The whole (Resilience) Package will prevent damage to our economy during the downturn, but we cannot cure the problem because fundamentally, the sickness is not our sickness. It is a global sickness and you have to wait until the US picks up, and Asia picks up with it, and that’s going to take some time.
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In the first place, no one is asking him to cure the “global sickness”?
That is outside the their locus of control.
The question is : Are they doing enough to alleviate the people’s suffering during this trying period?
Dear PM:
The economy is not the citizen. Your citizen is suffering from this global sickness.
Please provide some painkiller. We already taken the bitter pill that you prescribed 2 years ago. Remember, you say that this pill is to help the POOR. Now, there are a lot of retrenched POOR Singaporean in Singapore. Please help!!!
“The whole (Resilience) Package will prevent damage to our economy during the downturn,”
Mr Lee is using a strong word prevent . Who else is saying the package will prevent damage to our economy? The best it can do is lessen damage to our economy.
I missed the part about SIngapore has grown too expensive and many MNCs are so sick of it that they have either moved out or are moving out of Singapore. Yes they are sick and not us..
If this is not a Singapore’s structural problem, why built the Casinos?
With a salary that is easily 4 times that of US president who is leading the world’s largest economy, we cannot help but expect inspiring “world leader” view from the world’s highest paid politician PM Lee instead of casting the blame of our current plight on the global economic meltdown. Who doesn’t know that ? Even my 5 years old son can expound this.
The problem is overwhelming reliance on Exports.
As long as this is the case, crisis after crisis, joblessness can occur.
retirement plans? how to plan when future is uncertain?
Some of the local wounds that our elites have inflicted on us lesser mortals which I can think of:
1. 7% GST – regressive tax that affects peasants more than the rich. even medical and basic necessities are not spared for us lesser mortals. And how many poor peasants have been helped by the GST increase?
2. Overpriced pigeon holes with 99 years leases – to reduce their liabilities in paying the interest for our CPF ordinary accounts maybe?
3. Claiming transport fares are not linked to oil prices – maybe our elites had overhedged on future oil contracts when the prices were high?
4. Giving bond free scholarships to foreign students instead of helping locals first and letting them take up places in our universities at locals expense,
5. Making us serve NS and trying to ’siam’ their liabilities if you are injured in camp. Lesser mortal parents even have to take a risk of incurring astronomical legal fees in order to bring MINDEF to court.
6. Still trying to protect jobs for foreigners in troubling times like these.
7. Taking a gamble with our reserves in GIC and Temasek and incurring substantial losses when the signs were there that trouble was brewing.
8. Using our reserves as welfare for companies to keep them afloat instead of using it to give its citizens a lifeline.
9. Denying our fellow citizens who are living in opposition wards of their flat upgrading even after so many years.
10. Threatening to dig us out from cyberspace and arrest us because they do not like to hear what we have to say.
Not our sickness? I think if we’re affected by it as well, it is jolly well our sickness too.
A is sick with flu and passes the germs to you. You become sick as well, would you say, “It’s not really my sickness. It comes from A and I’ll just have to wait for A to get well”.
The bottomline is, Singaporeans are ESPECIALLY affected by this global downturn because our immune system is vulnerable to attacks by the global situation. Now who are responsible for engineering such a system?
Like what Barack Obama always expound “Change, Yes We Can!!” The real medicine for Singapore are:
1)Create a common market with Malaysia so all our BASIC NECESSITIES are taken care of. In this way our export dependent economy can be reduced and of course help to alleviate the unnatural cost of living in Singapore.
2)Stop the politics of fear and division along racial and religious lines. We are not in any impending war with our neighbours. Defence of Malaysia is our only real defence for Singapore. Stop behaving like Israel and start behaving like Switzerland.
3)Admit that Singapore is an island and we do not have space for 5 million people to live here. Assist in developing the potential of it’s own citizens. Learn from Brunei (a nation of 400 000) people.
4)It is about time to introduce pension scheme to every citizens without the need to tie it to the CPF. Maybe abolist CPF altogether and introduce the pension scheme (which is more attractive). Our home is our only asset we can leave behind our beneficiaries.
5)Like any recession, this global crisis will definitely end one day. Do we use this opportunity to change our direction or use it to become more irrelevant to the world especially our Asian neighbours.
#5) goodyearsahead
‘With a salary that is easily 4 times that of US president ………………………………….. casting the blame of our current plight on the global economic meltdown. Who doesn’t know that ? ……………..’
…………………………………………………………………………
Since we depend on the US to recover from our economic downturn, shouldn’t our PM and Ministers cut 75% of their salaries and pay them to Obama and his cabinet members?
We expect our world’s highest paid PM and Ministers to perform much better than the governments of other countries. It is time for the PAP to realise that not all the smartest brains belong to them. Many brains outside the PAP are untapped.
If the opposition leaders do not start to challenge our ministers on the absurdly high salaries which has proven little or insignificant impact on improving our economy except for highlighting the glaring fact of over dependency on external forces, then they have squantered the perfect opportunity to garner supporters.
And here we go again… Our world class leader with the “When the time is good, we are the one who create it; when the time is bad, it is others fault” etc speech…
so why are they paid so much when all they can do is wait for others to pull them along? all the past claims of how capable they are has been crumbling as this shows that what they can do with their “capability” is limited and not all success are thanks to them.
and i hope they won’t claim that they brought SGP back up when it is over as from the speech, it only prevents damage *how much???* and the factor that lead us back are external
#12 SZ,
Yep, totallty agree that the cracks on the PAP’s ship are showing. Even LauLee’s recent comment on the long term investment has garnered even more negative sentiments which does not help in salvaging the damage caused by his daughter in law.
And since this topic is on global sickness, what is even more SICK is the fact the our leaders are continuing to draw MILLION dollars salary and yet not accountable for the fiascos done.
i am affected by this crisis and jobless now.
Is there any workfare payout for those unemployed more than 6 months liao ?
I am degree holder. almost 40.
any advice would be appreciated.
thanks.
to #14,
If you happened to belong to the category of PMET, then unfortunately you will not be able to go on a dole as our govt is adamant about not giving cash-out to the jobless to ride out the hardship.
The only recourse is to join the SPUR programme which will then train you to be a chambermaid or tour guide which in my opinion will be a myopic move.
What the jobless PMETs need is either a drawdown on their own CPF to fund & hopefully get govt subsidies as well for personal study trips to emerging overseas markets, or for continuing education in the same field of practice, or even to start an internet business. And when the market revives, such effort paid will be put to good use again.
When US economy good and Singaporean economy also benefits from trade with them, it is PAP’s great governance. And then justify until cannot justify why they deserve the big money.
When US economy COMPLETELY tanks, they don’t get their GDP bonus and call it a 19% paycut.
A paycut is a paycut. Ask the regular man in the street who gets a real reduction month on month.
Not getting a bonus because you didn’t meet your targets and calling it a paycut is just LAME.
Funny hoh, PMET also need training programmes. Aiyoh, it is not the skillset that is lacking lah. It the job openings & vacancies that are lacking lah because there is no real demand lah. The bubble of the artificially high demand of the past has already burst liah lah.
Trying to do the merry-go-round like upturn the downturn, upskill the downskill and all the reskilling thingy. Now we are hearing about football in fighting the recession. Tomorrow, it may be table tennis or even badminton in catching a job.
I thought the chief has just said that “we cannot cure the problem because fundamentally, the sickness is not our sickness.” So, can they cure the sickness that the PMET is having by going through the training programmes.
“It is a global sickness and you have to wait until the US picks up”, the world is just waiting for the US to spend on our behalf again and then maybe we have another cycle of fun & sickness again if we forget the lessons.
yup, no job created how is it possible to become a worker? who to work for?
being one’s own boss would take much time before one can smell success and chances are there but low. very low success rate in fact. but at least a last resort.
need capital also. Already banks not lending and no salary. jia kaki?
best is born as an elite. just being born to such homes means u oto inherit elitism.
a system that so heavily reliant on exports.
could this be considered a robust system?
i wonder…..
I am wondering what will happen to our long-term investment in Citibank/Bank of America (Merrill Lynch) when they are nationalised. We tried to cure them, did we not?
Aiyah, this realsilly package is just there to help businesses lah. They won’t help citizens. Please stop asking them for help.
If they real did care, they would have announced a policy to secure Singaporeans first. Employers would be warned about retrenching Singaporeans. They only urge employers. Why becos these 2 compaines oso hire foreign talents.
PM Lee and his Dad seat in the board of directors of GIC. Ho Ching is in Temesek Holdings.
These 2 companies have stakes overseas (GIC), and Temesek Holdings (Local). They will save jobs and companies only. That is the result of putting family before anything else. And what about their role as important public figures? Go figure..
If they were concerned, they would have in the last few years lowered HDB flat prices, not erect ERP, would not bring influx of foreignersto boost the slagging economy , would have reduced GST and not say it is for helping the poor… knew it they were bs-ing. They won’t help and they can’t. Becos somewhere in this mess are missing figure$. Even Nathan had to shh shh about how much we had.
You won’t have to hear mix messages from ministers who talk about mice, and then ministers who ask employers to focus on merit.
There just way too much online discussion on how JCS can or cannot work, damn, you guys are playing with a toy that they have created and can still blog thesis after thesis about it.
This game is polictical now. If you are a PMETs who lost his or her job, and have gone to SPUR or the pathetic ComCare and still find that the system here is not there for you…
you can jolly well exercise your political right in the balloting box and get their attention. That will only change things. But ofcos, there will be people from MICA, SPH and MCYS to tell you about horror stories if you blog too much about certain things. Tell them to GFYS.
17) Don’t anyhow say on February 23rd, 2009 4.33 pm Funny hoh, PMET also need training programmes. Aiyoh, it is not the skillset that is lacking lah. It the job openings & vacancies that are lacking lah because there is no real demand lah. The bubble of the artificially high demand of the past has already burst liah lah.
Anyways, if your over 40, Good Luck to you, Getting that job is Not a Sure Thing, all the re- training for nothing !!!!!! It’s a Cruel Real World !!!!!!
20) Oldies on February 23rd, 2009 7.33 pm
Aiyoh, I think the same same as you lah. It is cold comfort knowing a lot of people like you already know it and they still acting as though a lot of us don’t know lah and preeeeeeeeetend they are helping a lot by coming out with all sooooooorts of proooooooogrammes lah.
Imagines mid-level or high-level professionals out of a sudden have to go for prooooooogrammes when they are out of job.
When times are good, it’s because the elites are responsible boosting the economy. So getting high salaries is justifiable.
When times are bad, it’s because other countries are not doing well, not elites’ fault. It’s ‘GLOBAL SICKNESS’. Even elites can’t get us out of this hole. So don’t start pointing fingers and ask pple to take pay cuts!
Makes sense?
I always remember our PM, the doctor prescribed bitter medicine to citizens in times of sicknesses [troubles] and coaxed them like little children to take medicine no matter how bitter they are so that little-children Singaporeans can be cured.
Now it sounds like the good doctor blames the medicine and the patients rather than his own inefficiency as a medical doctor to tackle little-childrens sicknesses. Maybe who knows the good doctor may say, little-children Singaporeans sicknesses are incurable and terminal because the world world is dying.
I am confused about the difference between the words ‘PREVENT’ vs ‘mitigate’.
to me, ‘prevent’ means completely avoid.
Has anyone noticed the amount of advertisement being churned out about our defence forces. There are some surreal ads on TV, which I though was actually funny for it looked like some action movie trailor Today I noticed that there were also several full page ads in the main papers. I know for a fact that the defence budget has been increased and I’m okay it being used to built up our capability and equipment but for advertisement. I really find it a bit too extragavent, just like our politicians salary. Well the results speak for themselves. What have they achieved, just like every other country we are suffering but at least their politicians don’t claim to be extraordinary. I believe people are begining to have some serious doubts about accountability of our reserves.
What else will come next? i won’t be surprise it will be more finger-pointing at external factor for the mess we are in…that’s the usual strategy ain’t it?
President Obama says it is ‘outrageous’ that Wall Street employees got more than $18 billion in bonuses last year. The bonuses came at the same time financial companies were accepted federal bailou… watch youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaA-w5FdZoI
Just curious how much bonuses in total were being paid out to the all those elites for TM & GIC last year? since there were never any news of these bonuses being published at all.
Financial (TARP) Bailout Scandal: Taxpayers Shortchanged $78 Billion on Asset Purchases at youtube :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IefZLdPhCxs