Below is an extract from Fabio Scarpello :
There is no minimum wage in Singapore, and the influx of temporary foreign labor has driven wages down for locals. "Every employee has [his/her] own contract," he said. "There is no minimum wage and it all depends on how good you are at bargaining. Migrant workers are not wrong but they keep labor costs very low and locals are stuck. Singaporeans are forced to find two jobs just to survive."
However, long working hours are often not enough for low-paid Singaporeans to earn the S$1,500 a month, deemed the minimum necessary to get by. For these people, the city's perks are out of reach. Fil Low, a 20-year-old shop assistant at I Nuovi Cosmetics, averages two hours overtime a day but still only makes S$ 900 a month. "We do not really enjoy our life because of our schedule," she said. "We can only really go out about two or three times a month. It is not an enjoyable life. Professionals have a good life. For us, it is just making a living."
Lion, 52, drives his taxi a minimum of 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He never goes to a cinema, bar or to see friends. "I am just too tired and not in the right mood. I work all the time but I still cannot support my family properly," he said, without disclosing his monthly earnings.
Razman, 30, works as a security guard at a Carrefour supermarket during the day and as a personal trainer in a gym three nights a week. He averages 14 working hours a day, which pocket him about S$1,400 a month. "I never go out," he said. "I sometimes see my friends in the evening for a couple of hours when I am not working at the gym, but no more than that. I am usually tired ... I am used to this. Maybe it is in my genes; my father also worked very hard. Whatever other people do in other countries, we have to do twice as much. It is Singapore's lifestyle."
Go to Jalan Besar, Chinatown and you will see the living wretched old man lives by scrapping and sleeving off old electrical wires of appliances to sell the copper as scrap,cutting out old carton boxes to sell etc... They struggle just to earn enough money for a day's meal..
It is a day to day survivor for many peasants out there.. everything seems to be going down-hill.. It doesn't help with our very own propaganda state controlled shit times, where information is often doctored, and people are mis-inform of what's the real situation..
We can see many tents being put up at east coast, where those poor peasants call it their home.. something that does not happen in the past..Look around your neighbourhood blocks at night. See how many flats remain dark.. With many unemployed, bankruptcy is at a record high..
All is definately not well with singaporeans.. But NO.. many still live in self denial mode and put on blinkers of cosmetic to show...
With only a small minority who flash their high lifestyle, it is often depicted as the lifestyle of the general singaporean population as a whole...
It was well after the 1994 million-dollar upward pay revision for ministers, Lee Kuan Yew, son Lee Hsien Loong, their extended family members and cronies, including a high court judge showed their avaricious greed in the purchase of luxury condominiums from Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL).
The condos were grabbed at greatly discounted prices by extended Lee family members and their associates through Lee Kuan YewÂ’s brother Lee Suan Yew, a director of HPL at the material time. Though Suan Yew was in total violation of stock exchange rules and regulations he was allowed to quietly resign from the company while others in similar but unrelated cases were severely punished by Lee Kuan YewÂ’s kangaroo court headed by his judicial crony Yong Pung How, a Malaysian political refugee.
Is that a corruption?
The General Elections are conducted with unfair rules, uneven playing field, and lawsuits. What is the purpose of all these?
The lawsuits can hit any contesting candidate, depending on who the sniper wants, and occurs in the last few elections - and few people are willing to stand for GE contests which explains the massive walkovers.
The unfair rules, the defamation lawsuits, the biased public media reporting, the little exposure given to opposition in printed and broadcast media, the restrictions on opposition rallies, denial of police permits for campaigning, the sudden changes to electoral boundaries, etc, works in favor of the ruling party and resulting in landslide wins for them.
There is also the Elections Commission whose members are appointed by the SG government dominated by the PAP, and they are the only authority to audit the elections process. How honest are they? Lastly, in the event that opposition candidates managed to win a few seats, they can be expelled via lawsuits and disqualified from Parliament.
The opposition parties made no headway in the last 10 years. More citizens are unable to vote due to walkovers. The voices of the people had been silenced, their woes unrepresented, and their interests neglected, their hard earned savings taken away - by a Parliament which is supposed to represent them, but didn't.
The present elections system is no longer a means for the people to choose their own govt, which even without the citizens casting a single vote, the ruling PAP party will have enough walkovers to form the next government.
In democracy, every citizen has freedom of speech and assembly.. If they have a concern, they can voice it out.. In a dictatorship, they control the public media and silence your voices..
In a dictatorship, the circus parliament will ignore your problems.. In a dictatorship, the leaders get to keep their job even if they cannot deliver or perform poorly.. They will continue to get millions of salary even if economy declines..
This authoritarian system in SG must not remain any longer.. SG was a thriving port even before LKY became PM, and that was even after the British shipped the profits back to their queen.. SG is not 'from nothing' as most of the forumers here will like to believe.. it has everything back then..
Are you trying to tell us that SG was a forsaken desert when LKY took control?
Corruption is NOT merely about the taking of undertable money alone.. A truly innovative but GREEDY politician can circumvent that easily by legimitising 'undertable corruption'(illegal) in more ways than one when absolutely power is gained ie a grossly overpaid income (legal)..
Being the highest paid politicians in the world that is NOT proportionate to the size of the country (be it geographically or demographically) governed or the GDP it produces in comparison to others in the world, I proclaimed PAP style is legalised corruption..
In democracy, people can hold their govt accountable for their actions, but the moment you do that in singapore, you will be identify, arrest without a trial, make a bankrupt or worse, sent you to IMH for observation..