I thought we have extraordinary people who demanded for extraordinary pays and bonuses, perks and preferential treatments, body guards, and all that?

Then how come such extraordinary people cannot predict simple logical deductible problems? And then come out with excuses after excuses every time after something has happened?

We must demand that they pay back the undeserved salaries and bonuses that they have shamelessly taken from taxpayers’ money, like what those top CEOs and Consultants in USA have been returning their last years’ undeserved rewards.

Singaporeans must wake up and stop allowing ourselves from listening to such excuses any more.

This comment is not helping with my morale and motivation, y’know. So please don’t say anything.

I still remember SM Goh saying this: “If all of us go into a power save mode, then the economy will really go into a recession! This is what economists called the Paradox of Thrift. If you have sufficient savings and can afford to spend, you should continue to spend on life’s little pleasures”…….

Now, even spending money is not good enough to bring singapore back on its original path. Word of wisdom does changed from time to time.

We should adopt SDP’s budget proposal.

http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/1845-budget-spending-not-transparent-sdp-proposes-alternative-5-point-plan-

It makes me sick to hear from MSM that the union says it is acceptable for companies like GLC Chartered to retrench workers if….
The top takes a 15-20 per cent pay cut but still commands a very high salary but the retrenched ones get 100% pay cut as they are kicked out. So this is acceptable.
And they say the company will collapse if they don’t retrench. What about the bloated top management? Only token cuts?

Our leaders make the Wall Street bankers look like Saints. Yes, they too took shameless wages but at least they accepted liability and left their jobs.

get off my peasant face with all this year of ox excreta talk about speed boat in a storm as excuses to explain why Spore is first to drop into recession and to continue to show negative growth when regional countries are forecasting growth.
If bloomberg inteview with Tharman is accurate (suddenly removed from MSM) then the 24 billion thrown after bad collapsing american financial institutions could have been added to the 20.5 billion `resilient’ budget from our reserves to turbocharge our economy.
Then we will be the last to go into recession and first to show growth instead of contraction. no need analogies about speedboats, boats rowing in same directions, etc

Now they are explaining why we went into a recession first. I thought MM Lee said that even if US goes into recession, Singapore is ok because we have other trading partners like China and India. Govt said that the worst GDP growth will be 3%, now it is -2 to -5%. Govt said that they have effectively transform our economy to be more diverse and so better to face any recession. Why now say that we are faster and worst hit because we are export driven economy?

Seems like the PAP has no control over the economy. Anyone who cannot take responsibility during a downturn should not claim credit during an upturn. Dont ever say you upturn the downturn. Just say that we waited for the world economy to recover so we are now recovering….

More like an ant without it’s head.

8) Lightning Strikes Again on February 3rd, 2009 8.38 am

Now they are explaining why we went into a recession first. I thought MM Lee said that even if US goes into recession, Singapore is ok because we have other trading partners like China and India.

It is because of this:

Singapore’s two biggest export destinations of Europe and the United States are in recession, while China, its third largest market, expanded at the slowest pace in seven years last quarter.

Finance Minister Tharman – January 30, 2009

Well, now they are covering up their lack of extraordinary talent with all these fiasco as they don’t want to lose their extraordinary perks and pays.

Now now, they are crying over spilled milk and i think some of the question that we want to ask is why these “extraordinary” people didn’t foresee it when the symptoms of the brewing storm appears? since they are so smart and capable to deserve those pay, then they should be able to predict it and try to minimize the impact instead of meeting it heads on. and only when the storm hit them and they are caught in the middle of it, then the reaction comes and they are pointing the blame to external factors and making comments that seems so hollow. Just like what some people have said since the tide has subside, we can see who has been the one swimming naked.

some PRO-MIW will be saying “grow up” etc you can’t expect them to know this. and my answer will be, yes, they are humans and not soothsayer, but they can give big talks about why they deserve that pay and we want them to deliver the big performance that should come from in.

Haha commentator 11, it’s not just Singapore’s leaders who can’t foresee…even the top bankers, regulators in the US didn’t foresee the subprime crisis.

If so many people are unhappy about the failure of our leaders to foresee the crisis, why don’t you cast a vote for the opposition in the next election? Surely that’s the best way to register your discontent.

They should be thrown out of the govt long time ago, why should we still allow them to continue playing their games with the people of sg.

The plunge will be even steeper if protectionism sentiments gain the upper hand.
Buy American, Buy French, Buy German, Buy Japan, Buy Chinese what’s next?

eternalhap , if i can, i will, but sadly, i stay in a walkover GRC, so i can’t express my discontent through vote.

“even the top bankers, regulators in the US didn’t foresee the subprime crisis.” that’s where i think you are wrong. with their loan policies etc, the outcome is logical and it is just waiting to happen. but let me say this, which highly-paid exec who gets their high pay by producing growth and profit on paper will say that “oh this is gonna happen because of what we did” and lose their job etc as a result. sometimes these people may think that denying the fact that is staring at them will make the whole problem just disappear. and there are some who has already guess this will happen. and based on all the hypes our extraordinary leaders put on themselves, people expect them to have foresight capability.`

as for US, i can’t blame them for developing protectionism sentiments. every man for himself, and if that’s the most practical alternative, then they will use it. I mean if we put ourselves in their shoe and this situation pop up and protectionism is the easiest solution, i will choose it at the expense of others.

#10 your point is? MM Lee’s prediction is wrong when he said that `even if US goes into recession, Singapore is ok because we have other trading partners like China and India’?.
We are not OK even though we have other trading partners like China and India. The reason given is China expanded at the slowest pace last quarter. Then what about India?
Maybe it should have been even if US goes into recession Spore is not OK because our other trading partners like China and India are also not spared the fallout.

12) SZ
“Now now, they are crying over spilled milk and i think some of the question that we want to ask is why these “extraordinary” people didn’t foresee it when the symptoms of the brewing storm appears?”

I think they did foresee problems for Singapore, why else did they start Casinos. It is no secret that MNCs have moved out from Singapore over the last decade to lower costs locations. It is no secret that companies are finding it harder to do business in Singapore because of high costs. The Government has been trying to shore up our economy with other things like Biotech and Chemical industries, making us a financial hub and building Casinos so that when all the manufacturers (electronics / precision engineering) have moved out; the other components of the economy has grown enough to take over the void left behind by our anchor industries. However I think the rate of exodus of manufacturing is too fast which I think is aggravated by the increasing high costs (salary) in Singapore; thus we entered into a recession 2 quarters earlier than the Global financial crisis. We were hearing dismal GDP figures for exports quarters before the Financial Tsunami hits us.

I think the problem is as clearly explain by the speedboat analogy in the article. Singapore has never bothered to build a solid ship. In all our years of development we relied on getting foreign investments through MNCs; even in making our economy more diverse the Govt adopted the same principle. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact Singaporeans wealth has been created by this principle. But with globalisation and lower costs growth areas like China and India, this princple alone without building a solid ship with home grown industries cannot be sustained.

Since all the Good men in the Government could not have avoided a crisis like this, I urge the Government starting from the MPs / Perm Secs/top civil servants to drastically adjust their salaries so that it is comparable to the peers in US or Japan. Our water perm sec probably makes more than the President of the United States/ leader of the free world. If their theory is correct, then some of the Good men will go to the Private Sector and that may be the fresh blood that is needed to revive the Private Sector. At least one perm sec can be a chef in the top french restaurant. The far reaching benefits of them lowering the salaries of the public sector means that private companies can follow suit and overall expectations of Singaporeans will also be lowered. Expectations can either be lowered this way through proper leadership or by the stark realities of massive jobless people. With a lower cost structure, continue to do what you do best; get foreign investment and complete the diversication of Singapore’s economy. Rigorously build and support local enterprise; unlike the MNCs they will not move out on the first sign of trouble.

18) Lightning Strikes Again

Some astute observations there. I agree with you that the population/size (eg China/India) of S’pore and lack of natural hinterland (eg. Switzerland/Monaco/HK/Macau) will always mean that S’pore cannot be a “big ship”.

Also, the govt is interested in keeping a certain proportion of manufacturing, as it lends a certain stability and spin-off effects to the rest of the economy. Remember they toyed with killing off manufacturing in the regionalisation/dot-com days, and that turned out to be a near disaster. However, investments in this field will be sustained against competition from low-cost countries by suppressing workers wages in these sectors.

Supporting local industries is also a hit-or-miss affair, as the chances of really building up “world-class companies” from the myriad number of SMEs is a tough ask – many are unprepaid for a world outside the small yet unregulated home market, and those that do succeed are often only too glad to cash in their chips and sell to foreign buyers.

The inconvenient truth is that S’pore’s economy cannot survive without pursuing the current policies/strategies and being victim to the volatility of it – unfortunately this is terrible for local employees as they have to work harder, longer (in life) under more stress/uncertainty – all to simply maintain the same standard of living that their parents acheived (ie, live in an HDB/tiny condo and drive a small car).

For those with the talent (but arent willing to be businessowners) – take a leaf from from the foriegn workers/EP/PR holders here – learn your trade here and take it the the west where you will be fairly compensated and have the benefit of a social safety net.

18) Lightning Strikes Again

oh, i forgot to add that I agree with you about lowering govt / civil service leadership pay. They should also reduce the other costs of doing business such as fees and land costs – these all keep going up as real wages come down

#13 eterlhap

go learn something about how PAP gerrymanders and cut up constituencies to prevent voting losses.

this is how only 50-60% of the electorate gets to vote, and a 66.6% for PAP can result in 98% seats in parliament. while 33.3% for opppo parties translatin to 2 %..

of coz it goes beyond the elections. duh. u kena psycho from young about PAPism and for 20 years of brainwashing u wont even realise wat ur’e asking and saying are so indoctrinatedd.

Absolutely agree that a good start is to lower the govt / civil service leaders’ pay.
Reducing to 1/10 th would be darn accurate when we compare with other 1st world administration.
Our president should be more than happy being paid just to shake some hands,
pose for photos and cut some ribbons.
And our incumbent PM should also be happy to share his salary with SM and MM
Afterall they are holding his hands. That’s right, one salary for the threesome.
By the way I have a lousy feeling about this speedboat thingy, especially when
we have 3 blokes at the helm…..good chance being steered onto the rocks.

Once it was a canoe (Mahbubani Kishore) now it’s a speedboat! Can we be a submarine for once?

I think some blog association people after failing over their side try to come here to kah jiao.

I almost wanted to laugh out when I realized from today shitty time that one of the blogger association chair lady is the “eastcoastlife” blog, aunty who insist that Singapore problem are caused by the PAP scholars rather than the ministers. LOL

One tiny speed boat with 3 Indian chiefs. Hahaha…. I thought speedboat usually used to smuggle cigrettes into Singapore?

25) RED-man on February 4th, 2009 3.25 am

Maybe we should be a cigarette boat instead? =)

http://www.cigaretteracing.com/