Impending Million-$ Pay Hike Mentioned in Foreign Press
-
Commendable but sadly...a laughable and futile letter too.
-
If you were a doctor by training and earning 1 million a year in a hospital, do you think a law firm should pay you 1 million dollars a year because you were getting paid 1 million a year doing lasik operations in the hospital?Originally posted by airgrinder:from a blog i read: (not word for word)
It's never about right or wrong. Say you're an engineer with a company earning $3K/mth. Boss say u get a $200 pay increment. Will you decline considering there's a kid in korea living on $1 a mth?
If you wun decline, why do you think our ministers will?
Steady man!!
-
Singapore is long known to be run as a Corporation, with MM LKY as the defacto Executive Chairman, and the PM as the CEO, running Singapore as if it is a Family Owned Corporation - similar to the Public Listed Companies, whose stocks are largely in the hands of private scions - such as UOB and OCBC.
If Singapore is managed as a Business Corporation, there must be a line drawn when it is no longer a Corporation, as it also has Social Obligation to those Citizens who are trapped in the larger Capitalist Net grown by Singapore Inc, and also to those other Singaporeans who have invested their time and skills in developing and growing Singapore Inc.
Singapore's Growth and Success is not merely the net result of the efforts of those in the Top Echelon of Singapore Inc only, as if not for the sacrifices and efforts from the Singapore Citizens there would not have been the Singapore that we know of today.
While the Singapore Government claim mega-million dollar rewards for themselves, what has the Singapore Citizens received except for the paltry handouts given annually, and taken back with a slew of government approved increases in charges to all categories of essential services ?
As the following study by the Economic Policy Institute April 3, 1996 of the US shows, there is an Economic Case for Corporate Responsibility to Workers.
It is time for the Singapore Government to realise its political and social responsibility towards Singaporeans.
It is time for this Singapore Government to benchmark its own performance on the growth in numbers to the Middle and Higher Income in Singapore Society; which should result in a correspondingly reduction in numbers of those in the lower income group.
Will the Singapore Government dare to subject their performance according to the number of 'smileys' that the Citizens are prepared to give, and not simply arbitrarily assume Citizens' satisfaction and reward themselves with mega millions increases ?
continuation below
Economic Case for Corporate
Responsibility to Workers
By Eileen Appelbaum, Peter Berg, and Dean Baker
With the Dow Jones industrial average above 5500 and corporate profits at a 25-year high, corporate America may have fulfilled Wall StreetÂ’s highest expectations. But higher profits and productivity have failed to deliver higher wages and job security, and business finds itself accused of putting corporate greed ahead of the nationÂ’s economic interests.
Observers across the political spectrum have found the behavior of numerous companies unseemly.
Many large, successful corporations are permanently downsizing their workforces while earning record profits. Corporate executives are raking in multi-million-dollar pay packages while workersÂ’ pay stagnates or declines.
Republicans such as Massachusetts Gov. William Weld and presidential contender Robert Dole have lectured corporations on their responsibilities to their workers and communities.
Democrats such as Senators Edward Kennedy and Jeff Bingaman, Congressmen Richard Gephardt and David Bonior, and Labor Secretary Robert Reich have gone further and suggested that the government provide incentives that reward good corporate behavior and punish bad.
Wall Street and the business community have responded by defending their obligation to maximize shareholder value. As former Scott Paper chief executive officer Albert S. Dunlop put it, “The reason to be in business is to make money for your shareholders. The shareholders own the company. They take all the risks.” Among these shareholders, the argument goes, are pension funds and mutual funds serving a broad swath of American workers and consumers. The bottom line of this argument is that everyone is better off when corporate managers maximize shareholder value.
This argument, however, is based on widely held economic myths. There is, however, a strong economic case to be made for a broad vision of corporate responsibility that includes workers as well as shareholders.
Problems With the ‘Shareholder’ Argument
Shareholders do not “own” companies. Rather, they have an equity stake. Corporations do not exist in Adam Smith’s description of a free-market economy because they are not a product of free markets theywere created by state intervention. The laws that set up corporations separate the ownership of equity claims (shares of stock) from the ownership of property.
Owners of a few shares of stock in a company are not entitled to the ordinary rights of property ownership-the rights to possess, use, dispose of, exclude others, manage, and control the company. In addition, shareholders are exempt from the liabilities usually associated with ownership.
If the company pollutes the Love Canal, installs asbestos in nursery schools, or makes silicon brea st implants, the shareholders cannot be personally sued, no matter how wealthy they may be.
If the company goes bankrupt and leaves creditors holding the bag, the creditorscannot recover what they are owed from the shareholdersÂ’ personal assets; liability is limited to the value of their shares.
In other words, shareholders who invest in a company are owners of stock in the company, not the company itself. As we show below, their stake is similar to that of employees, who invest their time and skills in the expectation that the company and they, in turn, will benefit.
Employees, like shareholders, bear the risks of investing in the corporation.
Shareholders who have invested in the stock of a company get their piece of the corporate pie only if there is something left after all expenses are paid. Thus, they bear the risk that nothing will be left for them. They have an interest, therefore, in monitoring management to ensure that corporations are managed efficiently and that these residual gains (profits) are maximized.
Economic theory says that companies are likely to be run more efficiently when corporate managers are accountable to those who bear such risks. But employees make investments and bear risks as well.
In most employment relationships, employees invest in skills and knowledge that are specific to the company. Their payoff comes in the form of wages that are higher than what they can earn in a job at another firm-but only if the company prospers and employs them in the future. Because they bear risks in the same way as shareholders, employees are equally motivated to see that the firmÂ’s resources are used efficiently and that the firm prospers.
Downsizing is not necessarily an effective way to maximize shareholder value. Certainly some companies have seen employment shrink as they became more efficient. But productivity growth is a gradual process.
As the regional Bell company Nynex demonstrated, it is possible to plan for this type of reduction in staff in a way that minimizes the devastating effects on individuals and communities. No company can credibly claim that productivity growth requires sudden drastic or across-the-board cuts in employees.
Wall Street equates efficiency with layoffs, but almost half the productivity gains in the U.S. economy come from companies that “upsized” and added employees. Surveys by the American Management Association show that most companies that downsize do not meet their goals for increasing productivity
or profit. -
continuation
According to the AMA, many try to make good by downsizing again. A study comparing the financial performance of downsized firms over a period extending from three years before the downsizing to two years after found that the firms as a group performed no better two years after downsizing than they did before. Still, the pressure to downsize tends to crowd out more effective strategies for improving firm performance.
Downsizing is often a cover for mismanagement. AT&T Chief Executive Officer Robert Allen committed what a Wall Street .laurnal columnist called “a $7.5 billion boo boo” when he bought NCR Corp. in 1990. AT&T is also writing off hundreds of millions of dollars it invested in online services it is now phasing out. Other stumbles include its $150 million investment in Unitel, a Canadian long-distance network that went bankrupt.
The result of all these mistakes? On January 2, CEO Allen announced that AT&T is eliminating 40,000 jobs.
“Maximizing shareholder value” benefits only a small segment of the population. Federal Reserve data show that more than 5 1 million Americans owned some stock in 1992, either directly or indirectly through mutual funds and defined-contribution pension and savings plans. However, an analysis of these data by economists James M. Poterba and Andrew A. Samwick shows that most of these holdings are minuscule.
They found that the wealthiest 10% of households own 90% of stocks; the wealthiest 20% own 98%. The remaining 80% of middle-class and working-class households own only 2% of stocks, either directly or indirectly. When holdings in pension and retirement savings accounts are subtracted, the share of stocks owned by this 80% of households drops to a mere 0.5%.
Thus, middle-class households benefit little, if at all, from a rise in the Dow Jones average.
One group that clearly benefits from a rise in the stock price is the corporate managers themselves.
The most tangible accomplishment of the shareholdersÂ’ revolt has been to change the compensation package so that top managersÂ’ pay depends far more heavily than before on the stock-market performance of the company.
This focuses the attention of top corporate managers on movements in share prices, sometimes to the exclusion of other goals. At AT&T, Mr. AllenÂ’s pay consists of $5.85 million in salary and bonus and nearly $11 million in stock options, enough presumably to encourage him to focus on AT&TÂ’s share price.
And AT&T is not alone: CEO pay at some large corporations more than doubled last year. According to a survey by compensation consulting company Pearl Meyer & Partners, average CEO pay at large companies rose to $4.37 million in 1995, a 23% increase overall and a 45% increase in stock-option grants.
Tilting the compensation package so heavily toward stock options provides corporate officials with a personal motive for ignoring the claims of other stakeholders and with enticements to enrich themselves on short-term jumps in share prices. An overemphasis on short-term increases in share price can undermine the long-term viability of the company to the detriment of employees, creditors, and long-term stockholders.
A Broader View of Corporate Responsibility Like shareholders, employees make investments in a firm and take risks. Unlike most shareholders, however, employeesÂ’ livelihoods can be severely threatened by poor investment decisions and bad management.
Shareholders, after all, rarely have more than 2% or 3% of their holdings in any one company. And it is far easier for investors to sell their shares when they see that a company is poorly managed than it is for workers to change jobs. In most cases, employees with years of experience are unable to find other jobs at their previous wages. Decisions in which they had no part have essentially wiped out their investments in skills and knowledge. This is not only unfair, it is an inefficient use of societyÂ’s resources.
As stakeholders in the corporation whose incomes depend on the companyÂ’s profitability and ability to employ them, employees should have the same rights and opportunities as shareholders to hold managers accountable. Moreover, their knowledge of the company and its customers may make them better suited than more distant shareholders to monitor managementÂ’s decisions and assure that they serve company interests.
The first corporations were established by government expressly to pursue public purposes, and states today charter corporations under their authority to promote the common welfare.
Government already sets the rules by which corporations must be governed. WorkersÂ’ rights to representation, like those of shareholders, should be legally mandated in the rules of corporate governance.
Specifically: Employees should have a voice in decisions that affect the viability of the company. We propose that a significant proportion-perhaps a third-of a corporationÂ’s board of directors be elected by employees.
Because employees invest in firm-specific skills, they should participate in decisions about training. Training committees composed of employees and managers should decide both the content of company training and who gets it. Employee participation within a high-performance work system can bring new ideas to bear on how to increase everyoneÂ’s returns on investment.
As Senator Bill Bradley has said, “The form has yet to emerge, but the need to involve employees in dealing with the future-even a frightening future-should be obvious.”
These are two steps that can be taken to ensure that corporate executives pursue high returns for all stakeholders in their companies.
Suggested reading
Baker, Dean. 1996. “Trends in Corporate Responsibility: Getting More for Less?” Technical Paper,
Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.
Appelbaum, Eileen, and Peter Berg. 1995. “Financial Market Constraints and
Business Strategy in the United States.” Technical Paper, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C. -
Very true. Think about it lor. If we are the receiving party... the one who's going to benefit (as in we are the minister), will we decline the payrise because of the growing wealth disparity and the worsening living standards of our people?Originally posted by airgrinder:from a blog i read: (not word for word)
It's never about right or wrong. Say you're an engineer with a company earning $3K/mth. Boss say u get a $200 pay increment. Will you decline considering there's a kid in korea living on $1 a mth?
If you wun decline, why do you think our ministers will?
Steady man!!
-
As expected, every one of our MPs would put up some hypocritic arguments called tough questions by the press like there must be considerations and moderations of pay increases for ministers but such increases are inevitable if Singapore is to keep up with globalization etc in order not to lose talents to other countries or the private sector.
Then in order to avoid any sentimentality or bad taste over any use of party whip or give an impression of tyranny, it would be stage-played that there will be no voting but every one is expected to ask tough questions.
In Singapore's unique way called leadership, the motion to increase ministers' salaries will be passed without any mishaps or challenges. It will go down in the history of men one of the best self-reward schemes of any men elected to represent people's conscience and aspiration.
After all every one of the MPs has nothing really to object as by objecting to their pay masters getting hefty salary rises they would be the losers as seen in past cases of MPs or ministers being dropped from GE.
So the good news is the juniors among ministers will be getting jumps from 0.7 to one million and the senior ones from S$1.0 m to S$1.5 m and SM/MM/PM getting the biggest jumps from S$2.0 to S$3.00 million per annum (not reflecting concurrent retirement packages, life-long fees, directors' fees and bonuses).
So after all the debates, the assumptions have been made that Singapore GDP is indeed only or largely created by the ministers and these talented MPs and champaign bottles being passed around to toast to their grand GDP success.
Now fast forward to 2010, or 2012 should the IR fail to attract enough gamblers or visitors or should there be another world recession, with job lay-offs, we can be very sure based on past talented performance that there will be a grand re-play of their famous denials why our economy fails from our million-dollar ministers:-
(1) Globalization is the cause of the recession
(2) Singapore workers have failed to re-skill and re-train themselves.
(3) China and India are the cheaper manufacturing destinations. -
I hope Worker's Party & SDA will compete in every SRC & GRC in the next election.
-
if a minister is corruptable, it doesn't matter how much u pay him
if he is interested in public welfare, it doesn't matter that he is not paid as highly as he should be
if somone think that Singapore will fail becos he isn't there, let him go
-
I feel so insulted!!! How dare they say our Minister only earns 3 times more than US President George Bush??!Originally posted by lotus999:now the world will know how greedy the pap is!
Singapore ministers set for million-dollar pay hike
CNN International
05 Apr 07
The salary of the prime minister of Singapore is more than three times that of U.S. President George W. Bush and about four times that of Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But that is not enough.
"Your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries," he said.
Singapore has a PM, SM, MM and prata nathan!!
Thats 4 people filling up the top post! Contrast to only 1 USA president!
That means, Singapore Lee Family earns 12 times more than a single USA President.
And the coming minister pay hike would make them be paid like 20 times more than a single USA president!! Now thats GOOD world class governance!!
We are just a small dot! and small dots are not easy to control!! unlike USA, its the size of a continent, small dots take more time to locate on the map. Big countries like USA with 200+ yrs of legacy and 300million people to manage is chicken feet management.
So all of u shut up! cause if u dun pay, u are jst gonna become maids in other people's countries!!
-
nobody is indispensable!!
furthermore, all talks about loss of talents, we didn't see any minister leaving, hence why the heck do we need to pay them more to retain them when they r not leaving in the first place -
SM and Nathan not Lee lah...keke.Originally posted by pinkish purple papayas:I feel so insulted!!! How dare they say our Minister only earns 3 times more than US President George Bush??!
Singapore has a PM, SM, MM and prata nathan!!
Thats 4 people filling up the top post! Contrast to only 1 USA president!
That means, Singapore Lee Family earns 12 times more than a single USA President.
So lee family get 6 times more than bush. hoho
I wonder what's bush thinking when he see this. Maybe he should consider coming to sg instead, less things, less people to gover, no countries to go to war with, no major pressure from rival parties, and MORE PAY!!! hoho -
BRAVO, LTK!!!Originally posted by LazerLordz:
Very good speech!!
I like his phrase: "If you don't pay a civil servant peanuts, but a banana instead, you will still get a monkey!" -
wait wait wait.. i don get it leh.. what their increment got to do with women becoming maid? i tik if they kip increasing their paid, increasing gst, increase this and that but not increasing our pay, we will really become maid by that time..Originally posted by lotus999:now the world will know how greedy the pap is!
Singapore ministers set for million-dollar pay hike
CNN International
05 Apr 07
The salary of the prime minister of Singapore is more than three times that of U.S. President George W. Bush and about four times that of Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But that is not enough.
Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may soon be getting a hefty pay rise as part of a controversial ministerial salary hike that has infuriated many Singaporeans.
Lee, who is estimated to earn about S$2 million (US$1.32 million) per year, said last month that the salaries of Singapore ministers, top public officials and judges have fallen way below benchmark private sector salaries and may need to be doubled.
"It is critical for us to keep these salaries competitive, so as to be able to bring in a continuing flow of able and successful people," Lee said in a speech in March.
Lee said that Singapore ministers, who currently earn about S$1.2 million (US$800,00) a year, should be earning S$2.2 million (US$1.45 million). Details of the new ministerial salaries will be announced in parliament on April 9.
Since 1994, the salaries of Singapore ministers have been set at two-thirds the median pay of the 48 best-paid bankers, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and executives in multi-nationals and manufacturing firms.
But the latest salary hike, which comes at a time when income disparity in Singapore is wider than ever, has sparked an outpour of unusually blunt criticism from Singaporeans.
Hundreds have signed an online petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/paypap1/petition.html) and the readers' letter columns of the state-controlled newspapers - one of the few outlets for dissenting views in the city-state - have published a series of letters protesting the planned hike.
"Government always wins"
Some Singaporeans argue that the six lucrative professions on which ministers' salaries are based do not reflect the country's economy or the government's performance.
"No matter what happens to the economy, the government always wins because it takes only the best results," Jacob Tan said in a letter to the Straits Times.
And given that a 2 percentage point rise in sales tax from July will further hit the poor, some said the government plan is tactless.
"I am rather disappointed with the government's insensitivity," reader Vanessa Teo said.
But the sharpest criticism was online. The "awesome raise on top of their already obscene pay is completely unjustifiable," read an online petition that has gathered 304 signatures.
Given the rare public outcry, analysts said the government may now hesitate to raise salaries by the full S$1 million.
"I would be surprised if they implemented the full formula that would give them over S$2 million," said Garry Rodan, director of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University.
The government defends the high salaries as necessary to attract the brightest people and to prevent corruption.
"If we don't do that ... corruption will set in and we will become like many other countries," Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean was quoted as saying in the Straits Times last week.
Singapore government officials' salaries are set by different wage formulas, depending on their seniority. The figures are not readily available to the public, but the prime minister earned S$1.94 million in 2000, according to the Straits Times.
Ministers' wages were last raised in 2000, but were cut in 2001 and 2003 during the economic downturn, although the cuts have since been reversed, the Public Service Division said.
"Able generals"
Some argue that Singapore ministers are not overpaid, but that ministers elsewhere are underpaid.
Singapore is an oasis of wealth, peace and law and order in a region rife with poverty, violence and corruption.
The island state is Asia's second-richest country after Japan, with a gross domestic product per capita of about $31,000.
The World Economic Forum ranks Singapore as the fifth-most competitive of 125 economies in 2006, while Transparency International said the city-state was the fifth-most corruption-free nation out of 163. Isn't that worth a price?
"According to a Chinese proverb, an able general is worth more than 10,000 foot soldiers. So too is the worth of our leaders if they have the wisdom to help us weather global competition," reader Yik Keng Yeong said.
But critics say that the prosperity and security enjoyed by Singaporeans are not that different from other Asian first-world economies such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where government ministers do not command such high salaries.
Finland, for instance, beat Singapore in the WEF and Transparency International polls - as second-most competitive and most corruption-free country - but its Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen earns about a sixth of Lee's estimated salary.
What irks Singapore's opposition parties is that the million-dollar salaries are only accessible to members of Lee's ruling People's Action Party. Opposition politicians have been crippled by defamation lawsuits brought by government ministers and no opposition party has ever held a ministerial post.
The opposition also argues that a million-dollar pay hike is unwarranted for leaders of a country that has no legal minimum wage and where 20 percent of the population earns an average monthly salary of S$1,500 ($991).
But Lee Kuan Yew - modern Singapore's first prime minister, who is still the leading voice in his son's cabinet - will have none of it.
"The cure to all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government," Lee senior told the Straits Times on Thursday, adding that it is "absurd" for Singaporeans to quarrel about ministerial pay and warned that Singapore would suffer it the government could not pay competitive salaries.
"Your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries," he said. -
but now is u ownself say u get pay increment. + increment for all ur frens that work with you in engineering and go drink kopi after work one.Originally posted by airgrinder:from a blog i read: (not word for word)
It's never about right or wrong. Say you're an engineer with a company earning $3K/mth. Boss say u get a $200 pay increment. Will you decline considering there's a kid in korea living on $1 a mth?
If you wun decline, why do you think our ministers will?
Steady man!! -
Is workers party website (www.wp.org.sg) the only place where we can see MPs speech in parliament on text? on wp website of cos onli see low thia khang one.. which is better than nothing but any way to see the rest?
-
need good doses of incompetent gahmen?
we are already experiencing it what -
it clear cut.corruption will set in IF I DON'T GET PAID, I WILL GET CORRUPTED.Originally posted by lotus999:now the world will know how greedy the pap is!
Singapore ministers set for million-dollar pay hike
CNN International
05 Apr 07
... ... ...
The government defends the high salaries as necessary to attract the brightest people and to prevent corruption.
"If we don't do that ... corruption will set in and we will become like many other countries," Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean was quoted as saying in the Straits Times last week.
... ... ... warned that Singapore would suffer it the government could not pay competitive salaries.
"Your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries," he said.
but for publics, SINGAPOREAN to be competitive, SINGAPOREAN must lower his and her pay. Singaporean are being look down by it own GOV. they themselves are elites that why higher pay where else it people need to go lower?
The whole of Singapore "work force" are corrupted because we did not get pay rise?
Only a YES MAN will be rope into, to become members of man in white.
he TCH can go and sleep with snake and fark spider. -
Perhaps I am not clear in my post. I meant it is never about right or wrong. To the parties receiving, it's right. To the parties that did not get, it's wrong. Of course our government will give all sorts of reasons to justify the increment. To us who are not getting any, we complain in sgforums, to friends, to collegues, to maids, to dogs.Originally posted by charlize:If you were a doctor by training and earning 1 million a year in a hospital, do you think a law firm should pay you 1 million dollars a year because you were getting paid 1 million a year doing lasik operations in the hospital?
Say if your current company gives you a 33% increment, doesn't matter whether if you had been doing a good job, (maybe deep down inside you know you fu-ck up) would you reject? -
A quote from this yakuza (jap mafia) documentry i watched long long time ago goes something like:Originally posted by Kenashi:if a minister is corruptable, it doesn't matter how much u pay him
if he is interested in public welfare, it doesn't matter that he is not paid as highly as he should be
.....
"...I make alot of money, but there are even more money to be made...but if got less money to be made, i'm also interested but only out of convenience..."
==Doesn't matter how much money one makes, if one is corruptible, even if the bribe is small, and not too troublesome, one will still do it. -
A vision from an outsider - ST Forum 11 Apr 2007
I AM a national of a neighbouring Asean country, though a Singapore resident.
The principle of paying competitive salaries for ministers and civil servants is fair. If this ensures integrity, zero corruption and reasonable competency, then it is well worth it.
I would gladly pay S$1 million, $2 million or even $5 million for each minister of my country if they could guarantee one thing: integrity.
The cost of a lack of integrity runs into billions and billions of dollars in wasted government expenditure - expenditure that is driven not by genuine citizens' needs but by juicy procurement contracts and associated kickbacks - let alone the cost of the culture of corruption that corrodes the whole civil service.
The only issue Singaporeans should debate is what is the relevant benchmark. Whether it is two-thirds of the median pay of the top eight earners in each of six professions or of the top 80 earners in each profession, should be up for parliamentary debate.
My benchmark for my country is how much it would cost our taxpayers to make sure our ministers and civil servants do not stray off the narrow path of integrity. This, currently, is a very, very large figure.
Malek Ali -
ever heard of ghostwriters?Originally posted by SevenEleven:A vision from an outsider - ST Forum 11 Apr 2007 -
By conveniently benchmarking salaries against the best paid avoiding comparing with the dropping wages of the 80% of the suffering population, is there any integrity among our ministers?Originally posted by SevenEleven:A vision from an outsider - ST Forum 11 Apr 2007 -
Why bother with all this petition thingy....I would say, live and let live...we already know no matter how much we complain, things will never change here so I'd rather work hard, migrate and go to some other country that pays its leaders lesser and still we would enjoy a better quality of life....
In fact many of us including myself have already done that and encourage you all to join us. After all, the PRCs and Indians from Bangalore are coming to colonize this tiny red dot -
X2Originally posted by Coquitlam:Why bother with all this petition thingy....I would say, live and let live...we already know no matter how much we complain, things will never change here so I'd rather work hard, migrate and go to some other country that pays its leaders lesser and still we would enjoy a better quality of life....
In fact many of us including myself have already done that and encourage you all to join us. After all, the PRCs and Indians from Bangalore are coming to colonize this tiny red dot