Another Political Ex-Doctor Says Economy is Picking Up
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Employment rate = up
BUT
i see:-
1) Bankrupcy cases are also on the rise
2) COE went down coz too many floating COEs available after people scrapped their cars
3) Outsourcing = up
4) Job Scope, Tasks and Stress = up
5) Suicide = up
6) Broken Families = up
7) TV Licence not paid and arrested and fined = up
aiyah...everything on the rise now......
Can someone confirm? Robert Teh? -
The government seems to be spewing statistics and numbers again despite a headlined news on 14.10.2004 (Today newspaper) that it is now recruiting insurgents i.e. people who will work at solving problesm instead of denying problems with unrealistic and unrepresentative statistics or numbers.Originally posted by 2004Lancer:Employment rate = up
BUT
i see:-
1) Bankrupcy cases are also on the rise
2) COE went down coz too many floating COEs available after people scrapped their cars
3) Outsourcing = up
4) Job Scope, Tasks and Stress = up
5) Suicide = up
6) Broken Families = up
7) TV Licence not paid and arrested and fined = up aiyah...everything on the rise now......
Can someone confirm? Robert Teh?
As long as the old GDP and GNP figures are used, the economic problems faced by ordinary citizens will never be recognized.
Take the COEs, its continual decline in bid prices indirectly confirms what the real state of the economy which the national GDP or ministry's own figures cannot realistically provide for - ordinary businessmen and citizens do not have the monies due to poor job prospects and heavy mortgage debts (Singaporeans are the most indebted in the world by a recent international survey) to bid for licence (double taxation as vehicle taxes were already paid) to buy vehicles.
Go to the registry of business and ask them for statistics on business closures for the past one year. The picture will be bleak as ever with 90% of business failures among the new start-ups over the past years.
Go to ask any of the more reliable source like the professional engineers or lawyers of smaller firms how they have performed in the past year. Even with lower rentals, the overall economic prospect continues to be bleak.
Go to ask the trade associations for more reliable information on the state of the economy based on their members' own reports. The picture will be totally different from the ministerial optimistic figures about the unemployment situation.
The department of statistics should be revamped if it cannot give professional advice to the various ministries how to be more realistic or representatives in datas and information.
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For the COE result, go to the below website to check the results for the past months.
http://www.lta.gov.sg/motoring_matters/doc/COE_result_2004.PDF -
Originally posted by 2004Lancer:7) TV Licence not paid and arrested and fined = up wtf
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the best thing is ST something something reported earning of $2billion dollars........where did the money earn from?
how come all the S companies all earning money when market continues to retrench and squeeze the people?
bull shit about the economy la....the only time when economy was doing very well is not pre-SAR nor pre-Iraq war...it is in the year 1991-92-93....when SingTel 'taught' all Singaporeans to buy shares......and price was $5.00 plus.....
unless now SingTel shares go back to $5.00 plus...otherwise don't tell me economy is strong....... -
Just my 2c worth..
this is not to do with economics but with the larger question of how statistics and reports are used by govt agencies. what info i have comes from my conversations and personal experience within the civil svc, though it might not answer whether employment went up or down, it does tell us something about the use of info, or rather the distortion of facts for the furtherance of political agendas. they are mostly from the education/cultural ministries
i have a ex-uni mate working in the national education branch and he told me that after attending enough meetings with big shots discussing on the NE policy, he came away with the conclusion that NE has one single purpose-the pperpetuation of the rule of a single family/party. he didn't elaborate further..but another classmate of mine did.
this guy is doing his Phd when i was in his class. he works for MITA, or was..not too sure. he recounted this experience to me. once he told me he was tasked to write a paper on certain aspects of s'pore's history and he did. but he had his research thrown back at him because it did not fit into the minister's views of what history is supposed to be. he was told to re-do his research so that it would fit into the pre-decided politically suitable conclusion...
these two had to do with the twisting of history/NE for partisan purposes. the next two have to do with education.
i attended a meeting about assessment of certain subjects. the official from moe went on about how statistics and reports of certain national exams 'confirmed' that students are succeeding as 'critical thinkers'. i rebutted the lady and told her that i had the chance to see the raw data i.e. actual scripts instead of her sanitised version of exam reports/statistics and told her that students are regurtitating and the so-called critical thinkers she mentioned in her report was only like about 5 in every 100. she didnt expect an answer from someone who had seen the raw data so she said its been decided b4 finally shutting-up. similarly, the other teachers there voiced their disagreement. but i do believe from her justification of her 'statistics', it seems that the way to go was to highlight the 5 over the 95 to whichever minister or director to show that someone's version of 'naitonal policy in education' is succeeding. so somehow the opinion of the teachers who teach are 'sanitized' by the time they reach the top...i guess this works well for those bureaucrats becos they get to summit their nice reports to confirm their boss' ego..everyone gets to look smart except the students who struggle with ever increasing work. teach less learn more?
regarding the discipline issue in schools and society, anyone who is not blind knows that it had nose-dived, yet our august education minister insisted that statistics has shown that it has improved over 15 years. once i had a private conversation with my boss who taught for 40 years, he said we can't publicly contradict the minister but we all know what he said was not true. for example, 15 years ago, no one heard of girl gangs...now they are as pampant as guys. wonder if the minister is blind or deaf or just inept, or worse, irresponsible.
another chat with a retired veteran of the education service said the same thing. he said after being in the service for 30+ years, statistics can prove anything from improving discipline to increasing passing rates. he even told he he was part of the con job...giving details how exam marks were 'moderated'. not the drawing of the bell curve but really the lowering of passing grade to increase the number of passes in exams. then re-adjusting the raw marks accordingly.
it no longer surprises me that statistics given out by ministries/straits times about this and that are so rosy in the economy. theres this prevailing culture to use stats to justify or worse, to prejudice opinions. although i do not wish for my country to suffer, it is hard to believe that everything is so rosy when u actually live 'on the ground' instead of an ivory tower, earning $1m a year. i guess when u earn $1m a year, everything is rosy to u. whenever straits times publishes something glowing about the govt/economy, i double check it with external sources. case in point is the glowing report of temasek published by ST, it seems that very few external agencies shared their optimism. -
Enlightening.At the very basic level, counter check our Temasek and MAS reports on our economy with Economist and IMF data published yearly.
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i double check it with external sources. case in point is the glowing report of temasek published by ST, it seems that very few external agencies shared their optimism.
which is why i stopped reading ST, it used to be interesting to read, but recently the news are just too positive to be true with what i keep seeing around me
and the 20 cents increase !
no way i'm paying 80 cents for that crap
i rather read today , same stuff but free -
and u know...yesterday or today i saw what Lee Boon Yang said....he said economy is not good.....in response to some incidents...can't remember leow......at least he is truthful enough lor.....
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Hi Lefleche
Your revelation is definitely worth more than 2c!
I was hopeful of the promised revamp in edn but, alas, how gullible I was! -
btw have u hear of the phrase window dressing( aka deception)??Originally posted by 2004Lancer:Employment rate = up
BUT
i see:-
1) Bankrupcy cases are also on the rise
2) COE went down coz too many floating COEs available after people scrapped their cars
3) Outsourcing = up
4) Job Scope, Tasks and Stress = up
5) Suicide = up
6) Broken Families = up
7) TV Licence not paid and arrested and fined = up aiyah...everything on the rise now......
Can someone confirm? Robert Teh? -
Looks like we may not recover for we no longer have the guidance from a ft mentor:
From: ConfuseState 27-Sep 11:37
To: ALL
56295.1
Albert Winsemius, 'founding father' of Singapore
http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/iiasn9/soueasia/winsemiu.html
Thirty-five years ago, in the spring of 1960, Dr Albert Winsemius
arrived in Singapore - soon to become his second fatherland -- for
the first time in his life. He headed an international team of
experts in the field of development economics. A year earlier the
former British colony had become independent, and the government of
the young nation had asked the United Nations to invite Dr Winsemius,
the founding father of the Dutch post-war industrialization
programme, to help them to find out which chances the future would
offer to Singapore.
By Kees Tamboer
Dr Winsemius' first impression was anything but hopeful. "It was
bewildering," he remembers. "There were strikes about nothing. There
were communist-inspired riots almost every day and everywhere. In the
beginning one has to very careful about passing any judgement - one
does not know the country, one does not know the people, one does not
know the men and women who are trying to steer this rudderless ship.
But after a couple of months the pessimism within our commission
reached appalling heights. We saw how a country can be demolished by
unreal antitheses. The general opinion was: Singapore is going down
the drain, it is a poor little market in a dark corner of Asia."
Within a year, on 13 June 1961, the Winsemius team offered Singapore
a development plan. The final assessment was written by Winsemius
personally: 'Expectations and Reality' was his motto. This was
permeated with an emotional appeal for unity, a passionate warning
that time was running out if Singapore was not to sink away into the
mud. The gloom was not completely unrelieved, there was one bright
spot on the horizon: "In our opinion", wrote Winsemius, "Singapore
has the basic assets for industrialization. Her greatest asset is the
high aptitude of her people to work in manufacturing industries. They
can be ranked among the best factory workers in the world."
Shirts and Pyjamas
After delivering his development plan in the summer of 1961,
Winsemius became the chief economic adviser to the Singaporean
government. He held this function for almost twenty- five years, and
at no time was there ever any written contract. The collaboration was
based on mutual trust. Twice a year Winsemius flew to Singapore to
spend about a fortnight there - one time it was to help drafting the
plans for the coming year, the other time for checking and steering.
Part of the deal was that he would come immediately should the
government let him know that his help was needed at short notice,
which was, for instance, the case in 1965.
"When we started with the implementation of the first development
programme, Winsemius recalls, "I was convinced that a policy of
protection of the home market would come to nothing, because there
was almost no home market. I immediately advised them to try and form
an economic federation with Malaya. As soon as this aim was achieved,
I assumed, we would be able to move over to the next phase and try to
conquer a position on the world market. Four years later Singapore
was expelled from the Federation, and there were the signs of some
initial panic in the state. In my opinion there was no longer any
reason for such a reaction. On the contrary, this is the best day of
my life, I told my friends in Singapore, for in those first years of
development Singapore had proved that it was able to overcome
internal antithesis and to work together to build up a manufacturing
industry that would certainly be competitive in the long run."
Albert Winsemius distinguishes five main phases in the economic
development of Singapore.
"The first step", he explains, "was to set up low-value industries,
such as the production of shirts and pyjamas in factories in which
women could work. The contribution made by the women during the
initial years of industrialization has never really been properly
studied. This contribution can easily be underestimated. It was the
only manufacturing activity then with sufficient experience. The
sewing machines could be rented, and the girls and women had
experience in working with them. Therefore a very quick start was
possible in the field of shirts and underwear. This aspect of early
industrial development deserves more attention than it has received
so far."
Upgrading
The Separation in 1965 marked the beginning of the second phase. The
Housing and Development Board (HDB) started with an enormous building
programme, under the leadership of Mr. Howe Yoon Chong. "This was
very inspiring, people could see what was being achieved. On Sundays
fathers and mothers showed their children in what kind of new
dwellings they would live presently. In that same period we succeeded
in interesting, just as had happened in Holland fifteen years
earlier, big oil companies like Shell and Esso in establishing
refineries in Singapore.
The third phase was that we started as soon as possible with the
upgrading. Singapore became very active in promoting education for
technical jobs, especially for the electronics industry. In the
beginning it was quite a difficult job for me to convince people at
the top of the big Dutch electronics company Philips to set up
production plants in Singapore. I went to Eindhoven, where the
headquarters of Philips are situated, to warn them: you have to
hurry, I told them, otherwise there is a very real danger you will be
too late and then you will be sure to miss the boat in the growing
market of Southeast Asia. The result is that Philips is now one of
the big investors in Singapore and is doing a very fine job there.
The fourth phase was to make of Singapore an international financial
centre. Formerly the young state was bound to the English pound
sterling. I knew a Dutchman who had lived and worked in Singapore; he
was an employee of the Bank of America in London at that time. I
visited him and told him we wished to transform Singapore into a
financial centre for Southeast Asia within ten years. He told me it
could be done in three or four years. He took a globe and showed me a
gap in the financial market of the world. Trading, he explained,
starts at nine o'clock in the morning in Zurich in Switzerland. An
hour later London opens. When London closes, New York is already
open. After closing time on Wall Street, San Francisco on the
American west coast is still active. But as soon as San Francisco
closes, there is a gap of a couple of hours. This gap can be filled
by Singapore, should the government not shun taking some drastic
measures - such as cutting its links with the British pound.
Container harbour
And the fifth and last phase was that we transformed Singapore into a
centre of international traffic and transport. My advice was: build
an airport where the biggest aeroplanes can land and let everyone
know that they are welcome to land there. In other words, do not use
landing-rights to protect your own Singapore Airlines. They followed
this advice and it became a success. And thanks to this initiative
Singapore has become a tourist centre too, especially for short
stays. In the same vein, we started to construct a big container
harbour. In Holland I had been chairman of a committee to advise the
Dutch government on the problems to do with shipbuilding, so I had
some knowledge about what was going on in that world. I saw the
enormous growth of container transport between the United States and
Europe, concentrated initially in the harbour of Rotterdam. So I
advised the construction of a big container terminal in the harbour
of Singapore, taking the risk of overcapacity and unoccupancy during
the first years for granted. The advantage was evident: Singapore
would be the only harbour in the region with container facilities.
Nevertheless it was a hard job to convince the harbour authorities.
Only after a small conversation with the minister the decision could
no longer be postponed. Nowadays Singapore, after Rotterdam, has the
second largest container harbour in the world. That surely is
something of which to be proud."
"In my opinion", says Dr. Winsemius, "it would be next to impossible
to transplant the Singapore wonder elsewhere. I have experienced it
in other countries. I have given advices to the government of Greece
and, for five years, to the government of Portugal. It is senseless
to launch an economic development programme in a country which lacks
political stability and does not have a government that sticks to
that programme in the knowledge that, one day, it will be recognized
and rewarded by the voters."
Kees Tamboer is the economic editor of the Dutch daily Het Parool -
well, u can't expect newspaper to say economy is bad...it will show bad abt SG and stuff. there are many gullible people here and outside who will belive SG economy picking up just from newspaper info and will therefore invest here. imaging newspaper put the real stuff, who going to come here to invest ? if u can pull the wool over 5% of the population, pull it.
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chunyong, u just told the whole world about Singapore.....Originally posted by chunyong:well, u can't expect newspaper to say economy is bad...it will show bad abt SG and stuff. there are many gullible people here and outside who will belive SG economy picking up just from newspaper info and will therefore invest here. imaging newspaper put the real stuff, who going to come here to invest ? if u can pull the wool over 5% of the population, pull it. -
Originally posted by 2004Lancer:chunyong, u just told the whole world about Singapore.....
i hopethe police don't come get me..... 
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my 2 cents...Originally posted by robertteh:Go to the registry of business and ask them for statistics on business closures for the past one year. The picture will be bleak as ever with 90% of business failures among the new start-ups over the past years.
90% of businesses that fails? if its true. i guess its the government's fault. i don't understand y they keep asking the nation to have the entrepreneurial spirit when they know very well not every individuals can be a business person. Generally, majority are 'monkey see monkey do'.
...just another thought, if most people took the advice and have the entrepreneurial spirit... where do find employees locally?
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It is true that not eveyone can or will become entrepreneurs. However, our economy has lost its steam and has been backsliding in recent years.Originally posted by mujiland:my 2 cents...
90% of businesses that fails? if its true. i guess its the government's fault. i don't understand y they keep asking the nation to have the entrepreneurial spirit when they know very well not every individuals can be a business person. Generally, majority are 'monkey see monkey do'.
...just another thought, if most people took the advice and have the entrepreneurial spirit... where do find employees locally?
Instead of promoting businesses and entrepreneurship, we are good only in promoting scholars. We missed many opportunities so far in failing to develop many downstream and allied businesses to the many petrol-chemical or electronic cluster industries already well established in Singapore. We have missed out valuable opportunities to nurture our own SMEs and MNCs.
Our government always boasted about its many talents but none of these talents have foreseen our lack of entrepreneur cultures due to lack of supportive conditions and environment unlike those found in other countries like Hongkong and Taowan.
Unless the government realizes this policy error and begun to practise really innovative pro-entrepreneurship policies without any more excuses under good leadership, we will really run out of entrepreneurs to create jobs for Singaporeans.
The government non-recognition of good ideas or its own people's talents has resulted in deprivation in areas like mass participation in governance, political vibrancy, mass application of practical knowledge.
All the registration systems and close-door accreditation systems are killing off businesses in Singapore. While we need to uphold standards of professionalism in many vocations and practices, there is no need to adopt all kinds of registration systems only to favour those who know how to register themselves. What about many existing practitioners who are eminently experienced but not yet registered for one reason or other. Do they have a chance to register themselves without the track records often asked for.
Such government regulations are anti-entrepreneurial.
We can have certain groups of registered plumbers to undertake more complicated plumber jobs as many good ones cannot be registered due to such close-door system of registration. This is but just one example of controls that stifle initiatives and entrepreneurship. How can the economy pick up if ministers do not look into such problems. -
going by what you've just said, doesn't that mean its impossible to get any changes in this generation?Originally posted by robertteh:It is true that not eveyone can or will become entrepreneurs. However, our economy has lost its steam and has been backsliding in recent years.
Instead of promoting businesses and entrepreneurship, we are good only in promoting scholars. We missed many opportunities so far in failing to develop many downstream and allied businesses to the many petrol-chemical or electronic cluster industries already well established in Singapore. We have missed out valuable opportunities to nurture our own SMEs and MNCs.
Our government always boasted about its many talents but none of these talents have foreseen our lack of entrepreneur cultures due to lack of supportive conditions and environment unlike those found in other countries like Hongkong and Taowan.
Unless the government realizes this policy error and begun to practise really innovative pro-entrepreneurship policies without any more excuses under good leadership, we will really run out of entrepreneurs to create jobs for Singaporeans.
The government non-recognition of good ideas or its own people's talents has resulted in deprivation in areas like mass participation in governance, political vibrancy, mass application of practical knowledge.
All the registration systems and close-door accreditation systems are killing off businesses in Singapore. While we need to uphold standards of professionalism in many vocations and practices, there is no need to adopt all kinds of registration systems only to favour those who know how to register themselves. What about many existing practitioners who are eminently experienced but not yet registered for one reason or other. Do they have a chance to register themselves without the track records often asked for.
Such government regulations are anti-entrepreneurial.
We can have certain groups of registered plumbers to undertake more complicated plumber jobs as many good ones cannot be registered due to such close-door system of registration. This is but just one example of controls that stifle initiatives and entrepreneurship. How can the economy pick up if ministers do not look into such problems.
since that would require the govt to relax a lot of rules and give up a lot of control, something that the present govt has proven to be incapable of -
A lot of rules was necessary to govern the country because of certain kiasuism or nanny attitude.Originally posted by oldbreadstinks:going by what you've just said, doesn't that mean its impossible to get any changes in this generation?
since that would require the govt to relax a lot of rules and give up a lot of control, something that the present govt has proven to be incapable of
This fact was clearly proven when certain past rules were removed without affecting the country's wellbeing or competitiveness.
When more and more laws are introduce to prevent murder, molestations, theft etc. there will be a tendency to pass more laws for the sake of wellbeing of society and to protect innocent citizens.
Haven't we had enough laws to cover all primary functions from security to commerce and industrialization to lay down basic guidelines for commerce and industrial activities.
Beyond this point of necessity, all further additional laws might be superfluous in that a country can do without. Why do I say this?
Many such social engineering laws are not necessary for they are aimed at controls for certain purposes or objectives which might not be fully debated or understood in proper perspective.
Take the case of having more laws or rules to remove chewing gums, or restrict freedom in posting in government feedback forum. What is the use or benefit of such additional laws or rules.
Have anyone really asked: "to delete or not to delete a rude or irrelevant posting by someone, what is the objective or benefit".
If there is benefit like orderly posting and less offence, this kind of judgment may be controversial. To one, a post is irrelevant or offensive, to another it is creative or innovative at least to preempt certain problems.
The flipside is that when such rule or law is implemented blindly, many people cannot express their opinions or views especially frustrations or attacks of criticisms against establishment in other ways or worse to revolutions or street riots one day later or years later.
Laws and rules should be passed for basic governance of society and not for social engineering or protection of governmental efficiency alone. There are many pros and cons behind every issue.
By abolishing say 30% of existing social engineering laws, I think Singapore can still survive and may even do better. So why not have more rules and regulations especially those favoring the elites or governmental efficiency removed as soon as possible with more discussions and debates.