it breaks the tipping point? At the current figure of 5+ million, we are already witnessing breakdowns in the country’s infrastructure, especially the famous-turned-notorious bus and trains services, crazily priced COE, stubborn HDB prices that refuses to bulge despite the measures introduced by the government giving serious signs of a bubble, increasingly dangerous xenophobia between Singaporeans and foreigners, and heightened distrust and hatred for the authorities. I cannot fathom how much worse it will become if the authorities really drive up the population to 6.5 million (a figure given by some smart alec), a figure that would essentially mean more foreigners than Singaporeans in the country if we take the population of Singaporeans as constant.

Thirdly, and more importantly, the government should look at the factors why Singaporeans are not producing more babies instead of taking the short cut of letting in more foreigners to support a population decline. It is a well known fact, one that even the PAP government acknowledges, that public housing prices is over the roof. How on earth does one expects to start a family if they have to wait years to get their own home that is marketed as public but easily consumes at least 1/3 of an average worker’s lifetime income? Then we have the inflation problem with this quarter being estimated to produce a higher inflation rate than last quarter.

It is also not wrong for some netizens to point out the current situation could be partially attributed by the government’s ‘Stop-at-Two’ policy in the 1980s that proved too successful. Asking the citizens to produce less babies when there are less jobs going around in the Eighties and asking them to produce more when there are too many jobs in the current economy is short-sighted as it treats citizens like factory machines, adjusting production to suit the government’s needs, and neglect the lagged time between ‘newly produced workers’. When the government started the ‘Stop-at-Two’ policy in the 80s, they should have expected the ‘Baby Boomers’ to ignite a drastic decline in population in the next coming decades. Isn’t that part of the plan when they considered the policy?

Crumbling infrastructure, increased tension between the citizens and foreigners, stubbornly high inflation rate and housing prices, stagnant wages….the government should jolly well try to solve all these problems instead of publishing useless papers and taking short cuts by offering short-term solutions. How on earth does this level of incompetence justify the million dollar salary is beyond me. For all I see, the PAP government is only good at collecting more money and taking inputs from foreign countries in their attempts to solve problems instead of solving the issues organically from within.

P.S. I laughed out loud whenever the main stream media broadcast to the entire world how ‘in’ the prime minister is in getting an account of facebook and how what Lee Hsien Long had for dinner is even considered as news. In the meantime, a large army of minions are hard at work deleting ‘offensive comments’ on the PM’s facebook, wasting time that could be put to better use. This illustrates perfectly the bias, curry-favor, propagandist government-controlled media who is not unlike his twin brother above the 38th parallel line that borders the land of Kimchi.

Happy Good Friday

It’s been a while since I posted anything due to impending work commitments. Nevertheless, I thought I’ll be bit cheeky and did an experiment in posting comments on Straits Times websites. Just for the sake of proving how protective the Straits Times is over their Dear Leaders. Posting using 2 anonymous emails,  I left comments criticizing the PAP government with one and a neutral tone in another in two different PCs and web browsers. The results are within expectation. Within a day, the comment in criticizing the Straits Times’s Masters was deleted and I was completely blocked from posting additional comments while the other comment with a different email account is fine. Note that while I criticized, I did it with logical arguments rather than emotive arguments. If you have 10 minutes to spare, just give it a try!

The only reason I can think of is over-protection of a highly paid, self-praising government that are totally handicapped in receiving criticism. It’s no wonder heaps of ‘alternative websites/ blogs/ social media’ are launching exponentially. I don’t really blame these officials. Educated from youth and brain washed to believe that they are the best of the best. Who are we, mere citizens to criticize them? It seems like it is almost impossible for all these top officials to feel the ground, no matter what they claim. It’s impossible to understand what you have not gone through. Tell that to the Minister of Transport. Taking a few bus rides and mrt rides is nothing compared to taking them 365 days a year.

Some, usually the government themselves, argued that criticism are not required and only ‘constructive comments’ are appreciated. I beg to differ. Criticism is the most direct form of feedback in the rawest form on how well the government and the policies are performing. While talk is cheap, it’s reasonable for citizens to expect a certain standard of performance if the government is to be the best paid in the world. And let’s not dive into the lamest argument by certain extremely senior ex/current ministers that government officials of other countries have other non-monetized perks and can even write a book to earn royalty. At last count, Lee Kuan Yew had published at least 4 books in various languages, Ex-President Nathan had one, and Goh Chok Tong had one written about him during his premiership. Want to sell books? Start writing one then!

An economic study had actually shown that comparing the performance of capable government, humbled capable government, incapable government and humbled incapable government, the government that performed the best is capable government humbled under the heat of criticism. While it’s a stretch to say the results of this study is absolute, it does make some logical sense. Criticism forces the capable government to rethink harder whatever policies they need to implement. It also brings them down to the ground on public opinions. Therefore, it’s actually good if criticism are welcomed.

Although it’s expected results, I cringed at the thought of how hundreds of promising bright SPH scholars are being compelled to serve and protect the bias national media and their masters. Everything they have learned about liberty (since most of them pursue their undergraduate degrees in US and UK universities) are squashed. Unsurprisingly, many scholars I know left right after 6 years to pursue their dreams. Who can stand the bureaucracy of a system that determines how far you can climb simply by looking at your PSLE, O, A, and university results? Maybe except those that hunger for power and feel the need to over lord the rest.

The issue of scholarship for foreigners

Just when I thought the Sun Xu incident will died down, comments from MP Baey Yam Keng has started flaring up emotions in Singapore. While I understand the need to attract talents, Singapore’s way of attracting talents does seem overwhelmingly generous.

A check with the MOE website stated 5 basic scholarships awarded by MOE–ASEAN Scholarship, SIA Youth Scholarship, A*Star India Youth Scholarship, MOE Scholarship and Hong Kong Scholarships. Apart from the MOE Scholarship, Singaporeans are not eligible for the rest, with most of them sponsoring up to Pre-U except for the ASEAN Scholarship. And why are there 2 scholarships (SIA Youth and A*Star India Youth) that cater to solely India nationals again?? So where is this ‘race-blind-solely-meritocracy-based’ comments from Mr Baey?

I also took issue with his statement (quote): [ "Whether they are a GLC (government-linked company), the government or a private company, they all want good people to work for them," he told Yahoo! Singapore in an interview on Thursday]. How on earth can foreigners work in government agencies especially sensitive ones such as MOF and MHA? I would not have expected a MP to give such sweeping statements. Does he mean that the government will choose a foreigner to stand in as our minister as long as he/ she is good? I wouldn’t be surprise since that is already happening with ‘newly minted new citizens’ suddenly appearing to stand in our elections last year.

Let us take a look at the ‘Scholarship Objective’ quoted from MOE website:

Scholars in Singapore

There are various programmes in place to ensure that scholars will be able to adjust to life in Singapore. These programmes also aim to develop scholars to their full potential.

Our objectives are to:

• Ensure the physical and emotional well-being of scholars
• Support proper character development of scholars
• Maximise scholars’ potential
• Encourage outstanding academic performance of scholars

I thought that’s rather generous of MOE to use tax payer’s money to help nurture foreigners. When I clicked onto ‘Life as a Scholar in Singapore’, the contents almost read like a 5 star hotel package that not only take care of all your needs but pay you money as well. I wonder whether the website is created by someone from Singapore Tourism Board.

Quote: [Ms Sim also said that the quality of foreign scholars has been maintained over the years. She quoted some statistics: Around 45% complete their undergraduate studies with a second-upper class honours or better while only 32% of Singaporeans do as well.]. The statistical result is meaningless. We are comparing scholarship holders, or rather, singapore government sponsored foreigners with ‘average’ Singapore university students. As foreign scholars, we would expect better performances from them. If not, why are we giving them free education and money? We are also looking at a much larger Singapore students population. Why don’t MOE compare the results of foreign scholars in local universities with Singaporean scholars (including those on overseas scholarship)?

Most of the Singaporean scholars I know (but then it’s my bias view since I don’t have the big picture) performed very well whether or not they studied at local or overseas universities. In my own sample size, more than 80% achieved a first class or summa cum laude. I mean, if they are to be called scholars, there must be some substance. Looking at the statistics provided by MOE, only 67% of foreigner scholars achieved high honors (second upper included). So what happened to those who managed a second lower and below?

To be frank, I don’t think 2nd lower in local universities can be considered a scholar since more than 50% of the honors batch achieve that standing. Statistically speaking, close to half of these ‘foreign scholars’ (or half of $36 million spent yearly) is simply equivalent to the average of the honors batch. I leave it to you to decide whether $18 million is money well spent in nurturing foreigners that turns out to be average. Meanwhile, there are many Singapore students who are refused a place (much less a scholarship) in the local universities but turn out to be scoring high honors in private universities or overseas universities after paying through their nose when their parent’s tax were used to fund average foreign ‘scholars’. Maybe it’s simply because my perception of the word ‘scholar’ is too stringent?

Moral authority

I had a fun time reading and watching some of the parliament speeches, some of which makes me think real hard. Not about the reason high pay is required, because I don’t see a point in bringing up a topic to discuss when there’s nothing to discuss anyway.

The PM had already said that the government (or rather, himself) decided to accept the wage proposal created by a committee formed by himself and that the ‘whip’ will not be removed, meaning the majority PAP controlled parliament can only approve the proposal as well.  It’s akin to a school headmaster asking his fellow teachers to grade him for his performance but he can choose to approve whether that grade is acceptable. In other words, the PM grades himself. What I am really concern about is the capability and logic thinking skills of the various ‘talents’ the PAP government had ushered into the highest decision body in Singapore.

There is this unknown MP who calculates that an estimated 3.5 million Singaporeans pay only $1 each for the Prime Minister, and the PM is ‘kind enough’ to ‘sacrifice’ a hefty discount to take ‘only’ $2.2 million a year. I laughed. Going by that logic, the US President should be paid $300 million, the Indian PM should be paid $1.2 billion, and the Chinese Premier should expect $1.3 billion. That would mean every single head of state in the developed world is seriously underpaid. I smell a wisp of chao-tar curry in the air. Too much curry powder was added and the flame was overwhelming.

Another unknown MP re-paraphrase what the Deputy PM Teo Chee Heng had mentioned, about ‘not being fair’ to compare the salaries of other countries as other head of states enjoy hidden perks like housing, free air ticket, and (he emphasized the words) “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera”. If there are so many et ceteras, why couldn’t the MP simply list the figures down clearly? The emphasizes of et cetra without a concrete figure is vague and ambiguous. If you have the figures, back it up. If not, it’s empty speech.

One female MP talks about being unfair to measure politician salaries base on civil service salaries given the larger responsibilities and more important decision making politicians face. If salary is a measurement of responsibility, it would mean managing a $220 billion economy with a population of 5 million is more complicated and difficult than managing a $15 trillion economy with a population of 300 million, never mind the other factors such as natural disasters and strong labor unions when we compare Singapore and USA.

The fact that only 1 PAP MP Ms Denis Phua raised concerns about the revised salary structure reeks of Group Think and reluctance to challenge the decisions made by the PM within the PAP–the very idea of nonexistence of impartiality in a dominating PAP parliament. The PM said that it is still possible to have healthy debates in a PAP dominated parliament during the last General Election. Obviously, it’s not true. All in all, it sent a shiver down my spine to think that these are the so called ‘talents’ that the PAP is pursuing to lead the country.

The PM mentioned that Singapore is extraordinary. Yes, we are extraordinarily open to foreigners. We are extraordinarily friendly to various corporations. And we pay our political leaders extraordinarily well. While self-praising themselves as extraordinary elites and insinuating that without the PAP, Singapore will deteriorate, the deterioration process has already started proven from the recent problems haunting the country. The many years of self-serving elitism had eschewed on whatever remaining moral the old PAP had build up. The new PAP is an obsessed financier that place a price tag on everything, mix with his own people, benchmark his performance on growing the bank account even if it means structuring products that would cause harm to his clients as long as his own profits increase, and measure his capability in dollars and zeros. In the logic of PAP, a high pay equates to talent and vice versa.

If the logic is true, is it not only fair for Singaporeans to have extraordinary expectations? So why aren’t Singaporeans enjoying an extraordinary life? In fact, I don’t think that Singaporeans have an extraordinary expectation of their government. I remembered a time when most Singaporeans are contented about the PAP government until the foreigners, transportation, housing and cost of living issues started brewing in the beginning of the new millennium.

Despite all that explanation, the PM and Deputy PM’s reasoning are flawed. Singapore is a larger entity than the PAP. The PM’s reasoning simply means that the PAP is unable to find talents without paying top dollar. It does not mean that Singapore is unable to find talents without paying top dollar. It is important that we are conscious that the PAP might not govern Singapore forever. The fact that we have Chen Show Mao, a Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar to give up a top paying job as a partner of a top lawyer firm renowned world-wide to take up a MP position in the opposition camp, is the perfect example of what a real sacrifice should be. Not those calculative ‘sacrifices’ espoused by unproven, mostly ex-civil servants or ex-top management of government-linked companies that only managed to hop on the coat tails of PAP into parliament.

I view the discussion of the ministerial salary as a valuable chance for the PAP government to regain whatever credibility they have lost over the last few years. What I witnessed is reluctance to go for bold changes and speeches that makes me question the capabilities and real reason for joining politics of the various ‘elected’ MPs and ministers of the ruling party. It seems that the PAP is not only extraordinarily generous in rewarding themselves, they are also extraordinary in one aspect: the lack of moral authority.

Confused or Wayang?

A noble speech by an ex-military general after his first constitutional walk about since the general election (so what was he doing since June 2011??):

 

Once upon a time, Mr Lee Kuan Yew said ministerial pay needs to be increased in order to curb corruption and also attract talents. So what he means is pay is an important factor. Fine, that sounds like an acceptable reason given the political landscape among the ASEAN countries in the 1960s. Mr Goh Chok Tong followed up by saying that if we pay peanuts, we’ll get monkeys. Reaffirmation of the importance of the pay factor but not very convincing nowadays given the negative issues of foreigners, housing and transportation even after paying top dollar to the so-called talents for so many decades.

In recent times Ms Not-so-Graceful said money is not her primary concern when she decided to enter politics and yet paradoxically mention about the ‘possible deterioration’ of her standard of living. If you are not concern, why even mention it? I can never understand why would someone talk about an issue that they said they are not concern about. And now, we have this ex-general propagating that pay is not a factor at all for his fellow colleagues and himself. Going by the logic of Mr Lee and Mr Goh, Ms Grace Fu and Mr Chan Chun Sing must be offered top dollar in order to attract them to join politics. Yet going by Ms Grace Fu and Mr Chan’s defense, it seems that pay is not an important factor after all. So the question is, do we still need to pay top dollar to attract talents to serve the country?

If pay is an important factor to attract talents, then there is nothing altruistic about the reason Ms Grace and Mr Chan joined politics. But if pay is not an important factor, why do we even need to offer such a high salary? You can’t say pay is not an important factor for yourself to join politics and yet said that pay is important to attract talents to join politics. It is such an oxymoron.

PAP is such a confused group of politicians. Either that, or it’s all wayang.

Money Issues

So the recent proposal of salary amendment was released and obviously many people aren’t satisfied about it. Personally, I don’t find the cut satisfactory when using an international benchmark (comparing vis-a-vis the responsibility by leaders of other countries) but the results are pretty much within expectation. A drastic cut would literally cut away at whatever harmony and morale left in the PAP government, and an internal disintegration would be worse than leaving a portion of citizens being unsatisfied. After all, they still have 4 more years to prove their worth.

In addition, there is not much margin left to cut considering that the top management of Government-Linked-Companies are already earning a very high salary. It doesn’t make sense for the CEO of SMRT or Singtel to earn more than a minister (at least in PAP logic, although CEO of Keppel group seemed to be paid more than a minister in a good year when bonus and options are included). In fact, the entire pay structure of top civil servants would prevent a humongous cut from happening since our permanent secretary alone (and I haven’t add in the bonuses) earns more than the U.S. president. In a way, it’s like a domino. If you want a truly significant reduction, it would mean slicing all the way down to the civil servants, which is actually a bad thing if you ask me.

However, I must say that the salary cut is a good step towards a more democratic society, where an increasingly vociferous population is snatching back power monopolized by the government. The only issue I have is the ridiculous bonus scheme. Even if the new proposal is adopted, the maximum bonus is still more than 14 months–a scheme that is so rare in the private sector. In typical oxymoron fashion, the government benchmark their pay to the (top earners of the) private sector but devised a bonus scheme that is out of this world (the current scheme allows bonus up to more than 24 months). The proposed benchmark based on 4 factors sounds valid but there is a deeper sinister meaning:

1. GDP growth—ok, so GDP growth still plays a part
2. Unemployment rate—since S’pore’s unemployment rate is forever so low (since the 80s!), GDP still plays the major part. Why do you think there are so many foreigners? The country’s problem is not enough workers, not not enough jobs. For this, I commended the government for doing such a great job in pulling in companies to set up businesses in Singapore (that policies is almost crafted solely to meet business owners/ MNCs’ needs)
3. Median Income of TOP 1000 Singaporeans income earners—bias policy might be created to favor this elite group. We already see the chairman of the Real Estate Developer Association of Singapore to have the cheek to warn (and threaten) an economic downturn and asset devaluation due to new property cooling measures. And again, it’s about pushing through the GDP express train so that the top earners would benefit. I foresee greater income disparity.
4. Real growth in bottom 20% of income earners—This sounds politically right. But basically, all you need to do is to increase foreign workers levy which makes it more expensive to hire cheaper foreign labor, score some political point for correcting a policy that Singaporeans don’t like, and indirectly force some companies to pay a higher pay to Singaporeans. Or, the government can simply introduce minimum wage policy, score more political points and raise the bottom earners by a few dollars. At such low salary, any increment would be significant. When you are earning $800 a month, a $50 increment would translate to 6.25% jump in income.

If you look closely, the essence of the policy doesn’t change. It is still about the economy. It is still mainly about money. Point 2 is easily achieved going by the current low Singaporean population and the low replacement rate. Point 4 can be easily achieved too. And point 1 and 2 is solely on driving the economic train. In fact, points 1,2 & 3 go hand in hand together. You can’t get one without the other two. While I admit economic growth is important, the idealistic me would rather see benchmarks such as improving health-care (made even more important in an aging society) and public goods such as transportation (yes, I definitely feel that a ‘nationalized’ bus and train service is still the responsibility of LTA. If not, why would we even need a minister of transport?) and housing (a major problem). How about replacing point 2 & 3 with population control (measurable), waiting time of public transportation (measurable), and waiting time to get and affordability of a HDB flat (also measurable) since such factors directly affect most Singaporeans?

In the meantime, we yet see another minister who just could not keep her mouth shut and start spouting stupid comments. Grace Fu, in yet another ungraceful ‘PAP-style-I am misinterpreted’ episode (see here) could do better to keep her opinion to herself. Why would she comment that pay is not a major factor when at the same time insinuate a lower pay scale would mean a lower standard of living? On the other hand, maybe I should commend her on her honesty and bravery for not deleting the post (or maybe she realized netizens would have screen saved it any way).

This is not the first time we have seen how politically ‘unsavvy’ PAP candidates are…maybe they need EQ lessons, provided they have some emotional quotient left in their brain.

P.S. I wasted a few minutes of my life reading through the recent post by Tin Pei Ling. In a new year, I was hoping for some improvement. Yet, I see another noble-sounding post that didn’t add value to my time spent. And while more than 80% of the essay is about what is already being done and how the ‘Community’ is helping and ‘reaching out’ to the public, the last paragraph talks about not depending on the government. Isn’t it an irony? An MP of the ruling government asking the public not to depend on the government while taking in $190,000 a year.

Merry Christmas everybody!

I just came back from holidays and was astonished at the kind of damage the PAP (or government-linked, however you wish to call it) has digged for themselves this christmas. Firstly, I would like to suggest to PAP/ pro-PAP members to stop more defensive moves that seems to create a larger hole. PUB’s classification of a flash flood as ‘ponding’ is uncalled for. A flood is a flood. Damage is done, shop owners are unhappy about monetary losses and public is unhappy to see their favorite shopping street ‘ponded’ again. Concrete actions are needed to solve the problem and they can stop playing with the English dictionary. And why are plans to widen the canals only be implemented next year? Where is the urgency since the flooding of Orchard Road SIX months ago??? Probably the top management at PUB are having fun clearing their leave after getting their fat bonuses.

MP Seng’s recent note to push the blame to TOC is also uncalled for. His own pathetic little speech with poor use of English (and yes, he was telling people that broken english is ok) language sparks a chain of youtube videos and complaints before TOC started publishing an article (sure, it’s bias, but what do you expect from a media that tends to be more bias against government controlled media? I also admit in my first post that my blog tend to be bias against the government for very obvious reasons). Such an article posted on Facebook (rather than coming on bravely on national TV) is not only cowardy but also speaks volume about his sincerity in apologizing for this episode. More importantly, it seems to insinuate utterly poor communication skills of the authorities.

So much for a ‘world class’ government.

Let’s welcome our rise to the the Swiss standard of living (cost component only)

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/s%E2%80%99pore-sixth-most-costly-city-in-asia–survey.html

Let’s congratulate ourselves for surpassing Hong Kong, where transportation is actually cheaper. Even my Hong Kong colleagues were complaining that Singapore cost of living is getting out of hand. Meanwhile, my other non-local colleagues were commenting how crowded Singapore is compared to just a few years ago. Even the foreigners were feeling the heat.

In the meantime, a little illustration on the historical price trend of crude oil (which affects diesel, the all important factor Comfort gave in increasing the cab fares drastically) I mentioned in my last post:

We see a gradual increase in oil price but it’s nowhere near the range back in 2008 or even the first half of this year. And trying to act all altruistic, ComfortDelgro simply conveniently pass on the responsibility of increasing taxi drivers’ salary to the consumers while contributing no part of their own.

Jump to another topic: while I have no comments on the largely ‘behind-the-scenes’ ex-president, this article makes me laugh:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/i-don%E2%80%99t-want-to-defend-myself–s-r-nathan.html

I never realize one needs to be a genius to be ‘educated to understand the role of a president in Singapore’.  The funniest sentence reads, “…Nathan said that the role of Singapore’s president cannot be defined easily or clearly, and it would “take another generation at least” to educate Singaporeans about it.”

and,

“A lot of people think the president can do what he likes,” he said. “How to educate them? I don’t think you can.”

Wow. I was flabbergasted. What kind of job is it that cannot be defined easily or clearly? The role of a president cannot be educated to the general public within a generation! At the same time, Nathan is insinuating that he is just a puppet incapable of doing anything politically.

And the next joke is, paradoxically, the article continues to read:

The former president said it is knowledgeable people, rather than Singaporeans in the heartlands, who are questioning his previous role.

“The people in the heartlands, even though many are not very well educated, they see it as a symbol that is distinct from the government. But knowledgeable people seem to think you can do what you like,” he noted.

So basically ‘knowledgeable people’ cannot be ‘educated’ about the role of a president in Singapore. What a total oxymoron. What Nathan actually wanted to say is uneducated people is easier to be brainwashed and controlled compared to a more educated and liberal population. I believe this largely reflects the general view of the ruling party (you don’t need a genius to guess why).

The PAP will change say Lee Hsien Loong? I give them a million years to even start acting on it.

Price up, up, up

Is there any reason why nobody is feeling they have gained anything from the so called economic growth?

Just today, ComfortDelgro announced a ridiculous increase in taxi fares to ‘cater to higher demand’, just weeks after a price revision by SMRT and a report stating that transportation and accommodation are the two main drivers of inflation in Singapore. While I am not against price increase, the magnitude of increase this time round is jaw dropping.

As a summary, most prices (per unit, whether in minutes or meters) increased from almost 4% to 22%. Current booking of Limousine increased from $8 to $10 while advanced booking of limousine increased from $16 to $18.

While peak hour surcharge decreased from 35% to 25%, the hours extended from 7am-9am from Mon-Fri and 5pm-8pm from Mon-Sat to a ridiculous 6am-9am (excluding public holidays) and 6pm to MIDNIGHT Mon-Sun including public holidays. How on earth is 6am considered peak period baffles me. On the other hand, we have ministers asking the citizens to travel to work earlier (and gave some cents off your transport cost). If 6am is considered peak, I don’t know what is non-peak. It’s totally ridiculous.

Do you know what that means? It means you’ll forever be paying ‘premium prices’ from 6pm to 9am the following day. From 6pm to midnight, you have to pay 25% more. From midnight to 5:59am, you have to pay midnight surcharge of 50%. From 6am to 9am, you have to pay 25% more again. So according to ComfortDelgro, peak hours (including midnight demand) forms 15 hours a day.

The removal of holiday surcharge of the pathetic $1 is a joke.

The ComfortDelgro group is taking advantage of their monopolistic position to push prices up, and given their close connection to the government, we have the ‘National Taxi Association’ URGING other taxi companies to follow suit. Well, given that the big boy is taking the lead, other smaller taxi companies would just have to follow suit. The last thing I want to know is ComfortDelgro is increasing their rent to the taxi drivers (and probably quote the increasingly expensive COE and oil price (like when is oil price not a reason right?) as a reason).

The often used excuse is diesel oil price is increasing and the taxi group is ‘doing their part’ to ‘help’ the taxi drivers cope with the rising cost. While it’s true that diesel oil price is increasing, crude oil (the main factor affecting diesel) is no where near the price levels back in 2007 (the so called last price adjustment). The economic outlook is pretty dim given all the US and Europe financial problems. And the company has strategically opted to increase prices before you feel your wallet shrinking. If the company is sincere in helping the taxi drivers, why don’t they lower their obscene rental rates?

Who are the losers? Consumers of course. With local transportation fully monopolized by government linked companies, consumers don’t have much of a choice. What is made even worse is the sub-par trains and bus services we have that is overwhelmed by the increasing population. While SBS and SMRT loves to self-praise themselves as world class, they are not comparable to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Even the taxi drivers might end up losing as the higher price will kill off more demand which might leads to lower pick up rates.

Every price is going up, up, up in Singapore. Officials say inflation is 5%. Do you feel it’s 5%? Property tax just went up because housing valuation is increasing. What causes housing valuation to shoot over the roof? Poor housing policy handling by the PAP government, and opening the flood gates to foreigners into the country and allowing them to enter the HDB market; subsidized housing originally planned for Singaporeans. So now Singaporeans are paying the price for such failed policy (admitted by the PAP themselves that they have failed in this area) while paying the ministers such high salaries?

While the government claims that a higher population will make Singapore better off, what we see is an entirely different picture. We see tonnes of problems caused mainly by increased demand for goods and increased land demand thanks to the liberal population policy. We only see increased cost of living especially in housing and transportation, deteriorating infrastructure as the increasing population continues to overwhelm, marginal increase in salary that ends up mostly eaten away by inflation, decreased quality of life due to alarmingly shrinking flats (while some lame academic high post officer from HDB claims that personal space is larger due to smaller household size, it doesn’t make any sense since a larger household can simply buy 5-rooms flats instead of 4-rooms. Personal space and utility of a larger living space is not correlated), suppressed salary for the unskilled and uneducated due to cheaper labor from poorer countries made worse by the lack of minimum wage laws and uncontrolled population policy, distortion of the social fabric…..I can go on and on.

What one obvious benefit of a liberal population policy is: more tax money being collected by the government. However, I have yet to see any being used significantly in pressing problems such as the poor, disabled and elderly. All these, while hearing billions of losses from Temasek and GIC.

To the authorities if you ever read this post, are you ever ashamed of yourselves? How the heck did you manage to sleep soundly at night? Oh, I forgot, you are too busy counting your money in the bank to take notice. And when is the Salary Review Committee announcing the ministers’ salary review again? The last time I heard the committee’s second meeting is scheduled in year 2016.