… the economic crisis is putting Singapore’s political system to its severest test since independence in 1965. “Officials appear scared about the public reaction. I’ve never seen them so concerned before,” said a Singapore-based regional political analyst.
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“Officials appear scared about the public reaction. I’ve never seen them so concerned before,”
I believe it not they are not scared about the public reaction, more of what would happen to them if they ignore public reaction (refer to SHT case).
Before, everything were all well concealed and covered up so they can confidently telling their lies to the people with MSM as their main tool to mislead the public. Now when all their dirts start to surface one after another, what do you expect them to say this time? lies again? so better to keep their mouth shut less whosoever dares speak up without using their brains and thinking that their master is their God, then they are deadfully wrong this time. Of course, there will still be some brainless mice trying to bark like dogs.
the public reaction to daylight 3.30 pm robbery with sharp object and punched in face in Clarke Quay will be that Spore is no safer than JB where SBS bus driver got slashed. are our streets as safe as being touted so proudly?
and today the MSM is telling us JB nursing homes are a great draw indeed – cheaper! then open all the floodgates and we can all flock there to fill up petrol to our hearts’ content. why hold back? no shred of humanity left when they measure everything in $ and Cents!!
What is the public reaction? it is all in the net.
why feel scared when they feel no wrong has been committed???
The truth is appearing bit by bit, and i feel that this is the good thing brought about by the recession. with the economy getting worse, our dear extraordinary leaders were unable to do much and bang straight into a wall plus GIC and Temasek investment are going down the gutters, all this will snowball into something that they won’t be able to deny and stop.
the bodohs don’t know there are two kinds of talents. keep importing talents without distinguishing the two kinds will lead to social and economical disaster.
see lah. gaykhiang.
Let me recap a bit, “dont need to tell them more ” ref to purported letter to one town council from the powers, another one “tranport fares not directly linked to oil” – looks like cars run on air, hehe.
Next, “golden years” – haha mother of all bluffs, lets see anymore. Ah, “China and India have decoupled” from West – who is intended to kid who??
No wonder, what a brilliant Financial Times can sense that a speck of red dot tnousands of miles away in the far east is beginning to . . …
Oh, and i like the way IHT phrase it “Kuwait, Singapore funds lose on finance bets” Bets, it is a bloody gamble to begin with.
Garment where got scared one? Only pretend to be scared lah. So silly one.
Sillyporeans kena fooled again. Something coming out soon lah, don’t believe just wait and see.
First give you the carrot, next comes the stick – same pattern all the time, for so many year already. Yet still cannot get it.
No wonder HK and Taiwan people called Sillyporeans stuuupiiid.
Out of touch? Where got out of touch? Only out of touch according to your own perspective lah. The Garment is always in touch with what counts, i.e. MONEY, lots of money to count everyday and every night.
Where got out of touch? Only those without money are out of touch lah. No money to count, how to touch?
Govt scared? I know I am very scared!
When I got my office carpeted recently, I was surprised that the workers are from China. The two sales staff of the shop where I got my furniture from was a Filipino and the other from China. On my way back, I stopped at a Shell station, and guess what? the pump attendant was from China, and the woman behind the payment counter was a Filipino.
All these jobs that were once held by locals are now deem “unsuitable” through the availability of cheaper foreign labour. It is socially irresponsible of the govt to allowed this to happened. It must stop, and it has to be immediate.
When this headline
“Harry to retake diversity class ”
appeared in today’s ST I was so happy, thinkng that at last, somebody is going to learn to be more tolerant of alternative views. That is, until I read on and discovered that it was another Harry…
“Britain’s Prince Harry sent back on diversity course….”
It is a very simple mantra that any government should focus on. Treat citizens like dignified people. Citizens are not statistics.
#59er said “The two sales staff of the shop where I got my furniture from was a Filipino and the other from China. On my way back, I stopped at a Shell station, and guess what? the pump attendant was from China, and the woman behind the payment counter was a Filipino.
All these jobs that were once held by locals are now deem “unsuitable” through the availability of cheaper foreign labour. It is socially irresponsible of the govt to allowed this to happened. It must stop, and it has to be immediate”.
BUT for reasons of fat profits and pressing down local wages, they are allowing Sporeans to be displaced in even unskilled jobs. THAT is why they won’t put an immediate stop to this. Go to any coffeshop and again China men and women run the place. Remember something about a minister saying young foreign sexy beer girls keep the business going for the aunties by attracting customers- more likely dirty old men!!
of course the officials are scared of public reaction. They have always boast of forward long -term planning but look at how pathetic the MRT situation is with all the inadequacies and overcrowding?
Now they are scarmbling to rectify them but only 2011 are we to see less squeeze. I won’t pay such `pseudo-talents’ to plan our transport system.
CNA `With 900 additional train trips per week added since last year, that is the best the system can do in terms of train frequencies, given the current constraints. Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Transport Minister Raymond Lim said the only way to increase capacity is through infrastructural changes.
Currently, there is a bottleneck at the Jurong East Interchange station. The whole system is slowed down as the train does a turnaround, because there is only a single platform for this.
LTA is now building a second platform so that two trains can turn around at the same time, with the project completion brought forward by a year to 2011′
such helicopter vision indeed!!.
22 new trains are also being bought. When they enter the system, it should lower waiting times to as low as 2 minutes at the busiest stretches.
“Scared”?? I say “Shattered”. Admit failures, learn from mistakes and fix problems (not people) then win TRUST into your rule.
14) Singaporespirit on February 13th, 2009 9.36 am
Agreed, but the sad fact is are these nincumpoops up to task? You be the judge.
Strip off their protecting shield and ywhat can you expect?. If they are genuinely caring for the people, come next election and on, go on a one on one contest (dissolve the GRC system). Have a maximum 3 terms limit for all governing officials. Allow PR to runf or office, If they win in big margin over two elections, I truly applaud them.
To sicktothebones, Pls don’t talk abt this guy Raymond Lim. He is a useless transport minister. we pay him millions of dollars and he can’t forsee the problem. Then i better vote in a weak opposition MP where the pay is less, and can’t solve problem like this Raymond Lim. It is better for us to get rid of these high pay ministers. Hokkien says ” Cho Bo Lan”
16) tew pu ki
a correction, the cheaper opposition MP will accept lesser pay and will produce better result
At the rate of about S$190,000 per year, I would expect all MPs to take up their role as People’s Representative on a full-time basis.
Yes, the role of an MP should be legislated into a full-time job. There is a allowance that already surpasses the majority of citizens’ wages, hence there is no reason to say that they should require another job to pay the bills or raise the family.
well? might happen soon.
Scared?–Now I know why $1.4 millon dollar perm sec is re-skilling to become a French cook.–on advice of LSS
In this mother-of all financial crisis, anything can happen.
This tsunamic wave is giving all govts the shivers—-I wonder what would happen to the thousands of $million scholars in govt svs if they have to find a REAL job in the private sector?
MIGRATE?
the million $$$ ministers and their bunch of scholars who give them ill conceived advice deserve to be put on one boat with a one way trip out on the South China Sea. And as a big favour to all citizens, the boat should sink too !
It is so scary to learned that there are actually so many dirty things being done to the people who trusted them with all their livelihood for so many years and believing their lies after lies and making empty promises. Now then we know why they are unable to get talented people into their party but instead they have to resort to buy over those ministers from malaysia to do their dirty work for them. Not that we singaporeans do not have any talented people, just that most talented ones are those who have hearts towards their own people and yet they can’t do anything about it than to migrate off the country for good.
Albert Einstein says that “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” which ring true for our case, we pay so much for these extraordinary leader that produce result that we should have gotten for free…
George Bernard Shaw says that ““He who knows nothing; he thinks he knows everything – that clearly points to a political career”” and does that ring a bell of our MIW?
George Oswell says that ““Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” and that is again so so true…just like what has been going on
and as a final quote, i will like to quote Plato again, but this time with a different verse “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato” so smart people who avoid politics, if you can do it, please stand up for the next GE and let our voice be hear.
aiyoyo
so how should commoners react/appear huh?
aiyoyo
so, Why they scared? Or rather Pinky still CANNOT FIND THE next successor?
the whole of singapore political system is so dysfunctional and the office holders so irresponsible that I won’t be surprised that this is THE END OF THE SINGAPORE STORY!
Anyway, all these office holders must have homes elsewhere in the world that they can retreat to if everything takes a turn for the worst. ALL MINISTERS SHOULD DECLARE THEIR FOREIGN ASSETS.
As a small nation, we cannot afford to have a Chen Shuibian, who appears clean and honest but is through and through corrupt to the core.
chowbabai,
Yes, in fact, we do have one here too, the “lau buay see” dictator who appears clean & honest but is downright rotten to the core ! Hoped that the 18th level “afterworld” that KBW mentioned is meant for the famiLEE and his cronies. I will personally ensure he receives the $58B (in hell monies) I burnt for him to enjoy there.
They should not be scared and prove that they are worth every cent that we are paying for.
Right now the equation seems to make sense
1) We do not know how much money we have lost in TOTAL
2) We do not know how much money we had to begin with…
3) Lots of mixed up reports and numbers floating around the internet
And the scene on the ground cant hide the actual views of Singaporeans.
As the saying goes, best way to judge a person is during a crisis.
Let’s see what new SLOGAN/THEME or commitee the PAP govt will come up with …….
maybe just maybe
singaporeans should not ask for more info
and just TRUST them
as we always have?
if u trust, why need to ask for more info? when for all this while
people trusted them?
afterall, we are singaporeans. the most unique people on earth.
LKY managed Singapore from 1959 to 1990 = 31 years.
GCT managed Singapore from 1990 to 2004 = 14 years.
Both of them accumulated at least $100 billion as our National Reserves.
LSH manages Singapore from 2004 to 2008 and squandered off more than $58 billion of our National Reserves by allowing his wife to “gamble” with public funds using Temasek as a vehicle.
Isn’t that a good does of incompetent govt, as mentioned by LKY when he tried to justify the obscene pay rise for the ministers and top civil servants in 2007?
“You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you’ll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again…and your asset values will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people’s countries, foreign workers.” (The Straits Times, 5 April 2007)
- Lee Kuan Yew,
Minister Mentor