Thursday, September 8, 2011

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Asked why only 4 out of 48 scenarios of declining population growth studied by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) were brandished for public consumption, their spokesman said, "These reflect the conditions at that time (of study)". Whether he was referring to political conditions or plain chronology is best left to the imagination.

The IPS dog and pony show comes on right on cue after MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC Lee Kuan Yew told NTU students that 20,000 - 25,000 immigrants a year is "politically digestible", but 60,000 is not. IPS director Janadas Devan, also associate editor at The Straits Times, highlighted the erosion of "potential support ratio" with net immigration  assumptions of 0, 30,000 and 60,000 (Scenarios 1, 2 and 3). Scenario 4 is based on Total Fertility Rate (TFR) rising from 1.24 to 1.85 and zero immigration. It may be pertinent to point out that, unlike other First World Countries, Singapore has no welfare system to speak of, whereby the young contributes to a pool to feed or house the old. Here, you die, your problem.

The CPF savings, the last recourse at twilight years, is allocated a pathetic return of 2.5%, while the people at GIC playing monopoly with the same monies enjoyed 5% returns over the past 20 years, and kept the difference. To avoid spiking blood pressures, especially of senior citizens perusing, the subject of reserves built into HDB pricing will not be discussed here.

It would have been a better sell if IPS came up with data on how immigrants have contributed economically by virtue of their foreign talents, attributes presumably not available from the local breed. Or data on how TFR of new citizens is superior to local productivity. Maybe ICA should stipulate that new immigrants must be born in the year of the rabbit, or at least demonstrate capacity to reproduce at the same furry rate. It makes no economic sense if Mah Bow Tan brought in his aging father-in-law from a nursing home in Austrialia to add to the congestion here. If the current economic model of high-value activity is to be carried on to the nth degree, they might as well go for the Soylent Green solution. You know, the scenario when bureaucrats decide old people can be converted into edible wafers to feed the young.

Japan, like most mature countries, has had the silver tsunami for ages (pardon the pun). They have their share of foreign workers, but not to the extent of decimating social cohesion. Harajuku is still the place to feel young, but the old have their own place to stop by and smell the flowers. The notable difference there is social engineering has not been allowed to run wild.

16 comments:

  1. Don't believe a word/number that is printed by the ST/IPS lap dogs. As long as they don't release the real raw data, their interpretative work here has NO Credibility because we know how data can be manipulated. And manipulated many times they have!

    Let's face it. WikiLeaks revealed the GOS is secretive about it. Why so? What so secretive about a country's population number unless you have something hideous to hide? People cannot be a thinking population if you refuse to release the data., and that's precisely what they want Singaporeans to remain - unthinking. No One bites that data at all!!
    It's all just another fucked up justification why they let 1m chinese migrates to SG , and we haven't even count the Indians yet! Show the TFR of the migrates then we talk..tell me how many used it as a stepping stone and left for greener pastures after wards..their only contribution to our economy is their cheap salary compared to locals and that helps in "competitiveness" and add to the GDP great..all crap. The GOS is like the students who study 10yrs series exams, they know how to score all the exams, get round the international benchmarks but did nothing substantial to improve the lots of the "quality" of its peoples lives. So they pass their exams/SATs etc, but they are not street smart to fight /win the real race of winning hearts and minds of Singaporeans. *FAIL & FACEPALM*

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  2. I would be more impress with the IPS if it has come up with a study to show how past and existing policies contributed to the current unhappy situation in Singapore and what should be done about these policies that are still in place.

    By conducting the study and concluding they way it did, the IPS is implying that there were nothing wrong with those policies. What a waste of time and resources.

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  3. The IPS is basically a part of the machinery that is pro-establishment, and we cannot expect any impartial or objective data to come out of it without a slanted or biased appraisal of this current regime. The real issue is that no Singaporean is waiting for a handout like what they always assume, with this government, but many are in themselves dissatisfied because they have been milked dry and left to wait for a change of attitude in this government.

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  4. The reason on why Singaporeans are not giving birth is more crucial than any new foreigners migrating to Singapore.

    The reason being that, both leads to same outcome, which is the wipeout of all native Singaporeans and replaced by a new generation of migrants.

    I think we rather have a process in which zero foreigners and we slowly extinct and exhaust our wealth for our own benefits, rather than preserving our national reserve for a all-new-singaporean generation in the future, where we do not have a part to play in.

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  5. Liquidate the state now, and give money to Singaporeans born in Singapore only ! Then let's rename the country as Second Republic of Singapore.

    I rest my case, and can take back my CPF + whatever is in the national reserve.

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  6. How many Ministers does it take to change a light bulb?

    None. LKY has declared darkness to be the new standard.

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  7. Address the root problem - declining birth rate. Singapore will no longer be Singapore if we replace Singaporeans with foreigners. Already, the problems of the FT policy are beginning to emerge. The FT problems we are seeing is only the tip of the iceberg. Why are the PAP not looking long term instead of short term....basically short term focus is on ECONOMIC GROWTH - because economic growth affects their salaries and bonus.

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  8. What was the polpulation 10 years ago and what is it now? If birth rate in the 10 years is less than 2, obviously there has been more than replacement import from overseas. Do we really need 6m population or 3.5m of highly efficient population? If population is not efficient, has the 46 years of education system failed?

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  9. Actually we already have a solution at home but our PAP govt is just too scared even to think about it. They could have ask that Yacult ex-Minister to become their spokesman for making babies but obviously they have their own reservations.

    It is no secret that our Malay brothers and sisters are taking our National Procreation Policy very seriously. But the problem probably has to be that they don't like brown and only prefers shades of yellow and black.

    That may probably explain why they don't really give good incentives for anyone to procreate because it may end up producing the unwanted babies. So they rather import, I think.

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  10. Is just a propaganda to justify their FT influx policy. NOTHING new. MIW will never change and we will need to grit and bare with it for another 4.5 years.. Oh dear !!!

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  11. perhaps someone can check this, but if i'm not mistaken, the stop at 2 policy came about becos the malays were producing, but the chinese were not. the graduate mum policy was a further step to stop the malays.

    one can also check to see when exactly all the measures to get pple to stop at 2 were removed. i'm pretty sure the govt did not remove some of the measures eg last for pr 1 registration, no maternity leave, high accouchment fees for third and other kids, till long after it called off its stop at 2 policy.

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  12. Many countries are facing support ratio of less than 2 in the coming years, including western Europe, USA, Japan and CHINA!

    But none of them is resorting to importing FTs like there is no tomorrow. Singapore government is taking the easy way out because it does not want to take on the responsibility for the aged. Or perhaps PAP is simply incompetent to solve this problem with its current crop of 2nd and 3rd tier ministers.

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  13. If the government is serious about increasing the birth rate of Singaporeans, more must be done to ensure conditions are condusive. You cannot leave it to market forces or expecting organisations to help. Government must take the correct steps (if there is help from organisations, its a bonus) and provide that environment.

    As to what to do, we will leave it to our super smart ministers who are deemed by PM the best brains in the country and therefore the high pay.

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  14. What about emigration figures of S'poreans who has had enough of foreigners overcrowding our island? We are like a leaking cup, and it does not mean foreigners will sink their roots here. It's more likely they will uproot from this place once the harvest is done, S'poreans will be left with bare soil.

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  15. Hi Tattler, your article got me thinking. I just started blogging recently and I would like to have your permission to use the scanned image for a blog post on the topic.

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  16. anon@4.55 PM
    Sorry I missed your input. You're welcomed to use the scan.

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