PAP has turned Singapore into a land of foreigners
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I always find myself needing to guide the higher qualified FTs.
I think if there are good, they wouldn't be working here
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hahahahahahahaha...... man u are soo funny lah!!!!!!Originally posted by hampden11:The system in Singapore is that they look at your paper not your person. Phd can be picked from lots of universities but, loyal, passionate workers of the field are not easy to find.
I just feel that if we, local citizens are being treated as 2nd class citizens in our home birth land, I might as well apply for PR in another country where the community treats you although second class, but u will be fairly treated in due time as one of them.
Singapore? Hah!
Even Gahman treat us like cattle.
Everywhere tax tax, so we have to work like cows to make ends meet, say cannot do this, then everybody dun do it, say go invest in that field, everybody then go there (classic example: from manufacturing to engineering, to IT now life sciences)
Then say we are citizens should proudly serve our army first... then fine NS dodger who pursue a career in music (black sheep in their view)
I feel like we are like sheep make us run here to eat grass then run there... black sheeps then kenna spank spank send to chop shop.
hahahahahhaha
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Atobe, if you prefer to bury your head in the sand and spend your days lamenting about the good old days, that's your prerogative. There is no point in arguing this issue since you have clearly closed your mind to global trends.
We will soon see who is right. Keep complaining when you and your children lose their jobs....it will not take long for that to happen.. -
Sad to have let the air out of your scheme of things, but if I had my head buried in the sand and spend my days lamenting - about good old days or otherwise, would I have seen the Swiss Swatch counter move to the Japanese Casio ?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Atobe, if you prefer to bury your head in the sand and spend your days lamenting about the good old days, that's your prerogative. There is no point in arguing this issue since you have clearly closed your mind to global trends.
We will soon see who is right. Keep complaining when you and your children lose their jobs....it will not take long for that to happen..
With my head buried, how would I have learnt of Audi's audacious plans in bucking the trend by returning to their own supposed High Cost Centre of Production in Germany - as well as the grand expansion plans of Toyota and Honda returning to their home ground ?
There is nothing to lament to our present circumstance, what comes around will go around, with or without governmental intervention.
The Singapore government has always been quick to blame external factors that affect Singapore's economy to which they are hopelessly unable to control. Yet by some miralce, they will claim that it is their earthly powers that guide Singapore to recover - as if rain is their creation after a severe drought.
Will there ever be right or wrong in our views ?
After 30 years, a good doctor can always change his career in medicine and be a good salesman - selling insurance or pharmaceutical products.
After 30 years, can a car salesman ever change career and be as good a doctor as the one who became a Salesman ?
Upgrading of one's skill can only happen by progression, and within the limits of the person's existing experience, training, education and age.
Why should one be pessimistic about losing one's job ?
I have discovered that every event in Life opens the door to another opportunity, and every step of my career has seen changes that have always brought me greater satisfaction as new challenges are surmounted. -
i dont hate FT but i dont agree with the FT singapore govt is adopting. look what kind of FT are we bringing into singapore?? we need to to stricter.
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Originally posted by Atobe:
That is a good attitude to adopt indeed. I trust you are sufficiently flexible to accept new jobs, new challenges and people like you do not have to worry about losing your job. I agree there are new opportunities as there are now, even whilst old jobs are being lost.
I have discovered that [b]every event in Life opens the door to another opportunity, and every step of my career has seen changes that have always brought me greater satisfaction as new challenges are surmounted.
[/b]
My frustration is with the worker who will not take a new job because he has to be posted to China, do shift duties, pick up computer skills or accept a lower pay.
Companies in Europe rely heavily on government subsidies to remain competitive, something we cannot afford in Singapore. Tony Blair was prepared to offer millions of pounds to Rover if their Chinese owners would keep car manufacturing in the UK. In the long run, that will not succeed. If Japanese car companies are able to keep their jobs in Japan, that's because their productivity far exceeds their competitors in cheaper economies.
You yourself have said that healthcare costs in Singapore can be lowered because we are located in the midst of cheaper economies. Without spelling it out, you are suggesting that we hire doctors and nurses from India and China to keep our healthcare costs down. (That is being done currently and you are more likely to see a doctor from India in some clinics).
If that is true of the highly technical healthcare sector, why shouldn't jobs in less skill-intensive sectors be outsourced to cheaper economies as well? Unless and until our workers have higher skills, higher productivity and manufacture higher value goods, we will continue to lose these jobs to foreigners.
It's not all bad if foreigners take over the low-pay jobs we don't want. My concern is that the high-paying new jobs that have been created in the biotech sector are going to foreigners as well, because we don't have sufficient locals with the right skills to fill them. So we are squeezed on both sides, with foreigners taking our high-pay and low-pay jobs as well.
I don't think it is fair to blame the government for this. It is correct to create high-pay jobs in new industries. We have to ask why our citizens are not acquiring the right skills to fill these jobs.
Why is media studies so popular with young people when there are jobs in technical disciplines like biotech and nanotechnology? Why are people doing MBAs and hoping to be managers of people instead of being highly-paid fund managers? London gave out annual bonuses of 1 million pounds each to their top fund managers last Christmas. Why are there so few of such persons in Singapore?
Margaret Thatcher was hated by the mine workers in Yorkshire when she re-structured the economy and closed down poor-performing national companies. Years later, even her critics have to admit she was right. It was terribly painful and many mine workers were driven to suicide when they lost their jobs in their 40s and 50s. But it was good for the nation.
Do I expect our workers who have lost their jobs like these miners to pick up new skills and go into a new industry? Of course I do. If they can pick up a skill in the high-pay technical industries, then they will have a better-paying job. If not, they will have to take a pay cut, work overseas, or accept less favourable working conditions such as shift work. -
I have the same grouse myself many times in the past. Many of the FTs have only mediocre skills. So why do we employ them?Originally posted by reyes:i dont hate FT but i dont agree with the FT singapore govt is adopting. look what kind of FT are we bringing into singapore?? we need to to stricter.
Isn't it because these foreigners are willing to work longer hours for lower pay, do shift work and accept poorer working conditions? Employers are not daft. They have to employ these lowly-skilled foreigners because locals will not take the jobs on offer.
There is an additional advantage with foreigners. Because some of them come at half the price of a local worker, you can hire 10 of them when you only need 5. Test them out. Tell them at the end of the year, you will retain the best 5 and send the remaining 5 back to their own country. You will have all of them working their butts out to impress you and you will know that at the end of it, you have the best of the crop. You can do that every year, hiring another 5 and sending 5 back each time. For low-skill jobs that do not require much training, that is a model that has been used.
That's why I think that locals must move up the food chain with skill upgrading. Employers will hire locals if it becomes necessary to spend half a year training a new foreign worker. If newly arrived foreigners have already acquired the skill for the job, it's time for you to move up the food chain or become redundant. -
"Without {my} spelling it out" - you have interpreted in your preferred manner of hiring cheap labor.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
That is a good attitude to adopt indeed. I trust you are sufficiently flexible to accept new jobs, new challenges and people like you do not have to worry about losing your job. I agree there are new opportunities as there are now, even whilst old jobs are being lost.
My frustration is with the worker who will not take a new job because he has to be posted to China, do shift duties, pick up computer skills or accept a lower pay. [/quote]
This a reflection of Singaporean attitudes, much like the way the Government had pampered our taxi companies / drivers by allowing them to make extras charges so as to keep sufficient number of taxi drivers on the road.
Advance booking charge, phone booking charge, midnight charge, extra for trip out of the airport, downtown peak hour charge (?) - what else ?
Is this due to a failure in social moulding that begins from our educational system when lessons are taught with spoon-feeding notes and more handout notes from the teachers; lessons are learnt by rote and not by adventurous discovery ? All of which lead to a Singaporean dependent on guidance.
Even in our daily lives, Singaporean traffic grinds to a confusing halt when traffic light controlled cross-road go on the blink, resulting in chaos and log jam. Compare this to a 'daring-do' mentaility of a Manila, or Bangkok, or Saigon drivers - traffic at a cross-road junction will sort itself out, and the flow of traffic will move its way like river water around a rock.
Singapore has been labelled a "nanny state" - not without justification - and can only result in Singaporeans forever tied to PAPa.
Contrast this with the younger generation of Pre-Independent Singapore, who will get up and go, take matters in their own hand, and move in any direction other than sitting and doing nothing.
That was the generation of people with names such as - David Marshall, Lee Kuan Yew, Lim Chin Siong, Chia Thye Poh, Goh Keng Swee, Toh Chin Chye, Rajaratnam, Lee Siew Choh, Devan Nair.
After 47 years of MONOLITHIC sound from PAPa, do we have to wonder who we should blame for the loss of that breed of Singaporeans ?
BINGO - You said it right.
Companies in Europe rely heavily on government subsidies to remain competitive, something we cannot afford in Singapore. Tony Blair was prepared to offer millions of pounds to Rover if their Chinese owners would keep car manufacturing in the UK. In the long run, that will not succeed. If Japanese car companies are able to keep their jobs in Japan, that's because their productivity far exceeds their competitors in cheaper economies.Productivity is the answer all along.
Looking at the biggest dismal productivity rate, PAPa's productive results - with State Funds operated by Temasek and GIC - will take the cake and the blame for the Singapore National Characteristic of low productivity - yet PAPa had the audacity to make MILLION DOLLAR payout to themselves as deserving salary.
The present Singapore mentality was made worse when despite a recognised low productivity, PAPa made the incredulous decision to increase workers' wages so as to drive out labor intensive industries and attract high tech ones.
Even in this 2006, we often hear of the National Wage Council cautioning that annual wage increases should keep within the productivity index - it seems that we are still having problems with worker productive output.
Has PAPa been too clever to attract NEW AGE Industries - such as BioTECH - without even the labor base to mann this industry ?
You yourself have said that healthcare costs in Singapore can be lowered because we are located in the midst of cheaper economies. Without spelling it out, you are suggesting that we hire doctors and nurses from India and China to keep our healthcare costs down. (That is being done currently and you are more likely to see a doctor from India in some clinics).
Besides your 'healthy' penchant in capitalising on low wages of professionals from our immediate Third World neighbors, our health care costs can be lowered by the low costs of production of medicines in the surrounding countries, with local natural resources that can be researched with our capital and knowledge input.
While we participate in a mad rush to be the leading centre in BioTECH research in exotic cures, have we forgotten the other aspects of researches that will bear immediate benefits to Singaporeans - and in areas where our TCM can also contribute ?
[quote]
If that is true of the highly technical healthcare sector, why shouldn't jobs in less skill-intensive sectors be outsourced to cheaper economies as well? Unless and until our workers have higher skills, higher productivity and manufacture higher value goods, we will continue to lose these jobs to foreigners.
It's not all bad if foreigners take over the low-pay jobs we don't want. My concern is that the high-paying new jobs that have been created in the biotech sector are going to foreigners as well, because we don't have sufficient locals with the right skills to fill them. So we are squeezed on both sides, with foreigners taking our high-pay and low-pay jobs as well. You seem to have grasp the basic issues but then let it slip away.
If Singaporeans have been reputed to be poor in productivity in the OLD INDUSTRIES, is it of any use to move up further to the NEW HIGH TECH industries ?
Can Singapore continue to depend entirely on FIRST LINE Capital Intensive Industries such as shipyards, power and water generating, and NEW BioTECH industries ?
Can we afford to lose our less skill-intensive sectors by outsourcing to cheaper economies as well ?
Or should we increase the productivity of these less skill-intensive sectors by increasing productivity through automation ?
I was surprised to watch a Discovery Channel programme featuring Faber-Castell still existing in the manufacturing of the 'ancient and trusted' graphite lead pencils, and color pencils in a highly automated plant in Germany.
Was it a bigger surprise to learn that it has been able to hold its market share, and maintain profitability despite the intense competition from low cost manufacturing centres for such simple products that are coming out of China, Korea, Taiwan, and some other local companies.
A small enterprise in a low end business named Faber-Castell alongside bigger German names such as SIEMENS, AEG, Mercedes-Benz, MTU, MAN, BMW, Lufthansa - and in a high wage country. -
continuation:
If the government had 47 years to mould social attitudes - should we blame ourselves for a crutch mentality that is very much due to a 'Nanny State' environment ?
I don't think it is fair to blame the government for this. It is correct to create high-pay jobs in new industries. We have to ask why our citizens are not acquiring the right skills to fill these jobs.
Why is media studies so popular with young people when there are jobs in technical disciplines like biotech and nanotechnology? Why are people doing MBAs and hoping to be managers of people instead of being highly-paid fund managers? London gave out annual bonuses of 1 million pounds each to their top fund managers last Christmas. Why are there so few of such persons in Singapore?
How many in a cohort of A-Level Students meet the criteria to enter the Medical Faculty ?
Is it possible that with our existing education system, can a larger percentage enter the Medical Faculty in the NUS ?
How many in the Medical Faculty will end up as General Practitioners, instead of specialising in some other higher paying and challenging research fields ?
How many Fund Managers can there be, when the occupation is unheard of in Singapore, who even dare to aspire to be a World Financial Centre without any expertise in this area ?
Is Singaporeans to be blamed for this, when one's destiny is not even in the hands of our parents while each of us are subjected to educational streaming at a tender age ?
Why do smokers continue with their deadly habit despite the known risks ?
Why do gamblers insist on betting their life despite the odds stacked against themselves ?
Can anyone have any sane explanations for seemingly insane decisions ?
Margaret Thatcher was correct - only for the fact that her union busting actions had helped to turn the country around, at a time when the unions were holding the entire country hostage to their unreasonable demands.
Margaret Thatcher was hated by the mine workers in Yorkshire when she re-structured the economy and closed down poor-performing national companies. Years later, even her critics have to admit she was right. It was terribly painful and many mine workers were driven to suicide when they lost their jobs in their 40s and 50s. But it was good for the nation.
Was it good for the nation ?
This was questioned in a research paper - "Re-Training in the Post-Industrial Era: A Comparison of Government Policy Responses to Widespread Worker Displacement in Canada and Britain" - in which it was stated:
This study was commissioned to study the effects of government policies in Canada and UK, with both countries having experienced structural changes to their traditional employment sectors; some of the conclusions are applicable to our discussion; and I believe you will change your high expectations and realised that Government has a bigger responsibility than the low end workers.
The decline of manufacturing, resource extraction and heavy industries, the rise of service and technology based industries and the advent of the "new", "knowledge" economy have changed the nature of work.
Vickerstaff (1992) suggests we will no longer have the same job for the duration of our working life. "The emphasis then will be on re-training, flexibility, multi-skilling, the ability to adapt to new technologies, new work processes and new products."
"Technological improvements result in faster and easier communication and information exchange at the same time as the economic base shifts from manufacturing and goods production to service industries and the new economy."
"All of this is accompanied by ideological shifts emphasizing investment, trade liberalization, deregulation and private enterprise."
"The influence of de-industrialization, globalization and the changing nature of work have resulted in ideological, political and economic shifts at a broad level that have been beneficial for those in a position to take advantage of these changes. For others, however, these processes have meant economic marginalization, growing income disparities and long-term unemployment ."
"Education and traing are often seen as the solution to many current social and economic problems. There is an underlying assumption in both theory and practise that a region with educated and trained people will attract new investment, that this new investment will create jobs and that both will lead to economic development."
"Unemployed individuals with existing and transferable skills amay benefit from the kinds of skill-upgrading and job search assistance schemes traditionally offered through government programs."
"The ILO World Labour Report 'Learning to Start Afresh - The Challenge of Re-Training', states, 'Retraining is not a panacea for the problems of structural adjustment." Just as education is seen as a panacea for social problems, so re-training is seen as a panacea for structural adjustment problems. In both instances, it is not enough."
Are you being a 'wee bit' ambitious and idealistic ?
Do I expect our workers who have lost their jobs like these miners to pick up new skills and go into a new industry? Of course I do. If they can pick up a skill in the high-pay technical industries, then they will have a better-paying job. If not, they will have to take a pay cut, work overseas, or accept less favourable working conditions such as shift work.
Idealism (is like alcohol) and realism (like water), it takes skill to select the right type and the right proportion mix to make a good drink.
Unfortunately, no matter how good the drink, the alcohol (idealism) will evaporate, leaving only the water (realism) content to pass through the body and exit as waste.
What is the minimum qualification of a UK Coal Miner, or the average Singaporean Assembly Line Worker ?
Does that minimum qualification allow these low end workers to upgrade to the next higher level of ability ?
What kind of better paying job for the Singaporean Assembly Line worker ? -
It was reported in veteran journalist, Seah Chiang Nee's article, "Creating more space" dated Jun 4, 2006 that
'The projected six to seven million population by 2030 would require possibly two or three naturalised citizens for every one Singaporean born here.'
i have no problem with the naturalised citizens but just wonder why our boys have to go through 2yrs of NS to defend others who need not serve NS? -
Originally posted by pearlie27:
Please don't park your ass in my face ... ...
It was reported in veteran journalist, Seah Chiang Nee's article, "Creating more space" dated Jun 4, 2006 that
'The projected six to seven million population by 2030 would require possibly two or three naturalised citizens for every one Singaporean born here.'
i have no problem with the naturalised citizens but just wonder why our boys have to go through 2yrs of NS to defend others who need not serve NS?
This country ain't big enough for the 7 million of us ... ... I quit
Persons born on odd days ride the MRT on Mon, Wed, and Fri. MRT closed on Sundays for major overhauls ... ...
This is the last-standing tree in Singapore's Buikit Timah "forest" reserve ... ... it is reserved to show children what a tree looks like.
I am thirsty ... ... got to go pee to make more NEWATER ...
OK kids finish up ... ... the other family's turn to use the apartment ...
You mean the elevator broke down again ... ...
Everyone breathe through one nostril to save oxygen ... ...
Great ... ... it's public holiday, now at least Istana grounds can serve as a waiting area for Ponderosa ...
You mean Singapore is a "COUNTRY" ?!?....
Flight 275 to Tokyo will depart from RSN Changi flight deck 3. Passengers are reminded not to inflate their vests until they are in the water during an emergency landing ...
That is why native Singaporeans need dual citizenship ...... -
Besides your 'healthy' penchant in capitalising on low wages of professionals from our immediate Third World neighbors, our health care costs can be lowered by the low costs of production of medicines in the surrounding countries, with local natural resources that can be researched with our capital and knowledge input.
Time and again you have failed to understand the issues surrounding healthcare costs. The high costs of medication has nothing to do with the costs of production. It is the high costs levied by the pharmaceutical companies, a consequence of patent protection which lasts 20 years. You cannot manufacture patented drugs and sell them cheap without infringing patent rights.
While we participate in a mad rush to be the leading centre in BioTECH research in exotic cures, have we forgotten the other aspects of researches that will bear immediate benefits to Singaporeans - and in areas where our TCM can also contribute ?
Biotech is the one of the fastest growing industries...just read the figures from our economic reports and you will have the answer. You are not a healthcare professional and so perhaps you do not understand the implications. Ask your financial advisor: which is the most profitable induistry in the world today. -
Germany companies, indeed, companies all over Europe are outsourcing many of their manufacturing plants to India and China. Many of those that remain receive government subsidies, known as EU state aid, to remain viable. (http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3351416)
In fact, Germany is now looking at outsourcing their R&D in India, because running clinical trials are 40% cheaper there.
Making colour pencils? What is the difference in profit margins between making colour pencils (the raw materials of which have to be imported) and pharmaceutical products? Low-tech industries will not work for Singapore because cheaper economies like China and India are moving up the food chain quickly. So what if you can automate and make colour pencils more efficiently? Why can't a manufacturer move the machines to China and make it even cheaper there? Automation increases productivity by doing the same work with fewer workers, but that does not solve unemployment. We have to increase productivity by increasing the value of the goods, so that employers can afford to hire more employees.
Look at the marketing teams for pharmaceutical companies compared to those in the retail sector, say, for cosmetics. A marketing manager in the cosmetic sector typically handles a dozen or more products and there are 3 or more new product launches per month. There may be 2 or more marketing persons in the pharamceutical company handling just one drug and new product launches come once a year or longer. Yet the pharmaceutical industry employs more marketing personnel and spends far more in marketing than any other industry. Why? Because the profit margins are higer and they can afford it. They also pay better, but you can take a person off the street to sell cosmetics, but not pharmaceutics.
Any job that can be done more cheaply in a cheaper economy will be lost to us. We have to focus on jobs that cannot be outsourced because they are service jobs that must be performed locally (eg. nurses, waiters) or the skill required is beyond the capability of the foreign competitor. Service jobs may be difficult to outsource, but if foreign workers come into Singapore as they do, our workers cannot compete as well. So essentially, if our workers do not want to accept a lower wage like the foreign workers in Singapore, they have to go into hi-tech industries where we still have a relative advantage.
You must not forget that increased productivity also means you need fewer people to do the same job. The UK manufacturing industry accounts for a sixth of total exports and only 15% of the workforce. Their output has not dropped, but the workforce in this industry has been declining year on year. The reason: factories that survive have increased productivity and employ fewer workers and so remain competitive. The others have outsourced their work overseas. So increased productivity does not always mean more jobs, especially if the increase in productivity comes as a result of automation, which can also be replicated in cheaper economies.
When we think of outsourcing to cheaper economies, we used to think of them as low-cost, low-skill centres. Unfortunately, we are up against a greater challenge. China and India are fast becoming low-cost, high-skill economies and we have to go one up against them to survive. Bringing in machines and automation alone is no longer a viable solution...the Chinese are already doing that.
We have to move up the skill ladder and leverage on our reputation as being more responsible maufacturers of high-value goods like pharmaceuticals, compared to China, for example.
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My opinion is that we need to diversify beyond manufacuturing.
Why are the young taking up media studies, because it is a globally relevant discipline, and it is one of those sectors, if you do well, you are less at risk of irrelevance than a technical discipline in a narrow sub-field.
Thing is, they are not really bothered to excel beyond our national average standards.
Why do some of us venture into politics and security studies, because we have an interest in it, and I dare say, affinity for these issues at hand.If we look beyond this little island, the jobs are there for the taking. It's the mentality and willingness to work hard around the world that makes or breaks you.
Domestic market-wise, we should have developed a tertiary industry in R&D, and academia 10 years back, and not always harp on middle-level manufacturing.We should have moved beyond labor-intensive industries and I criticise the government for having a cyclical-sourced education plan for the population, which neglects the basics of education such as general knowledge of global affairs, history and geography. These help specialists apply greater sense of market interpretation across the board, and creates citizens who are well-informed.
Instead, we have a reactionary government who is never one step ahead of its peers, but rather seem to want to show that we are in tandem with the fastest economies at the moment. Think about the 1 year delay in mobile wi-fi adoption between SK and Singapore, that's just one tip of the iceberg.
Now they want to place all their eggs into the casino sector, to me, it's just bad cheese in a new wrapper. -
This was questioned in a research paper - "Re-Training in the Post-Industrial Era: A Comparison of Government Policy Responses to Widespread Worker Displacement in Canada and Britain" -
This thesis by the PhD candidate you referred to suggests that re-training to acquire higher skills for an existing job will not work if the problem is industry-wide closures. I agree with that. That's why we cannot be thinking of making colour pencils in Singapore...that sort of jobs are being lost to cheaper economies rapidly. There is no point in re-training our workforce to use high-tech machinery to make colour pencils when such machinery can be acquired and used by cheaper staff in China.
We have to focus on new industries and that's why the government has put emphasis on the biotech and nanotechnology. These industries will require researchers but also production workers. Those that have lost their jobs making computer drives must now re-train to make pharmaceuticals, wear a clean suit and work shifts in making new generation computer chips etc. If our workers refuse to do so, even our new industries will turn to foreign workers and that would be sad indeed. -
There is talk of growing the nascent space tourism sector, aerospace sectors and the motorsports sector.
More needs to be done there, more pillars for the economy are needed. -
There is a book that is worth reading, from the other side of the fence.
-Multitude by Antonio Negri.
Anyway, there is another ideology that talks of dismantling the entire globalisation that we are going through right now, an all out global resistance and backlash to the politics of suppression and earning profits on a rolling basis, where one low-cost maquiladora moves up the chain, and investors move on to the next region.
It will end someday, and it will be bloody.It's a scenario not too far fetched and entirely plausible. -
Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
Perhaps not being a healthcare professional allow one to have an outsider's view from afar, instead of being myopically trapped in the midst of the forest and unable to differentiate one tree from another.
Time and again you have failed to understand the issues surrounding healthcare costs. The high costs of medication has nothing to do with the costs of production. It is the high costs levied by the pharmaceutical companies, a consequence of patent protection which lasts 20 years. You cannot manufacture patented drugs and sell them cheap without infringing patent rights.
Biotech is the one of the fastest growing industries...just read the figures from our economic reports and you will have the answer. You are not a healthcare professional and so perhaps you do not understand the implications. Ask your financial advisor: which is the most profitable induistry in the world today.
We can bury ourselves with all kinds of costs when discussing healthcare, but every cent that can be saved - as in your emphasis of importing cheap medical expertise - can only benefit Singaporeans.
Can we question your expertise in the Biotech and the depth of knowledge in the entire spectrum of this field ?
The Singapore Health Service has avoided high costs of patented medicines by not offering these for standard use except for those who will pay for it.
What is the objective of Singapore involvement in the Biotech Industry - either with direct investment or other form of funding towards their R+D ?
Is the objective to get a share of the subsequent profits, or is the objective to make advance medicine cheaper and available to Singaporeans, or to create job opportunities for Singaporeans who will FINALLY enter this field sometime in the near or distant future ?
While getting around to unravelling the mysterious decision of promoting BioTech industry in Singapore when no Singaporeans are available to man the various positions, should we not lower the costs of medicine with whatever that is TRADITIONAL and regionally available ?
We can put our advance SCIENTIFIC prowess to gain the best use of the many traditional medicine that are used at such low costs by the various communities within the ASEAN countries - with cheap local raw materials.
In our fixation with western science and medical researches - how much do we know of the regional traditional medicine, and how many can we document and-or determine to be useful and practical for further development to be offered as medicine to the high cost BioTECH discoveries ? -
What can we expect a Doctor to know of industrial management ?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Germany companies, indeed, companies all over Europe are outsourcing many of their manufacturing plants to India and China. Many of those that remain receive government subsidies, known as EU state aid, to remain viable. (http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3351416)
In fact, Germany is now looking at outsourcing their R&D in India, because running clinical trials are 40% cheaper there.
Making colour pencils? What is the difference in profit margins between making colour pencils (the raw materials of which have to be imported) and pharmaceutical products? Low-tech industries will not work for Singapore because cheaper economies like China and India are moving up the food chain quickly. So what if you can automate and make colour pencils more efficiently? Why can't a manufacturer move the machines to China and make it even cheaper there? Automation increases productivity by doing the same work with fewer workers, but that does not solve unemployment. We have to increase productivity by increasing the value of the goods, so that employers can afford to hire more employees.
Why would you look at the lower end of an industry with such disdain ?
Even the Economic Review Committee formed after the 2002 downturn had identified that Singapore had lost too many second tier (low end) manufacturing capacity, which had provided a substantial employment opportunity, as well as a support to the main industry.
Color pencils was an example to show that a country cannot simply concentrate its attention on - the new flavor of the decade - BioTECH, but will also need to maintain existing industries to keep a balance of traditional job opportunities and not be overly dependent entirely on "high risk-high gain" industries that may only be short term.
Why are you so quick with your knee jerk reaction based on your medical expertise - as a doctor - in your love affair with your preferred BioTECH field of specialised knowlege ?
Yes, automation helps to improve productivity and it also help to keep a traditional industry alive and relevant to the community, and at least it does not need to export its specialty to a low cost country (as in your example) and help to prevent more workers to join the unemployment line.
The difference of the Faber-Castell example - with that of a pharmaceutical product - is that the raw materials were native to Germany and not imported as you have wrong assumed, if only you had watched that Discovey Channel feature.
Is there any morals left in the pharmaceutical industry and medical practitioners - getting rich from the sick and near death ?
Look at the marketing teams for pharmaceutical companies compared to those in the retail sector, say, for cosmetics. A marketing manager in the cosmetic sector typically handles a dozen or more products and there are 3 or more new product launches per month. There may be 2 or more marketing persons in the pharamceutical company handling just one drug and new product launches come once a year or longer. Yet the pharmaceutical industry employs more marketing personnel and spends far more in marketing than any other industry. Why? Because the profit margins are higer and they can afford it. They also pay better, but you can take a person off the street to sell cosmetics, but not pharmaceutics.
Anyway, your explanation is very telling in reinforcing my effort to tell you that upgrading an older worker is much simpler said then done.
It is not that an older worker is not willing to upgrade to a higher skill, but can he ?
Your statement - " you can take a person off the street to sell cosmetics, but not pharmaceutics " - reinforces a statement in my ealier post :
'an experienced doctor can easily become a car salesman, but can an experienced car salesman upgrade himself to be a doctor - and to be as good as the experienced doctor who change profession ? '
Exhortations for older workers to upgrade can only occur when the skill required for the next job is marginally higher, and not a quantum leap in expertise or dexterity of skill, or knowledge.
Here again, going into hi-tech industries will depend on the current levels of education, knowledge, experiences and training of the Singaporean worker that will allow retraining to be effective for a change in occupation at a late stage of the Singaporean's life.
Any job that can be done more cheaply in a cheaper economy will be lost to us. We have to focus on jobs that cannot be outsourced because they are service jobs that must be performed locally (eg. nurses, waiters) or the skill required is beyond the capability of the foreign competitor. Service jobs may be difficult to outsource, but if foreign workers come into Singapore as they do, our workers cannot compete as well. So essentially, if our workers do not want to accept a lower wage like the foreign workers in Singapore, they have to go into hi-tech industries where we still have a relative advantage.
We cannot expect an assembly line worker in electronics to be retrained to be a high-tech lab technician in a BioTECH industry; nor can we expect a hawker center cleaner to upgrade to become an equipment technician.
What other high end job awaits such a Singaporean ? -
continuation:
Can every worker in Singapore become lab technicians in the pharmaceutical industry, or some other BioTECH industry, or some other Medical Science Research Facility - all in your narrow expertise in medicine and medical science ?
You must not forget that increased productivity also means you need fewer people to do the same job. The UK manufacturing industry accounts for a sixth of total exports and only 15% of the workforce. Their output has not dropped, but the workforce in this industry has been declining year on year. The reason: factories that survive have increased productivity and employ fewer workers and so remain competitive. The others have outsourced their work overseas. So increased productivity does not always mean more jobs, especially if the increase in productivity comes as a result of automation, which can also be replicated in cheaper economies.
When we think of outsourcing to cheaper economies, we used to think of them as low-cost, low-skill centres. Unfortunately, we are up against a greater challenge. China and India are fast becoming low-cost, high-skill economies and we have to go one up against them to survive. Bringing in machines and automation alone is no longer a viable solution...the Chinese are already doing that.
We have to move up the skill ladder and leverage on our reputation as being more responsible maufacturers of high-value goods like pharmaceuticals, compared to China, for example.
If every other country - First World countries as well as Third World countries - also get into this area of high-value pharmaceutical goods - are we not all not swimming in a very small and confined pool ?
BioTECH is a mere flavor for this decade, it will not last forever - so it is best that you start reading out of your narrow specialised medical field, and perhaps also consider alternative energy sources from sugar cane, palm oil, vegetable oil, and recycled cooking oil; or perhaps into fashion and fashion wear from new ethnic fibres; or trend setting consumer products.
The future is also in the search for drinkable water - with the sea being a vast resource, the most efficient and cheapest cost to make seawater drinkable will win the race.
I have a good foreign friend who has the best job as a Product Research Designer; he once said to me that he has the best job in the world, as he is paid to DREAM for six months in a year while living in the wilderness.
At the end of the six months, he will meet with the sales-marketing team, product design - manufacturing team, raw material purchasing team, finance team and advertising publicity team.
They will review all the dreamed up products and brainstorm together to project the next flavor, the next trend, based on their researched knowledge of social, cultural, economic, and political situation of their respective target markets.
This is the length that other advanced countries will push themselves to success that a person can be paid to DREAM.
Can a government and a country of pragmatists appreciate the value of such talent ?
Can we think beyond our own experience, training, knowledge, and environment ? -
Sure...tell our cancer patients to pick up a packet of herbal medicine on their way home to die..Why not discover new pharmaceuticals from these local raw materials? Sure, that is done ALL THE TIME, but by the time the drug is on the market, the price shoots up. Sigh, that's the problem of someone who does not understand medicine...Originally posted by Atobe:We can put our advance SCIENTIFIC prowess to gain the best use of the many traditional medicine that are used at such low costs by the various communities within the ASEAN countries - with cheap local raw materials.
In our fixation with western science and medical researches - how much do we know of the regional traditional medicine, and how many can we document and-or determine to be useful and practical for further development to be offered as medicine to the high cost BioTECH discoveries ?
I have made my point and there is no purpose arguing with you. You have walled yourself in and refuse to accept any idea that agrees with the government's policy. You talk about colour pencils in Germany, wonders why we cannot emulate them and later admit that unlike them, we would have to import the raw materials. In any case, I see that as a sunset industry that will be lost to developing nations soon without protectionist policies.
I have never disagreed that it is not easy for older workers to upgrade their skills in a different industry. The fact is, I do not see any alternative. The ah sor who lost her job working in a disk drive assembly line is not likely to be able to compete with her foreign counterpart in the same industry. The only way to retain her level of pay is to work in a new industry that is prepared to pay better. Miners and steel workers in the UK have not managed to retain their jobs, have they?
In a global economy, consumers go for the cheapest goods of the best quality and employers go for the cheapest staff that are the best skilled. What to do with our own citizens that are too expensive and with low skills? I am sorry, but the world does not owe us a living. Government subsidies can only go so far...
Students who do media studies may have to go overseas to find jobs and that may well be true of our low-skilled workers as well. Singapore may be too expensive for them if they cannot compete. It's a tough message but it is true.
We have to see the signs and upgrade our skills constantly, moving to different industries as the need arises. Failure to do so is to be condemned to extinction. Evolution and natural selection will not stop just because you say so. -
Guess is our own fault then for everything tat is happening now in sg
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we have some blame to carry.Originally posted by Wind6:Guess is our own fault then for everything tat is happening now in sg -
Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
Maybe it is about time you take a serious look at TCM and give it a little more respect as your peers from Singapore and advanced western countries have all done.
Sure...tell our cancer patients to pick up a packet of herbal medicine on their way home to die..Why not discover new pharmaceuticals from these local raw materials? Sure, that is done ALL THE TIME, but by the time the drug is on the market, the price shoots up. Sigh, that's the problem of someone who does not understand medicine...
Fortunately not all doctors (especially the TCM trained) are as mercenary as a Western trained doctor imbued with the Hippocrates Oath that make true hypocrates out of our western trained doctor like yourself.
Are you sure that the wall you see around me is not the wall that you are looking over and surrounding your own tight little space ?
Which idea is agreeable with the government's policy ?
I have made my point and there is no purpose arguing with you. You have walled yourself in and refuse to accept any idea that agrees with the government's policy. You talk about colour pencils in Germany, wonders why we cannot emulate them and later admit that unlike them, we would have to import the raw materials. In any case, I see that as a sunset industry that will be lost to developing nations soon without protectionist policies.
The color pencil industry in Germany was an example that traditional industry that is seen to be inefficient can be upgraded - as much as you are suggesting workers to upgrade and trained to a higher level of productivity - why do you see it any different ?
Are there protectionist curtains raised to protect German made Faber-Castell sold in Singapore or any countries in South-east Asia ?
The point of Faber-Castell being mentioned was to show you that a country cannot simply give up their home grown industries simply due to intense competition from low-cost centers.
I have indicated to you that the Swiss Swatch found a way to beat the Japanese Casio, and that low-cost centres may no longer hold sway when the likes of Audi, Toyota and Honda have found it profitable to expand their facilities in their supposed HIGH-COST home country.
You have already said that Higher Productivity is the answer and that is true as seen in the case of Audi, Toyota, Honda, and Faber-Castell - and for your information, no government subsidies were offered.
Singapore has lost its second tier manufacturing capacity and soon our over dependence on low cost centres will result in a higher price to be paid in one form or another.
What would you suggest that "ah soh" to upgrade herself for ?
I have never disagreed that it is not easy for older workers to upgrade their skills in a different industry. The fact is, I do not see any alternative. The ah sor who lost her job working in a disk drive assembly line is not likely to be able to compete with her foreign counterpart in the same industry. The only way to retain her level of pay is to work in a new industry that is prepared to pay better. Miners and steel workers in the UK have not managed to retain their jobs, have they?
Which hypothetical industry would you think that "ah soh" can enter to find a high paying job from her previous work at a disk drive assembly line ?
My hypothetical analogy about a Doctor being easier to be a salesman, then it is for a Salesman to upgrade to be a Doctor - at the same competence level as that Doctor who became a salesman.
In other words, it is NOT possible for a worker to be upgraded to a level of expertise that is beyond the worker's basic education level, present training exposure and work experience.
Is there such a thing as the cheapest goods of the best quality ?
In a global economy, consumers go for the cheapest goods of the best quality and employers go for the cheapest staff that are the best skilled. What to do with our own citizens that are too expensive and with low skills? I am sorry, but the world does not owe us a living. Government subsidies can only go so far...
Students who do media studies may have to go overseas to find jobs and that may well be true of our low-skilled workers as well. Singapore may be too expensive for them if they cannot compete. It's a tough message but it is true.
We have to see the signs and upgrade our skills constantly, moving to different industries as the need arises. Failure to do so is to be condemned to extinction. Evolution and natural selection will not stop just because you say so.
Surely you have heard of the Chinese saying "yi fen chien, yi fen huo" ?
Or in plain simple English - you get what you pay for.
If the employers go for the cheapest staff that are the best skilled, what are the Foreign Talents doing in Singapore - commanding the high pay that you say that they are supposedly taking away from Singaporeans ?
Did anyone in this thread ask for subsidies ?
Or was the call made for a level playing field in this globalisation game ?
Certainly no one in this forum had said that anyone owe us a living - only you keep harping on this.
Most of us have said that we need to protect our job market - and I have extended it by saying that we open our job market as a reciprocating response to those other countries that open their job market to Singaporeans. -
As long as these Chinese national n Indian national contributed to Spore, they willOriginally posted by dahliamorie:Singapore will become Ingapore soon with all the indians from other countries coming into Singapore and we'll all do the coconut tree dance.
be welcomed. Their skill is accepted here as they willing to work harder than local.