We have been calibrating the inflows…
Quah Ley Hoon (Ms), Director, National Population Secretariat, 29 August 2009
[We] must have a sustained, calibrated inflow of immigrants.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 15 September 2009
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what flow? on a plane back to Singapore from China, half the passengers are holding RED Singapore passports. Old men to old ladies who didn’t speak a word of English, all in the sea of red. cannot believe this influx has nothing to do with politicial gain.
Simple mathematics will give you the logic behind this influx of foreigners.
Conservative estimate:
Estimated foreign workforce = 1,000,000
Assume 700,000 are liable for levy = $175,000,000 monthly (@ $250 each estd.)
Annual collection for levy = $2,100,000,000
Whatever workfare/welfare schemes, this amount can cover easily, right?
Consumption:
The 1 million (still growing) foreigners will contribute a few hundred millions in GST for the government.
This is a very profitable business approach. However, a big portion of Singaporeans are footing the foreigners’ contribution by losing their jobs or having to accept foreigners’ equivalent pays here.
LHL’s message means sustaining levy collection by calibrating inflows of immigrants (no levy) and increasing inflows of levy-paying transient workers.
If we have 1,000,000 levy-paying customer = $3 billion annual collection.
THINK!!!
““calibrated inflow””
No surprise as they always use Words of “Highfalutin and Aspiration” to make themselves look like elite !
The importation of foreigners are to increase the consumptions of the many commercial and financial establishments, otherwise the market will collapse. Without the foreigner settlers, the property market would have kaput long ago when there were no more villagers for the Authority to resettle them into public housings.
Will the Orchard/Shenton Way commercial houses survive without the increasing settlers? Will the shopping malls in the hardlands survive?
But, given the tiny speck of landmass, it should be saturated and be overwhelmed with social and political disasters when the population hits more than 6 million.
The Government can calibrate anyway it wishes, the ending will still be ugly.
patriot
The calibrated inflow of foreign workers is to serve only one purpose – the survival of the PAP. The PAP is prepared for a setback in the next election but with the clever calibration, using the foreign worker and his expected support for his PAP benefactor, it is, as certain as night follows day, that in the longer term, the PAP will regain complete control once again.
This is very much like the million dollar salary issue. The reasoning is nothing but lies and half-truths. The need to pay such incredible salary to politicians is not about talent. It is about subduing the corruptible nature of man. The million dollar salary is the trade-off to prevent the tarnishing of the PAP brand name by corrupted PAP politicians. It is the PAP remedy to preventing the likes of Teh Chean Wan – the legendary monkey that was fed peanuts.
Sentence is not complete. Should read. [We] must have a sustained, calibrated inflow of immigrants, in order to cover up our mistakes on population policies. Still trying to play ostrich………
I wonder how calibrated it is when workers are imported en masse only to be sacked en masse in a recession. PM Lee mentioned that 100,000 foreign workers are hired every year, only to remove 21,000 of them in a recession year. Among those are foreign workers who are abused.
moe gan thai !! moe gan thai!!
go back to school to learn how to calibrate properly lah, dun mess up people’s lives!! :?
one of the best quotes from TOC to-date.
Can Quah respond leh?
So, which is it?
But having asked this, i still trust whatever statistics from them.
that goes without saying right, singaproeans?
IF new immigrant intake is to be reduced a little,
does this mean the Critical Mass needed is already in ?
So, how many are there already? Any singaporeans know for sure? Challenging question? Oh, i forgot, we can get the info from where Quah works right?
Their numbers sure very accurate wan hor?
If to be reduced, how to know for sure how much lesser? Who knows, again?
Oh, i forgot again.
When a politician says something is “calibrated”, it actually means they are clueless or don’t give a shit.
Per highlighted by one post herein, Singaporeans birth rate was supposed to be calibrated at 2.1. It was recalibrated thru 1.9, 1.7, 1.5, 1.3, till now TFR = 1.28. Still calibrating after 40 years? Maybe the gauge is wrong! But likely the operator of the gauge is screwed!
I’m still waiting for the actual ratio of foreigners doing/have do NS. “High hundreds” sounds like “unreconciled strategic differences” as in the Chip Goodyear-vs-TH saga. Don’t know why so difficult to share this number with S’poreans. After all, it is calibrated, right?
12) theforgottongeneration on September 16th, 2009 5.01 pm,
Yeah, I agree. They recalibrated the TFR over and over again, because there’s a such thing for under-achievers called ‘performing well when target is set low enough, without regard for reality’. And yes, the operator of the gauge keeps changing how the gauge measures (and therefore the baseline keeps changing), so how would they fix what went wrong……………… :-)
TFR is calculated by looking at females from 15-49 years old (an age range which we can safely assume the overwhelming majority of the foreigners came under).
If we admit 1.2 million foreigners, I am expecting that their presence will raise our TFR, not lower. We are pathetic enough at 1.28, so let’s use 1.28 as a guideline. I can be very conservative to assume we have 10k married females (out of 1.2 million foreigners) in our midst. So then we return to the original statistic used. The highest number in high hundreds is 999.
10k married females assumed with TFR 1.28 means we have 12800 kids.
Out of 12800, assume an equal probability of guys and girls, we get 5600 guys.
Again, I can be conservative, and we say perhaps the reality is we get e.g. 4000 guys. Take 999/ 4000 = 25% max participation rate (means 75% non-participation rate).
Notice that throughout even if I had used conservative calculations, the stand of the policy makers make little sense.
@13) kf on September 16th, 2009 7.34 pm
Hi kf,
If not mistaken, there is also the “Flight of the Foreigner” syndrome before their sons hit 18 years old, so yes you are being very conservative. MM Lee mentioned something like if 3 out of 10 staying in S’pore and he’s happy. So, it could be 30% of 4000 = 1200.
This may make more sense for the mentioned “high 100s” of foreign-borned serving NS. If it is a couple of thousands, the politicans wouldn’t pass out on that opportunity to blow trumpets of “a few thousands”.
Yes, 14) theforgottongeneration on September 16th, 2009 10.25 pm,
I am aware of the flight of the foreigner syndrome, and you’re definitely right. I don’t hear any trumpets being blown. In fact I don’t hear anything! I wanted to illustrate how weak the entire argument on how weak (to the point of insignificance) the policy makers’ case is till today.
This is the reason I have chosen not to use ‘standard statistical assumptions’ e.g. assume probablilty of foreign girl vs total foreigners as 50%, using conservative TFR (I’ll start calling policy makers stupid if the foreigners’ TFR is actually lower than 1.28), low numbers of married females (to which TFR calculation is pegged), and max ‘high hundred’ figure.
I calibrated that my calibration may need more calibrating in order to give a more calibrated calibration.
@16) Calivibration on September 17th, 2009 12.09 am
In other words, they need another 40 years to finish calibrating? What is diff. between Aspiration and Calibration then?
“IM Flash Singapore employs 1,200 workers, of which six in 10 are Singaporeans and permanent residents, while four in 10 are foreigners.” as quoted in Today’s News…
PR was gotten easily during the last 5-10 years of importing foreign talents policy. Some of which are from neighbouring countries who are not at all very conversant in English nor Chinese or both and were granted PR status in a few months and citizenship in a year or two. And now that made up the numbers of “6 in 10 are Singaporeans and PRs”; let say 3 are PRs and the other “4 in 10″ are foreigners. Simple math is 3+4=7.
Isn’t that obvious that jobs are mostly created for foreigners than locally bred Singaporeans. And these so call foreign talents will retire in their own countries for cheaper living standards during their retirement ages. They will most likely sell their HDB flats or private properties to cash out for the capital’s appreciation in the next 15-20 years time. So, guess who will be funding these capital’s gain by then…?