Thursday, May 3, 2012

Money Never Enough

TIME's May 7 adapted account of the take down of Osama Bin Laden (Manhunt: The Ten-Year Seach for Bin Laden by Peter Bergen) describes the high stakes that faced Obama. Everyone knew he was "betting his presidency" on the available options - Predator drones with Hellfire missiles, B-2s with laser guided bombs, special forces on the ground, or joint operations with Pakistan. If he hesitated and Osama escaped, he would be tarred and feathered like Jimmy Carter, following the abortive 1980 raid to rescue the Americans hostages in Iran. Although the president of America is paid peanuts compared to the prime minister of Singapore, Obama showed true guts and took the risk .

Our PM, on the other hand thinks it's too risky to increase the salaries of low wage workers by 50 percent over 3 long years. He put the final seal on the "shock therapy" proposal by Lim Chong Yah, relative or no relative. In the earlier shock therapy of 1979 - 1981, the paper general was spending more time in classrooms instead of being out in the field. It shows.

All the naysayers, including supposedly labour champion Lim Swee Say, have focused on the pay rise. Prof Lim's initiative also calls for a wage freeze of those fat cats collecting more than $15,000 a month, Lim and Lee included. The irony was not lost on union leader Rajendran, "the higher income are getting more each day, while the lower wage ones just get a little every year -$40 or $50".

Ministers and other political appointment holders cooked up a new formula to award themselves 2.625 months of "national bonus" for last year's lacklustre performance, with nothing to show for it except nation wide chaos in floods, transportation, housing and spiralling inflation. PM helped himself to twice the payout, 2 x 2.625 months of his $2.2 million a year. How did Lim Swee Say put it? Q.E.D. - Quite Easily Done. You don't need a degree in Mathematics to understand why Prof Lim's shock therapy was shot down in flames.

16 comments:

  1. These political gangsters have no morals, what they're interested is to find ways and means to enrich themselves at the expense of the less-advantaged ones. The longer in power they're, the decline for Singapore will be inescapable.

    Businesses have to recognize the fact - supply of cheap foreign labor will drive up eventually! The signs are already there - your Indonesian maid will get more and more expensive to hire and their supplies are also getting lesser. We have got to find ways and means to re-organize our workflow to cut down on labor. Also, I think it is also the time to look seriously about having some form of minimum wage for the low-paid ones! I'm very sure, if the low-pay ones get better pay, more locals will come forward and we can lessen dependence on foreign workers.

    Nothing serious have been done to improve the lot of low-paid workers. That word - productivity - I have already heard this word too many times until I feel tired and sick of it. That word to me seems to become like a dirty word - an excuse to continue the current situation, a resistance to change.

    Singapore needs true leaders, not this current batch of political clowns! We have been tolerating them for too long!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do agree the word "productivity" is over used. Having cheap foreign workers is not about productivity. So all these while there is no effort by the government to raise productivity but to lower costs only.

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  2. PAP government is a 'risk' itself.
    Let me be quite clear, economic growth and self-enrichment at the expense of Singaporeans' well-being will always be its priority.

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  3. Its really blatant for the DPM to say that inflation does not affect the average singaporean ! Are you kidding me ?!!

    Just came back from IMM and the mac value meal's price has gone up from $4.50 to $4.80 over night.

    I just ordered some toilet accessories fm Sim Siang Choon, the towel rack that used to cost $68 last thursday is $ 79 today !!

    O my ! How NOT affected can one be ? Are they immortal ??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please do not expect those high up to understand your problem. They rely on feedback from their assistants. Do you expect DPM to buy himself a Big Mac or go SSC for a tower rack. Hey, I think he has not stand queue and order a plate of char kwa teow. How do you think his understand of day to day expenses can be accurate?

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  4. re are they immortal? well, they are trying to be i believe. i am however contemplating if they are immoral, but the words at the forefront of my mind are totally unaware, clueless, uninformed. daft of cos springs to mind immediately, as does stupid. there r some others which could get this blogger and me sued, so i will settle with describing their claims as impossible to swallow.

    someone needs to collate all these wonderful claims, attach short histories which give the context of when they are made. it could go down in spore history as the modern asian version of aesop's fables or as a book of black humour, or possibly as horror stories. history will judge.

    wonder if my family will be able to afford a coffin when i die.

    don't you just Love the latest about how the size of hdb flats has not shrunk? that living space per sporean has increased? these people are so thoughtful, to try and cheer us up with jokes during these errrmmm non-inflationary times. cant understand why my BP rises over these claims.

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  5. Money really talks !

    Singapore to lend IMF $5 billion.

    "http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Story/A1Story20120422-341212.html"

    There seem to be some kind of pact btw sin govt and usa. when money flow to imf, suddenly you see USA medias collude together praising Singapore's system, and how USA opt to learn from Sin ... and our mini-clowns been given air-time to talk ! .... US$4 billions to buy air-time, and to buy the mouth of USA ! Money spent is definitely worth for PAP .

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-singapore-can-teach-us/2012/05/02/gIQAlQEGwT_story.html

    But no worry, money is never enough. Very soon, USA will demand more money from Sin otherwise USA will continue to expose the brutal truth of SinCity, and vicious cycle continue.

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  6. Where is the real leader?5/03/2012 3:12 PM

    Pinkie doesn't even dare to call for a by-election in Hougang. What guts is there to talk about in him?

    ReplyDelete
  7. When a worth of a leader is measured by dollars, it becomes worthless instantly.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Er... I slow. The logic goes like this?
    When it's hard to get talented good people to serve as ministers, increase pay to attract them.
    When it's hard to get not-so-talented but good people to do not-so-talented jobs, employ foreigners? The less pay a citizen is getting, the more foreigners to compete with him?

    Dr Lim's 'shock therapy' where got shot DOWN when it hardly took off?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good one. But how to take off when there are no pilots but only paper generals!

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  9. I agree 100% with Tatler and all the comments above !
    What blatant half-truths & out-right lies the PAP have been allowed to sell !

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bam, Bam, Bam! Tattler, I am a little surprised you did not mention PM Lee uttered those 3 words during his May day speech regarding Prof Lim's shock therapy.

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  11. pinky and company still in shock after reluctantly being foist a pay cut, albeit a half-past six cut. cannot tahan additional shock of seeing Singaporeans getting 50% pay increment.

    ReplyDelete
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