1/17/2012

There was nothing self serving

The debate on the Ministerial Salary has started. A brief description of what I heard and read is that everything about high ministerial salary is for the good of the country and people. There is nothing about self serving.

The island needs strong, good and capable leaders. And how to get them is through paying them well. The ministers and MPs are arguing for more money not for themselves, but for the country and the people. Bad leadership will turn the country upside down overnight. They are preparing the groundwork for future able leaders to come on stage.

Bad leaders are likely to be corrupt and self serving. Only more money can keep them from being corrupt and self serving. Like the gardener, pay him less and he will help himself with the apples to make himself richer. It is human instinct, natural human traits.

The choice of not comparing with foreign leader’s salary is that they are getting much more in undisclosed perks. Ours is clean and everyone knows how much our leaders are getting, from the types of allowances, the number of months of bonuses, the other appointments etc etc. All their income is clean and transparent. These are nothing compare to what foreign leaders are getting in other kinds of perks.

Pegging them to the top 1000 income earners has a logic, not arbitrary. We need people from this group of high income earners to step forward to serve. Never mind that this group of people are high achievers and not really in need of additional money to live on. Many would have been comfortable for life without having to earn another cent. But there is a need to be fair to them, to their families, that their lifestyle is not affected by stepping forward to serve the people and country. The high salary is for this purpose, to attract these people, to tell them that they will not lose out in monetary terms.

Not all people are altruistic and selfless. We got to be pragmatic and realistic. People who made a lot of money are motivated by money. And it is good to provide more monetary incentives to motivate them to work better which will end up better for the people. Bonuses, variable bonuses will be a good start to lure these people into public service, like bait in a mouse trap. We used to have daft and selfless people coming out to serve the country. But that generation of leaders is over. We are living in a brave new world where the ethos is self first. We must accept this and the high salary for ministers is really a recognition of a new reality.

The people must support this high salary recommendation. It is good for the country and people as we go forward. We are talking about the future leadership, about the well being of our children. There is nothing self serving to support such a recommendation.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

4 legs good , 2 legs baaaad......

The said...

Some are more equal than others.

The said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Squealer : Teo Chee Hean

Anonymous said...

Who smell a rat?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

In Singapore, the CULTURE is "high pay equates with better". That won't be changing anytime soon.

We're also mammalian primates with big brains generating consciousness... and consciousness generates LANGUAGE, notably symbolic language. Consciousness also generates a sense of self (ego) and emotion (fear).

... And so you get self interest. Self serving is just another term for self interest.

Do you really believe humans can act consciously neglecting their self interest?

Human nature: everyone is selfish

Anonymous said...

It's one thing to be Selfish , it's entirely different when it's greed and exploiting the people for one's selfish gains. Dun say "what exploitation?"... ok? you know what I mean ... paying ridiculous salary to oneself by extracting so much tax to subsidise ones inflated pay.

Anonymous said...

For a start , one man Lee mentality has got to stop once he ups the lorry. Next , the cushy cronism of helping themselves to the GIC/Temade-Sick organisation has got to disband. Then , our CPF can either be returned coin by coin to those who actually contributed. We dun need no nanny state. Sink or Swim , let the people decide.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

The pay of the top 1000 are salary plus bonuses, plus perks, plus stock options plus plus plus.

Are we comparing apples to oranges? Basic vs basic, basic vs gross, or gross vs gross?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

One notable thing Rand said which her emotional detractors ALWAYS neglect is:

"The Moral IS the Practical ". ie. It is rationally selfish to behave MORALLY. It makes perfect sense.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Randian party ;-)

www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/news/news/902560/Furore_over_party_badge_of_dishonour.html

Anonymous said...

Some people feel making love to him/herself equals love for others and others love for him/her. It does work for some basic species, scientifically speaking. BUT, never humankind.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

I've never heard that one before. and I'm quite up on what is happening in science, generally.

You must be one of those "undiscovered" scientists, since you claim to speak "scientifically" :-P

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

WOW! You really magnify the case for replacing dead-shit losers like you with spanking brand new foreign citizens with superior skills and a much more "joyful" attitude.

Don't get too angry. You might get cancer :-)

Anonymous said...

did you take your time to count pubic hair?

Anonymous said...

I wonder what runs through the mind of old man these days... looking at his minions defending their pay... deep down , he must be shaking his head... no wonder , he stood up and walked off when s young foolish female MP opened her gap. My MY .... Mr HArry Lee ... sunset loh....

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Grace Fu is a minister without grace and is very ungracious to the city which wrongly and illegally pay her and her fellow ministers so much for doing so little that is worthy to Singapore. She has openly shown her disssatisfaction from her heart and if we are not mistaken she is symbolic of most of the ministers and PAP MPs in mind and spirit in their real colours to serve the country for the sake of money and not for anything else. In the meantime her colleague Tony Tan who ran aground GIC and caused Singapore to lose more than 42 billion dollars can still be a President collecting millions of dollars in obscene salary for the next six years.

Paying themselves obscene high salaries is bad enough but what is worse is that they burden the people with all sorts of unreasonable tax via high PUB charges, high transport fees in SBS and SMRT, high medical cost, high property tax, high cost of COEs and ERPs and a myriad of other hidden charges as in GST.

To top their sin they have ignored the welfare of the people causing untold suffering to hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans who are suffering in silence. Every year thousands of Singaporeans have died unnecessarily from cancer, heart disease, kidney trouble and diabetes because they cannot afford the high cost of medical treatment. For many who survive the diseases they are greatly impoverished as they have to sell their house to repay huge loans from friends and relatives and from loan sharks.

If the PAP government has any conscience it should sincerely lighten the people's burden and suffering by reducing taxes, abolish GST for medical and hospital charges, reduce medical
cost and help the poor and middle class in other ways.

PAP ministers and MPs should wake up and stop being self serving and hypocrital in claiming that they want to serve the people when it is actually the Money God they are serving and that's the reason their obscene high salary is never high enough. They must sincerely change or the people will change them in 2016.

Southernglory1

January 17, 2012 9:49 PM