DEFINITION OF TRUE DEMOCRACY
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In fact, the above "Success stories" of the Government has inspired the private sector from evolving from its own autocracy and meritocracy system. No longer are jobs given to the inspired "Less-Certified" employees. Those without certification are left without other alternatives than MLM ?Originally posted by robertteh:The leaders have tried to create a country which is run by a few of their chosen men over the past 40 years.
They call such a system meritocracy. From the 1970s, the system has failed to produce the desired results such as (1) value-adding industries, (2) a technologically advanced country.
Our narrowly based meritocracy system of education has large number of graduates and scholars expecting to be given high-paying jobs without creating jobs. Many highly educated scholars are contented to receive high pays and doing routine administration jobs without helping us to create advanced technological start-ups to compete with the world.
Our leaders are too narrow in their visions and have failed to shoulder the above-stated responsibility to bring our economy one notch up the value-adding ladder. Instead, they appear on the media trying to talk out of problems. They still practise the past unworkable policy of getting more scholars to occupy administrative public service and collect more monies and recover more costs from the people.
People are not discouraged to form Opposition Parties, the cost is higher for these "Certified-personnel" to form Opposition party because the general public will shun them in the workforce. The democratic people wants to stand at the "Winning" side when the show is over. They didnt know what is "Winning"? of course it is not the people that wins, they feel the thrill of being on the side of the winning team. (qn: why have there been more Man.U soccer fans than 15 years ago?)
The current issues is that people are more trained to hold on to their Jobs than create jobs. -
How do we judge talents? By academic qualifications or performance? The PSC does not seem to understand performance and results and its responsibility to always recruit people who can deliver results not on assumptions about potential or presumed abilities.
Because PSC has failed to come up with such result-oriented criteria it has to keep talking about hiring the academically highest qualified people. No wonder the whole government is full of people who have failed in their jobs.
They put all kinds of scholars in SIA, PSA, LTA and EDB lacking in successful practical knowhow to create business or technology start-ups. No wonder Singapore is technologically falling behind many Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan because scholars simply do not know enough about successful technology start-ups but were placed in charge of the economy.
No wonder EDB has for years to tackle superficial problem of bond-breakers who even if they don't break bonds are just not good enough to create jobs or start new technology applications.
Without a competitive PSC, the whole civil service will continue to be run by ideas but not implementation abilities. That is why today our economy is still very conceptually managed and vulnerable and dependent on foreigners and lacking our own resilience.
It is not just the economy that is badly managed by ideas and concepts which failed to work. Work site accidents like the Hotel New World should have put taught the BCA and MND the whole lessen how to monitor and proactively run the safety programs. Despite all the parliamentary committees and white and blue papers and judges' decisions and the presumed overhauling of the planning and approval processes, today there are still the same kinds of shoddy work site accidents happening every now and again. LTA running of the MRT is full of pitfalls and hazards wasting taxpayers' monies in all kinds of extravagant expenditures. The whole transport and telecommunication as well as MND will need to be overhauled as there are not good and efficient people running the government.
Inefficient officers of LTA or JTC who failed to get investors to fill up the empty factories and spaces were simply transferred to other more appropriate department.
How much should such iron rice bowl civil servants be worth- US$2,000 pm or S$20,000 pm?
LTA and JTC can easily solve all the above-stated problems by manageable processes. See one model of accountable and transparent corporate governance as posted:
http://www.ospforohsopolite.blogspot.com -
Twilight,Originally posted by TwilightZone:Dear Pikamaster,
Ideals changes with the times. They are moving targets. What is an ideal in one period may no longer be an ideal in another period. The methodology used is irrelevant. The route to Heaven takes many forms.
When there is a will there is a way. Laws are made by men. They can also be unraveled by men. As in software, you only need the source code.
Ask the man in the street in Britain, USA or Japan, whether he felt equally valued and whether he really cares for others. As I said, you will hear of the same gripes, and see the good, the bad, and the ugly everywhere in this world. We are no different, not because of our political system.
This is only a discussion forum amongst citizens. There is no need for propaganda or rhetoric. We cannot deny the truth, i.e. on the whole we have progressed by leaps and bounds over the years. But we will never be perfect. The most democratic countries in the world are not perfect. We must recognize the fact humans are perfect in their imperfections, whatever political system they adopt. We should take comfort that we have done so well against all odds.
The Opposition was not prevented from contesting. They choose not to. It is democracy at work.
It is ridiculous and undemocratic to ask the ruling party to give up their power when they are elected by the people. Is this your version of a true democracy?
P/S: The people of a nation are citizens who are loyal to the nation.
thx for your prompt reply.
1) Does Heaven change from era to era? Practical goals change, not the ideals which accompany the goals.
2) true. And the source code for laws is the Constitution.
3) That doesn't mean we don't need to change our political system. your statements here are even mroe irrelevant than the exampe eof NKF.
4) *Sigh*. We have progressed economically perhaps, but not in any other way, certainly from the way I see it. Give me your evidence of the "progress in leaps and bounds" which is NOT in the economic aspect.
5) When the opposition is disqualified from contesting or is sued for political defamation (a rather spurious form of litigation), do they choose to do so? Live in the real world, please.
6) It is undemocratic for the ruling party to hoard so much power for itself, especially since it has gone beyond the powers granted to it via the election process. For eg, it was granted the power to protect the people's security, not to spend time arresting people for cleverly-spun indeas of Marxist conspiracy like it did in the 1980s. For eg, It is granted the power to protect children from harmful web influences, not the power to attack websites for political defamation, or sue reputable magazines like the Economist for slander. We are asking the ruling party to give up the EXCESS powers it accumulated for itself over the years which exceeds the mandate given to it by the people, not ALL of its power, which I give to you would be unrealistic and undemocratic.
7) What is your definition of "loyal"? I suppose you consider me and Robert disloyal?
Regards,
the pikamaster -
There's simply not Certificible to deny capable people the better jobs than giving them to Paper tigers who sit and collect salary and spout theories and theories.
Although paper tigers are very well verse in internal office politics, they are simply more costly to have than those which they leverage their work on. Oh and they say they can Outsource departments to lower their costs???
Then what shall these certified managers do ? Read reports after reports and look at the fabricated results ? As if they have not been fabricating those results in the past , now they will say their decision was based on the reports of the contractors. Completely shifting the responsibilty perception to the kind of intelligence they have.
They didnt realise that is is more costly to the people to have them there than to themselves. -
Dear Mr Pikamaster,
Heaven is an idealism created by man. Democracy is also an idealism created by man. Both are subjected to evolution over time.
The source code, i.e. the Constitution can also be dismantled by man.
I am saying you donÂ’t change for the sake of change if the ultimate result is the same or worse. Britain, as you said, has a more advanced democratic system than us, but this does not translate into the ideals which you envisioned, vis-Ã -vis us.
I believe you have visited countries or cities which started on the same platform as us and compare the socio and economic advancements over the years. I dare say that we are miles ahead of them. This is what I mean by leaps and bounds.
Individuals from the opposition parties were sued for defamations, not the parties. People who break the law must be prepared to face the consequences of the law. It is one of the democratic ideals. No one prevented the parties from contesting in the elections. As I said, they choose not to and they have the right to do so. This is very democratic.
The powers accorded the ruling party under the Constitution will be no different from those accorded to the oppositions if they win the elections. It is a level playing field and is also one of the ideals of democracy. It is undemocratic to ask the ruling party to give up powers either in part or in full.
I have absolutely no doubt that you are both loyal citizens. If parents stop nagging their children, or if spouses are nonchalant about each other, it simply means that they are no longer interested, concerned or care about them and have written them off their minds.
However during the nagging or chiding process they must not say things which are untrue or half-truths, or hurl personal attacks at them. This will result in a free-for-all and loss of rationality. They should focus on the issues, identify the problems and find solutions to them - together. Finally they should allow the right of reply and respect alternative views. Otherwise the end result will not be fruitful and will be undemocratic. -
mr Twilight,Originally posted by TwilightZone:Dear Mr Pikamaster,
Heaven is an idealism created by man. Democracy is also an idealism created by man. Both are subjected to evolution over time.
The source code, i.e. the Constitution can also be dismantled by man.
I am saying you donÂ’t change for the sake of change if the ultimate result is the same or worse. Britain, as you said, has a more advanced democratic system than us, but this does not translate into the ideals which you envisioned, vis-Ã -vis us.
I believe you have visited countries or cities which started on the same platform as us and compare the socio and economic advancements over the years. I dare say that we are miles ahead of them. This is what I mean by leaps and bounds.
Individuals from the opposition parties were sued for defamations, not the parties. People who break the law must be prepared to face the consequences of the law. It is one of the democratic ideals. No one prevented the parties from contesting in the elections. As I said, they choose not to and they have the right to do so. This is very democratic.
The powers accorded the ruling party under the Constitution will be no different from those accorded to the oppositions if they win the elections. It is a level playing field and is also one of the ideals of democracy. It is undemocratic to ask the ruling party to give up powers either in part or in full.
I have absolutely no doubt that you are both loyal citizens. If parents stop nagging their children, or if spouses are nonchalant about each other, it simply means that they are no longer interested, concerned or care about them and have written them off their minds.
However during the nagging or chiding process they must not say things which are untrue or half-truths, or hurl personal attacks at them. This will result in a free-for-all and loss of rationality. They should focus on the issues, identify the problems and find solutions to them - together. Finally they should allow the right of reply and respect alternative views. Otherwise the end result will not be fruitful and will be undemocratic.
1) i see that you are a real secularist. Unlike you, I do not believe that heaven is an idealism created by man. In fact, I do not believe that man actually creates anything at all. Knowledge already exists; man only discovers knowledge, not makes knowledge. Thus, the amount of knowledge is finite, although it is such a large amount that we consider it infinite. It is there for us to seek, not for us to fabricate. Ideals are merely a subset of knowledge. Creativity is nothing except the discovery of linking knowledge between other pieces of knowledge previously discovered. As such, ideals do not evolve.
2) True, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a Constitution or it shouldn't be amended in the first place. Anyway, I have the [academic] Permanent Law Act which will protect its existence and existence of crucial laws to the point that it shall be illegal and unconstitutional to render the paper or e-storage medium of the act non-existent.
3) I ask for change so that we can more closely reach the ideal, even more closely than Britain perhaps. And FYI, Britain has realized some of the ideal, albeit to a limited extent, but at least less limited than Singapore.
4) As I said, I agree that Singapore has progressed economically by leaps and bounds, but I question the assumption that we have made the same level of social progress. in fact, even MM admitted that much in a speech he made abt a quarter of a yr ago; he questioned how much racial and religious harmony had actually grown per se. Don't believe, check the Straits Times. Anyway, you haven't exactly given me examples of what social progress Singapore has made.
FYI, every major nation in the world was at some point, on the same platform as us, whether you are talking of Venice or Switzerland or Italy (Rome started out as a mere village, and it became the world's most glorious Empire), so that point is not really valid.
5) You obviously haven't gotten my point. Those oppo members who were disqualified from elections, did they choose to be disqualified? "People who break laws must face the consequences of breaking the laws" is a legalistic ideal, not a democratic ideal. In fact, teh democratic ideal allows for breaking of undemocratic laws. And anyway, the wording of the Defamation Act is decidedly vague. Why don't you read the text of the Act yourself?
6) At least you have gotten the definition of loyalty right.
7) The issue is that the ruling party has claimed more powers than was offered to them in the Constitution, or have circumvented the articles of the Constitution. Thus, Robert, me, and others like us, wish it to give up its excess powers, for eg the power to change constituency boundaries arbritarily ie. gerrymandering, which is decidedly undemocratic.
8 ) Attacks are in the eyes of the beholder.
That's merely an excuse for those who do not wish to accept personal criticism. And seriously, do you think our politicians do not equally deal in half-truths and untruths? Sometimes, feedback providers wonder if its really the govt who refuses to accept alternative views on its policy, claiming tt it knows best.
thx for your prompt reply.
cheers,
the (democratic) pikamaster -
7) The issue is that the ruling party has claimed more powers than was offered to them in the Constitution, or have circumvented the articles of the Constitution. Thus, Robert, me, and others like us, wish it to give up its excess powers, for eg the power to change constituency boundaries arbritarily ie. gerrymandering, which is decidedly undemocratic.
Precisely, a good government has the moral as well as legal duty to observe rule of law by desisting from using its interpretational or discretionary powers to bend rules to suit its own purpose. That kind of government is not only unconstitutional but destablises society and sets bad precedents for future political parties to do as they like !!! -
Dear Mr Pikamaster,
With due respects to your views, I am afraid that Heaven is a virtual image created in manÂ’s mind to appease his fear of mortality. Similarly democracy is a philosophy evolved by man to appease his desire for freedom, rights and equality. They are not linked to any real knowledge. They are both ideals and have been, and will be, subjected to evolution and interpretation over time and across all nations in a given period.
When a New Order comes into power, no one can guarantee that laws will not be changed by the people in charge to suit the day, for better or for worse. As I said if there is a will there is a way.
Singapore is not in such a dire state that we need to change for the sake of change. We are riding high in terms of wealth, standard of living, safety, freedom and equality, and respect for human rights, in the international arena. I do not deny that we have room for improvement. I believe that Singapore has adopted a continuous approach in all the things it does and has been urging its citizens to strive for excellence on the world stage. I also believe that Britain and many other countries have as much to learn from us as we from them.
The fact that all the things enshrined in our National Pledge are realized over the past 40 years of nationhood is evidence that we have made tremendous progress for such a young nation. Many countries in the world including the most advance democratic countries in the world are still struggling to achieve some of them.
The point of time is 1965. I do not wish to name the cities or countries for comparison as it will be impolite to do so. But I think you know which countries I am referring to.
The opposition can always nominate other members of their parties to run for elections. They are not stopped from doing so. They choose not to. And as I said, they have the rights, and this is democratic.
As to whether politicians deal in truths and half-truths, they have been settled by the courts in full view of the world. Ambiguities in the laws have always been resolved in the courts throughout the democratic world and we are no different. This is again democracy at work.
I donÂ’t think the Constitution say that constituency boundaries cannot be changed. So there is nothing to circumvent. Whatever boundaries drawn, it is still a level playing field. All political parties have the rights to contest. If they are credible and worthy of leadership roles they will be elected notwithstanding the boundaries.
Members of the government have always back up what they say with facts and figures, and refrained from defamatory remarks. The Opposition members have much to learn from them. They should try and move away from rhetoric and gain respect and trust from the populace with more rationality and dignity to improve their chances to get into parliament. As in boxing, the boxer who swings his arms and fists wildly against the opponent in the ring will invariably be flattened out by a TKO.
Finally, if the government thinks that it knows best, it will not establish the Feedback Unit and organize Parliamentarians to obtain feedback for their policies. I believe that it is sincere in seeking alternative views provided that they are properly cooked and presented, and not contaminated with grime and dirt, and served in a rubbish bin.
Thank you. -
exactly. but we are hiding here in this dumb forum whispering amongst ourselves.Originally posted by robertteh:Precisely, a good government has the moral as well as legal duty to observe rule of law by desisting from using its interpretational or discretionary powers to bend rules to suit its own purpose. That kind of government is not only unconstitutional but destablises society and sets bad precedents for future political parties to do as they like !!!
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LETTER TO : Editor Today Newspaper, (via email)
Dear Editor,
WHAT CHANCE DO WE HAVE TO GROW A CIVIL SOCIETY?
Your correspondent Mr. Siew Kum Hong in his report: “Turning Point for Singapore civil society or a one-off?” as published in Today on 3.8.2005 has raised a pertinent and timely question: whether the recent spontaneous reactions of the public as demonstrated in the NKF’s episode reflected a sign of our growing maturity of civil society. The corollary is: have Singaporeans attained a level of maturity to act responsibly and peacefully to demand changes collectively to any erroneous government policies or actions to survive as a people.
It would appear that the NKF episode was a chance occurrence of people expressing their spontaneous pent-up feelings against a public organization reflecting governmentÂ’s own past policy errors. Despite PM LeeÂ’s liberalizing of the government feedbacks processes, Singapore remains tightly controlled by all forms of discretionary arbitrary administrative and legal powers acquired over the years to counter perceived threats to society past uncertain political conditions ranging from denial of accusedÂ’s rights of access to counsel during custody to stateÂ’s power of detention of persons without trial for presumptuous security threats under ISA to the issue of impartiality of a state-appointed and controlled judiciary.
The pertinent issue to be answered is: do we still need the same paternalistic past controls of our society given todayÂ’s more educated citizenry better able to take care of their own conduct and behavior. Do we need to continue to vest such huge and overbearing powers over to the state to survive and create a more entrepreneurial and vibrant society? Can we grow our own active citizenry to play an integral role in nation building? Do we need to re-examine the whole social, cultural and political spheres including revamping our current constitutions to give clearly established rights and more equitable rights to individuals to motivate them to contribute to our future success. My conclusion is that unless the state is benign to give up some of its powers presently constraining the growth of active citizenry, nothing will ever change and we will be forever be a grumbling people beholden to state for subsistence for many more years to come. -
Robert,
What does maturity of the population have to do with govt restrictions?
the confused pikamaster
P.S.: Ref. ur letter to TODAY today -
quote]Originally posted by pikamaster:Originally posted by pikamaster:Robert,
What does maturity of the population have to do with govt restrictions?
the confused pikamaster
P.S.: Ref. ur letter to TODAY today
We need a large pool of people actively engaged in deliberating over or debating and evaluating government policies and actions affecting our lives and works or making suggestions or feedbacks on alternatives to check on the government actions.
Such active citizens will be our standard bearer or goal keepers serving as a ultimate check on excessive policies like over-paying of our leaders or over-zealous building of surpluses or reserves to stalemate the economy.
At the least they can serve as a check on abuses, uphold justice and equity or accountability or transparency as demonstrated in the NKF episode.
From necdotal evidences I don't see we have a large number of active citizens regularly speaking up and giving views and opinions on matters of economic, social or political concerns or taking part in political process or renewal.
I only see that people generally being more concerned with their own immediate livelihood or material possessions or economic matters. We are simply a fragile society.
Rummel's Law, states that a government is more likely to murder its people offering the least resistance to its policies or doings.
Furthermore, over the last 40 years, we have a government which has instituted many laws and regulations which in name were intended to deal with perceived threats to society but over time have turned against the people in terms of restricting curbing their freedoms of speech, choices and business entrepreneurship and stifled the growth of our active citizens, vibrancy and maturity?
I do not see any immediate freeing up of the state-controlled press or abadonment of truculence in demolishing political participants through defamation suits. Yet many people have taken their losses of freedoms for granted preferring to see no evil hear no evil. This state of our populace sad to say will lead ultimately to greater abuse and our eventual decline.
Do we need overwhelming primitive controls and restrictions over the entire populations just to prevent insignificant assumed past threats of communism or control certain miscreants. The fundamentals of all these excessive controls and powers of government is anti-progress and anti-entrepreneurship.
The government has to reexamine all the major legislations and even our constitution if we are to remake the nation to a more competitive inclusive cosmopolitan society. It does not amke sense to deny change of policies on the flimsy ground that some of them are good policies without elaboration. A stand has to be taken to define what has worked well and what not to keep. The more educated people today surely have the right to know which are good and which are not good to keep. Only our first-generation cannot see the fine differentiation.
That is the primary cause of our state of restrictions and controls imposed on the people as stated in the Ruumel's law.
Beyond a certain point many seemingly good policy like meritocracy only produces only diminishing returns and not only created a divided but neglected giving rightful opportunity to augment the growth of a entrepreneurial society based on broad-based education and mass participation needed to produce technological knowledge applications. There are many evidences of lack of maturity of our civil society..
The look-good leadership and meritocracy policies in the final analysis had ended up in self-serving quanxi and egotism. The safer bet is to grow and cultivate large number of active citizens who will form the backbone to assure good corporate governance the key to success of our future government.
Active citizens will not only safeguard our democratic framework and prccesses they will provide collective leadership to guide all to work together each in his or her own way according to his or her abilities. For now we are handicapped by a lack of civil society. There is a great urgency to nurture greater social cultural and political maturity among the general population starting from young to mould such an active citizenry.
http://www.managefranchise.blogspot.com -
[qDespite PM LeeÂ’s liberalizing of the government feedbacks processes, Singapore remains tightly controlled by all forms of discretionary arbitrary administrative and legal powers acquired over the years to counter perceived threats to society past uncertain political conditions ranging from denial of accusedÂ’s rights of access to counsel during custody to stateÂ’s power of detention of persons without trial for presumptuous security threats under ISA to the issue of impartiality of a state-appointed and controlled judiciary.
uote][b]
Are racial riots experienced in the past, and extreme terrorisms experienced over the last few years and up till today, percieved threats?
Didnt the US and UK detain suspects without trial, too? An innocent suspected unarmed bomber was even summarily executed in public in the UK just a few weeks ago.
Ultimately we have to consider the rights of the majority of the people of the nation to live in peace without being terrorise by a few who abuse their human rights under the guise of their political beliefs.
[/b][/quote] -
There is no disagreement that any country would need certain effective laws to deal with its particular problems.
In our case, we have passed too many harsh laws in the past eras of communism, communalism etc presumably to deal with certain threats. We keep up dead sentences to deter serious crimes and hard-core criminals to ensure peace and harmony.
However, after the collapse of communism 20 years ago our government still keep retaining the same harsh laws by giving justification after justification to persist in detaining potential criminal or persona non-grata in the same presumptuous manner without regard justice and equity or relevance of changing time and circumstance.
The relevance of older laws giving discretionary power to government officers to detain persons without proper trial such as the ISA regulations should be properly and objectively evaluated based on facts and figures.
So far, no facts or figures have been given to show why 20 yeara after collapse of communism we still need to give such overwhelming powers to the state. In addition, the state has overwhelming power over indiviudal including using of the "guilty till proven innocent" criminal procedures to deal with crimes.
Yet containment of crimes should have been more objective and holistically based on multi-pronged approaches and not just by sheer discretionary powers liable to be abused beyond the control of the leaders.
We may have many cases sad to say of likelihood of depriving individuals of just and fair trials based on objective professional and detached accountable and transparent processes.
Recent international terrorism to a great extent cannot be solved purely by harsh laws alone. Even if we should have all the ISA to allow the state to use the guilty-till-proven-innocent criminal trial procedures are we getting wiser in handling the guilty or protecting the innocent citizens from potential misuse or mis-application of such laws for private veageance or personal vendetta.
We will still be unable to build a better society despite all the ISA as crimes are not that straightforward easily controlled or prevented by harsh arrests or detentions alone.
Given such facts regarding the nature of threats and how government can be more objective in tackling them in more just and equitable manner, Singapore should not be forever held hostage by government's use of scare tactics such as international terrorims as another lame excuse to perpetuate rough-shod controls over the individuals.
If ISA has been necessary in the past it has been necessary in the past and let bygone be bygone. There is no need to keep to the egoistic mentality and refuse to change. A good corporate governance code should be implmented to avoid abuses. Statistics would amply show that it is wrong to continue to use a sledge hammer to swat a fly.
Terrorism cannot be effectively controlled even if we have double the ISA regulations. In a new age, government should be more open and objective to look at crimes and threats and not resort to usurping powers of any kinds and use those powers to contain all the problems which could easily be solved in simpler and more effective ways.
Many solutions to crimes could have been more effective if we maintain multi-pronged approaches aimed at tackling the problems at the root not be catching criminals alone and punish them excessively or unfairly and making innocent suffer just to frighten the monkeys.
We need holistic and practical racial harmony actions among the citizens. More harsh laws do not necessarily create efficiency in preventing crimes or mischiefs. In fact over-harsh laws might lead to the reverse with people feeling unjustly treated by uncaring civil servants who only wanted to take credits and show results to their political masters. There can be insidious abuses of many kinds behind each form of discretionary power without the government control or knowledge. Usually when such cases of abuses happened, it will lead to scandals and government refusing to be exposed for scandals.
There is now a crucial need to evaluate continuing existence of harsh laws like ISA or guilty-till-proven-innocent criminal procedures. Such potential abuses will ultimately pose greater concern and become larger threat to society than the few criminals or terrorists uncaught.
The guilty-till-proven-innocent criminal procedures" and together with all the presumptuous regulations need to be reexamined. The frequent resort to defamation lawsuit to prosecute political participants should pose a greater problem to the citizens than a few incidents of street unrests. In fact some street demonstrations might be good for society as otherwise problems of abuse might persist like the NKF case till they become a time-bomb leading to widespread unrest and even bloody revolution. Citizens should no longer be indoctrinated by all kinds of justifications to give more powers to the government if we want to progress to be a more inclusive and cosmopolitan society as pledged by PM Lee in his inauguration speech.
There has been use of overwhelming state powers over the individuals in the past for maintaining laws and orders. Can the government say with conscience that such poweres have not been abused or extended for political control purposes and perpetuation of autocratic one-party rule.
If Singapore's harsh ISA regulations should be maintained as of old because of terrorism it does not sound very convincing now because of the lack of objective evaluations to provide rationale for continuing use of such laws after collapse of communism 20 years ago.
On the other hand, if PM Lee genuinely wanted to build an inclusive society, he needs to understand that laws and orders and ease of governance or prosecution effectiveness is only one aspect of government. Clearly he does not want his men of government to abuse powers or stifle the growth of civil society, entrepreneurship to build a more competitive and vibrant society participated by the masses.
Our harsh ISA regulations might have been copied by a number of countries to tackle particular needs but that does not mean that anyone should tongue-in-cheek conclude that those governments will use ISA ad nausem on ordinary citizens at the slightest suspicion.
In our case, for a long time since the collapse of communism 20 years ago our government knowing the likelihood of abuse of discretionary powers had continued unreasonably to persist in using ISA even to control presumed marxist preachers.
Let there be honesty and integrity in all aspects of government and in determining whether we are still under the same kinds of threats that justify such harsh laws to build our so-called cosmopolitan society. As citizens all would want to live their lives without all the kinds of suspicions hanging over them because of potential abuses by men.
http://www.easymanager.blogspot.com -
The Channel New Asia's headline today reads: "SPH makes fresh request for access to detained journalist"
It is ironic that SPH is now raising issues with justice or of accountability and transparency over detention of without trial.
I just wonder whether SPH will ever take an objective stand over the NKF case had the wrongs had been exposed by some citizen whistle blowers unconnected with its defamation lawsuits against its own journalists.
Now I wish SPH will become more objective in reporting on justice, accountability and transparency and not just where its own interest is at stake. Perhaps, a time has come to for our leading newspaper to act and report in the national interest covering news objectively without serving the establishment's preferred objectives. Finally a newspaper should grow up and be unafraid in news reporting particularly on accountable and transparency of government. -
I find that having moved into the Knowledge age,
Our basic Singapore leaders management and education system are still stuck in the industrial age of management. The micro-management type.
Very soon the rest of the countrys which have less rigid policies and more free opportunities of development will over-run us in "Talents"
Don't blame the people of Singapore, they havent the means to outgrow the "cans" of Education and the employment system. -
TwilightZone,
1) As I told you in my last post, it is nonsensical to believe that knowledge is created. It exists, and is found or discovered. In such a sense, even imagination is based on knowledge. The knowledge of the existence of freedom, rights , equality and mortality is knowledge in itself, so you essentially contradict yourself when you say that democracy and Heaven are not based on any real knowledge. Try and drop your secularist inclination; It may let you be more objective.
2) true.
3) Wealth, Standard of Living, Safety, yes. Freedom, Equality, respect for human rights, no. Even the UN criticized us as late as 1992 on those issues. the US State Dept, Amnesty International, and a whole host of other orgs act in the same way. Even the OECD and the World-Bank rated us low in these areas. Continuous? I might say it's more chaotic, and in certain senses, such as in Freedom of Association, stagnant.
4) i urge you to seriously reconsider.
5) Again you skirt the question, *sigh*.
6) the USSR and Nazi Germany used courts too, u know? Even the Qing Dynasty did! Were these three states Democratic?
7) Hmm... I think i probably misused the word "circumvent" here, but I can't think of the more proper alternative. But go and check the definition of "gerrymandering" in the dictionary, and see if that results in the creation of a level playing field.
Figures, yes. Facts? Depending on your criteria. To tell the truth, ministers' speeches are filled with as much rhetoric as they are filled with facts, and a significant amount of this rhetoric could be considered rather defamatory too, depending on which perspective you are looking at. For example, the Minister of Education calling students "soft" is defamatory from the student's perspective, as are the various insults the government routinely hurls at Amnesty International or Freedom House. To me, even the Steve Chia saga is a defamatory attempt, since personal affairs should never be brought into the public realm.
9) *Sigh*. I guess one chooses what one wishes to believe. The Feedback Unit can be compared to kangaroo courts, just nearly like the recent IR debate. Send in feedback, you get an extremely furtive answer, one that goes round in circles. Last year, that was precisely what a host of pple wrote to the Straits Times complaining about. The worst kind of reply is the kind that simply paraphrases your qn. another kind is where the authorities assume that the people giving the feedback are absolute idiots and merely regurgitate what has already been said in newspapers or on tv, or on their website. The msot irritating reply is "we will look into it", after which silence becomes the answer. The Feedback Unit, like the ballot box, is merely a front of democracy and inclusiveness which the government puts up. And ya, I speak this with requisite experience.
And anyway, I am skeptical of the phrase "properly cooked and presented". What does it mean? Does it mean "make sure that it at least prasises us [the govt] a little bit"?
10) ur welcome.
Regards,
the pikamaster
P.S.: Sorry for the late reply. had to write out this reply properly first. -
Dear Pikamaster,
I did not say that knowledge is created. I said that Heaven and Democracy are not based on knowledge. Anyway, as I said, I respect your views on this issue.
Considering the human rights records of the so-called advanced democracies of the world like the US and UK, I am of the opinion that we are way ahead of them. Their organizations have a standard operating practice of diverting the worldÂ’s attention away from their own human rights abuses against the peoples of other countries and even their own citizens, especially the colored ones. Our human rights records in this respect have been second to none in the world. Our government has never discriminated against any race, language or religion with equal rights extended to one and all.
I must emphasize that Freedom or Civil liberty does not give one the right to deny or compromise the rights of the majority to live in peace and harmony by creating social unrest or terrorism.
I believe that the USSR, Nazi Germany, and Qing Dynasty have their own way of dealing with ambiguities of their laws too. Whilst we talk about democracy, we must also acknowledge that each and every nation on earth have democratic rights to choose their own political systems or variations of them too.
All aggrieved parties have the right to sue if they are wronged. Nobody prevented them from doing so. Again, it is also their right if they choose not to. This is what I mean by freedom and level playing field.
I agree with you that the authorities need refinement in processing feedback. But I also understand that they need to sieve out rhetoric and fiction, and to deliberate and analyze each suggestion before deciding on acceptance or rejection. As such, the people who presented their feedback also need to refine their presentations by doing their homework and putting forth their views in a rationale and objective manner. Working together is more productive than working against each other.
A spoilt child will usually throw tantrums, pull his hair, and kick his legs in the air to get what he wants. The child knows that his requests and views are too unreasonable and onerous to gain acceptance and the only way is to create a scene. Even if his requests and views are reasonable, this primitive form of communication will not find an open ear amongst the authorities or sympathy amongst the masses in Singapore anymore. Also repeating old issues over and over again will tire out the impatient ears of the public.
Please remember that our government is democratically elected. The people have the right and power to remove them if they did not perform. The results have been excellent so far and that is the only reason they are elected time and again with landslides wins. The ideals of democracy are right here in Singapore because it produces excellent results over the past 40 years, politically, economically and socially. Others who are jealous of our achievements tried to run us down and our own citizens must not be taken in by them, especially when they have not much to show in terms of democratic ideals themselves.
Thank you and have a nice day. -
Twilight,
0) I am trying my best here to be cool, and this is because you are beginning to sound badly like the Feedback Unit. (read my last post if u don't understand the implications of this statement. The button at the bottom of the page says "new reply", not "new thread"; when you reply, you are supposed to be engaging a person on the points s/he has made before, not steer into another line of conversation altogether, or worse, continue on your previous track w/o any indication that you have even noted what the other person said. THAT shows absolutely no respect for the other person's views. I don't mind being disagreed with, but at least I want engagement on the points I brought up. That, you ahve woefully failed to do.
Nevertheless, I shall try to respond in the most accurate and most polite way I can:-
1) It's not about views, it's about facts. Unless of course you do not consider imagination knowledge, which would mean that you treat every great novel in history as trash.
2) You are being extremely naive here, if not arrogant. We are not "second to none" in the world for HR records. Laughably, we are actually ranked far below those "so-called advanced democracies" in this aspect. Wherefore do you get your statistics from? Our government may not have discriminated against any race, language or religion (or at least appeared not to), but it has discriminated according to ideology; Notice how many times in recent years local liberals and rights activists have been slammed in public by the government, and purely because of their political leanings, and not because of what they actually do, in case you have managed to imagine up a situation of clandestine riots. And anyway, for the record, Falun Gong and Jehovah's witnesses are banned, does this not count as discrimination against certain religions? And anyway, HR does not just include the issue of such discrimination. it includes stuff like the Death Penalty (which is registered in an attached Protocol) , right to freedom of assembly and association, including independent student and trade unions, which we ostensibly don't have, freedom of collective bargaining, freedom of the press, which we lack even more than the USA, freedom of speech and expression, which the MDA and laws such as the Films Act sorely restrict. HR also includes teh right to privacy, which our government has never recognized, giving police the power to storm houses. Oh ya, not mention the right to fair trial, which is bypassed in the case of detention w/o trial conferred upon security agencies such as the ISD and the Police. So, are we really second to none in the world for maintaining HR? [HR = Human Rights] I've given you the evidence, you decide.
3) Just what is social unrest? Riots are social unrest, yes, but not street protests, unlike what our myopic Minister for Foreign Affairs thinks. And like I said earlier, the minority must not impose views on the majority, but neither does the majority have the right to repress the minority. Besides, apart from race, language or religion, the population would be divided into several minorities since political attitudes lie on a spectrum.
4) Remember, Stalin and the Qing Dynasty, and to a large extent Hitler, forced their systems on the populations. Do not have the illusion that the peoples of Germany, China, and Russia respectively had the democratic right to choose the style of goverment they wanted.
5) I am utterly confounded. Why would there be fiction in feedback? rhetoric maybe, but not fiction surely. The authorities don't just need refinement in how to process feedback; they need to know what it actually means to process feedback. And here's an excellent example of your ignorance of what i posted earlier. I gave you very clearly a description of the nature of teh feedback system, and you ahve not even made a reference to that description, either concurring with it, or attempting to repudiate it. Instead, you ahve merely repeated your previous line of argument. What kind of a debate/discussion/conversation is this?
6) Laughably, it is the public who are resurrecting the same issues over and over again, so your point is? And besides, this paragraph is the most insulting of all! Are all feedback-givers, in your opinion, tantrum-throwing children? I used to read the feedback posted on the old site of the Feedback Unit, and I have to say that the feedback was much less tantrum-throwing than the government's replies. If you are authoritarian, admit it: Don't try poisoning the well and derogating liberal activists with meaningless and inaccurate labels. That won't work.
7) The last paragraph was the most insulting; this is the most irritating. You did not even bother to engage the points on electioneering advantages, gerrrymandering and walkovers. you simply resumed your previous line again.
What kind of political results are you referring to? frequent landslide victories for the Ruling Party? Sorry to burst your bubble, but that does not count as an "excellent result". You have woefully eliminated political results such as defamation suits and Operations Coldstore and Spectrum, as well as the banning of the UN Special Rapporteur from investigating Singapore in teh 1990s.
Excellent economic results, yes. But economy isn't everything.
Excellent Social results? the pursuit fo 5 Cs counts as excellent? And you once again failed to engage me on the point I raised about LKY admitting that racial and religious harmony as a goal was still not attained yet. And that is a fact by the way; it was the headline of the Straits Times and the New Paper earlier this year.
Groups like Freedom House, Amnesty International the UN, the Far East Economic Review, the Economist are not jealous of our achievements; they acknowledge them, but recognize that economic achievements are not everything. There is no reason for the US and UK to be jealous of us; they are economic powers on their own. And besides, AI, FH, RSF, FEER and Economist are not governments, so they are on a different path; there is no conflict of interest in these groups that could give rise to jealousy.
Perhaps it is time Singapore [Government] was a little less arrogant.
regards,
the (slightly annoyed) pikamaster -
TwilightZone,
You might have missed the points posted here in this thread. People have experienced many problems including the 20 problems with autocracy and are now making suggestions to the government to change their past policies to keep up with changing time and circumstances.
I notice from your replies to Pikamaster, a young school boy that you are here to defend the establishment's past policies some of which were clearly the root cause of the 20 problems as given in my previous replies to your status-quo views as posted in this thread.
May I recap the suggestions made at the beginning of this thread and various views by Pikamaster to make certain timely and pertinent changes to shortcomings for which the government has so far refused to acknowledge:-
Here are the 7 points of democracy framework suggested to assure citizens of accountable and transparent government:-
(1) One Man One Vote, or one Man two votes (one for constitutuency representation and one for election of 20 percents receiving the highest votes among unsuccessful candidates to act as shadow cabinet or checks and balances on actions of party in power)
(2) Non prosecution of any citizen for standing for election or any manner of political participation.
(3) Enshrine the Basic rights of citizens in the constitution.
(4) Uphold the fundamental principle of Rule of law, fairness and equity and right to stand for election and other constitutional rights of citizens.
(5) Establish a low-cost independent sub-court open to observers from UN agencies to oversee election process and political participation by citizens.
e.g. To look into amendment of election process and giving out of pre-election goodies etc.
(6) Establish powers and procedures for Investigation and adjudication by an idependent sub-court of reported conflict of interests
e.g. To look into validity of elected representatives' paying themselves the highest salaries equated to the best-paid employees or boss-categories of person in private sector and self-evaluation, self-recommendations and self-approval of their own salaries and benefits in parliament.
(7) Non prosecution of political opponents
(e.g. Speeches made during the 60-day pre-election campaigning should be protected agasint politically motivated prosecution or subject to interpretations and oversight except by independent sub-court established under the constitution)
I don't see why the government cannot accept or acknowledge the many shortcomings revealed in all the fiascos as reported from corruptions at high places to lack of accountability and transparency with regard to fee increases etc. I don't see why being paid the world's highest salaries they cannot acccept responsibility for failures and take people's suggestions or criticism objectively. It is counter-productive to persist in defending the status quo policies as elaborated in the 7 points. It is against the tide of people expectations to continue with such defensiveness as NKF has been doing but finally debunk by the people.
To view a model of accountable corporate governance: view:
http://www.ospforohsopolite.blogspot.com -
is this thread dying???
-
Choosing between Nathn and the rest is not difficult nor is it the main issue at this president "election" or any future elections.
Is it world-class to elect by gerrymandering and manipulations as is seen happening here? Is an election still an election. Is our system still capable of throwing up the world-class candidates ?
Can we call voting voting, election election? We are told that we are a small population with only a few talents. If this is true, then must citizens be subjected to limiting choices only to a even less choices and being given only those pre-chosen by the power that be.
Are the few available objective and capable presidential candidates not our assets and be welcome to come forward to serve the country.
It seems like good potential candidates will have to be accepted by the power as people without threats before they can even have a chance to stand for election. Whoever pre-chosen will also be chosen with all potential demolished.
All our politicians need to grow up and be more accommodative and tolerant of other potential leaders.
If we cannot change the present culture or kiasuism can we still tell the world we have election or properly elected leaders or president? Do we call such elected representatives world-class?
For further advice on accountable corporate governance, visit:
http://www.ospforohsopolite.blogspot.com -
Some essential reads for all. Just wondering how much each citizen knows about our Constitution? Shouldn't that a compulsory module for all undergrauates? It's definitely more beneficial than 'laws for engineers'.
Singapore Constitution
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?&actno=Reved-CONST&date=latest&method=part
Protection of Reserves
http://app.mof.gov.sg/faq/faq.asp?category=Protection+of+Reserves&subheading=Protection+of+Reserves
MM Lee's Interview with Andreas Lorenz and Hans Hoyng of Der SpiegelSpiegel: During your career, you have kept your distance to Western style democracy. Are you still convinced that an authoritarian system is the future for Asia?
Mr Lee: Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people's position. In multiracial societies, you donÂ’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing IÂ’d run their system here, Malays will vote for Muslims, Indians will vote for Indians, Chinese will vote for Chinese. I will have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority will always overrule them. So I had found a formula that changes thatÂ…
Spiegel: Â… and that turned Singapore de facto into a one party state. Critics say that Singapore resembles a Lee Family Enterprise. Your son is the Prime Minister, your daughter- in-law heads the powerful Development AgencyÂ…
Mr Lee: Â… and my other son is CEO of Singapore Telecoms, my daughter is Head of National Institute for Neurology. This is a very small community of 4 million people. We run a meritocracy. If the Lee Family sets an example of nepotism, that system collapses. If I were not the prime minister he could have become Prime Minister several years earlier. It is against my interest to allow any family member, whoÂ’s incapable to be holding an important job because that would be a disaster for Singapore and my legacy. That cannot be allowed.
Would it come a day when the Constitution states:
"(2) A person shall be qualified to be elected as President if he —
has the same RACE as the candidate endorsed by the ruling party. In other words, if the ruling party endorsed an Indian candidate, only Indian qualifies for that presidential election. ", OR
(2) A person shall be qualified to be elected as President if he —
had seek the endorsement from 3 other running mates whose races (differ from him). All the candidates and their 3 running mates must qualify for election in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution spelt under Article 19.
Code of COnducts for Ministers
http://app.sprinter.gov.sg/data/pr/20050803-PMO.pdf(1) Disclosure of private interests
1.1 To counter potential allegations of corruption and unexplained wealth, and to
avoid potential conflicts between private interests and public responsibilities, every
Minister must, upon his appointment to office, disclose to the President (through the
Prime Minister) in confidence –
(a) his sources of income (other than his salary as a Minister and as a Member of
Parliament);
(b) his assets, including all financial assets, real property, interests in any company or
professional practice, and any other substantial personal assets; and
(c) his financial liabilities, including mortgages and borrowings. -
Quote:
Singapore is indeed heavily reliant on huge export and import volumes to keep the economy growing. There are also high-end products that we manufacture and export overseas. We do things that are high in value chain such as semi-conductors, chips and computer parts. In what way are we lagging behind the Asian Tigers?
Japan is struggling to reinvent itself. Bank loan interest rate stay at 0% for many years to encourage enterprises to borrow and expand their businesses. China and India are catching up.
We remain very competitive with Hong Kong and Taiwan. If you are not aware, technology like the thumbdrive orginated from Singapore. The proliferation of this technology with so many countries producing it was a result of the company not patenting the technology. (see ST Digital Life- July)
I also don't remember quite clearly that there were few, if any, years that our GDP was in deficit while our neighbouring countries are struggling to stay above water. I believe our economy is not "haning in the balance" and at the mercy of other economies. Yes, Singapore is a small economy in comparision to many other countries, but it has diversified in so many areas like military, bio-chemical, pharmaceutical and computer technology.
I agree and I think most people will readily agree that Singapore has been competitive for the period 1960s -1970s. There is no need to compare selectively to say that Japan or other countries too are also facing ecoonomic problems to make our economy look less bad than admitted. If we want to have reasonable discussions let us go straight to look at how our economy has progressed from its early days.
I agree that our first-generation founding leaders have been humble, objective in the early days trying to serve the people as their servants.
Sadly after 1970s, they were returned to power by the people consecutively and from that period they became obsessed with their own self-importance.
They let arrogance go to their heads. They began to promote themselves and tried all ways and means to retain power by tinkering with the electoral boundaries, GRC grouping to prevent individuals to stand for free and fair election. They benchmarked their own pays to the highest boss-category of remunerations in 10 professions/industries.
Million dollar hyper-salary rewards like S$600,000 were dismissed as peanut by claiming ability to create million surpluses or 30-60 year reserves as their achievements with self-ego and arrogance. The best talents in the corporate world were judged on on real world performance. Sadly in our case the ability at taxing and recovering costs and some mundane iron rice bowls were gerrymandered to look like talents to justify all the self-rewards.
Greed knows no limits and sadly it has been allowed to trump over morality and erode our leaders' original fire-brand spirit since the 1970s. Problems were regularly explained away without any sign of implementation management excellence as shown in the 20 persistent major policy errors posted to the Feedback Unit as reproduced below:-
(1) Bureaucracy in civil service.
(2) High costs of essential government services e.g. medical, utilities, housing, transportation, education, etc, etc
(3) Growth Triangles
(4) Affective divide due to lack of understanding of people's views and aspirations.
(5) Work site safety problems (Hotel New World Collapse's blue paper was not effectively implemented)
(6) Deliver a Swiss standard of living
(7) Asset enhancement scheme fiasco
(8 ) Unit trust investment fiasco
(9) Foreign relation fiascos
(10) Non-formulation of a value-adding investment strategy
(11) Double-charging on lands (paid by taxpayers yet charged back to them at full market prices) and triple charges on vehicles.
(12) Meritocratic education policy that backfired - brain drains of thousands
(13) Mother tongue - CL1 admission fiasco
(14) Reaching World Cup soccer league by 2010 - no sign of getting near.
(15) Investment losses by thousands of citizens from CPF funds.
(16) Spiraling of government ministers' and civil servants' salaries.
(17) Failure to implement accountability and transparency in respect of investments of citizens' monies in overseas investments.
(18 ) Loss of economic competitiveness due to high costs.
(19) Neglect in promoting entrepreneurship
(20) Neglect in nurturing the domestic sector of economy.
After 1970s all the plans and announced projects were no longer being achieved. Many MNCs and foreign companies are still in the process of pulling out their operations to China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam etc.
The leaders have refused to admit the serious loss of economic competitiveness. Good people and talents are migrating fearing for their future.
It is very sad that autocracy has failed to put in place any major changes to solve the 20 problems. There is no effective solutions of the high-costs to enable the economy to compete with external competitions whether from China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan , Korea or even Vietnam.
More and more Singapore's SMEs and domestic sector companies continued to go down and suffer losses due to policy errors as posted and high costs.
Despite all the feedbacks from the people the leaders persisted in carrying on the same past policies as we are losing out to in practical broad-based education practised in small countries like Finland, Switzerland or Denmark. Our per capital ranking dropped from 8th to 25th while other Asian tigers climbed up the ranking. The promised Swiss standard of living promised by the government was nowhere in sight. People saw the wages dropping to the third world while the costs of living climbed up to the first world.
The tax-and-recover system of creating government's own surpluses and reserves continued to be pushed relentlessly causing more problems to majority of the citizens who were struggling for survival.
The wage gap between the rich and poor widened with no actions taken to address underlying serious fracture in the economy or social sphere. Ministers are paid first-world salaries in millions but none were seen capable of turning around the moribund economy except in giving constant excuses about factors beyond their control or the external economic situations. They lack the fire-brand spirit to re-structure or upgrade our weakening economy.
Senior civil servants are paid higher than CEOs of major companies who had built their own businesses based on proven entrepreneurship abilities.
For the past many years now, the following major problems simply cannot be solved or projects as announced have failed to attain results:-
Therefore it is not untrue or incorrect to say that the local or domestic economy except for MNCs and GLCs is "hanging in the balance" and at the mercy of persistent surplus-oriented government high-cost pro-foreign policies.
The economic planning only consists of some ad hoc and uncoordinated military or biopolis hubs resulting in losses of competitiveness with our best scholars taken away by US and migrating to many countries due to major policy errors.
There is an urgent need to implement consistent and focused implementation of the technology upgrading as what Dr. Goh Keng Swee would have done in building the original Jurong. Instead we only heard of the long gestation period of 35 year for our biopolis and constant talks of our resourceless economy. No wonder our econmy is seen to be taking all the "U-Turn" like seen happening to our once-heralded chip industry where millions were lost due to dire lack of foresight or implementation abilities.
MNCs are moving out by the hoardes during the past two recessions and many jobs were lost. Instead of upgrading the economic competitiveness through broad-based education there was the same insistence on producing more academic education and pro-foreign investment incentives that turned away our own talents and entrepreneurs in large numbers.
We are losing many opportunities in cultivating our own SMEs. I agree that government might be doing something every now and then but all that were done were seen to be too little too late with the same lack of consistent implementation abilities as mentioned in the foregoing.
I am glad you have at least admitted that Singapore cannot afford to be aloof and proud as they have been all these past 20 years or so and has to recognise it and are doing something about it.
Quote:
It is precisely that the government see the closing gap of competitiveness that they are encouraging entreprenuership, risk-taking and taking responsibility for our own financial future; changing syllabus and pedagogy in schools to encourage self-directed learning and analytical thinking than mere textbooks and examinations.
EDB has collaborated with NTU and NUS to set up entrepenuer and technoprenuer centers. TV programs like "start-up" on Thursday 7.30p.m Channel 5 are also made to expose Singaporeans to entrepreneuralism.
Even with our CPF, the government is slowly but surely teaching us that there is no more economic "safety net" we can totally rely on. The interest rate of 6% per annum was taken over by another policy.
Citizens hope that the above-stated ad hoc measures will work well and there will be consistent masterly implementation excellence under the good hands-on control of senior cabinet ministers of some calibre like Dr. Goh Keng Swee and not all the arrogance and denials of problems.
Quote:
Our underlying economic problems are being grossed over or covered up as the domestic sector of the economy is still in bad shape. Just look at all the business indicators : dropping COE prices, property slump and highest business failures and bankruptcies and retrenchments to understand the real problems.
The reason why I have used Dropping COE prices and property slump as indicators of our state of economy is precisely because aof the state of denial the government is currently engaged in. It keeps using numbers and statistics to portray some look-good bits of the economy. The empty shops, vacated factories all over the island showed the whole sad state of Singapore domestic economy.
The earlier the government is prepared to admit the above-stated policy errors the better it will be in the eye of the citizens now still struggling from first world costs while earning third world wages.
While it is agreed that COE prices might reflect other factors at work but essentially from the general downward trends over the past few years the sign of weakening economy is very much in the wall as written by the dropping COEs.
Property slump was among the 20 problems caused by past errors of government's asset enhancement bravado. The beneficiary was HDB which managed to cream off billions in HDB super-inflated prices.
If the currently high business failures and bankruptcies is accepted as "not bad" indicator then the government should own up and take stock of all the problems and not continue to practise denial or justifications.
Statistics might have shown too that 95% of businesses fail within the first 5 years we are here not being statistical but trying to tell why there is an exceptionally high failures and bankruptcies during all these past years. Most likely the new policies are still ad hoc and for presentation or window dressing and not effective.
The remaining 5% which did not fail might go on to succeed in creating jobs but are there effective measures to nurture our own vibrancy or resilience? The first urgent change obviously is to lower or put right all the unnecessary double charging of lands and hyping up of all the business costs. The second urgent measure is to balance off the past pro-foreign investment policies and try to create incentres to encourage our own local technology start-ups especially promising ones which have not yet become famous. Do not just pick the winners. It is more proactive and creative to identify potential and build up broad-based capabilities.
Retrenchment is a sign of seriousness of the economy. Do not just implement ad hoc policies like getting the Work-Develpment Agency to mull over some minor job redesigning. Until monies are made to turn round and broad based education instituitions are fully in place a few ad hoc policies here and there would not address serious structural problems.
SPRING has admitted publicly that their past training programs thier programs have not basically changed the competitiveness of our work force. Big pictures such as these should be understood and relevant changes made to address fundamental problems.
Sad to say what has been done to date is a bit of ad hoc measures here and there such as converting of taxi-drivers to tour guide or cleaners but such measures are lacking in depths and the 20 major problems largely unsolved. This is the kind of look-good approach which is postpoing and delaying solutions.
Quote:
If the new leaders really want to save the situation, they should lead by morality and not just on their presumptuous leadership or talents. They should acknowledge past mistakes and presumptuousness and admit there is now a serious losss of economic competitiveness of Singapore and do something big.
On "doing something big," I believe we should recognise that big things start small. Biopolis is up. But it will take years before we reap the fruits.
Read the article. It's really insightful.
You asked : how do we define "morality"? My answer is : By the government leaders so well taken care of, and therefore believing S$600,000 is peanut to pay to some CEO running our charitable organization, they already showed their own money faces.
There is no morality left now in our system of government as leverything is measured in monies. While there is no denying that the best talents do deserve the right pays but look at how we reward our leaders and civil servants ? Is it correct or prudent to push the whole civil service wage to three times that of private sector wage cost. Is such a wage push done with accountability and transparency in the first instance ?
Why do we end up with theis kind of wage costs or the 20 major policy errors as stated in the foregoing? It is arrogance and lack of accountability and all the presumptuousness which has caused all these problems. The above-stated review showed should help to pin point the root cause of our greatest failures since the 1970s which are failures beyond all imagination. -
(My precedent post reply to Bookfish post (14.9.2005 11:41) at Channel News Asia forum under "Business" "Economic Master PLan and New Technology start-ups" was deleted by CNA !!! How frustrating!!! Here is my protest to CNA for information)
Booikfish,
I am very disappointed that my reply to your earlier post (14.8.2005 11:41) rebutting my views regarding government's failures to solve high costs and other problems was unfortunately deleted by CNA!!!
It would seem that CNA which claims to be the leading regional reputable newscasters of 14 countries in this region is not too interested in reporting unfavorable comments. By deleting my post replying to your pro-establishment one-sided view is CNA now a professional and objective news reporting media of the region? How can CNA carry on claiming that it is a regional newscaster for regions like China, India or SEA.
Why is CNA so afraid to extend to forumers in public forum a right of reply to matters like debates on political or economic matters under forum discussions. Your views on government's measures therefore is now the only news allowed by CNA. Is such news or view of CNA worth listening to by people in the regions I wonder.
I wonder how CNA can claim to report professioally news as a regional newscaster when clearly it is denying two sides of the story or my rights of reply to your clearly one-sided arguments.
I feel sad that CNA has adopted such a standard of objectivity in reporting news reporting only good news from Singapore to the regions. I am sad that this has happened to CNA. No wonder we are having so many persistent problems affecting the citizens and up to now there is still no solutions and no freedom of information.
Just look at the number of other posts of forumers regularly deleted as well and you will see why so many of the government policies are causing so many problems as replied in my deleted previous post.
READ A MODEL OF OBJECTIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT:
http://www.managefranchise.blogspot.com