Insightful to say the least...Originally posted by (human):Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. -Benjamin Franklin
Lai CF wrote:MM Lee may be right initially in promoting education and meritocracy but when civil servants and ministers got themselves carried away and auto-piloted all these policies, great social problems were being created.
I meant Lee Kuan Yew had made it quite clear that it is one of teh curses of Meritocracy.
And the problem is that PAP has yet to learn how to mitigate it.....by increasing ministers and MR4 civile servant salaries?
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. -Arthur SchopenhauerOriginally posted by AndrewPKYap:"If we are dynamic, we will attract talent, we will grow because we have more talent. When I say talent, it means people who add to the dynamism of that society. Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity," said Mr Lee.![]()
The debate over the million-dollar paychecks of Singapore's cabinet ministers is "rubbish" because the city-state needs to attract extraordinary people to run it, founding leader Lee Kuan Yew said in remarks published Monday.
"The biggest mistake any Singaporean can make is to believe that Singapore is an ordinary country and can behave like an ordinary country like Malaysia, like Indonesia, like Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark," he was quoted by the Straits Times as saying over the weekend.
The blunt-talking former prime minister said the public furore over the decision to raise cabinet ministers' base salaries by more than 30 percent to 1.05 million US dollars per year was "completely unreal."
"I say, 'rubbish,'" he told 400 members of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) on Saturday.
Singapore, with its lack of natural resources and small population, needs attractive packages to draw talented people into public service or the country's future prosperity would be at risk, Lee warned.
"The problem we now face is how to attract more talent, how to headhunt and to persuade the best to come into parliament," said Lee, 83, who remains an influential figure in the government with the title of "minister mentor."
"I see this place going for another 50 years, no problem. But you need top-grade government," Lee said.
The pay hikes for ministers and top civil servants, which take effect this month, have triggered a rare public outcry from normally reserved Singaporeans, who enjoy Southeast Asia's highest standards of living.
The pay increase boosted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's annual salary to 2.04 million dollars, five times more than the figure US President George W. Bush earns and more than eight times the salary of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The prime minister -- the son of the elder Lee, who now makes 2.01 million dollars -- said he will freeze his salary for five years and donate the pay increase to charity.
Ministers' salaries are calculated using a formula pegging them to the earnings of top business executives and professionals, including lawyers and bankers.
Officials have long maintained that high salaries are necessary to attract talented managers into government service and preserve Singapore's reputation as one of the most corruption-free countries in Asia.
Words in blue - LKY's words - Words of a far-sighted wise leader.Originally posted by AndrewPKYap:"If you have a dud minister he cannot hold his ground, you know in Singapore, you've got to meet your constituents, you've got to meet the press, you are in Parliament right? You are not just making a speech at a mass rally Â…and for this generation, if you don't pay them adequately and their families suffer, they will not stay in the job long. They will be forced to pack up and go back to their private life. And you've lost experience and expertise, it's as simple as that," said Mr Lee.
They and their family will suffer with S$2.5 million and need S$3+ millions a year?
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"If we are dynamic, we will attract talent, we will grow because we have more talent. When I say talent, it means people who add to the dynamism of that society. Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity," said Mr Lee.
and what about those talents they "chase" away from Singapore through their policies? and what about those politicians they sue for bankruptcy?
simply because people disagree with them?![]()
Is he trying to piss the whole world off?Originally posted by mhcampboy:All of u are RUBBISH LA!!![]()
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"The biggest mistake any Singaporean can make is to believe that Singapore is an ordinary country and can behave like an ordinary country like Malaysia, like Indonesia, like Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark," he was quoted by the Straits Times as saying over the weekend.
woooo...syiok!
For a wise and far-sighted leader, he will certainly win full marks for gross exaggeration of facts.Originally posted by freakass:Words in blue - LKY's words - Words of a far-sighted wise leader.
Words in red - PK Yap's words - Shallow comments made by a shallow person.
he is getting more and more bolder...Originally posted by charlize:Is he trying to piss the whole world off?
From my understanding, when you need to upgrade the capacity of a computer's hard drive, you pretty much replace the entire unit with a larger one. It's unlike RAM, wherein you add modules to upsize memory resources!Originally posted by Atobe:"We are the harddisk, and the foreigners are the gigabytes that provide the capacity, so that Singapore will have a huge memory storage".
Reminds me of the remark about the 'hum' in the 'mee siam'.
One from the Father, another from the Son, what will we expect from the Holy 'Goh' ?
this is almost impossible lah, they dun dare to offend the government, if one day the government says eating sh_it is good for health, TNP will just write some articles praising government and how eating sh_it is good for health.Originally posted by Darkness_hacker99:I hope this thread gets into TS or at least TNP.![]()
Originally posted by freakass:Words in blue - LKY's words - Words of a far-sighted wise leader.
Words in red - PK Yap's words - Shallow comments made by a shallow person.
Is Singapore's economy on the shoulders of each and every Singaporean, the success of Singapore the effort of each and every Singaporean or it was all the effort of a bunch of ".........." men?Originally posted by lotus999:is this old man getting senile? he is talking alot of garbage. 1stly he said increasing memory could prevent pc from crashing and then he said our economy was $4trillion.
according to http://www.singstat.gov.sg/keystats/annual/indicators.html#Economic%20Indicators
Singapore's GDP was S$210 billion in 2006.
So freakass, can you tell us how you consider a person not shallow - do we have to agree on whatever the govt say or do?Originally posted by freakass:Words in blue - LKY's words - Words of a far-sighted wise leader.
Words in red - PK Yap's words - Shallow comments made by a shallow person.
ermmm.... but it true they are getting from bad to worst....Originally posted by january:please stop criticize our leaders again.......
please give them their due credit...
nobody is perfect and nobody can speak every words correctly.
i think this is another typical complain thread by people who are narrow minded.
I know that your question is directed at "freakass"... sorry for the intrusion... but I think his definition of an non-shallow person is one that "suffers" when his salary is only S$2.7 million... and or a person that considers a charity boss taking $600,000/- salary *with money meant for kidney patients* is paid "peanuts"Originally posted by rane:So freakass, can you tell us how you consider a person not shallow - do we have to agree on whatever the govt say or do?
er there is a difference between "leaders" and dictators (in the opinion of European parliament members, dictators in the league of Myanmar and North Korea) helping themselves to as much of the nation's money as possible.Originally posted by january:please stop criticize our leaders again.......
please give them their due credit...
nobody is perfect and nobody can speak every words correctly.
i think this is another typical complain thread by people who are narrow minded.