hi Blackfeline,

you are not alone, not when there are retrenched staff loosing their ricebowl, or see their ricebowl trimmed yet again with little pay rise over the years.

got Uni cert big deal, FTs oso have. FTs can undercut our local grads by huge margin, local grads can anot? faced with public housing prices (just this example) that never seem to fall, how to compete? maybe after a few years structural unemployment cycle returns den need to retrain for new job sector with a much reduced salary? Uni cert no use liao…

“change is the only constant thing in the world”? why always change & be poorer not richer?

Now i really sick of this too populated country. Everywhere is people, Chinese from China, Indian from India….. There are too many people in Singapore. I really wish to migrate out of this Singapore. It is just too conjested. Does the government know what they are doing? So many people are complainig, yet they are aloof from all the impact of their doing? IS THIS FAIR!

Blackfeline,

What talking you? Other races have been around for decades and mind you many of the FT nowadays are from the majority race. So are they NOT eating into yr space as well? No logic. Wu liao.

government wants us to die

Hi guys,

please be reminded to respect this space for public discussion. Any further instances of namecalling and insults will be moderated.

I have always wonder why is the govt bringing in more foreign talents & workers when we can’t even retain our local talents.

All I keep hearing from people is they want to retire in . No one wants to retire & die in Sg… That really says how happy people are in Sg.

For the record, I have nothing against foreigners. Now in my neighbourhood, I can dare say foreigners consist of 20-60% of the residents here (Probably why we are always a walkover district).

Anyway, I don’t blame them for causing so much discontent & unfair competitions for jobs among the Singapore workers. In fact, I blame it on the govt for its failure to retaining local talents, hence the need for huge influx of foreign talents/workers…

And they still have the cheeks to pay themselves millions.

As reported recently that the Job Stress level in Singapore is 69 % so what talking you about the quality of LIFE here? Need not go far as the picture tells a story!…………so that translates “Money No Enough” as more will be under the O$P$ Schemes…………….the new logo “O$P$” that will be finally be common sight and accepted here & maybe the IMF and World Bank will admire the logo too (A Singaporean novalty Logo) exported to the Free World.

All they care about is keeping themselves elected and their million-dollar jobs. They know they are gradually losing favours with Singapreans so I’d like to hazard a guess that they want to bring in new citizens to counter this. New immigrants who choose to live in Singapore certainly think they are doing a good job, otherwise they wouldn’t want to come here. Hence, a good bet in increase votes for them.

In time to come, like Ravi had mentioned, there will be as much new citizens as there are original citizens. Then, it will be too late to vote against them. Your votes will hold no power versus the votes of the new citizens.

With so many FT in our midst, I sometimes wish that our PM can be a FT as well.

We’ve got so many FTs around taking our jobs away, what are we still serving NS for? To defend them, the elites or their cronies?

We might as well just hire some mercenary FTs to defend the elite mercenaries here. And please spare us the NE bullshit too.

I am not in sing as I am a quitter.

One of my close hdb neighbours is from China. He is no ft. He only services aircon. He lives with his wife and daughter. He keeps very much to himself and all his visitors are from China.

What added value has he given to sing.

Cannot a sing fellow do his job.

When there is tension I think we sing fellows will do him in.

We are still in the majority.

Dr Frank,

Those other races you mentioned are Singaporean while those majority races you mentioned are non citizens. They are Chinese PR, Indian PR holding Chinese and Indian Passports.

Take a look at MRT you know that the infrastructure cannot take the influx. 10pm still so crowded! I think I will be migrating to Siberia soon.

As long as everyone has a job and the economy keeps growing, there will be lesser tension. But the situation now is the direct opposite. The next 2 years will test our social fabric to the strings. Lesser jobs, more jobless, more jobless among minorities, stereotyping the foreigners. Our government has a real job to do in the next 2 years. Lets wait and see the outcome. Don’t tell us TOC never warn about this.

Dr Frankenstein

Do you not realise that people from china do not share the same culture as us? i have a classmate from china and his primary purpose in coming here to study is to learn english here, use singapore’s resources, and then head for japan or america in the future. he himself has said that the govt here is ‘very strange’ in the different way they treat citizens and non-citizens in that non-citizens get much more benefits than citizens.

govt is actually quite anxious about our low birth rate. couple of weeks ago, i received a call from a survey company (representing MCYS) to answers some qns on fatherhood, even though i am not a father. i went through the survey, because they will send me a S$5.00 NTUC voucher.

anyhow, the surveyor asked me questions like: how impt do you think the role of father in bringing up a child; and what roles can the father play etc. At the end of the survey, I could not bear it anymore, and gave her a piece of my mind, “why is the govt always beating around the bush on such things? the main culprit of our low birth rate is the high cost of living in SG. isn’t that obvious enough? why spend tax payers’ money on these pointless surveys?” the surveyur thanked me for my feedback and took down my address

FYI, i have just received the NTUC voucher. At least I get paid for those few minutes

Does TOC not edit the articles it posts? It would be a pleasanter read if the more obvious errors could have been taken care of.

I already get turned off by the super crowded malls and MRT stations.
these infrastructure clearly already could not handle the capacity.

We are a global business centre country, all economic and trading activities are of utmost important than the composition of the country’s population. Whoever come in or born here must be able to contribute to economy growth of this country ,shall be favoured by the government. Even if the population compositoin is only 10% true local Singaporean and 90% foreigners so be it as long as the country achieves its 4 to 5% economic growth annually. The ones who cannot make it here have to move out to some other places in the world, thats the reality in this globalised world. So we have to accept this destiny we are in. It will come a day when all of us become global citizens , we will be living without borders, working without borders and doing business without borders.

No matter what is said and done come the next election all this talk about going against the govt and unhappiness will come to nought. Why because all these people who talk so much will just be voting in the government yet again.

Sure there will be a lot of protest votes and even the winning percentage will drop but face it you and I know what the outcome is going to be. Just as the sun comes out in the morning and sets in the evening so will this government still be in power unless something of A CHANGE that happened in America comes into force.

Anyone care to wager me on this!

However well your logic is, i am afraid the gaovernment still thinks their policies are better. Since we voted them in, they are not afriad to make unpopular decisions if necessary.

The writer touches on infrastruture stress and social tension, forecast of future GDP but no mention about future inflation. However, i will like to add on is the impact of all these to our cost of living. With a huge influx of “imports”, we will see more jobs competiveness, higher demand for housing, medical services, transports etc.. Cost are just going to skyrocket to meet these demands. These will translate to lower salaries and more dire living conditions to many of our fellow citizens.

Singapore is no longer vibrant to some of her own citizens with a government that has projected an impression of losing touch with the ground. This coupled with a relentless rise in our cost of living, i really dread to think what our future hold.

Dear Mr Rajiv Chaudhry,

Your article suggests that if there is to be continued high economic growth, a corresponding exponential population growth is inevitable. Being powered by enhanced immigation, this will lead to stresses on our infrastructure and our social fabric.

This may not necessarily be the case. It is not valid to extrapolate from the bigger populations of countries who presently have GDPs similar to our future target GDP and say that our country will have the same population when that target is reached.

That is, the size of our GDP can be disproportionate to our physical size and population. If so, the basic premise of your article falls and the whole piece collapses!

If PAP claims that FTs bring many benefits to Singapore, why don’t they employ FTs in our gahmen service too ?? Then we can have a $100,000 PM instead of a $3-million PM. THIS will really help Singapore as millions of dollars in salaries will be saved per year. LOL !

Dr Frank,
When immigration is in smaller numbers, these immigrants will in time
assimillate into our culture and become one of us. Everyone wants to
fit into the new society they choose.

However, in large numbers, they fit into each other perfectly, negating
the need to integrate into Singapore. They mix among themselves and
even if they were to integrate, will take a much longer time than in the
olden days, where the numbers are more manageable.

Can anyone cite the number of Golf Courses here in this ‘Land Scarce’ island?

Looking forward to the proposed solution in part 3 or 4.

So far a gd summary of why the govmin doesn’t get it. Useful for those who get their macroeconomics from our MSM papers.

That’s why there must be a second voice in the Parliament.
Three steps forward two steps back is an ideal
and natural formula for progress.

Just like the Republicans staying in power for two US
Presidential elections ended up making a lot of wrong
policies but refuse to bulge. Therefore it requires
the Democratic Party to repair the damages and set forth
a new direction.

Do agree that social tension are building up due to different value system that the foreign talent are exhibiting.

Espeically without proper introduction into our social value and culture.

For the past over 40 years our gahmen cannot tolerate failures and now come 2009, company failures and negative profits are the norm………….cracking up already!

The over-crowded little RED DOT is now beginning to see red. My worry that the already retrenched 4,000 Sands employees from Macau & HK, will find their way here thus creating a dumping ground for retrenched and jobless workers.
What Job Fair are we talking about?…….when you can have a pool of the so called retrenched IR workers ready for the pick.

If I were younger, I will pack my bags and head DOWN UNDER ………..space & tranquality compared to overcrowding and slowly becoming an Alien City State.

Smallvoice585 at #21:

How do you propose that we handle a larger GDP with a smaller population than other countries with similar GDP? What magic formula does Singapore have?

Kenneth Jeyaretnam has already pointed out in his comment on Part 1 that productivity has fallen for the past two years.

The government from MM downwards has been saying we need more people (in fact MM has been saying it since the 1980s).

Your solution?

One would hope that if we are aiming for 3.5% growth, we can do that without importing workers at the same rate as we’ve done before. But we have to aim for that kind of growth, based on productivity improvements.

Even if we are only interested in growth, we really should be looking at growth of (real) GDP per capita or GDP per worker, rather than growth of GDP. The size of the whole pie ought to be less important than the size of the piece given to the average Singaporean.

How do we cater to the poplution Growth.

Our govt use their financial resources to buy up and invest in Companies globally. Their aim are financially driven with associated risk involved. Yes, like what they say, u may get return in maybe ten to twenty years. But, these money comes from the taxpayer who would utimately be the risker taker.

Why not invest these money to get plot of oversea land which we could do farming at our own end. There are many countries which would offer you land in exchange for the money, technology transfers or investment. So, instead of drawing for more FTA with other countries, our govt should develop more effort to secure land to get enough food for Singapore.

Water has becomes a issue few years back with our neigbour. Why I dont see our minister taking pro active efforts in securing food by farming at oversea. It is very important, dont wait until everyone is buying then you start to think abt it, by that time it would be too late.

Stagflation is only a matter of time to comes with G7 fiscal and monetary policies. So, Singapore got to prepare ourselves first.

Brgds
SIMPL

Vote, Mac, Sad

IMHO, the issue is a large growth in population over a small period of time rather than the nationality and/or cutlure of the FTs. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be squeezed by M’sians, Indonesians, Filipinos and Angmos as well.

There’s really no gain in the talent pool if citizenship is granted to low skilled foreigners. Singapore could perhaps take a leaf from the way things are done in the wealthy Gulf states. Foreign workers remain just that – foreign workers and once their contracts are over, they are sent home, to be replaced by a new lot of similarly low skilled workers. Only the truly talented get their contracts renewed.
Some Gulf states give citizenship to foreign workers but this privilege is only granted to those earning above $10,000 a month, I believe.
The ratio of citizens to foreign workers in some Gulf states is 1:4. But the nationals do not feel overwhelmed — they are well provided for by the state. Couples are encouraged to have children and benefits are provided according to the number of children in the family. And so the pool of nationals grow.
It’s cradle-to-grave welfare, some of us will protest, and something we will never tolerate in meritocratic Singapore. But that’s a subject for another discussion.

Good article, I’m looking forward to your conclusion. If its not “growth at all costs”, then what policy should we be following? If we pursue slower, more moderate growth, do you think we can maintain our status as SEA’s trade/finance hub?

Not saying I don’t agree with the points you’ve raised, just playing the devil’s advocate here :)

PAP is playing Monopoly! Divide and Rules Principle!

Just like MNC got a fews suppliers fighting each other for lower cost.
Singaporean fighting Foreigners for Jobs. Whoever is the dominant forces will be suppressed.

Don’t blame the Gov, that is life in the game of Survival the Fittest! Who ask you don’t Study Hard to be Scholars!

Singaporean are just stupid! They are just pawns in the whole economic battle!

35) ali

The answer to your question is simple, look at the current growth at all cost model, and how vulnerable it is, even though to you it may let SGP maintain that current status quo, how it is precisely this model and its weakness that cause singapore to be reeling from aftershock.

a moderate growth model will be able to shift singapore to a new equilibrium that reduces the same vulnerability. when you fall sick because of somethings you do, you will tend not to do the same that will let the sickness strikes again.

An excellent article. A lot of thought went into it. Thanks Rajiv. Just a little clarification, perhaps, on this statement of yours.

‘As for greenery, the government has already bulldozed most of the primary and secondary jungle on the island, including the large mangrove forest in Punggol[vii]. It is only thanks to the foresight of 19th century colonial administrators that we have the central catchments containing the last remnants of primary Malayan forests on this island.’

To be fair, the National Parks Authority has undertaken a prudent policy of planting lots of trees all over Singapore, over the years. Which is why we have a very green city state. One would be hard pressed to find a greener city in Asia.

Gabriel, agree absolutely.

The Minister (of ND) has mentioned a figure of S$700 million for the greening of Singapore.

I was actually referring to primary and secondary jungle such as is found around MacRitchie reservoir and Bukit Timah Hill. If you are a nature lover, these have a different appeal. These jungles have taken millions of years to evolve (as have the mangrove forests in the coastal areas). Once destroyed, they are gone forever and no amount of money can bring them back.

Singapore, and the world, will be the porer for the loss.

Govt wants exponential population growth, but what about exponential land mass growth, exponential standard of living growth? Soon there will be exponential social unrest growth, exponential singaporean-less growth.

Dear #30 Peter Sellers,

The solution to having a future high GDP disproportionate to a still relatively small population is to maintain or develop high-value industries and services. The life sciences and research drives and the 2 IRs are steps in this direction.

As an analogy, the aesthetic physician who gives Botox jabs to only 10 patients a day seems to have a rather empty waiting room if you happen to walk past his clinic at any time of the day. On the other hand, the GP next door may have a waiting area filled to the brim throughout the whole day, yet he actually earns less than the aesthetic physician.

Of course, there is a limit to this. As Singapore’s economy matures further, growth rates will moderate. The high growth rate policy is not fixed, but is subject to future conditions.

It is a mistake of this article to extrapolate from present conditions to future trends without considering the many variables and uncertainties in the intervening period, and then agonize over its own extrapolations. This only creates unnecessary alarm and anxiety.

i wonder if newly converted S’pore Citizens should prevented from voting for elections the first time?

wait like Aware Saga. newbies come in, vote out ruling party by the strength of sheer numbers. wow!! o.O

any thoughts on this??

testing

Hullo, who got them FT’s here in the first place? Why will they vote the ruling party out?

They should not be allowed to vote because they are not entrenched singaporeans. Giving them the vote is equivalent to giving the CCP and the BOP, and wherever else they hail from an in-road into Singapore politics. That would be the real stuff of nightmares.

re A&E,

keke, i stand corrected on…

////They should not be allowed to vote because they are not entrenched singaporeans.////

… i dunno how to put it in proper context, but agak the the concept of the right to vote (is there?). heh…

once they got their S’pore citizenship would they really exercise that right to vote judiciously? or just teekum teekum can liao?

eh, what is CCP & BOP?

:) Actually, you have to ask Ah Hua and Ah Zhong, lah, how I know how they will vote? Judiciously? Must wait until they have the nutritional value labels printed on the back of the voting slip……Then they will know if they are voting judiciously.

If you are asking if they can vote upon receiving their IC’s. I really donno leh. Ask, go to the kpt and ask for the answer with that kpO. Best…

This is the ugly truth..The only way this red dot can continue to sustain is by favouring the more superior people be it FT or locals, i.e. elitism. If locals cannot meet the super high standard here then they have to suffer or migrate to a less stressful country. What the Gov is doing, be it welcoming FTs & foreign investors, research hub, tourism attraction, overseas financial investments…these are the very positive signs that LKY envisage. What other options can a disadvantaged country like s’pore possible seek?

Rajiv & TOC, thanks for posting some good analysis on a very important issue. This is the type of issue that we need to look at from different angles. The broad trends you’ve outlined are for real, whether or not they materialise exactly as predicted is not the point.

Where I might add a couple of comments:

I think if we consider all areas in totality and not a subset the govt has done an excellent job of managing the many tradeoffs and constraints on our small island (and no, I do not work for the govt or the party). Probably not possible to do much better – although we can all complain about the gahmen in some area.

Question is : have we more or less reached the limits of what Singapore can do. Future growth and progress come at an ever increasing price. If we look at the ever-escalating cost of building each expressway or MRT line, we can see that our system has become too complex with more and more interdependencies to be managed with increasing layers of coordination.

Next issue : the cost structure that we have slowly acquired is predicated upon a certain level of growth/prosperity. When the investment dollars necessary to fund maintenance of our various infrastructure systems start slowing, we will have to make certain tradeoffs on what we can afford. Just look at a big city like London, its struggling healthcare and underground systems, and look at how much money is spent for relatively little impact on the NHS and Transport for London.

So, what is the solution or what ideas at least can we come up with? Look forward to parts 3 & 4.

really dread to see that happen…
guess more people will go bonkers due to the congestion and lack of space…

average citizens are marginalised – high cost of living, single/divorced or few children.

what they doing is to import from neighbouring countries, fast trek them to PR and give them citizenship. One indonesian bought 51 units of condo? Did not you hear it? Many rich indonesians relocated to Singapore and bought 1000s of condo. Not to mention rich Thais or PRCs.

i think the government understands that the average people are getting very disgruntled. they will never change their policies although average citizens are marginalised gradually. so they end up importing what they marketed as “Foreign Talent”, which to me is a marketing term carefully branded for mass acceptance.

hi Aloha,

terminology aside, what you said may very well be true, the average citizen will only be marginalised further if this continues. with locals getting the short end of the stick during economic downturns & formulating the new Public Order Act (POA) to dicisively deal with dissent?

its all about slaves..

how does the towkay make his money..??..

you can argue the point that thru him and his ideas of providing a service or product he monetises a potential value which would otherwise have remained dormant ..probably wasted..

or…

he is a predator.. he searches for prey who will work for less than what they will need to survive.. sells the products or services for more than they(prey) need to pay… hence the reward.. the more slaves he has working for him the better.. the less he can pay them the better.. this way his workers / slaves pay him everyday..

…. lets consider who we all pay… and what we have gotton in return for our good work.. also, consider that we are paving the same slave career path for the little ones who comes after us..

petersellers #30

why do we need or want a greater GDP.. why not have a constant sustainable GDP that will serve 3.5 million Singaporeans well rather than have unsustainable growth at the expense of Sinagporeans who subsidise FT and companies..

and just because MM says so doesnt mean so.. it only means that some 80 yr old guy with lots of vested interest wants to put forth an idea without have to prove that it is absolutely necessary…

someone will always have to make the payment .. lets not buy the product..

we are constantly told to retrain.. upgrade our skill..

while the government constantly undercuts our wages by introducing (dumping) cheaper workers into the economy.. its not that the singaporean worker is not qualified.. its that the companies don’t want to pay the required wages.. ours is not a free economy where demand and supply finds an equilibrium price .. what we have is a planned economy.. subservient to the FDIs received.. the govt promisses the foreigners (business) that they will have low taxes.. low wage costs.. compliant workforce.. (tripartite bullshit)… great living…

what do the citizens get… fear of losing their jobs.. escalating cost.. unfair competition.. uncertain retirement… /// of course lets not forget our 1st class government..

what we need is a true voice of the people.. at the moment we have none..

Migration may not be an idea. After all, you may end up as 3rd-6th class citizens over other countries. I admit that Spore is getting crowded. For people who still has the luxury to take leaves, you should apply for one day or half day leave to do your shopping. Me & my friends try to spend our weekends in cinemas to avoid the crowds.

Looks like its some kind of conspiracy ffrom the ruling party. Since, the original Singaporeans are such a discontented lot. Let’s get ‘New Singaporeans’ to sucker on!

With the cost of living ever rising so quickly and the salary diminishing so drastically. How can the average Singaporean really survive? We were suckered into material comfort over those years when the economy is doin well. With the economic downturn. People start loosing their cushy and relatively well-paid job and are still stuck with the day-to-day household expenditure, mortgages, hire-purchase, etc…….With little jobs in sight and still having to fight it over with our FT counterpart. Man! Where are we headed? We were told to bite-the-bullet and ride thru this time of hardship. Can the ruling party please lead by example?

Our ruling party advocating, pay peanuts you get monkeys policy. Is it really working? We are still in the doldrum, aren’t we?

Btw, why do we need million bucks senior minister(SM) and mentoring(MM) for our PM? You mean he is not capable for the job? Never heard of such nonsense before.

Like most business model, maybe we should outsource capable FT(on contractual basis, that does not cost millions) to manage all our different Ministries. We would have abundance balance in our resources to look after all our aged, sick and neeedies.

To Rajiv Chaudhry, thanks for the fantastic article. Looking forward to the last part. Cheers!

America has been losing an average of 600,000 jobs a month, starting from this Jan of 2009.
At the rate of unemployment that America is facing, we will see 8.4million job losses by the end of this year. This is not counting the 5.4million that are looking for jobs.
America is in a Depression. The media here are careful not to use the D word.
The malls are empty, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone bankrupt.

SONY just lost $1billion. GM n Chrysler has gone bust.

Americans are not buying, or spending their money, many fear that they will lose their jobs.

Singapore depends on its exports to America, and that has dropped severely.
I don’t see us coming out of this recession/depression for many more years.

My question is how is the Singapore Govt going to feed all of its people?

“My question is how is the Singapore Govt going to feed all of its people?”
Ans: Feed all of its people with propaganda.