TR EMERITUS

I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again: Singapore continues to be plagued by a government that leeches itself on the economy, sucking the lifeblood out of the workforce. Now, having opened Orange & Teal (O&T), I can speak from first-hand experience how the People’s Action Party (PAP) continues this wayward economic governance at the expense of society. I’m, of course, referring to the collection of fees and other charges (eg, foreign worker levy, COEs, ERPs) which is an easy way of lining state coffers but has a pernicious effect on the people. Let’s start with the F&B business. It’s become axiomatic that sourcing staff for restaurants are stuff of nightmares. I came across a restaurant that was almost pleading with customers not to be abusive to its staff because of the long waiting times due to staff shortage. This is partly due to the lack of workers skilled in the area of F&B. How the situation deteriorated to such an extent is another discussion. And because there is such a shortage of locals for the sector, F&B operators have had to turn to employing foreigners. The PAP then exploits the situation by charging – gratuitously – a foreign worker levy of several hundred dollars per worker. It says that such a levy is a “pricing mechanism” necessary to control the number of foreign workers being employed in Singapore. This is hogwash. The government pre-determines the number of people it allows in to work here. Even if a company is willing to pay a million dollars for a foreign worker, if the government doesn’t allow that worker to come in, it doesn’t happen. It’s that simple. Tacking on a levy for every foreign employee is wholly unnecessary and serves only as a source of easy money for the state. (Aside #1: It’s the same for COEs. The authorities already fix the number of new cars allowed on our roads each month/year. COEs is just an excuse to extract more money from the populace.) How does the foreign workers’ levy affect Singaporeans? For starters, the increased cost of doing business is passed onto customers. Is it any wonder that people find it increasingly expensive to eat out? (Aside #2: And don’t get me started on rent, which is another cash cow for the government and which adds to the burden of operators and consumers. The only party laughing all the way to the bank is of the People’s-Action ilk.) Back to the issue at hand. Employing just a few foreigners means that a company may end up paying thousands of dollars in levies. Such amounts could mean the difference between viability as a business or going under. The levies also mean that employers are constrained in paying their staff better wages – including Singaporeans –. (Aside #3: The levy is not confined to the F&B industry. The construction sector also needs a multitude of foreign workers. Each contractor/sub-contractor building your HDB flat pays enormous sums on levies. This cost is passed onto to HDB, a cost which you end up paying when you buy a flat – a double boon for the government.) What all this means is that the exorbitant cost of living makes life in Singapore highly stressful, resulting in younger couples opting for fewer children which, in turn, gives the PAP the opportunity to declare a procreation crisis and open the immigration gates even wider – all the while collecting billions in revenue from employers of foreign workers. This must stop. This is why my Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) colleagues and I continue to work towards the next General Election. Many of you have asked me whether I will continue in politics since I opened Orange & Teal. I say again, until this old heart of mine stops beating, I will never stop speaking up for this nation, for our people. Now more than ever, I need your support to get into Parliament. See you at O&T.   Dr Chee Soon Juan      Read More →

The central banks kept interest rate too low and printed too much money during the past decade. This has led to high inflation. The war in Ukraine, together with the pandemic, made the situation worse. The central banks have now increased interest rate sharply. They wanted to fight inflation. This is expected to cause an economic recession in 2023. The media, and the government, made it appear to be a big problem. What is a recession? It is an economic decline. Maybe, the economic will drop by 5% or worse by 10%. So what? If it dropped by 10%, it meant that the economic growth for the past 5 years have been wiped out, i.e. assuming that the economy grew by 2% a year. What is so bad about 2018? We just go back in time by 5 years, maybe less. The problem with an economic recession is that 10% of the people, or perhaps 20%, will be hit badly. They will lose their jobs and be depressed. Even those who remained employed will be scared. People who lose their income may face great financial distress. They may go hungry or be chased out of their home. This problem is our economic system. We need a new economic system. I suggest that people who lose their jobs can get some financing from the state, e.g. by premature withdrawing from their retirement savings, or have access to a subsistence loan from the state, it will not be so bad. Another approach is to pass a law to reduce the working hours by 10%, so that everyone remains employed, maybe at a 10% cut in pay. This allows people to get through the recession. Sadly, the capitalist system is designed for financial vultures. They take advantage of the depressed economy to buy over assets from the vulnerable people at low prices. This is how the financial vultures get rich. We need a socialist system to provide better protection to ordinary people. A capitalist system is bad. This is why I prefer a socialist system, even a communist system.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

Ukraine is the Taiwan of Europe. Putin and Russia are not the warmongers. They are only trying to break out of the US encirclement strategy to save their country. If nothing is done to counter the US using Ukraine as a battering ram like what it is doing now provoking end arming Taiwan to undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity then in the end both the very existence of Russia and China will be imperiled. These two countries must do all it can to thwart the evil machinations of the US and its allies to maintain their unipolar dominance and hegemony in the world despite their abysmal performance in almost every sector of their political economy. It is very clear that during Donald J Trump's Presidency Zelensky the President of Ukraine was already behaving like a minion. He was already receiving massive military and financial aid from America to prepare for a likely conflict with Russia. Donald Trump was not happy with him because he felt that his regime was corrupt and as the American President he felt compelled to lean on Zelensky to try and get damaging information on corrupt Joe Biden and his son to help him win the next election. He was so brazèned and accorded absolutely no respect to Zelinski that he even published a wholesale transcript of his confidential telephone conversation with this minion president to prove that what he was doing was right and that the Zelenski regime was indeed corrupt. The entire saga of this event undermined even the State Department and the Secretary of State John Bolton that almost brought Donald Trump to be impeached by Congress. But Zelensky escaped unscathed and went on to become the war hero resisting "Russian attacks" against Ukraine in 2022. If a Third World War is to be avoided then the current war in Europe must not spread to other regions like the Asia-Pacific. Russia must not be allowed to go down. If Russia goes down then China will be the next country to go down. It is therefore imperative that China stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Russia in order to stop the US warlike strategy of pivoting to the Indo-Pacific and the Far East. Europe is now in utter disarray especially with the United Kingdom plunging into financial suicide with its stupid new Prime Minister Truss giving a huge tax reduction to the wealthy that will sink the English Pound and bring the entire country country to its knees. Instability and anarchy will unleash right-wing forces across Europe and the world to look for irrational solutions. The country that has the capacity and resolve in its history to put a road block to anarchy war and nihilism is China. It is essential that the peace-loving people of the world rally around the People's Republic in order to save the world from another round of perdition.   Lowinsky      Read More →