Wait, It Gets Betterer

In his classic deaf-frog mode, Lim Swee Say ignored the arguments for a minimum wage posited by economist Hui Weng Tat and ambassador-at large Tommy Koh, in particular former's point that a minimum wage would force employers to invest more in technology to raise productivity. Which was exactly what Lee Kuan Yew did years ago by railroading capital intensive manufacturing over low tech and low wage cottage industries like textile production. By making printed circuit boards instead of sewing jeans, the workers earned more and the nation's GDP improved by leaps and bounds.

London Business School professor Lynda Gratton may have inadvertently touched a raw nerve when she said companies had to stop paying top executives "500 times" more than its lowest paid workers to ensure the building of fairer societies. During the 2006 elections, opposition leader Low Thia Khiang presented a very good suggestion of pegging the minister’s pay to 100 times those of the bottom 20 percent as incentive for ministers to improve the lot of the poor. Heck, make it 500 times, 1000 times even, so long as the economically challenged are not left further behind as the select crowd relentlessly pursue monetary goals at the cost of social stability.

Gratton cited the example of a firm that pays its top management 20 percent more than its lowest compensated employees, and asked Lim if more companies would do so in future. Predictably, the minister repeated his party's mantra that "top dollar would have to be paid for top talent". This coming from a specimen that gives talent a bad name. The same who mouthed that "to reduce the number of low-wage workers by having a minimum wage, the number of workers with no wage will go up". Don't be surprised this clown will come up with a "betterer" solution, turn the clock back, and reinstate slavery.