8/16/2009

Influx of foreign talents, good or bad?

1/3 of our population are foreigners and we are crying out for more. The mantra, they will help to grow our economy, our saviours. Is growing our economy the only reason for us to live by at the risk of undermining what we have built for the last 40 years? Nation building does not come easy and is still a work in progress. We have seen some results. But it is going into the oven again. How so? Our problem is our size. People may accuse those who want to slow down this process of globalisation for being small minded, xenophobic, short sighted, small town mentality. But before we throw the baby out with the water, let's think again and look at where we are to start with. Can we afford to have such a huge influx of foreigners in our midst in so short a span of time? According to demographic projections, Europe will be an Islamic region in 50 years when the muslim immigrants will form the majority of the European population. And Europe is a region of mature countries and civilisations and could not resist from being adulterated by new immigrants. We are only 3m people in a small island. As someone has said, our boundaries can be defined by the SLE, AYE, PIE and KJE. That is how big we are. A pail of shit into an ocean would not mean a thing. But a cup of shit into a pail of water will definitely change the content of the water. For 40 years we have striven hard to build a Singaporean identity, where the citizens associate themselves with this piece of rock and call it home. Now we are saying, let's start it all over again with new immigrants and new citizens. My reservation is that instead of we absorbing the new citizens and their traits and baggages and making them one of us, we may be absorbed by them when we become a minority. It can be good, but it can be disastrous to what we have being trying to build all these years. The conquerers of China and India were absorbed into these two huge and old civilisations. The conquerers of America vanquished the locals and change the landscape into something else. The change was good in the economic sense. To the locals, it can be anything but good. We are too small and the risk of rapid change will have its untold price. We will only see the consequences in 20, 30 or 50 years.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have high growth in the 70's and 80's with minimum foreigners. It is a myth that we are highly dependent on foreigners for growth.

Jaunty Jabber said...

Redbean,

With the increase in population at the speed of influx, the scarce number of nature reserved lands we have here will face big threats to be turned into housing estates.

Anonymous said...

The red dot will sink. Now we are digging tunnels everywhere for MRT extensions, Sewarage tunnels, Underground Ammuniation dumps etc, the minorities may one day have to live underground like the Vietcongs. The surface will have to be reserved for the elites and foreigners.

More good years!

Anonymous said...

The Government, unionist and employers say good.

Singaporeans (excluding the elites) and employees say bad.

Which side are you on?

IMAGOD said...

The influx is neither good nor bad but the "goodness" or "badness" depends on whether the country is better off in the long run. Productivity is the ultimate determinant -- and the result of productivity increase -- the creation of wealth overall, which ultimately benefits society in the long run.

The best policy is no policy -- to allow the market to determine the population level. S'pore's "social welfare" doesn't extend to foreigners so as to make it "attractive" to mooching bum aliens as are the policies in countries like the US and Australia. Therefore the tendency is to attract "productive' foreigners -- those who have the human or financial capital to contribute to S'pore's economy for a personal stake (return) on their "investment".

Open borders policy is the best -- defend the borders against hostile entrants and allow the peaceful passage and stay of the peaceful, productive and law abiding foreigners.

S'poreans should be thankful and proud that their country is attractive to hard-working and wealthy foreigners and welcome these foreigner's human and financial capital commitment -- not only for the personal gain to the investors but for the overall good that energy and money does for everyone in the country.

Of course there are going to be temporary job losses and a reorganisation of structures in the labour,land and capital markets. So what? Markets re-orgnise themselves as to use factors most efficiently anyway.

Be thankful you are living in a vibrant, culturally and economically rich society. You can complain because you are wealthy. If you were like some undernourished, vitamin-deficient dumb-fuck from North Korea, you'd be begging foreigners to take notice of you and your shithole country, and throw a few mouldy crumbs your way so you wouldn't have to kill and eat stray animals from your neighbourhood.

Stop complaining lah!

Anonymous said...

what is the mentality of a guy who forever compare with the worst of the lot.

This is a daddy who told his son,boy,it is ok lah,your result rank 40,but still beter than Ah Kow at 41,so be happy lah.

Never?I just saw one mad one here

HeHe,look and you find,knock and it opens,forget the other one liao.

Cheers,the mad one.

Anonymous said...

Don't be too happy. It takes a mad one to recognise another mad one.