You want Casino?
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socrates,
your gesture of friendliness is appreciated and returned as well. if ever there were any feelings of being bashed it is most unfortunate for i'm merely stating well known facts. the relevance stems from the idea that drastic measures should only come in after we have tightened our belts as much as we could.
if you somehow have the impression that we are against the govt just because we spoke up, then that is most unfortunate too for it is this issue that we are concerned with, very much like the mps or ministers who spoke against it.
if words you used on me seemed rude to people on top, i wonder why they are not rude to me as well?
do not mistake defending my beliefs as intolerance to those running counter to mine. just as when you defend your viewpoints that run counter to those of others, you wouldn't want them to accuse you of intolerance would you? you certainly have the right to see the issue as you deem fit, even likening it to CPR on a pulseless body. but how is CPR going to work on a body that as you mentioned has been pulseless for 10 years?
good point about tourism being inclusive of airlines, hotels and restaurants but even if we were to add these up, the combined total is not more than 15%. and we are not even talking about collapse, just lack of growth. i'm not belittling the situation, i think it is worrying and definitely worthy of our concern. however if our concern really is to capture this growing market, then shouldn't this be an issue of opportunity rather than life and death? is like we have been eating the same for the past 10 years now suddenly a big fish jumps out of the water and we want to catch it. do we say "we would love to catch this fish" or do we say "if we don't catch this fish then we'd surely die"?
as long as critical issues are skirted around, we'll always be going round and round like a broken record.
bottomline is this. altruism is something i find hard to associate with politics. there is no free meal in this world. nothing is given for free and something is definitely asked for in return, either explicitly or implicitly. just as lift upgradings or en-bloc upgradings are not performed for free, it is hard to believe that the jobs that are promised comes free. at the end of the day, if altruism were to be the calling of the day, the potential benefits to the people would outweigh those to the govt's. but we all know that whether or not the tourists come, the casino will more likely than not pile in cash. if the cash does not come from tourists, it will surely come from our own pockets and in the end, the casino would merely be an addition to toto, 4D and horse racing. on the other hand, whether or not tourists come, our children and grandchildren will have to live with the social degradation.
at the end of the day if you wish to have the cake and eat it, who can stop you? i think i've said enough, we'd know in 5 years time. -
What's an economy made up of, but people??? if many people lose jobs, then the joblessness of the nation as a whole will shoot up, and that will be teh economy losing jobs. The employer might recruit anotehr person, but where will the replacement come from?
When the addicts was sacked, the employer will employ another person to fill in his shoe. Unless there is a zero unemployment rate in Singapore which is highly unlikely to occur in any society, he can find the replacement. If he really can't and he seriously need a person to carry out the work, he have to increase the pay so that more people will be interested and work for him. Overall the number of jobs in Singapore will still remains the same.
The prospect of economic benefits actually possesses less information than the prospect of social costs. Sure, we can never have completely perfect information, but still any risks taken must be educated, that is based on weighing of information found. Unfortunately, I don't think the government actually weighted it out well enough. What I saw was that the government merely tried to sweep the social costs under the carpet, and hide it behind the noble-sounding oncepts of " maturity" and "multiracial/multireligious harmony". The latter is completely spurious: Notice how many religious groups displayed their discontent; it was not merely the Muslims who did so. Even teh Buddhist Community showed their intense displeasure, and buddhists are meant to be pacifist. The former sounds extrmely plausible, and in fact you imply that in your statement. But if we are so mature, why don't we have free speech and a free press? Why don't we have student unions with real say in school affairs? Isn't that a blatant double-standard for maturity?
Hmm... they do educate people of the potential problems of a casino. If you felt that they had not done enough to educate the people on the potential problem I respect that view. For myself, I felt that they had mention enough. Talking about maturity, lets just say that the political party here is the one that is not mature enough
But I guess that is a topic on another thread
Building the IR is merely a one-time job. the boost brought to the construction industry is not permanent, unless everyone decides to live near the IR all of a sudden.
True. But the money spend is big and these money will circulate in our economy resulting in bigger amount than expected
Economics has a social element: When you deal with economies, you don't just deal with money and machinery and land, you deal with the people living, working and interacting in these economies. And people have feelings and needs. By reducing them to mere statistics, such as number of jobs created, does not bring the human aspect to the fore. What is the quality of the jobs? Do they fulfill the workers' needs, not just for money, but for proper society?
My guess is you are describing mainly politics. Economy mainly deals with money only. About the quality of the job created by the casinoes, I believe they will be very helpful to the Singaporean production workers who were retrenched when the company shifted their operations to China
So by merely brushing away social impacts of the IR, the government has failed to even try to calculate the entire opportunity cost of building the IR, in terms of what is foregone in terms of people. If the people are of poor quality because of teh existence of the IR, the financial economy will suffer, because the relative financial costs of hiring socially inept workers will increase, and this will diminish profitability of any other business in the country. Humans live in societies; they affect people around them. There is no way to measure the impact caused by a problem gambler on the morale of his coleagues in the workforce, even less than a measurement can be done of the effects on his family. Social costs cannot be permuted accurately in terms of money.
As said in the previous paragraph, the gov do take into consideration the harmful effect to the economy. My stand is, try to maximise the potential economic benefit to Singapore while minimising the potential harmful effects.
Whether Cisco pays them or the Ministry of the Integrated Resorts (as seems to be the plan of the govt from what I heard on TV) is a non-issue. Tourists won't care where these personnel come from. They will care about the fact that the personnel exist. I have the impression because that is what I heard Minister of Home Affairs say on April 18th.
Well we can only find out how much of these uniformed personnel be deployed and how bad an effect will they give to the customers. Does having a lot of uniform personnel threathen the customers much or give them a feeling of safety ?
AS for CME, I am not agaisnt CME as a concept, but I do think that the manner in which it is carried out is ratehr inefective. That is from personal experience, since my friedns have always desired to skip CME, even though they might agree to the importance of good morals. Anyway, I do think that quality of teachers and school administrations needs to be improved first, before CME can be mroe effective.The govt didn't seem to be asking for help, it seemed to be delegating a job, as if the religious bodies are the Minsitry of Moral Affairs.
Well, I see them as asking for help but if you see them as demanding help, that is okay. Lets just hope overall the public will be educated on the problems of gambling. If you say CME education is crap, it may very well is. However I guess there is really little much MOE can do to improve CME classes. Maybe if they place it as an exaiminable subject, then will the people start to pay attention to it
point taken. Have increased crime rates surfaced yet? Perhaps they have already, just that that is not reported on by the pro-govt Straits Times.
Maybe. Maybe they are reported in the police annual reports, though I forgot about the content of it.
And what is the opportunity cost of teh casino or IR?
You should know it better than me. However as said before, it is in itself a gamble which hopes to improve the quality of life in Singapore than making it worse
People regard you as insensible because you are always repeating government propaganda. They have tried many times to explain why teh ropaganda is inaccurate, but you refuse to accept alternatives. This has shown you to be totally ignorant of the govt's motives, especially when you claim that everybody is ignoring you, and has caused people to give up talking to you.
My stand is, the gov is not always wrong. I also believe that they gov is wrong in some issues as well. I personally believe the casino will improve the quality of life in Singapore as much as them. To me, it is a correct action to perform not because I support gov blindly. Why is the propaganda inaccurate ? Is it just because it was said by the gov then it is inacurate ? Everything they say are propaganda ?
kindly no flaming please.
The previous remarks to me are not courteous either.
ANd what are the sacrifices of building the casino? Please look at both sides.
I thought I have mention about the both sides
How about Disneyland? Why were they rejected in 1997
Because Disney think that Shanghai is a better place. -
PM,Impossible to eat the cake & have it!
PM said to a certain extent he wanted to have the cake & eat it.
When one eats the cake, one can't still have it on the table.So "have the cake and eat it" is impossilbe.
When the govt says casino is morally wrong,then the govt shouldn't legalise it.If it approves a casino,then casino shouldn't be wrong unless the govt purposedly want to do wrong thing. -
You mean it is alright to build the casinos first to experience what problems might be created - seeing the citizens as guinea pigs - such as whether some people might lose their life savings or jobs and how many might jump off the 10th storey windows or not. This is a ridiculous and dangerous line of thinking and governing a country.
Risk taking is part and parcel of life. When you buy shares of change of your job, you are guilty of making your family guinea pigs, such as making them live off much worse standard of living shall you fall and perpetually carry your debt. If by not taking any risks, then all policies will come to a standstill since no one can take calculated risk. This is the ridiculous line of thinking and governing, and probably living, in a country.
You mean that after all the denials of negative impacts from the casinos, you are now saying that the 35,000 job creation is only some kinds of approximation. How much is the margin of accuracy ? After such a method of study, and conclusion of such study, so it is now a conclusion based on some approximation ? Very rough or very certain?
No matter what study you have done, you can never give absolute numbers to the impact of of a future trend or changes. The only way to get absolute figures is by going to the future which is impossible. 35,000 is an approximation. Things such as predicted economic growth for the country, predicted amount of money spent on Iraq for the war, predicted percentage of earning you are going to get from shares are all approximation at best. I cannot comment on how accurate it is but since it had been uttered out by the prime minister, I put my bet that is it highly believable.
By what you are saying the said 35,000 jobs cannot be believed totally after all the denial of necessity to present objective figures for job losses due to erosion of work ethics etcI am at a loss of the logics of such a study or arguments in favor of setting up of casinos.
As said before, it is accurate to a high percentage. There is no such things as abolute when it comes to predicting future trends. Even though they are approximation, they are treated as important data to make decisions. Or will you rather throw away such statistic and make decisions blindly ?
Finally it is to be noted that you have admitted that in your definition the overall creation of 35,000 jobs you have not linked this figure to other ills of casino as to do would cause loss of focus on the study in specific area.
Therefore by your own admission it is clearly established that the studies as presented to parliament were less than objective, biased or doubtful.
I mention that the 35,000 jobs created are simply jobs created. Surely you have read them yourself and it just meant 35,000 jobs are created, nothing more. But they have included other studies such as 2% of population will become more problematic gamblers and this figures just meant as such, and nothing linked with the 35,000 jobs that may be created. Why should these 2 figures be read in such a way that is must provide information to all areas ?
So it is concurred by you that there is a possibility that tourists may not come. May I just on this note just draw to your attention the existing casinos in UK and other countries were deserted after the initial years so much so that the government has finally had to live with the long term social ills created. The UK government even had to come up with rescue or revision plans of all kinds to help existing casinos survive ongoing competitions.
Well, I believe the least I do is to give an honest opinion. Allow me to ask you some questions back, can you give a confirmed answer that the casinoes will definitely bring a very high social problem to the society, such as making 10% of the whole population becoming problematic gamblers ? Can you conclude that the casinoes is not going to earn overall profit but report a loss when it was operational ? If you say you can confirm these 2 answers, then may I enquire how do you get to this conclusion from which study and which statistic ? If your understand why you can't give a confirm answer, than you will realise why nobody can give any confirm answer to you as well. What you believe is really no different as mine. You can't deny it may succeed grandly with little backlash.
Did our ministers like bala take all the above-mentioned problems with casinos into consideration to avoid the same scenario as has happened with existing casinos elsewhere. In view of past experiences with growth triangles or souzhou perhaps the cabinet or leaders who pushed for casino behind the scene be more circumspect then instead of expecting the people to listen to failing assumptions again.
I am not sure, maybe they do take into considerations. If you want the cabinet leaders to hear the people, they may really be doing the hearing as well. Take note that there are indeed many people here who do believe the casino is generally good for singapore, such as myself. How much percentage of the people support the casino, I can only give an approximaton of 50%. So whatever decision they made, they could very well end up again being "unlistening to the people". The past experience and decisions from the gov doesn't all end up wrong as well. If you see Suzhou, it is indeed growing and we didn't really make a lost there.
Isn't it logical that if pathological gamblers are 2% of total gamblers before the casino open here this figure will tend to increase once the casinos are set up aggravating the percentage of addiction beyond the initial 2 %?
The figure should increase. But to how much ? We already can take in 2% and we still are, to many people who are anti-casino, a clean and stable place where we can bring up our kids. The assumption that the casino is already closer to our homes than what many people think appears more true as well.
Therefore from the above-stated admissions of yours the decision to build the two casinos were not objective, or thoroughly considered containing half-truths and assumptions. Such a decision cannot be enough well-considered as claimed.
Sad to say, I still do not see how else to better the information gathered and how much information is deemed as enough.
The lack of objectivity or thoroughness was aggravated by the leaders' hiding behind the cabinet insisting on disallowing lifting of the parliamentary whip or taking of votes based on conscience.
If the parliament allow taking of votes among the parliament, I believe it will make the selection more acceptable. But to myself, even if they allow voting, it is highly likely more will support the casino since the head of PAP is supporting the casino and PAP is, well, holding the majority of the seats here. Either way, it is going to be unfair int he eyes of some people
The 72,000 people who will be affected or addicted to gambling could be more except for the lack of sufficiently objective study as stated. The potential negative impact could have been much higher in view of problems with existing casinos in UK and other countries over the long term. As it stands the 72,000 likely gambling addicts is not by any means a small figure. It may be only the tip of the iceberg the way problems have been presented as shown in UK or other countries in post-casino crimes and bankruptcies. Such impacts will produce totally serious social problems of all kinds and will persist for the whole future generations.
True. However the opposite can be said about the economic benefit from the casino as well. The 35,000 jobs may be just the tip of an iceberg when compared with the real economic benefit it bring and it will too go to the whole of future generations
We are a dense population centre. The impacts on our citizens living in such dense cities might assume higher proportions. Singaporeans will forever have to cope with all kinds of social problems deeply implanted in the country.
True, but the study on some city have an overall greater population than Singapore as well. In fact for some cities, the casino is further from certian part of their city than Singaporean travelling to genting. If just by looking at the physical distance, Singapore is really considered to have a casino. I am not saying that opening a casino will not increase the amount of problem gamblers here but the usefulness of the report in assessing Singapore
I thought that if our leaders are among the best in the world as claimed and as such they should first show us why they cannot solve our economic problems with other better original ideas and solutions out of their own creativity and entrepreneurship.
Well, either they aren't what they claimed or the problem they are facing is tougher than what any goverment can do. The best engineers in the world can not make a car that runs on no fuel as well.
In the absence of presentation of a greater new-era economic master plan to show us real facts and figures on our economic strategy for the new age, it can only be concluded that they decided to join countries in turning to casinos for a living because they have run out of ideas or leadership.
It is hoped that the same extra-polation will not be made to assume that we are not competitive still unless we also follow others to open up prostitutions to the whole country since without prostitution, casinos might not succeed that well and other countries are also increasing turning to prostitution.
Being totally honest with you. I do not know why is the master plan so important to you and how it will help in any area...
It is sad that the studies did not go show all the above-stated economic review of the status of our competitiveness and with the opening of the casino, we are now telling our local citizens we cannot compete any more except to turn to gambling in a bigger way.
I guess it is obvious we are losing competitiveness recently and we should strive out on all possible means to improve our standing. -
Socrates,
True. But the money spend is big and these money will circulate in our economy resulting in bigger amount than expected
your logic here befuddles me. How does spending money result in a bigger amount than expected?
My guess is you are describing mainly politics. Economy mainly deals with money only. About the quality of the job created by the casinoes, I believe they will be very helpful to the Singaporean production workers who were retrenched when the company shifted their operations to China
politics and economics are inextricably linked together; u can't have economics w/o politics. But even so, the social sphere is present in economics, since economics deals with how money is distributed among people.
Oh, and btw, jobs on production line are radically different from jobs in the service industry of the casino. One involves assembling, the other involves... hmm... rather "high-end" stuff: escort services,s brewmastery etcetc i.e. prostitution, bartending, bartop-dancing etcetc
As said in the previous paragraph, the gov do take into consideration the harmful effect to the economy. My stand is, try to maximise the potential economic benefit to Singapore while minimising the potential harmful effects.
harmful effect to society, my friend, not harmful effect to economy. But societal harm in the short-term will lead to economic harm in the long-term, and that is a vicious circle.
Well we can only find out how much of these uniformed personnel be deployed and how bad an effect will they give to the customers. Does having a lot of uniform personnel threathen the customers much or give them a feeling of safety ?
You would feel safe if you were the customer? Why not then pay a private visit to the President in the Istana?
You should know it better than me. However as said before, it is in itself a gamble which hopes to improve the quality of life in Singapore than making it worse
wrong: it is a gamble which hopes to improve the Wealth of the State.
My stand is, the gov is not always wrong. I also believe that they gov is wrong in some issues as well. I personally believe the casino will improve the quality of life in Singapore as much as them. To me, it is a correct action to perform not because I support gov blindly. Why is the propaganda inaccurate ? Is it just because it was said by the gov then it is inacurate ? Everything they say are propaganda ?
of course, everything the govt says is propaganda, but nevertheless there will be a few facts nested here and there. And anyway, you should address this paragraph to SnowLeopard, not to me, since I am merely explaining to you what he meant, since you expressed confusion.
IMO, I believe the govt is wrong on more things than it is right in.
The previous remarks to me are not courteous either.
2 wrongs do not make a right.
I thought I have mention about the both sides Rolling Eyes
You have been focusing merely on the economic side.
Because Disney think that Shanghai is a better place
get your facts right... Disneyland requested the govt to let it build a themepark in Singapore in 1997, not the govt requested Disneyland. Myopic govt turned it down. Now see where tt's got us? If we had accepted, we'd hv all the projected benefits of the IR, w/o the ills of any casino.
regards,
the pikamaster -
TO LIVE OR TO DIE
To live or to die,
That is the question,
Not for servants to decide,
The leaders and consorts have spoken,
Tourism will fill the coffers of state
Stakeholders deserve the rewards,
Casinos by far the fairest options
Ethics, family or care of old or young
Diligence, sweats and toils are old fasbion
True mindset change and entrpreneurhip
Sadly but true is sheer might to out-talk and out-wit,
Million-dollar rewards of office are at stake,
Whatever happens to economy, talents or leadership,
Justifications and contrivance are as good as truths,
Whatever the crunch, surpluses will be ensured
By IR entrance fees and more levies,
Dreams of yesterday are dreams,
The reality is more glory of rule bashed in shiny armour
To live or to die, lies in the conquerors' hands.
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Socrates,
Govt knows gambling is bad.But they still want to legalise casino.So ppl work for the casinos,S'preans would gamble there.Work for the wrong cause & waste time to lose money.But govt collect taxes.So is this good? -
PM said he couldn't convince opposers
PM said he might not be able to convince casino opposers.
Why?I believe majority of opponents to casino are reasonable ppl.Why does he think he can't convince us if his decision is really correct? -
Originally posted by PRP:
Convincing? He's wasting his time. He really stepped on the toes this time- so wud anyone still believe him or give him a 2nd chance- and risk another backstab?
[b]PM said he couldn't convince opposers
PM said he might not be able to convince casino opposers.
Why?I believe majority of opponents to casino are reasonable ppl.Why does he think he can't convince us if his decision is really correct?[/b]
Once bitten, twice shy- as the saying goes. -
I think it's very hard for him to rally the religious leaders and community to fall into ranks with him and make the casino resort a success for Singapore
when he chose to ignore their (or rather God's) plea not to.
They'll question what for and for whose purpose since they were reminded that religion was not to interfere with politics in the first place when it was decided on.
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after having such a long discussion what do you all propose other than have a casino?
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I do rmb suggesting Disneyland or remaking Haw Par Villa. Sack Sentosa- all the stuff there except Siloso and Orchid Garden are super useless!Originally posted by dragg:after having such a long discussion what do you all propose other than have a casino? -
i doubt disneyland will want to open here.Originally posted by pikamaster:I do rmb suggesting Disneyland or remaking Haw Par Villa. Sack Sentosa- all the stuff there except Siloso and Orchid Garden are super useless! -
Well, they wanted to in 1997... juz that our myopic govt refused to let them.Originally posted by dragg:i doubt disneyland will want to open here. -
too late. just like F1.Originally posted by pikamaster:Well, they wanted to in 1997... juz that our myopic govt refused to let them. -
Sad to note that we have missed the F1, and many competitive economic projects in the past. We have also missed many opportunities in nurturing practical talents within our education system during better times of the type that produce economic competitiveness and entrepreneurship.Originally posted by dragg:too late. just like F1.
It is very sad that under so-called talents or leadership of our leaders, we have missed opportunities like the above-mentioned measures to upgrade our economic competitiveness. As a saying goes opportunity does not knock twice. So one by one they have passed us by because a few brains do not have the time to do all the thinking, planning, studying with professional processing of major tasks and decisions.
If there is a team exercising collective leadership sharing total responsibilities accountably, there would have been implementational efficiency developed and well trained and empowered people in the collective leadership to make professional studies and recommendation. Top-down autocratic management therefore will always be greeted by problems in taking actions to be competitive as seen in SIA amd PSA cases where actions were taken only when problems become too serious.
Autocracy lacks the capacity (time is one factor) to implement the whole government of government decisions and policies as power is too concentrated on a few men.
For many years the ministers are still repeatedly talking about the same things like change of mindsets, re-training and improving education system etc. It is clear that such a state of government is the symptom of few men in charge with bottlenecks accumulated with no solutions.
Ex-senior civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow described this state of autocracy as causing auto-piloting of policies which could not be corrected by people below in a timely manner. Many ministers took years to implement simple policies resulting in high costs and class divisions. They still don't do anything because many of the policies are too entrenched by the leaders due to face or sensitivity. Thus the present leadership is far from talented or efficient although they always talk like they are the best.
Come another recession, it will be seen again that the shortcomings were not solved and the blames will be pinned on external factors. They have failed repeatedly to solve serious problems seen during past deep recessions.
Now the leaders obviously still are strong believers in few-men's leadership without realizing that it takes much more to lead than ad hoc decisions or overseeing routines.
Because our economy lacks competitiveness, people are suffering from high costs and are struggling to meet ends meet. When they complain the leaders would resort to excuses and justifications to answer their shortcomings.
Any citizen with some common sense will be able to see the same kind of shortcoming in our present autocratic governance being carried forward from the past for too many years. Leaders however are too stubborn or self-centred to admit their judgmental errors and would go on talking and promoting their leadership justified in the name of some confucianism or asian values. That is where the real problem is : a lot of bull. -
Never too late... Remember how the Chinatown is being modified and transformed, spending tons of monies and up rents and so on, till it become totally not Chinatown anymore.Originally posted by dragg:too late. just like F1.
And the Sentosa, rising entrance fees, rise rise rise until my family decides watching TV at home is better than eating a $10 Nasi Lemak when you can have one for 50cts a package...
And they build and build untill nobody wanna go again.
The movie ticket goes so high, till I and my wife decided it's too high for us to catch for our weekly movie trip.
And of course, the WTO where I usually have my lunch, the foodcourt usually have a seat for me even at lunch crowds. You won't usually see more than 3 customers most of the time in most shops with such rentals. But Pastamania is doing ok.
As for Chinese Garden... there're kinda more workers than people there most of the time, and how much is it to get a ticket to see the Bonsai?
It's never too late. -
it's nice to see your optimism...Originally posted by Elfred:Never too late... Remember how the Chinatown is being modified and transformed, spending tons of monies and up rents and so on, till it become totally not Chinatown anymore.
And the Sentosa, rising entrance fees, rise rise rise until my family decides watching TV at home is better than eating a $10 Nasi Lemak when you can have one for 50cts a package...
And they build and build untill nobody wanna go again.
The movie ticket goes so high, till I and my wife decided it's too high for us to catch for our weekly movie trip.
And of course, the WTO where I usually have my lunch, the foodcourt usually have a seat for me even at lunch crowds. You won't usually see more than 3 customers most of the time in most shops with such rentals. But Pastamania is doing ok.
As for Chinese Garden... there're kinda more workers than people there most of the time, and how much is it to get a ticket to see the Bonsai?
It's never too late. -
I quite optimistic Sentosa will receive another A soon.Originally posted by pikamaster:it's nice to see your optimism...
I am very optimistic Elfred is destined for another land. -
And that Disney wanted a majority share of the profits. S'pore PAP naturally refused coz they were too money minded. They wanted much, much more.Originally posted by pikamaster:Well, they wanted to in 1997... juz that our myopic govt refused to let them.
HK allowed Disney to have money so of coz they rather put it in HK! -
PM Lee calls for end to public debate
on casinos, warns of society divide
Agence France Presse
April 27, 2005
SINGAPORE
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong has called for the public debate on casinos in the city-state to end, warning further discussion would risk polarising society, a report said Wednesday, April 27.
"It's not fruitful to continue going over grounds we have gone over already," the Straits Times quoted Lee as telling a community forum on Tuesday night, less than two weeks after he announced two casinos would be built in Singapore.
"Beyond a point, this can be counter-productive because the risk is we may harden views for and against, and polarise our multi-racial, multi-religious society.
"And I think that is something we should avoid at all costs."
The announcement on April 18 to allow Singapore's first two casinos to be built by 2009 led to a rare display of criticism against the government from many sections of society, including religious leaders.
The critics have warned that 24-hour casinos would spawn more gambling addicts, ruin families and taint Singapore's image as a wholesome destination.
The People's Action Party, which has ruled Singapore since the nation's independence in 1965, keeps a tight grip on dissent, with the media instructed to report in the "national interests" and public protests rarely allowed.
Lee, the son of the nation's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, assumed the premiership in August last year. The People's Action Party holds 82 of the 84 elected seats in parliament. -
PM said he might not be able to convince opponents to IR.Maybe he himself also knows that his decison is not really right.After all, he said "no" to casino in the past but said "yes" this time.
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Casinos alone: bad, don't want
IR with casinos: good, want
These are the positon of the govt.Any logic? -
How come we are not discussing how best to implement or give new ideas to the construction of the IR? Afterall, the 35,000 jobs is not going to come from just the mere idea of the IR but a proper, unique implementation of it. And how come we're not discussing on how best to tackle the social problems since we are so concerned about it?
Oh yah, I forgot, whining is our national pasttime. Let's just let the government figure out the implementation and wait for them to screw up so that we can say "I told you so". Ok, redundant post, carry on. -
Nothing in Singapore is right or wrong!!!! As long as the gov making $$$$$ will always be right!!!!! and Ministers drawing Millions dollars salaries We die is our own accord. Blame yourself for being born here on into this cruel and money talk world!!!!