How much of President's previous speech were implemented?
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Q: To build a caring equal, cosmopolitan inclusive society ?
A: Has any GDP growth due to world recovery translated into raising the wages of ordinary workers or reduced unemployments?
Q: To improve the standard of living and provide affordable housing ?
A: I see only increased costs of living and HDB housing is getting more expensive due to double charging on lands already paid by the taxpayers.
Q: To meet new challenges by upgrading skills and education ?
A: Has EDB or MOM restructured the economy to value-adding technology-driven model as done by Korea or Finland? How many new technology start-ups were created by all the Singaporeans to raise their wages and upgrade their skills.
It looks like speeches are speeches and will always be speeches which will always be very inspiring.
Can he honestly say that he has delivered half of what he has promised in his last speech e.g. has the government delivered the last two economic restructuring plans or were these past ERP long forgotten and there will not be any report on their progress in implementation because there is a lack of implementers of policies within the cabinet. -
I thought president's speech all prepared and vetted by the people at the top?
He just has to read it out, yes ?
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that mama is just an overpaid figurehead to make everything look legit....
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u r right!!!he is just a figure head or a puppet played by Emperor LeeOriginally posted by charlize:I thought president's speech all prepared and vetted by the people at the top?
He just has to read it out, yes ? -
Blame it that u do not hv Lee's capabities and hv u thought y is it that Lee was the leader 40 yrs ago and not others?
I dun think Lee will complain this much IF he's in our position in our times
LEE
Problems -> Ideas -> Implementations -> Gd or Bad?? -> People still complains
Some Singaporeans
Problems -> Ideas -> Complains -
sad..lack of action-type leadersOriginally posted by sunny6110:Blame it that u do not hv Lee's capabities and hv u thought y is it that Lee was the leader 40 yrs ago and not others?
I dun think Lee will complain this much IF he's in our position in our times
LEE
Problems -> Ideas -> Implementations -> Gd or Bad?? -> People still complains
Some Singaporeans
Problems -> Ideas -> Complains
20 Major Problems ...high cost of living, NKF self-rewards, elitism, loss of entrepreneurship, failure technology-start=ups, double-charging on lands, competing against citizens' business, dropping wages of citizens etc -> no solutions for 20 years -> talk and no action + hypocrisy + excuses -
what to do, u shld get used to it by nw. Anyway, that guy who reads is only a wayang character by Director Lee.
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That mama, 那个蛋, is paid 2million for cutting ribbons and shaking hands ok. Where to find such cushy job? Especially when you're an ex- Kempati
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This spore has 2day cant give credit 2 only 1 lee ,it is made by us n our parents who r hardworking!!! It is no doubt that Director Lee had also contributed a lot to the present state of Spore but the reserve can not be controlled n managed by him n their family members only,this is our nation $!!!
To judge a good or bad person only when he kicked th busket like Chairman Mao in PRC!!! n how much our reserve left 4 the next generation. -
THese speeches, reminds me of instant noodles; the wrappers changes in designs and colors, but damn contents still the same!!
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Originally posted by ShutterBug:THese speeches, reminds me of instant noodles; the wrappers changes in designs and colors, but damn contents still the same!!
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The whole trouble is beginning from the early 1960s, with our leaders promoting their leadership and talents under all kinds of elitist streaming and public sector job placement schemes, the seed has been sown to produce a self-centred society where individuals who are in charge of something will always promote their self importance rather than results or service to the people or customers.
The root of the whole problem is self for if leaders began to promote self or self importance, it will end up like what we are seeing today.
They have been trying to brainwash the people they they and their underlings of elites have all the qualities like foresight, insight, visions, and determination etc to be leaders:-
PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
A moment of reflection however will reveal, foresight, insight, passion or determination etc or IQ are only basic criteria and practical factors of success are more than foresight or insight but sheer implementation abilities, motivation of people and a high degree of EQ.
But do our leaders possess these practical implementation abilities in which are more important than look-good foresight or insight or vision in carrying out the whole economic restructuring plans since 1970s.
If they have been more practical implementation abilities as elaborated in the foregoing, we would no doubt have overcome many of the problems talked about in national rallies and President's speeches by now. Instead we keep hearing the same stuff like change mindset or need to engage more foreign talents.
We would have found and benefitted from our own local talents who are now turning to driving taxis or menial jobs.
We would have created new technology start-ups based on support of the masses and well-integrated daily work processes which can be understood and performed easily or consistently by all to attain success.
How do our enterprises go about organizing, control, processes, coordination, commanding, and corrections. They need to manage their tasks in attainable work processes easily understood and performed by staff.
It is not good enough just to keep producing scholars and elites five them CEO posts in GLCs to make it look like success.
Right now it will not be surprising if highly paid elites are engaged in fire-fighting, idling, passing the buck, going around in circles, pulling strings, beating around the bush, bending the rules, jumping to conclusion and all the office politics.
Moreover such autocratic system gives rise to individualism and self-centredness, the root cause of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and corporate malpractices as has happened to Worldcom, Enron etc.
But are our leaders going to change or do they have higher solutions than being accountable and objective or using implementation processes to establish teamwork and coordination for greater results?
If they have some qualities higher than self-centred autocracy, such qualities should have resulted in upgrading of our economy to a more competitive technology driven model or lowering of the costs of living and solutions to the 20 major policy errors as posted to the Feedback Unit. -
why do all the answers come with a qn mark?
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Where got? Only the answers with a question end with a question mark for reason of syntax.Originally posted by Cenarious:why do all the answers come with a qn mark? -
dun let him hear, wait later he black faceOriginally posted by foomwee88:u r right!!!he is just a figure head or a puppet played by Emperor Lee 
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Wayang wayang.......sighz.........
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So is parliament down there tok cock sing song???
ya... i c here... http://sinKapore.blogspot.com ... -
Ah Peh feels that "Figure-head" is an understatement.Originally posted by foomwee88:u r right!!!he is just a figure head or a puppet played by Emperor Lee
More appropriate would be "Puppet-head". -
I feel that you are way too harsh.
Every society is undergoing change and challanges, and it takes time and efforts from the people, from the whole society, to adjust. It is not easy.
Singapore is unique and it has to persue its own brand of development, suitable for its own conditions. For instance human resource development and meritocracy, which is falsely termed as elitism, and immigration policy to sustain its dwindling birthrate, which is falsely termed as too many FTs.
If you are in charge, what will you do?
Most likely anyone rational will end up more or less doing what the present government is doing.
Now we are living in a different world, we are living in a globalized world. Singapore is unique, but it cannot hope to always be on the top. Even USA is declining. No nation can always be having roses and always prosperous, without any challenges.
We are living in a vastly different era where China is growing rapidly and taking away the juices which used to flow to South East Asia. Several years ago leaders in South East Asia have recognized this phenomenon and said that the era of 6% or 7% growth is in the past.
With economic and societal challenges facing Singapore, a tiny island nation of 4 million people, the government has tried to bring about adjustments, such as immigration and work-retraining. But if these measures has not born full fruit which satisfy you, I hope you recognize that these are society issues/ people issues, which take time to change and re-orient.
Instead of always critizising the government who tried to steer the ship a different direction, why cant you and the rest of the passengers give support and encouragement and constructive suggestions. If I were the ship captain I would be very disappointed and confused with all the negativity coming from certain sections of the passengers. -
We are advancing... Look at our water technologies... Notice how Hyflux spread its wings internationally? It's so powerful... isn't it?
It reminds me of an article featured in The Economist which i tink the publisher got into some trouble wif my idol.. -
For past 41 years has the government really been caring to its people.Originally posted by #$%^&*:I feel that you are way too harsh.
Every society is undergoing change and challanges, and it takes time and efforts from the people, from the whole society, to adjust. It is not easy.
It would seem that we have a government which is only interested in monies and has been trying to levy all kinds of taxes, fees and charges despite taxing the people S$500,000-S$800,000 per family over the life cycle for housing and vehicle ownership.
Originally citizens have already paid taxes for services like medicare, utilities and transport and housing. Yet after collecting these taxes the government has progressively in the name of avoiding welfarism been corporatizing these public services into GLCs which allow the government to raise fees and charges on the assets and infrastructure already paid and owned by the citizens.
Under the HDB Act, it was back in 1962 after the Bukit Ho Swee fire HDB was originally set up to provide low cost housing to the people. But HDB has been quietly using creative accounting to raise the prices of HDB Flats from construction cost pricing to market pricing since 1970s.
Since SIT and HDB had been formed to acquire lands and resources cheaply using people's tax monies why on earth is HDB allowed to charge the flats at market price?
Is the change of charging HDB flats at market price legal ? Is such charging not contrary to the spirit and substance of the establishment of HDB and the Land Acquisition Act?
After lands were accordingly acquired under the Land Acquisition Act was it not acquired for the purpose of providing low cost housing by the HDB ?
Why must such lands be transferred to the Singapore Land Authority only for HDB to have to buy back the lands from SLA to build housing. Is not such transfer of acquired to the government land stock meaningless and contrary to the purpose and intent of providing people with low cost housing under the HDB Act and the Land Acquisition Act?
Should citizens be entitled to refund of public taxes should public services be later corporatised to the GLCs in order to allow the government and GLCs so set up profit making operations and to charge lands and assets and infrastructure once again and levy people ever-increasing higher fees to fill up their own surpluses.
The corporatisation of public services from medicare to utilities and public housing has resulted in regular taxes being redundant and accumulating into surpluses.
What is the purpose and objective of government ? Is it to use the taxes collected to provide maximum of benefits to the citizens or is it an organisation to accumulate taxes as surpluses to allow GIC or Temasek to spend them foreign projects which benefited the Thaksin or Souzhou industrialization.
Why were not the surpluses used to benefit the ordinary citizens especially the government has refused to provide any safety net or welfare or medicare and is seen to be dispensing with any public services to the corporatised GLCs and allow them to charge higher fees by sheer creative accounting and legalistic gerrymandering.
Should the heavy taxes through HDB housing sale and vehicle ownership levies amounting to $500,000-$800,000 per family be allowed to benefit the people or should such surpluses be claimed as government success and be used as rationale to pay the ministers higher salaries and lifelong annuities rewards after two terms.
Isn't it rather harsh to splash the surpluses on projects like Souzhou, Shin Corp or Optus resulting in heavy losses of taxpayers' monies while many citizens remain unemployed and unable to make end meet with a number of committing suicides.Singapore is unique and it has to persue its own brand of development, suitable for its own conditions. For instance human resource development and meritocracy, which is falsely termed as elitism, and immigration policy to sustain its dwindling birthrate, which is falsely termed as too many FTs.
It can no doubt be confirmed that people have given many feedbacks on the above-stated wrong policies in double taxing the citizens through creative accounting and corporatisation but has the government any willingness or intention to make changes to such policies?
Citizens have paid heavy taxes on housing and vehicle ownership levies of S$500,000-$800,000 per family. Surely they are entitled to be provided with affordable medicare, safety nets in the event of unemployments with their own monies.
So is it right for the government to claim success of building up such surpluses which are citizens' own monies. Is it not rather harsh for the government to keep raising fees when citizens have been paying heavy direct and indirect taxes towards the national surpluses.
Why keep denying problems and making it look like the people are asking for welfare when they have paid such heavy taxes into building their own surpluses.
Under such circumstance, has the government any right in regarding such surpluses as its own monies to entitle them to pay higher salaries and life-long retirements and rewards to their MPs and ministers?If you are in charge, what will you do?
Just look how the ministers have been telling the parliament half-truths to deny the NKF's lack of accountability for years before the true problems were spilled out in the court case between SPH and NKF,
Most likely anyone rational will end up more or less doing what the present government is doing.
Has the government been open and willing to look after the people's needs and aspirations all these years in good time and bad. It would appear that the ministers are only interested in taxing and recovering all costs to benefit the government and make their jobs easy without any burdens.
The auto-piloting of past autocratic policies has been pointed by no less distinguished ex-civil servant like Ngiam Tong Dow and respected citizen Dr. Catherine Lim without any tacit disagreements or by the government. It is clear that the government has not been caring or willing to change their past wrongful and outdated policies which have caused many problems.
It will take a huge leap of faith and courage on the part of younger ministers and post 65 MPs to stand up to the truths and do some real works to persuade the old guards who thus far have been unwilling to change outdated past tax-and-recover-or-corporatise policies which did not benefit the people.Now we are living in a different world, we are living in a globalized world. Singapore is unique, but it cannot hope to always be on the top. Even USA is declining. No nation can always be having roses and always prosperous, without any challenges.
Granted the world has changed rapidly over the past ten years but are ministers entitled to make selective comparisons with the worse off examples just to avoid facing the truths about serious problems due to past wrongful tax-and-recover policies.
We are living in a vastly different era where China is growing rapidly and taking away the juices which used to flow to South East Asia. Several years ago leaders in South East Asia have recognized this phenomenon and said that the era of 6% or 7% growth is in the past.
With economic and societal challenges facing Singapore, a tiny island nation of 4 million people, the government has tried to bring about adjustments, such as immigration and work-retraining. But if these measures has not born full fruit which satisfy you, I hope you recognize that these are society issues/ people issues, which take time to change and re-orient.
Instead of always critizising the government who tried to steer the ship a different direction, why cant you and the rest of the passengers give support and encouragement and constructive suggestions. If I were the ship captain I would be very disappointed and confused with all the negativity coming from certain sections of the passengers. [/b]
But sadly many of the post 65 MPs do not seem to be willing to acknowledge problems or be courageous enough to take the necessary actions to solve serious problems of high costs and structural unemployments faced by the educated as well as the ordinary citizens.
They have the tendency to call names of those who give feedbacks on problems as grousers or whiners or quitters telling them not to expect free lunch whenever they try to bring up problems and make constructive suggestions.
Actually the ministers might be the ones who have expected free lunches when they insisted on paying themselves over-inflated million-dollar salaries without the corresponding abilities as shown during the recent recessions to solve the high cost and structural unemployment and many problems.
If they claim to be the world best they should have restructured the economy with broad-based education and mass practical knowledge application as posted at www.managefranchise.blogspot.com.
So if the president can see the above-state larger perspective of nation building he should have seriously used his elected executive authority to set a firmer tone to his ministers so that they will play ball and not give any more hypocrisy, selective comparison about their wrongful policies which resulted in perpetual raising of fees through creative accounting and wrongful corporatisation to make more surpluses from which to pay themselves higher salaries and lifelong rewards.
Ministers could certainly do something about the inequity in double charging of assets and lands already owned by citizens so that government will be able to provide affordable essential basic services without any more NKF type of creative accounting and deprivation of needed services.
Surely HDB, JTC, SLA, URA can be funded by citizens' taxes of S$500,000-$800,000 per family instead of being used as vehicles to suck more monies from the citizens.
The government so far has not listened or taken actions seriously to address the above-stated issues and problems. There is a limit the people can bear as seen by the increased cases of suicides and bankruptcies.
The double charging on assets and infrastructure by the GLCs through creating accounting and corporatisation has caused PSA to lose out iin economic competitiveness but quietly PSA has lowered such double charge and avoided losing more customers to port parepas.
But has any ministers the courage to admit the above-stated problems caused by their wrongful policies of double charging the citizens or customers ?
For now it would appear that the it is the government which needs to change in order to meet the many challenges of globalization you have mentioned. -
Their policies are EXACTLY like instant noodles;
>> cheap
>> Fancy wrappers but same contents
>> Can never fill your stomach
>> Lots of ARTIFICIAL falvourings
>> Only smells nice, but harmful if eat too much -
Hey, your analogies are getting better and better.Originally posted by ShutterBug:Their policies are EXACTLY like instant noodles;
>> cheap
>> Fancy wrappers but same contents
>> Can never fill your stomach
>> Lots of ARTIFICIAL falvourings
>> Only smells nice, but harmful if eat too much
Keep it up. -
Somehow, i just have a bad feeling when, they say 'slash school dropout rates' without mentioning any plans(as usual) ...
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it is actually very simple and straightforward.
if whatever the govt are doing is beneficial to you, you will say nothing bad about them and vice versa.