GROWTH- the way to improve our lives? Your inputs?
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Have you been on their roads?
only dhaka to chiitagong and nearby -
Oh the Dhaka-Chittagong highway is a nightmare.
And everyday during my month-long stay, I would see reports of entire families being wiped out by some crazy bus driver.
This was when I was on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway...the locals called it the Road of Death.
The roads are narrow and buses are king. Small wonder then that so many accidents occur on the roads. On average, some 30+ people get killed EVERYDAY in Bangladesh.
Who do I even bother comparing to some third world country?
Its to put some of the people's complaints here in perspective.
I dont deny that we can improve. I dont deny that we screwed up here and there.
But we dont have power cuts 15 times a day. We dont have to worry when we travel around the country as much. We can drink from taps. We dont have beggars who bug you BAKSHEESH every where you go. We dont have violent strikes. We dont have traffic jams that are so bad that people just switch off their engines and smoke. We have nice highways unlike the one I showed you.
The list just goes on.
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Growth Potion No.4?
The Prime Minister's defence of the pursuit of growth has stirred fresh debate on the right mix of economic gain and social welfare. In the first of a two part series on economic growth, Political Correspondent Robin Chan delves into the issue.
SINGAPORE'S seeming ability to grow against the odds has been a hallmark of its economic development.
To spur growth, the Government has consciously driven change, in the l960s through industrialisation, in 1985 - post recession - by making wage more flexible and cutting direct taxes, and then again in 2003, when it launched its third economic "paradigm shift".
From 1997 to 2003, the economy suffered a series of setbacks that included a debilitating Asian financial crisis, the post-Sept II gloom, a dot.com bust and the Sars public health crisis.
By 2003, the city state's economy was at a turning point, triggering a third paradigm shift centred on innovation and entrepreneurship as well as deregulation and liberalisation.
In a speech at the Economic Society in 2003, then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong asked for support for.the latest round of restructuring, saying "no system works forever".
As National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan explained recently, post-Sars, Singapore's economy was down in the doldrums. Unemployment hit 5.5 per cent in September 2003, which meant close to 100,000 people out of work, many of them for more than six months.
The The Government looked hard for investments to create jobs, Mr Khaw said, but at first, these proved elusive. When the investments finally came, they came "suddenly" and "in a bunch".
The Government made a call to "take them", he said, even though it knew there would be both positive and negative consequences. New investments in pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and casinos poured in. They were worth billions and created jobs. The economy added 124,500 jobs in the first nine months of 2006 - a major turnaround from just three years before.
But problems also surfaced - a growing income divide and the strain on infrastructure, from transport to housing.
That in turn has prompted some economists to ask if Singapore should still seek to grow as fast as it can when it can, or choose to grow slower because social equality is more important than economic gain.The cost of growth
FIVE years ago, in 2007, private-sector economist Chua Hak Bin circulated a paper to economists to highlight a shocking new development - rising income inequality at a time of high economic growth.
The paper was initially met with scepticism from some. Dr Chua, now an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said there was discomfort over the questioning of Singapore's growth model, which had long been hailed "as a success story".
His paper contained data which showed wages for the lower-income groups falling, while those at the top soared.
Between 2004 and 2006, economic growth averaged 7.6 per cent a year, while the unemployment rate fell from 4.8 per cent to 2.7 per cent. Tax rates and employer Central Provident Fund contribution rates were also slashed to boost business growth.
But the bottom 30th percentile of income earners saw their incomes fall an average of 2.4 per cent a year from 2000 to 2005, as the top 30th percentile saw a 2.5 per cent average rise each year.
Dr Chua's paper quoted Prime Minister Lee as saying at the 2006 National Day Rally: '"When the conditions are good and the sun is shining, we should go for it, as fast as we can, as much as we can." That signified a shift to an "aggressive pro-growth attitude", Dr Chua said in his paper.
But that approach was creating a two-speed dual economy, Dr Chua pointed out - with a fast track for the rich and a slower one for the poor.
"Growth at the time was incredible, reaching 7 per cent to 8 per cent each year, but yet there was also a sense that it wasn't being well-shared, and that productivity growth was low, even negative," he said.
"That is when it became stark."
That paper was one of the earliest warnings of the dangers of Singapore's fast growth and liberal foreign worker policy.
Soon, more and more economists started talking about income inequality and over-reliance on foreign workers, even as Singapore's high-speed growth continued to win it praise worldwide.
It was one of 13 economic success stories studied by the Commission on Growth and Development led by Dr Michael Spence, a Nobel-prize winning economist, in 2008.
That same year, University of Michigan business school professor Linda Lim crudely surmised that the Government must have "growth fetishism".
She said Singapore 's growth model has "tried to do too much, and achieved too little", citing its desire to bring in many investments across different sectors. She pointed out that median income had stagnated, as the wage share of gross domestic product was at a very low 41 per cent, with the bulk of GDP going to firms in the form of profits.
The next year, Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Inderjit Singh said the Government should not pursue "growth at all cost", a line he has advanced time and again despite it earning him a rap from Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in 2008.
Mr Singh was worried that bosses of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were being hurt by rapidly rising costs and ordinary Singaporeans were seeing their wages stagnate due in part to the availability of cheap foreign labour.
But Mr Tharman said unequivocally in the Budget debate that year that the solution to income inequality cannot be to slow growth down. "Our growth strategy in the past decade, was not wrong-headed. It illustrates the very real trade-offs we face in practice when deciding whether to allow the economy to grow rapidly and above its potential for a period," he said.
"To do so indefinitely will lead to overheating. But it would have been ill-judged to prevent businesses from expanding in the name of avoiding rapid growth, even after having suffered a period of very weak growth in early years."
But as inequality rose, the notion of "inclusive growth" increasingly came to the forefront of discussions on economic strategy. Then Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong headed a sub-committee to look at exactly how to achieve that, as part of the Economic Strategies Committee, and it became a key plank of the Budget.
The debate has continued till today. Earlier this year, six economist penned a 41-page paper calling for a new social compact "that achieves a better balance between growth and equity".
Earlier this month, PM Lee defended the pursuit of growth, saying: "Growing too fast generates growth pains and stresses and strains; growing too slow produces many other serious headaches.
"Without growth, we have no chance of improving our collective well-being. Far more countries worry about growing too slowly, than growing too fast. For Singapore, slow growth will mean that new investments will be fewer, good jobs will be scarcer, and unemployment will be higher."
Picking up this line of thinking, National University of Singapore economists Tan Kee Giap and Tan Kong Yam argued recently that strategies to sharpening Singapore's international competitiveness and plug into the globalisation process "are the only ways to maintain Singapore 's first world living standard".
"Slower growth is certainly not the way to ease social strains," they added.
Why slow growth?
THE Government equates slow growth to losing out on opportunities for investments and good jobs - a vicious cycle that could even lead to a "loss of optimism", said the Prime Minister.
But to others, such as Economic Society vice-president Yeoh Lam Keong, slow growth is dynamic, high-productivity growth.
It requires growth in skills, and mechanisation, and will lead to rising real median wages. But such higher-quality growth tends to be at a lower speed than lowskilled, cheap labour driven growth. Even the most productive, developed countries tend to be limited to 2 per cent to 3 per cent of higher-quality growth, he noted.
To incentivise such growth, labour force growth must below - 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent a year, he said.
"If labour force growth is higher, then productivity growth tends to be depressed so you might end up with faster growth of say 4 per cent to 6 per cent, but with 1 per cent productivity growth or less," he argued.
The Government has already taken steps to slow the inflow of foreign workers through lower dependency ratios, higher foreign levies and changes to S-pass and employment pass rules.
Manufacturing firms will see their DRCs - the maximum share of foreign workers in a firm 's workforce - fall from 65 per cent to 60 per cent. In services, the ratio is being cut from 50 per cent to 45 per cent next month.
The phasing in of higher foreign worker levies started last year and will mean employers having to pay from $150 to $330 more per worker by next year.
The Government has shifted its position, but while it tries to boost productivity and limit foreign worker inflow, it also needs to manage the fallout. Businessmen and SME bosses in particular are feeling the pain and there is a risk that if the change is too abrupt, many firms will shut and leave Singaporeans out of jobs.
Mr Yeoh is of the view that the labour force should "grow at its natural demographic rate, supplemented judiciously by skilled immigration plus a reasonable productivity growth".
To others, slow growth means picking and choosing where and when to grow.
Mr Inderjit Singh suggests "a balanced growth" strategy, which means looking more closely at the costs of growth and deciding when not to pursue growth opportunities. "I think we are at a stage of development where we can be a little selective, although not everything may be in our control." he said.
Former Singapore Exchange chief executive Hsieh Fu Hua suggests more help for domestic-oriented sectors such as restaurants and other non-exportable services, where wages tend to stagnate. "We don't need to compromise on our growth engines. But we should make sure our other engines that were sputtering will get revived and get their own space," he said.
So, for example, a hawker centre might not have the same economic value as a shopping mall, but it is an important part of the local economy and can be supported and promoted by easing its land and rental costs, he added.
Economic Society vice-president Donald Low said "the mantra that we should grow first then worry about redistribution later, while appropriate for a previous era, is probably less so for today's context".
Internationally, "the prevailing economic wisdom" of the previous decade was that there is a global war for investments and talent, he said, and countries had to slash income taxes and trim social safety nets to make themselves attractive.
But now, there is a growing realisation that welfare spending, can ease the pain of economic restructuring and globalisation. Investing more in education and training to improve social mobility, for example, can help local workers adjust to more foreign competition and greater economic uncertainty, he said.
On Singapore's approach, he said: "With the exception of Workfare... the paradigm is still very much that of a trade-off: that measures to increase social equity usually or even necessarily entail lower growth. This paradigm also explains the Government's general reluctance to take a more aggressively redistributive approach to public spending."
Ultimately, growth is more about the choices made to get to it than the final number in and of itself, the economists said.
The Government has acknowledged the need to step up social spending significantly as the population ages and health-care costs rise.
Over the last five years, social spending rose from $13 billion in 2006 to $21.5 billion last year.
This will rise further, with plans to double spending in health care, and to increase the social safety net with a permanent GST Voucher scheme to help low-income households as well as to raise subsidies for medical care.
It has moved on this front despite its perennial worries about how financially viable a liberal system of social handouts might be, especially since these cannot be reversed easily. The Prime Minister warned in his speech that more spending will require new revenues and higher taxes, a cost that many may not be prepared to pay. The hue and cry over the hike in GST from 5 per cent to 7 per cent in 2007 is a case in point.
Even so, economists point out that public spending is a conservative 17 per cent of GDP, much lower than many developed nations. And there are those who argue that there are ways to increase public spending without raising taxes, such as tapping more of the net investment returns from the reserves. And a rise in taxes, say to 25 per cent or 30 per cent, justified by a need to help the less well off, might well be politically acceptable to the public, even if it does raise questions about economic competitiveness.
Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng said: "The problems of the last five years brought out a deeper, broader issue related to the social compact and the political economy. These go beyond the realm of economics but penetrate to the fundamental, perhaps ideological, question of the kind of society that we want."
Mr Manu Bhaskaran, economist at Centennial Asia Advisors, said: "At the end of the day, what we want is a growth strategy that puts the average man at the centre, that generates visible benefits for the average Joe, not one that relies on some unpredictable trickle-down effects."
Same destination
IT MAY seem at times that the Government and economists are headed down different paths, but their destination is the same.The goal of both groups is growth that is sustainable, both economically and politically.
PM Lee himself made this clear when he addressed the Economic Society nine years ago. Economic restructuring can only work, he said, "if Singaporeans feel that the system is fair to all, and benefits everybody over the long run".
The present debate arises because they have differing views on how best to get there.
Key events in the debate
2003
• Economic Review Committee focuses on developing entrepreneurship and liberalising the business sector to rejuvenate the Singapore economy. Key themes: keep costs low and doors open to foreign labour.
2006
• PM Lee says at his National Day Rally speech that Singapore "must grow as fast as we can".
2007
• Economists discuss the growing concerns of a dual economy in Singapore - one that has benefited the wealthy but is hurting the poor and middle-income - at the Institute of Policy Studies conference.
2008
• MP Inderjit Singh coins the term "growth at all costs" in his 2008 Budget Debate speech, to describe the Government's economic strategy which he said had overheated the economy and hurt small business owners.
• Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam calls his speech "entertaining, but flawed".
2009
• Economist Linda Lim, a professor at the University of Michigan, criticises the Government's "growth fetishism" for trying to achieve growth in too many sectors, with too little reward.
• Amid the global financial crisis, an Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) is formed to look at new ways to grow, including a sub-committee on inclusive growth.
2010
• ESC recommends tightening foreign labour tap and raising productivity by 2 to 3 per cent a year.
• At the Budget debate, Mr Tharman defends the Government's growth model over the last decade in the face of criticisms by Workers' Party MP Low Thia Khiang and Mr Inderjit Singh.
2011
• Unhappiness over lack of affordable housing, public transport congestion, high cost of living and income inequality take centre-stage during the General Election.
February 2012
• The Government raises its social spending in a Budget that includes a $100 million boost for the Inclusive Growth Progranm1e to raise wages of 100,000 workers; $3.6 billion in GST vouchers for low-income fanlilies over five years; and Workfare payouts for 400,000 workers.
June 2012
• PM Lee speaks at the Economic Society of Singapore dinner: "Without growth, we have no chance of improving our collective well being... For Singapore, slow growth will mean that new investments will be fewer, good jobs will be scarcer, and unemployment will be higher."
Part D, Insight, The Straits Times, Saturday, June 16 2012, Pg D2-3 -
Their idea of growth is taking a plant and trying pull it every day towards the sky in the hopes that it can grow taller faster instead of letting it grow naturally.
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Myths in the go-slow debate
Taking economy out of the fast lane may not be all it seems
Sunday with Chua Mui Hoong,
Opinion Editor
Singapore is embarked on a national conversation about the model and pace of growth. But sometimes, the debate seems to be at cross purposes.
Take the issue flagged by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on whether Singapore should go for strong growth when it can, or opt for a slower pace. He recently told members of the Economic Society of Singapore: 'I know that some Singaporeans welcome the prospect of slower growth. Some want us to slow down even below our economy's potential.
'They argue that we already have enough material success, and should give less weight to economic factors, and more to social considerations. And that we should spend more on ourselves, and put aside less for the future.'
There are two different questions here. The first is: what pace of growth do we want for Singapore? The second is distributive: what level of social spending can Singapore afford?
The answer to the first is surely obvious: As much growth as we can get, while we can, in a way that does not make life difficult for the more vulnerable.
Past framing of the issue as one between 'growth at all costs' and 'slow growth' is an injustice to both camps. In fact, the debate is riddled with three mutually distorting myths.
Slow growth, less stress
The first myth is that slower growth equals lower stress.
Slower pace of life, fewer foreigners to compete for jobs with locals, cheaper housing with lower demand - what's not to like, then, about slow growth?
But slower growth also means the economy will shrink, some businesses go bust, workers lose jobs. It is the vulnerable workers who will bear the brunt of a shrinking economy: the elderly worker, the middle- aged technician or saleswoman who has worked 20 years in the same small company that folded and may not get another good position. When you lose your job in your 40s or 50s, chances are high that you end up permanently under-employed. You may still get a job, but at lower pay, with reduced benefits and on contract, with reduced hours.
Without a national survey, I cannot say how many Singaporeans seriously want the country to opt for a slow growth path. Those who already have means may find a leisurely pace of life intellectually and emotionally appealing. But the average Singaporean heartlander is still at an aspirational phase: he wants a good job, pay rises, a nice home and prospects for his children.
I am willing to venture most Singaporeans, if asked, would be quite happy with going for growth while the country is able. So long, that is, as they share in the benefits of growth.
Fast growth is unequal, so slow is good
This leads me to the second myth in this debate: the idea that fast growth breeds inequality, and therefore slower growth is better.
It is true fast growth exacerbates inequality. When the economy booms, those earning $100,000 a year may find their income tripling as performance bonuses stack up. Those earning $1,000 a month may get a $50 pay rise. The gap between the top and bottom incomes yawns wider.
But the solution is not to stave off growth. Size and distribution are different concerns. You go for a larger pie first, and then you figure out how to slice it more fairly.
Going slow is a choice
The third myth is the notion that Singapore can choose to go slow or grow fast.
In fact, the choice will be made for us. As PM Lee noted, slow growth is unavoidable. You do not need an economics degree to understand that Singapore's mature economy is at a very high base, which means future growth will be slower. Its limited land and labour also constrain growth.
This is an accepted premise by all sides in this discussion. It is therefore important to understand what critics of 'growth at all costs' are lamenting. They are not saying Singapore should slacken. In essence, they are saying fast growth should be conditional on benefits being spread equitably, and on maintaining quality of life. So there is no point in going for fast growth of say 8 per cent if:
• The benefits only go to those at the top, say, if incomes grow 8 per cent or more for those at the top, while the majority see their wages stagnate or even drop.
• Wage rises are wiped out by rising prices. If cost of things like health care, transport and food go up by more than 8 per cent, workers end up worse off than before.
• Growth worsens quality of life - for example if you need to bring in so many foreigners to grow 8 per cent that the city gets overcrowded, and housing costs go up beyond your affordability.
In other words, it is the impact of high growth, unmitigated by social policies, that is being faulted.
This is not the same as saying slow growth is preferred over fast growth. Rather, it is about saying: Go for growth that is balanced and sustainable, with benefits shared with the majority. If the alternative to 8 per cent growth is growth of 4 per cent, with real wage increases across the board and enough foreigners to fill jobs yet keep Singapore's pleasant living environment, then maybe Singapore should go for 4 per cent, this camp will say.
But in the end, these are hypothetical numbers. Economic growth is a function of inputs: with zero or minus population growth and low productivity, even slow growth will be a challenge. In this set-up, the debate over fast or slow is academic. As a price-taker in a globalised, cut-throat, capitalist world, tiny Singapore would be wise to take its growth when it can, and share the fruits of growth equitably.
Since a slower pace of growth is inevitable, I find it more meaningful to talk about how to prepare better for a world when jobs are harder to come by and incomes stagnate or even fall.
My own view is that our social safety nets have too many holes. The emphasis on self and family as the first line of defence against the usual life risks of unemployment, disability or disease worked well when real incomes grew steadily; the old age support ratio was high, with many young working folks per elderly person; and each successive generation was better educated, drew higher pay and could support their ageing parents.
Each of those three assumptions has broken down. Real incomes at the bottom and middle have see-sawed in the last two decades; the old age support ratio will plunge from six working adults per elderly today to two in 2030; and today's young born in the 1990s will start work and form families amid soaring asset prices, no longer assured of having a better life than their parents born in the 1960s who started on a much lower base.
There is an urgent need to rethink assumptions underlying Singapore's social policy approach, and do the hard policy work of coming up with alternatives, and the even harder political work of convincing people to buy into new kinds of social security programmes that share risks in a different way.
think, The Sunday Times, June 17 2012, Pg 41
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Oh the Dhaka-Chittagong highway is a nightmare.
And everyday during my month-long stay, I would see reports of entire families being wiped out by some crazy bus driver.
This was when I was on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway...the locals called it the Road of Death.
The roads are narrow and buses are king. Small wonder then that so many accidents occur on the roads. On average, some 30+ people get killed EVERYDAY in Bangladesh.
Who do I even bother comparing to some third world country?
Its to put some of the people's complaints here in perspective.
I dont deny that we can improve. I dont deny that we screwed up here and there.
But we dont have power cuts 15 times a day. We dont have to worry when we travel around the country as much. We can drink from taps. We dont have beggars who bug you BAKSHEESH every where you go. We dont have violent strikes. We dont have traffic jams that are so bad that people just switch off their engines and smoke. We have nice highways unlike the one I showed you.
The list just goes on.
do u noe wats the problems there?
coz ppl at the top are screwed so r we. its time to do the checks n balances in our political orderliness b4 it wen immoral wrong
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Originally posted by M the name:
Myths in the go-slow debate
Taking economy out of the fast lane may not be all it seems
Sunday with Chua Mui Hoong,
Opinion Editor
Singapore is embarked on a national conversation about the model and pace of growth. But sometimes, the debate seems to be at cross purposes.
Take the issue flagged by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on whether Singapore should go for strong growth when it can, or opt for a slower pace. He recently told members of the Economic Society of Singapore: 'I know that some Singaporeans welcome the prospect of slower growth. Some want us to slow down even below our economy's potential.
'They argue that we already have enough material success, and should give less weight to economic factors, and more to social considerations. And that we should spend more on ourselves, and put aside less for the future.'
There are two different questions here. The first is: what pace of growth do we want for Singapore? The second is distributive: what level of social spending can Singapore afford?
The answer to the first is surely obvious: As much growth as we can get, while we can, in a way that does not make life difficult for the more vulnerable.
Past framing of the issue as one between 'growth at all costs' and 'slow growth' is an injustice to both camps. In fact, the debate is riddled with three mutually distorting myths.
Slow growth, less stress
The first myth is that slower growth equals lower stress.
Slower pace of life, fewer foreigners to compete for jobs with locals, cheaper housing with lower demand - what's not to like, then, about slow growth?
But slower growth also means the economy will shrink, some businesses go bust, workers lose jobs. It is the vulnerable workers who will bear the brunt of a shrinking economy: the elderly worker, the middle- aged technician or saleswoman who has worked 20 years in the same small company that folded and may not get another good position. When you lose your job in your 40s or 50s, chances are high that you end up permanently under-employed. You may still get a job, but at lower pay, with reduced benefits and on contract, with reduced hours.
Without a national survey, I cannot say how many Singaporeans seriously want the country to opt for a slow growth path. Those who already have means may find a leisurely pace of life intellectually and emotionally appealing. But the average Singaporean heartlander is still at an aspirational phase: he wants a good job, pay rises, a nice home and prospects for his children.
I am willing to venture most Singaporeans, if asked, would be quite happy with going for growth while the country is able. So long, that is, as they share in the benefits of growth.
Fast growth is unequal, so slow is good
This leads me to the second myth in this debate: the idea that fast growth breeds inequality, and therefore slower growth is better.
It is true fast growth exacerbates inequality. When the economy booms, those earning $100,000 a year may find their income tripling as performance bonuses stack up. Those earning $1,000 a month may get a $50 pay rise. The gap between the top and bottom incomes yawns wider.
But the solution is not to stave off growth. Size and distribution are different concerns. You go for a larger pie first, and then you figure out how to slice it more fairly.
Going slow is a choice
The third myth is the notion that Singapore can choose to go slow or grow fast.
In fact, the choice will be made for us. As PM Lee noted, slow growth is unavoidable. You do not need an economics degree to understand that Singapore's mature economy is at a very high base, which means future growth will be slower. Its limited land and labour also constrain growth.
This is an accepted premise by all sides in this discussion. It is therefore important to understand what critics of 'growth at all costs' are lamenting. They are not saying Singapore should slacken. In essence, they are saying fast growth should be conditional on benefits being spread equitably, and on maintaining quality of life. So there is no point in going for fast growth of say 8 per cent if:
• The benefits only go to those at the top, say, if incomes grow 8 per cent or more for those at the top, while the majority see their wages stagnate or even drop.
• Wage rises are wiped out by rising prices. If cost of things like health care, transport and food go up by more than 8 per cent, workers end up worse off than before.
• Growth worsens quality of life - for example if you need to bring in so many foreigners to grow 8 per cent that the city gets overcrowded, and housing costs go up beyond your affordability.
In other words, it is the impact of high growth, unmitigated by social policies, that is being faulted.
This is not the same as saying slow growth is preferred over fast growth. Rather, it is about saying: Go for growth that is balanced and sustainable, with benefits shared with the majority. If the alternative to 8 per cent growth is growth of 4 per cent, with real wage increases across the board and enough foreigners to fill jobs yet keep Singapore's pleasant living environment, then maybe Singapore should go for 4 per cent, this camp will say.
But in the end, these are hypothetical numbers. Economic growth is a function of inputs: with zero or minus population growth and low productivity, even slow growth will be a challenge. In this set-up, the debate over fast or slow is academic. As a price-taker in a globalised, cut-throat, capitalist world, tiny Singapore would be wise to take its growth when it can, and share the fruits of growth equitably.
Since a slower pace of growth is inevitable, I find it more meaningful to talk about how to prepare better for a world when jobs are harder to come by and incomes stagnate or even fall.
My own view is that our social safety nets have too many holes. The emphasis on self and family as the first line of defence against the usual life risks of unemployment, disability or disease worked well when real incomes grew steadily; the old age support ratio was high, with many young working folks per elderly person; and each successive generation was better educated, drew higher pay and could support their ageing parents.
Each of those three assumptions has broken down. Real incomes at the bottom and middle have see-sawed in the last two decades; the old age support ratio will plunge from six working adults per elderly today to two in 2030; and today's young born in the 1990s will start work and form families amid soaring asset prices, no longer assured of having a better life than their parents born in the 1960s who started on a much lower base.
There is an urgent need to rethink assumptions underlying Singapore's social policy approach, and do the hard policy work of coming up with alternatives, and the even harder political work of convincing people to buy into new kinds of social security programmes that share risks in a different way.
think, The Sunday Times, June 17 2012, Pg 41
Fact is where slow or fast - the individual DOES NOT determine the speed the government wants to grow the economy. I tisa decided for us. Second, growth does not necessarily mean stress- BUT inequality in the distribution of the fruits of growth will inevitably in the longer run cause tension and strains amongs different strata of society as well as between the ruled and the ruling. But some indivduals do have a choice - they emigrate if they think they really don't like it here. And however it pans out - life is going to be tougher in our little red dot! -
Originally posted by Bikeforceful:
Fact is where slow or fast - the individual DOES NOT determine the speed the government wants to grow the economy. I tisa decided for us. Second, growth does not necessarily mean stress- BUT inequality in the distribution of the fruits of growth will inevitably in the longer run cause tension and strains amongs different strata of society as well as between the ruled and the ruling. But some indivduals do have a choice - they emigrate if they think they really don't like it here. And however it pans out - life is going to be tougher in our little red dot!u talking cock ?
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We need 6 or 8 or 10 million population to grow gdp.
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In Singapore, all you need to grow is horns
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Originally posted by angel7030:
In Singapore, all you need to grow is horns
If you grow horns, they will need to implement a horn tax based on the length of your horn.
Your horn takes up space you know.
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hell boy?
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Achieving real wage growth
UNDERLYING last Saturday's article ('Growth Potion No. 4?'), which dwelt on the debate between faster or slower growth, is the point that economic growth must benefit the majority of citizens.
The recent disclosure that the wage ceiling for bus drivers remained the same for the past 13 years, and that the median income of a cleaner has in fact fallen for the decade from the turn of the millennium are cases in point.
Higher growth should be pursued only if it benefits the majority of citizens.
So, real wages must grow and I have two suggestions.
• First, impose a tax relief of $2.50 for every $1 of salary paid to Singaporean employees who are not directors or shareholders of the firm. This will encourage a company to share more of its profits with its employees, and prioritise Singaporeans, without blunting the profit-seeking motive.
Such a tax relief can be introduced in conjunction with a rise in corporate tax rate if necessary.
• Second, the HDB resale price index increased by 90 per cent and private property prices more than doubled between 1998 and 2011.
During this same period, the consumer price index increased by less than 25 per cent while median wages of Singaporean residents increased by more than 36 per cent.
These figures suggest that HDB flats are a significant wage deflator.
For most Singaporeans, an HDB flat is a home and an increase in its price does not add to their real wealth. In fact, higher prices only serve to increase the pressure to own a flat.
An HDB flat is only an asset when one sells it and does not need to acquire a replacement to live.
Some gained as they sold their flat and upgraded to private property, but that is not the HDB's aim.
Reintroducing more restrictions on HDB flat ownership, holding period and rental rules will curtail prices.
Statistics show that HDB flat prices took off only after 2006 when the Government eased restrictions on the holding period and rental rules.
HDB flats became investable assets that generated handsome returns leading to their rapid price increase.
Raymond Chua
Forum, The Straits Time, Tuesday, June 19 2012, Pg A19
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Originally posted by lce:
u talking cock ?
I talk sense as well as dollars and cents understand ? Cock! -
When money gets in the way
Rich-poor gap is a source of simmering social tension
People eating while queueing at the launch of a condominium project (above). Some were merely keeping a place for prospective buyers who had paid them to wait on their behalf. And in another example of how money creates separate worlds for the rich and the poor, a soon-to-be-opened private hospital in Singapore provides this suite, which is larger than a five-room HDB flat. -- ST PHOTOS: DESMOND WEE
BY JEREMY AU YONG
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTIT IS perhaps a sign of the times that a government minister has to address the traffic offence of a single individual.
The scrutiny plastic surgeon Woffles Wu received this week would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago. But now, it comes as no surprise that many are calling on the authorities to hit him hard.
A large part of this backlash lies in a perceived sense of injustice. In many cases, a country's laws are designed to deter, rehabilitate and incapacitate criminals for retribution as well as to lay down a moral marker for behaviour that a society frowns on.
However, Wu's $1,000 fine, for abetting an employee to give false information over a speeding offence, is seen as too small a part of his income to fulfil any of these functions. Instead, it becomes a mere fee that a rich man can pay for the right to do what he wants.
The backlash also reflects simmering antipathy between the haves and the have-nots.
If a delivery man were fined a measly $10 for a similar offence, perhaps few would bat an eyelid. Here, Wu's status as a member of Singapore's rich and famous set is working against him. And it is not just a case of 'tall poppy syndrome', though that surely plays a part; this seems symptomatic of a larger strain on social cohesion.
This is, of course, not a uniquely Singaporean problem. Societies all over the world are grappling with the heightened social tension arising from growing income inequality.
Some have concluded that inequality is an inescapable part of a globalised world and therefore a new reality that everyone needs to come to terms with.
However, political philosopher Michael Sandel has argued in a new book that even if the wall between rich and poor cannot be completely torn down, society can at the very least stop adding more bricks.
In his book What Money Can't Buy, Professor Sandel argues that macro-trends like globalisation are not the only forces pushing people apart. At fault are also national and perhaps even local-level decisions on how to run schools, hospitals and even highways.
He says that economic principles have increasingly crept into all aspects of everyday life. And when people can pay for the privilege to flout social norms that others abide by - such as to cut queues or pollute the environment - then they go ahead and do so without regard for right and wrong.
And he worries that when everything can be bought with money, the rich can more easily differentiate and separate themselves from the poor. The less the classes mix, the more foreign each side becomes to the other.
Sandel calls it the Skyboxification of American Life, named after the luxury suites now in almost every US sports venue. Where sports used to bring people together regardless of class to support a common cause, these suites mean the rich can now do so at a healthy distance from the working class.
Thankfully, Singapore still has some common spaces where rich and poor can mix, but these are becoming increasingly rare.
The country does seem to be headed down the same slippery slope the US is on.
Like in the US, there are theme parks in Singapore that allow visitors to skip the normal queues for a fee. Less formally, there is also a growing market for queue-sitters. People are paying hundreds of dollars to students to hold a place in queue for them for anything from a new iPad to a condominium.
Similarly, our economic growth has included a multitude of premium services like private banking, private hospitals and private schools that provide avenues for the rich to set themselves apart from the poor.
Indeed, this has not been an overnight process but the end result of years of everyone trying to maximise economic value through price differentiation, which in turn has led to an increased social gap.
The increasing demand for places in local international schools provides a particularly relevant example.
A Straits Times report in February found that three local international schools - Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) International, Hwa Chong International and St Joseph's Institution (SJI) International - were expanding facilities to take in more students.
Singaporeans and permanent residents make up half the students in ACS and Hwa Chong international schools, and 60 per cent of those at SJI. Officials from the schools attributed the demand from Singaporean students to the brand names, alternative curricula and smaller class sizes.
The Government has always maintained that it prefers Singaporean children to attend local schools for the purpose of building national identity and social cohesion.
That meant local students could not enrol in an international school except under special circumstances, such as having grown up abroad.
That works well from a social cohesion point of view but is value-destroying from an economic point of view. Value-destroying because there clearly was demand for these schools from wealthy parents.
In 2004, brand name schools were given the green light to start international schools that were open to locals. This was to attract foreign students and to give Singaporeans more secondary school choices.
That seems to have met some pent-up demand and increased the size of the economic pie but it also undermined the role of a local school as a melting pot.
None of this is to say that the economic way is inherently bad or to suggest that all policies should be totally egalitarian. There will be times - even possibly in the examples above - when it makes sense to put a price on a social good.
It is difficult to just lay down a firm law on how we decide what to keep sacred. In a country with limited resources, trade-offs will always need to be made.
Perhaps we can start with the non-negotiables, draw up a list of areas where money cannot be allowed to differentiate.
On this list already are National Service and the National Day Parade. The Government has rightly decided that such emblems of nationhood should not be up for sale. Voluntary conscription might lead to only the poor defending the nation and the sale of NDP tickets might mean only the rich make it to the floating platform.
In other areas, there is a need to make sure that the impact on social cohesion, and not just economic value, is factored into decision-making. We cannot preserve every hawker centre or every public park. But when we decide that one should make way, let us do it having taken into account that we may be destroying something money cannot buy.
Part D, Insight, The Straits Times, Saturday, June 23 2012, Pg D5 -
wot.
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Originally posted by Bikeforceful:
I tak sense as well as dollars and cents understand ? cock!
wow u have a cock, to u r a chicken -
Pay rises eroded by inflation
Salaries up by 6.1 per cent but real wage growth is 0.9 per cent
BY JANICE HENG
and TOH YONG CHUANWORKERS in Singapore may have received a more generous pay increase last year, but many of them did not feel much richer for it.
That's because high inflation eroded most of the wage bump, according to the Manpower Ministry's (MOM) latest annual report on wages.
So while a tight labour market helped to raise salaries by 6.1 per cent in terms of dollars and cents, real wage growth last year was just 0.9 per cent.
This was much lower than the real wage growth of 2.9 per cent workers enjoyed in 2010.
Last year's number, however, improved to 1.9 per cent after excluding the imputed rental value of workers' homes. Most workers here own their homes and don't pay rent.
Released yearly, MOM's report examines wages of full-time Singaporean and permanent resident workers who receive Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions.
The twin spectre of high wages and high inflation could be indicative of a wage-price spiral, but economists interviewed yesterday were divided on whether this was happening in Singapore.
A wage-price spiral is where workers demand higher pay to make up for inflation. Higher wage costs then cause companies to raise prices, which in turn stokes inflation even more.
UOB Group economist Chow Penn Nee felt such a phenomenon was already taking place, but conceded that inflation was not the only factor pushing pay up.
Higher wages also reflect last year's tight labour market, when restrictions on foreign labour pushed wages up for locals, she added.
DBS economist Irvin Seah noted that the uncertain global economic environment will cool consumer demand and eventually put less pressure on wages to rise.
The labour market has already started to soften in the first quarter of this year, with fewer vacancies and slightly higher unemployment of 2.1 per cent.
Given that the economy has slowed but inflation remains high, real wages could stagnate or even fall slightly this year, warned Ms Selena Ling, head of treasury research and strategy at OCBC Bank. This means that workers could end up feeling poorer despite increments received in 2012.
To mitigate this, Mr Zainudin Nordin, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Manpower, set out two policy options.
The first is to "lift absolute incomes", but he acknowledged that this could raise costs for businesses and other employers.
The other is to find ways to lower inflation.
Mr Zainudin said that the way ahead will probably be some combination of the strategies: lower inflation, but also use targeted measures to boost the pay of low income earners.
Unionist Nasordin Mohamad Hashim noted that the ministry's 2011 report does not yet reflect recent government moves to do precisely that.
The president of the 30,000- member Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees' Union said he is "optimistic" that workers will be helped this year by measures such as the National Wages Council's recommended pay hike of $50 for workers earning less than $1,000.
But workers do not have to be low-income to feel inflation's sting. Safety manager Kelvin Tan, 46, received 'a usual' pay increment last year, but feels that prices are "definitely rising".
"A lot of my friends and colleagues have also complained that things are getting a bit too expensive: food, daily necessities, even hospitalisation fees."
The Straits Times, June 30 2012, Pg A1
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Originally posted by M the name:
Pay rises eroded by inflation
Salaries up by 6.1 per cent but real wage growth is 0.9 per cent
BY JANICE HENG
and TOH YONG CHUANWORKERS in Singapore may have received a more generous pay increase last year, but many of them did not feel much richer for it.
That's because high inflation eroded most of the wage bump, according to the Manpower Ministry's (MOM) latest annual report on wages.
So while a tight labour market helped to raise salaries by 6.1 per cent in terms of dollars and cents, real wage growth last year was just 0.9 per cent.
This was much lower than the real wage growth of 2.9 per cent workers enjoyed in 2010.
Last year's number, however, improved to 1.9 per cent after excluding the imputed rental value of workers' homes. Most workers here own their homes and don't pay rent.
Released yearly, MOM's report examines wages of full-time Singaporean and permanent resident workers who receive Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions.
The twin spectre of high wages and high inflation could be indicative of a wage-price spiral, but economists interviewed yesterday were divided on whether this was happening in Singapore.
A wage-price spiral is where workers demand higher pay to make up for inflation. Higher wage costs then cause companies to raise prices, which in turn stokes inflation even more.
UOB Group economist Chow Penn Nee felt such a phenomenon was already taking place, but conceded that inflation was not the only factor pushing pay up.
Higher wages also reflect last year's tight labour market, when restrictions on foreign labour pushed wages up for locals, she added.
DBS economist Irvin Seah noted that the uncertain global economic environment will cool consumer demand and eventually put less pressure on wages to rise.
The labour market has already started to soften in the first quarter of this year, with fewer vacancies and slightly higher unemployment of 2.1 per cent.
Given that the economy has slowed but inflation remains high, real wages could stagnate or even fall slightly this year, warned Ms Selena Ling, head of treasury research and strategy at OCBC Bank. This means that workers could end up feeling poorer despite increments received in 2012.
To mitigate this, Mr Zainudin Nordin, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Manpower, set out two policy options.
The first is to "lift absolute incomes", but he acknowledged that this could raise costs for businesses and other employers.
The other is to find ways to lower inflation.
Mr Zainudin said that the way ahead will probably be some combination of the strategies: lower inflation, but also use targeted measures to boost the pay of low income earners.
Unionist Nasordin Mohamad Hashim noted that the ministry's 2011 report does not yet reflect recent government moves to do precisely that.
The president of the 30,000- member Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees' Union said he is "optimistic" that workers will be helped this year by measures such as the National Wages Council's recommended pay hike of $50 for workers earning less than $1,000.
But workers do not have to be low-income to feel inflation's sting. Safety manager Kelvin Tan, 46, received 'a usual' pay increment last year, but feels that prices are 'definitely rising'.
"A lot of my friends and colleagues have also complained that things are getting a bit too expensive: food, daily necessities, even hospitalisation fees."
The Straits Times, June 30 2012, Pg A1
everyone can see you are the BIGGEST talk COCK around- stupid! valueless contributions from you! -
Originally posted by Bikeforceful:
everyone can see you are the BIGGEST talk COCK around- stupid! valueless contributions from you!he's actually putting a pile of points in the debate...
here's my take on this growth thing... the idiots we have running the country now do have a growth fetish.. they will do anything and say anything to grow GDP.. it is as if their grandmothers' immortal soul depends on it...
and in some ways, it does because they have ransomed it... their pay is dependent solely on one KPI and that is the growth of GDP...
you will notice i have not said growth of anything else except GDP because it is what it is.. everything they have done seems to be for and nothing but for the growth of GDP....
note the casinos.. note the useless infrastructure projects for show.. and note the desperate measures for housing the people.. and note their policies.. they are not for the growth of the citizens.. rather, they are geared towards just generating growth in GDP..
GDP, while in itself is okay and a semi-reasonable marker of prosperity, has been stolen and abused to become the be-all and end-all of performance.. in other words, the people in power have gamed the system so that it shows "growth" while the citizens suffer...
it has been written ad naseum that walking from A to B doesn't generate GDP in itself... but if i drive from A to B, i have to buy a car, put petrol in it, and pay a pile of tax on everything about it... it is better that i drive from A to B...
however, if i drive from A to B and have a horrific car crash in it, it is amazing for the GDP.. i lose my car and have to buy a new one to replace it.. so does the other crash victims.. all these get added to the GDP.. i end up in hospital and so does the other victims.. all the medical bills add to the GDP.. i have therapy for a year while the other victim has to be fitted for metal braces for his broken limbs.. all that adds to the GDP too..
in other words, getting from A to B by walking, does me a lot of good as i get some sunshine, exercise and i get to hear the birds sing, is crap for the GDP.. getting a car is okay but getting into a car crash is terrific for the GDP...
just like leaving the nature reserve the hell alone while we the citizens can go in there, hike and walk and listen to the birds and breathe fresh air does nothing for the GDP.. however, by cutting down trees, building metal structures, doming some plants, spending $1 billion, charging admission fees, getting hawkers to charge $18 chicken rice and $10 hokkien mee, for us to slowly walk, not have birds poop on you, breathe in airconditioned air does huge amounts for the GDP..
and we are not addicted to "growth"?
let's take another example about gaming the system...
60 citizens earn about $2000 per month.. it is not enough GDP.. so import about 40 foreigners who then earn about $3000 per month.. suddenly the "per capita monthly income" has become $2400 per month! note that this is per capita.. the locals haven't grown at all but the "economy" and numbers show different
but it doesn't work this way... it is usual that the 40 foreigners come in are paid about the same or lower.. causing a downward pressure on wages.. the local wages are depressed while more people compete for the same limited resources in Singapore.. causing an upward pressure in costs like transport, food, living spaces.. this is inflation.. while our wages are depressed.. but it doesn't matter.. upward pressure in costs ADDS to the GDP.. your $2 chicken rice has become $3.50.. that's an addition of $1.50 per plate of chicken rice to the GDP.. while our wages have not kept pace
GDP is increasing... everything looks rosy on paper.. but somehow, the citizens have become poorer..
while GDP has increased, the people in power bandy that around and pay themselves huge bonuses even after their usual million dollar wages.. while the citizens face increased pressures on their lives.. the infrastructure is being ground to pieces by the increased load, the parks are being levelled to create super-parks which we have to pay to get in, our living spaces are becoming smaller while we are being subjected to 30 - 40 year loans to service that, all the while decreasing our savings for retirement to service the costs of our living space...
growth has happened.. but not for the citizens, not for the people, not for the country.. because this growth is empty and hollow.. just like the promise of the false gods of "economic progress by numbers"
we are ruined by the assholes who run the country... they have sold us down the river for a handful of silver and put us on a death spiral for that silver..
which is why somewhere in the dark alleys of the interwebs, some Singaporeans are asking for something so fundamental it hurts the very soul: During this National Day, can we have our country back?
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Originally posted by the Bear:
he's actually putting a pile of points in the debate...
here's my take on this growth thing... the idiots we have running the country now do have a growth fetish.. they will do anything and say anything to grow GDP.. it is as if their grandmothers' immortal soul depends on it...
and in some ways, it does because they have ransomed it... their pay is dependent solely on one KPI and that is the growth of GDP...
you will notice i have not said growth of anything else except GDP because it is what it is.. everything they have done seems to be for and nothing but for the growth of GDP....
note the casinos.. note the useless infrastructure projects for show.. and note the desperate measures for housing the people.. and note their policies.. they are not for the growth of the citizens.. rather, they are geared towards just generating growth in GDP..
GDP, while in itself is okay and a semi-reasonable marker of prosperity, has been stolen and abused to become the be-all and end-all of performance.. in other words, the people in power have gamed the system so that it shows "growth" while the citizens suffer...
it has been written ad naseum that walking from A to B doesn't generate GDP in itself... but if i drive from A to B, i have to buy a car, put petrol in it, and pay a pile of tax on everything about it... it is better that i drive from A to B...
however, if i drive from A to B and have a horrific car crash in it, it is amazing for the GDP.. i lose my car and have to buy a new one to replace it.. so does the other crash victims.. all these get added to the GDP.. i end up in hospital and so does the other victims.. all the medical bills add to the GDP.. i have therapy for a year while the other victim has to be fitted for metal braces for his broken limbs.. all that adds to the GDP too..
in other words, getting from A to B by walking, does me a lot of good as i get some sunshine, exercise and i get to hear the birds sing, is crap for the GDP.. getting a car is okay but getting into a car crash is terrific for the GDP...
just like leaving the nature reserve the hell alone while we the citizens can go in there, hike and walk and listen to the birds and breathe fresh air does nothing for the GDP.. however, by cutting down trees, building metal structures, doming some plants, spending $1 billion, charging admission fees, getting hawkers to charge $18 chicken rice and $10 hokkien mee, for us to slowly walk, not have birds poop on you, breathe in airconditioned air does huge amounts for the GDP..
and we are not addicted to "growth"?
let's take another example about gaming the system...
60 citizens earn about $2000 per month.. it is not enough GDP.. so import about 40 foreigners who then earn about $3000 per month.. suddenly the "per capita monthly income" has become $2400 per month! note that this is per capita.. the locals haven't grown at all but the "economy" and numbers show different
but it doesn't work this way... it is usual that the 40 foreigners come in are paid about the same or lower.. causing a downward pressure on wages.. the local wages are depressed while more people compete for the same limited resources in Singapore.. causing an upward pressure in costs like transport, food, living spaces.. this is inflation.. while our wages are depressed.. but it doesn't matter.. upward pressure in costs ADDS to the GDP.. your $2 chicken rice has become $3.50.. that's an addition of $1.50 per plate of chicken rice to the GDP.. while our wages have not kept pace
GDP is increasing... everything looks rosy on paper.. but somehow, the citizens have become poorer..
while GDP has increased, the people in power bandy that around and pay themselves huge bonuses even after their usual million dollar wages.. while the citizens face increased pressures on their lives.. the infrastructure is being ground to pieces by the increased load, the parks are being levelled to create super-parks which we have to pay to get in, our living spaces are becoming smaller while we are being subjected to 30 - 40 year loans to service that, all the while decreasing our savings for retirement to service the costs of our living space...
growth has happened.. but not for the citizens, not for the people, not for the country.. because this growth is empty and hollow.. just like the promise of the false gods of "economic progress by numbers"
we are ruined by the assholes who run the country... they have sold us down the river for a handful of silver and put us on a death spiral for that silver..
which is why somewhere in the dark alleys of the interwebs, some Singaporeans are asking for something so fundamental it hurts the very soul: During this National Day, can we have our country back?
omg.
Is this the first time you have written so much rant?
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Originally posted by charlize:
omg.
Is this the first time you have written so much rant?
i love a good rant.. relieves a lot of pent up pressure don't you think?
excuse me a while while i go eat my 2 veg and rice cai png dinner...
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GROWTH is toxic these days.
Not when oil prices so volatile.
Because with higher GROWTH now comes INFLATION.
So no point to have GROWTH.
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Originally posted by Bikeforceful:
Fact is where slow or fast - the individual DOES NOT determine the speed the government wants to grow the economy. I tisa decided for us. Second, growth does not necessarily mean stress- BUT inequality in the distribution of the fruits of growth will inevitably in the longer run cause tension and strains amongs different strata of society as well as between the ruled and the ruling. But some indivduals do have a choice - they emigrate if they think they really don't like it here. And however it pans out - life is going to be tougher in our little red dot!1) Life is going to be tougher (YES). But how sure are we that opposition would do a better job than PAP? Big question mark.
When the Tory party took over from Labour party (everybody was complaining about lax in immigration, job and economy), the Tories did a far worst job than the Labour party did in UK. Today unemployment is 8.2% compared when Labour cede power - 5%.
2) Emigrate to where? The whole world is suffering unemployment. In Australia, they just laid off 600 workers in Ford Australia, another 400 at a bank. Their unemployment now stands at 5.2% and they are the best westernize nation performer. Hate to admit it but SEA and East Asia are the places to be at the moment if you want full employment.
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Times are bad.