TR EMERITUS

This is a contributed video from our reader, Temasekboi.     They were persecuted for 'Standing up for Singapore'.  Read More →

During the 2000 NDP speeech, Goh Chok Tong (then PM) in 'Reviewing the Past', said: 1. Reviewing the Past We have ended the twentieth century on a high note. 2. We are on the way to becoming a nation where there was none before.  Our people are well educated, and able to make a good living. 3. We have created a role for ourselves as a regional hub in Asia, and as a productive node in the global economy.  Our economy is developing an external wing, to overcome the constraints of our small population and island. 4.Year by year, we have climbed up the economic ladder.  With per capita income of $40,000 and universal home ownership, Singaporeans today are among the better off in the world. 5. Our national cohesion, a willingness to share burden, has helped us pull through two serious crises – first the economic recession in 1985, and recently the Asian financial crisis. 6. This year, we have done better than expected.  Growth in the first half was 8.8 per cent The revised GDP growth for the first quarter of 2000 is 9.8% (previously 9.2%), and for the second quarter, 8.0% (previously 7.7%).. For the whole year, MTI has raised its forecast to between 7.5 and 8.5 per cent growth. Come January, we should be able to make another significant restoration of the CPF contribution rate. New Realities and Challenges 7. Right now, our prospects look promising.  But we should recognise several realities around us and the challenges they pose to our prosperity and national cohesion. 8. First, whether we like it or not, every Singaporean is now competing against the rest of the world. Not just bankers and airline employees, but also nurses, retailers, and factory operators.  This is the reality of globalisation. 9. Second, Singapore cannot just rely on Southeast Asia as our hinterland. Our neighbours too want to do what we are doing.  They too aspire to become regional hubs for shipping, aviation, banking and IT.  We must cast our net wider. We need to draw business from a bigger region, including India, China, Australia and New Zealand.  And we must increase our links with the US, Europe and Japan. 10. Third, as companies restructure or merge to improve their operations, we will see retrenchments.  Job vacancies are up, yet 7,800 workers were retrenched in the first half of this year. Low-skilled jobs are being lost, while high-skilled ones are being created.  This economic restructuring will continue and in fact speed up. 11. Fourth, the income gap between the top and bottom will widen.  With both China and India opening up, the global supply of unskilled workers has increased. This will depress the wages of unskilled workers everywhere. On the other hand, around the world, demand for skilled people, especially top talent, exceeds supply.  Furthermore, such people are mobile, and can go wherever they are in greatest demand.  So incomes of those with skills and high ability will rise to global standards. 12. We want all Singaporeans to benefit from the New Economy. Holding down incomes at the top will not help the lower income group.  But enabling the lower income group to take on higher-skilled jobs and enhancing the value of their assets will. 13. We will therefore help workers who are retrenched to retrain so that they can find new work, and lower wage workers to upgrade to higher paying jobs. We are emphasising retraining and skills upgrading, to get as many Singa-poreans as possible to become skilled. We will continue with our asset enhancement programmes, as long as the economy is doing well and we have budget surpluses to share out. 14. On balance, the global trends are positive for Singapore.  The fiercer competition will drive us to excel. Our people, especially our young, are well educated in technology and IT.  Most Singaporeans will have the skills and training to do the jobs that are being created.  Most of us are on the right side of the knowledge and digital divide, and more can be if we make the effort. 15. While we must do our best to strengthen our competitiveness to create wealth in our economy, we cannot and will not stop there.  Nation building is not just about building a competitive economy.  More importantly, it is also about building a cohesive society and strengthening the sense of unity in our people. As a nation, we will face new social challenges posed by the ageing of the population, structural unemployment, digital divide and widening of the income gap.  We must all do our best, work together to address them so that most, if not all Singaporeans, can live a better life. This is what nation building is all about. Key is Talent 16. The key to Singapore’s continued growth is talent.  We must get the best people for the most crucial jobs, to run our companies and the government. We need people, Singaporeans and foreigners, who have fresh perspectives and insights and the enterprise and drive.  They can anticipate and solve problems, and create opportunities for us.  And they will need good supporting teams to succeed. 17. Singapore’s own talent pool is too small for all the things we want to do. We need to top it up with global talent.  Many countries now openly recruit foreign talent. They are relaxing immigration policies, and bringing in more foreign bankers, engineers, and technicians to boost their economies. Singaporeans are being targeted too, and we will lose some of them. We must therefore also welcome foreign talent, and absorb them into our economy and society to strengthen the Singapore team. More Children 18. Another reason we need foreign talent is because Singaporeans are not reproducing themselves. 19. Far too many of our women remain unmarried.  And Singaporeans who are married are not having big enough families to make up for those who remain single.  We have not been able to solve these two grave problems. 20. Immigration will help us to grow our population.  But if we continue to have too few babies, over time, the proportion of Singaporeans in our population will fall. The texture and character of our society will change. 21. The Government will introduce more measures to help Singaporeans overcome obstacles to marriage and having children.  Not only is this in the long-term interest of the nation, but I believe that happy families will also bring balance and fulfilment to our lives. Conclusion 22. We have progressed and thrived, because we have built up strong institutions founded on sound values. The government, the judiciary, the unions, our educational institutions, and the media - these key institutions have promoted the interests of the people.  The public sector, private sector and people sector have worked together, to build a national consensus on what our challenges are and how to overcome them. 23. In the 21st century, we must have the drive, dare and imagination to do even better than in the 20th. We must work together to make sure as many Singaporeans as possible do well.  Then we will have the resources to help the rest to also enjoy the fruits of Singapore’s success. 24. I wish all Singaporeans a Happy National Day!   Singaporeans should have seen it coming, no?   Grey Hippo    Read More →

By Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Voting RP blog Dear Fellow Singaporeans, On Monday we will celebrate our 45th National Day since the break with Malaysia in 1965. Most Singaporeans justifiably take pride on this day in our country’s economic achievements since independence. Indeed the PAP government uses this day to peddle its version of history and contrast what is presented as their achievements with the unprovable counterfactual of what life would have been like for Singaporeans if the PAP had not been in charge. Our bookstores proudly display MM Lee’s book entitled, “From Third World to First” and foreign journalists often repeat the mantra that Singapore was a mangrove swamp before the PAP were elected to power. Last National Day PM Lee showed slides of Singapore as it was fifty years ago and contrasted it with the shimmering metropolis of today. Yet it is only right that these achievements be set in context and relative to what other countries have achieved. At independence Singapore already had several advantages over other countries at similar stages of development, including an incomparable strategic location and one of the world’s best natural harbours as well as the benefits of past investment and legal framework by the British Colonial powers, including a world-class dry-dock, the deepest dock in the region and a reasonable infrastructure and education system. Between 1960 and 2007 Singapore’s real GDP per worker grew some 660%. However over the same period Malaysia managed 643%, Thailand 668%, Hong Kong and South Korea both managed 800% and Taiwan managed 1240% over the same period. The Reform Party has already drawn attention to the fact that when Singapore’s very impressive-looking statistics for real GDP per capita are normalized for the effects of Singapore’s much greater pool of productive workers relative to the total population then our real GDP per employed person in 2008 drops to only slightly higher than that of South Korea. When account is taken of the much longer hours worked by Singaporeans then the real GDP per hour worked is only some US$25, about the same level as Korea and well below Japan on US$39 or the USA on US$55. Over the period 2000-08 our real GDP per hour worked only expanded by some 1.2% p.a. while the USA and Japan managed 2% and Korea managed 4.2%. Productivity fared worse, falling sharply subsequent to the recent recession (by some 14% peak to trough). The undoubted recent sharp recovery on the back of the spectacular GDP growth numbers will probably only put us back to where we were in 2007. In other words we are no better off than in 2007 let alone than in 2009. The only conclusion one can draw is that, despite the incessant harping by the PAP government on the superior quality of governance Singaporeans enjoy, there has been little value-added despite the multi-million dollar salaries for our ministers and the curtailments of personal freedoms and political rights that we have suffered. Indeed, Hong Kong, with its minimal government interference in the economy, stands in stark contrast to Singapore where after the share of GLCs and foreign MNCs is taken into account there is precious little left for domestic private enterprise. Read rest of article here.  Read More →