Finally MM Lee relented driving off citiz talents
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LKY never try squeezing the train and the buses during the peak hour? How do he know 5m is still exceeding the optimum level? Paying millions of dollar to him and PAP ministers and he took that long to realise that 6.5m has exceeded the comfortable level? Dear citizens is this the kind of service level you have being expecting from the highest paid politicians in the world?
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i may have missed it, but i dun get the rationale how having 5.5m will keep singapore competitive whereas 4m will not...can someone enlighten me?
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Originally posted by weiqimun:
i may have missed it, but i dun get the rationale how having 5.5m will keep singapore competitive whereas 4m will not...can someone enlighten me?
... Lim Swee Say, says; this is to keep our labour force vibrant to stay competitive...... Hokkien saying; "...lan jiow way..."
... so many local labour force kum lan... when employers largely hire foreigners???
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It has become increasing depressive to live in this country.
Not that I did not want to help the poor but when I hear this kind of news... I am doubtful if the "help" is good enough for the poor and HOW MUCH it is going to cost the us and the poor.. Take $2 from us give us $0.50.
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PM Lee says govt will help mitigate rising costs of food
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 03 February 2008 2258 hrs
Photos 1 of 1 
Prime Minister Lee Hsien LoongRelated Videos 
PM Lee says govt will help mitigate rising costs of food SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has assured Singaporeans that the government will help mitigate the rising costs of food.
Speaking at the Teck Ghee Lunar New Year celebrations, Mr Lee said revenues have been strong and the government will be distributing help – especially to the poor and elderly – in the upcoming Budget debate.
But Singaporeans must also make necessary adjustments.
Mr Lee said: "I expect the inflation to be higher this year than last year, especially in the first half of this year. Last year, the inflation was about 2 percent. This year, it may be 5 percent, it may be even more."
Singapore is not the only country experiencing rising food prices. Prices in China and India are also going up, due to affluence and more consumption demand.
Adverse weather conditions in Australia and China are also sending food prices upwards.
Some measures that the government will undertake to ease the situation are to diversify the country's food sources and encourage consumers to switch to house brands, which are cheaper and give better value.
Lower income families can expect relief in the form of the government's Workfare Scheme, which paid out S$150 million last month, benefiting some 290,000 workers.
The Public Assistance Scheme is also being reviewed.
Mr Lee said: "Most importantly, we need to grow the economy so that incomes will go up. Last year we had a good year, so wages, bonuses went up. And NTUC did a survey and found that last year, the bonuses which workers were getting were the highest bonuses in any year since 1990 - which means nearly in 20 years, we have not had such good bonuses.
"Lots of people are working, unemployment has come right down. We had 230,000 more jobs last year and unemployment has gone down to 1.6 percent."
The prime minister added that being an open economy that imports all its food, Singapore cannot simply control the prices of food essentials as this will hurt the retailers and suppliers, resulting in shortages and queues.
And if the government subsidises these essentials, it will be costly and ineffective as the subsidies would also go to those who are not poor.
Mr Lee said while the government will help, Singaporeans must also do their part to work together to keep the country strong and competitive.
- CNA/so======================================================
MPs, volunteers distribute hong baos and food packs to needy
By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 03 February 2008 1853 hrsPhotos of
Related Videos 
MPs, volunteers distribute hong baos and food packs to needy SINGAPORE: Many members of parliament (MPs), ministers and volunteers spent the last Sunday in the Year of the Pig fanning out across the island to distribute hong baos (red packets) and food packs to the needy.
A total of 150 public assistance recipients from Kolam Ayer were treated to lunch, singing and dance performances. They also received NTUC gift vouchers, mandarin oranges and festive food stuff.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim was there to wish them good health.
Over at the Sree Narayana Mission Home in Yishun, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan presented new wheelchairs and hong baos to residents. Low-income residents in the area also received food hampers worth S$150.
Mr Khaw said the Health Ministry is looking into building more nursing homes in housing estates. This is to make it easier for children to visit their aged parents regularly.
"With population growth and ageing, you have to keep up with demand. But you don't want to overbuild because it will be too easy for children to send their parents to nursing homes. The best solution is to allow the elderly to age at home," he said.
Help was also at hand for the elderly in Bedok. 44 of those who are on the Public Assistance Scheme received hong baos from their MP who said there are several schemes to help Singaporeans cope with temporary hardships.
Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar said: "We have many schemes – whether it's Comcare or schemes under the community development council (CDC) and within the grassroots organisations – so we're able to cushion them in times of difficulty until their period of difficulty is over."
The South East CDC, NTUC Fairprice and Hwa Chong Institution also got together to help low-income families and single elderly persons cope with rising costs.
Under its "Food Samaritan" project, the students got Fairprice shoppers to sponsor some 1,900 food and non-food packages which were then distributed to the needy in the district in time for the Lunar New Year celebrations.
- CNA/so
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Mr Lee said: "Most importantly, we need to grow the economy so that incomes will go up. Last year we had a good year, so wages, bonuses went up. And NTUC did a survey and found that last year, the bonuses which workers were getting were the highest bonuses in any year since 1990 - which means nearly in 20 years, we have not had such good bonuses.
"Lots of people are working, unemployment has come right down. We had 230,000 more jobs last year and unemployment has gone down to 1.6 percent."
Which company...gives out the highest bonuses? Who being employed huh? Foreigners or Sg people? How the rates are being calculated? -
Originally posted by xiaoxui:
Which company...gives out the highest bonuses? Who being employed huh? Foreigners or Sg people? How the rates are being calculated?
The petroleum companies gives out one of the best bonus in Singapore. Banks bonus can be extremely high too, but it is a hire and fire job. However getting a job in these sectors are not easy.To tell if the economy is doing well or not, one can count by the number of days which hawkers will be closing their stall for this coming CNY.
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Originally posted by TCH05:
If I am PM, I wont be that worried about singaporeans trying to make a living overseas as long as they dont give up their citizenship.
If Singapore can attract FT, I am sure Singapore should be able to attract good and capable singaporeans back to singapore, because when they start a family and have a sizable income, they will appreciate the low taxes and security in this country.
What are the chances of those local coming back to Spore? Spore is becoming more like HK in term space constraint. There is a survey being conducted on local young people n majority mentioned they like to migrate to other countries. Look at people from HK, many of them migrate to Canada whereas local like to migrate to Australia. For the local guys, the frustrating thing is reservist liability which they need to come back to serve evey year n worse of all, they cannot downgrade n it is tought for those in combat vocation, still need to go outfield when they are in their late thirties or early forties. -
Originally posted by will4:
What are the chances of those local coming back to Spore? Spore is becoming more like HK in term space constraint. There is a survey being conducted on local young people n majority mentioned they like to migrate to other countries. Look at people from HK, many of them migrate to Canada whereas local like to migrate to Australia. For the local guys, the frustrating thing is reservist liability which they need to come back to serve evey year n worse of all, they cannot downgrade n it is tought for those in combat vocation, still need to go outfield when they are in their late thirties or early forties.It really depends on where they migrate to and what is their main reason for migrating. I am sure some will consider to come back to avoid paying taxes.
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Originally posted by TCH05:
It really depends on where they migrate to and what is their main reason for migrating. I am sure some will consider to come back to avoid paying taxes.
I talked to some of my local frens n they mentioned the high cost of living is the main reason n if they have son, they worried for their son to serve NS although full time NS has been reduced to two years. During PM Lee's national day rally speech, he seem worried about the no of locals migrating to other countries n the figures mentioned is 800 locals. I do agree the tax in US or Canada are bit too high to handle for the locals. -
Originally posted by will4:
I talked to some of my local frens n they mentioned the high cost of living is the main reason n if they have son, they worried for their son to serve NS although full time NS has been reduced to two years. During PM Lee's national day rally speech, he seem worried about the no of locals migrating to other countries n the figures mentioned is 800 locals. I do agree the tax in US or Canada are bit too high to handle for the locals.
Maybe your local frens are still have the asian mentality of worrying that their children will not be able to take care of themselves and they must provide for their future.For me, the job of the parents is to provide their children with the tools they need to survive in this competitive enviroment and that is to have proper education.
If you friend is worry about their son going to NS, arent they worry that their son getting hooked on drugs or their daughter being raped overseas?
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Singapore has its fair share of crime. In fact, in Singapore, the only crime that is not coming down is sexual assults against women. So don't make it out that Singapore is perfectly safe.
Everyone is free to take a chance and make a choice. My personal take is that Singapore is becoming a hotel for everyone. I dislike the fact that local born Singaporean are being marginalized to the point where being a 2nd class citizen in another country is better than a 3rd class in Singapore. Being a Singaporean and getting insulted in Parliment all these years that we are close to imbeciles and not able to make good decisions for ourselves and therefore warranty a nanny state that takes ownership over our hardearned money on the pretext to prevent us from spending it on unnecessary and friviously things. Many people who can and know the implcation are making a silent protest by migrating out of this country. If I have the ability, I would have migrated myself. And what's more, if I have kids, I do not want them to grow up in such a restrictive, negative and depressive environment. But now I have to consider very hard my retirement cause I know Singapore is definitely not the place to retire at all.
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Originally posted by mistyblue:
Singapore has its fair share of crime. In fact, in Singapore, the only crime that is not coming down is sexual assults against women. So don't make it out that Singapore is perfectly safe.
Everyone is free to take a chance and make a choice. My personal take is that Singapore is becoming a hotel for everyone. I dislike the fact that local born Singaporean are being marginalized to the point where being a 2nd class citizen in another country is better than a 3rd class in Singapore. Being a Singaporean and getting insulted in Parliment all these years that we are close to imbeciles and not able to make good decisions for ourselves and therefore warranty a nanny state that takes ownership over our hardearned money on the pretext to prevent us from spending it on unnecessary and friviously things. Many people who can and know the implcation are making a silent protest by migrating out of this country. If I have the ability, I would have migrated myself. And what's more, if I have kids, I do not want them to grow up in such a restrictive, negative and depressive environment. But now I have to consider very hard my retirement cause I know Singapore is definitely not the place to retire at all.
Can you give me some examples how Singaporeans are being marginalized?
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Originally posted by TCH05:
Maybe your local frens are still have the asian mentality of worrying that their children will not be able to take care of themselves and they must provide for their future.For me, the job of the parents is to provide their children with the tools they need to survive in this competitive enviroment and that is to have proper education.
If you friend is worry about their son going to NS, arent they worry that their son getting hooked on drugs or their daughter being raped overseas?
I agreeed on the part that parents need to provide their children with the ncessary tools to survive in the competetive environment. What I quite worried is the part that Spore is becoming far too competetive for all these locals to handle especially the coming of foreigners. The worse part about NS is many parents would like their son to go to easy vocation such as clerk, storeman, driver or service medic. There is a system called the white horse policy, oh gosh remember during BMT, sergeant n officer will treat those white horse's parents with great respect. What parents are concerned is they are afrid their son will be mistreated. Once mistreated, they have to go thru the chain of command before they can go report to SAFMPC(Singapore Armed Forces Military Police Command), this gave commanders the chance to become little warlord controlling their fiefdoom, I once advocated of putting undercover MP in unit notorious for brutal training. -
Originally posted by TCH05:
Can you give me some examples how Singaporeans are being marginalized?
HDB housing rules.
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just registering myself here in this thread. just want to see how many pro-pap will there be.
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Originally posted by TCH05:
If I am PM, I wont be that worried about singaporeans trying to make a living overseas as long as they dont give up their citizenship.
If Singapore can attract FT, I am sure Singapore should be able to attract good and capable singaporeans back to singapore, because when they start a family and have a sizable income, they will appreciate the low taxes and security in this country.
If those same Singaporeans have millions of dollars in their account and self employed with a dash of investment savvyness , they will come back to escape the taxes and make use of the low wage system to make more money. Not many will be in that category
This is my assumption that most Singaporeans overseas are likely to be employed by an organisation rather than self employed. What Lee is scared of is that those same skilled Singaporeans won't come back and Singapore needs the skills to fuel its workforce. Great if you have investors , bad if you don't have skilled and experienced workers.
Look at nursing alone where there is a worldwide shortage til the point that Africa begged for WHO intervention to ask the richer countries not to take their nurses.
Train the nurses, try to bond them , after their bond completes, some will move overseas. An endless hole they cannot plug. Other countries have that same problem. There are organisations falling over themselves to attract the nurses with pay that Singapore cannot match. Let alone other professions like actuaries.
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Originally posted by TCH05:
Can you give me some examples how Singaporeans are being marginalized?
"No...Singaporeans are not being marginalised. Marginalisation is a figment of their imagination. Those are not elderly beggars sleeping on the streets, those are people who like to sleep on the streets - much cooler there, lah. No lah, those are not their belongings, those are their makeshift pillows - maybe they don't want to dirty the pillows on their nice clean bed. Singaporeans are complaining too much - they complain of rising cost when they want to spend on BRANDED food stuff. You know if they save those few cents per box of bak kua or loaf of bread, they can pay off their HDB loans? And they want to complain some more..no wonder Wee Shu Min is right in expressing to those people to get out of her elite uncaring face. Those people so bad ...go and invade her internet privacy by discussing openly on what she said on the public blog . "
So sayeth the frog in the Ivory Tower.
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Originally posted by mistyblue:
HDB housing rules.
care to explain which part of the housing rules is marginalizing us?
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fymk, do you guys have inflation in Australia? How are the lower income people coping with it?
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as usual, LHL is only talking about wage increases in the but no actual mention of the if its only in the top sector or it includes the middle and lower income sectors as well, which sector did ntuc actually surveyed to come out with this 'strong wage and bonus increase?' or was it just a roll the dice and input the numbers wayang? The fact he mentioned NTUC made a survey and made a fact that workers were indeed making most bonuses that since last 20 year gives an impression that workers in NTUC will also given hugh pay rise or bonuses as well..? duh....
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Originally posted by TCH05:
fymk, do you guys have inflation in Australia? How are the lower income people coping with it?
First of all, if you are in the lower income group , you are likely to be involved in enterprise bargaining which pins your salary increments within multiyear duration.
Second of all, the usual advice from treasury and reserve bank, as well as other NGOs, is to try and not get into debt in the first place.
Third of all, there is always the welfare and health safety net.
Fourth of all, if any government tells its people to buy cheaper food to cope with inflation, have a serious problem. Better quality food usually cost more. We are not just talking about tin can mushrooms. For example, organic food which is better than your run-of-the-mill genetically modified food , is expensive. There are things that can be said like don't buy branded clothing , branded cars etc but food?
What's next? Eat cheap food fried with ghee if you cannot afford the better quality healtier oil and wait for your heart attack? Coming from a man who thinks mee siam has hum , this does not sound encouraging at all.
Oh one more thing, Australia has no GST taxes on fresh food. Not sure about Singapore.
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The figures given by LKY are misleading. He said about 1000 of the "top 30%" of Singaporeans give up their citizenship every year. How did he define the "top 30%"? How many of the "bottom 70%" give up their citizenship every year?
I am sure we have more than 1000 people giving up their SG citizenship every year. My estimate is at least 2000 per year.
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Originally posted by sghomosapien:
The figures given by LKY are misleading. He said about 1000 of the "top 30%" of Singaporeans give up their citizenship every year. How did he define the "top 30%"? How many of the "bottom 70%" give up their citizenship every year?
I am sure we have more than 1000 people giving up their SG citizenship every year. My estimate is at least 2000 per year.
It is not surprising to hear about local migrating to other countries cause of the stress of the lifestyle in this country. -
Originally posted by sghomosapien:
The figures given by LKY are misleading. He said about 1000 of the "top 30%" of Singaporeans give up their citizenship every year. How did he define the "top 30%"? How many of the "bottom 70%" give up their citizenship every year?
I am sure we have more than 1000 people giving up their SG citizenship every year. My estimate is at least 2000 per year.
Does it make a difference whether he says it a not?
It still shows his and PAP's mentality: The top 30% matters most to them. What about the 70%? Give them some money to shut them up.They don't realise that the other 70% of talents (every citizen is a talent) have their fair share of contributions to the economy too! Without them, would the 30% he mentioned be able to survive here?
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one way to live comfortably in s'pore... Be filthy rich... Earn income from overseas(business) so the sg gov cant charge ur income tax.LOL