1/21/2008
Profile of Singaporeans
My guesstimate is that 5% of Singaporeans are truly world class and 20% belong to the rich class. The next category, the above average Singaporeans would probably take up 30%. These three classes are quite comfortable in life.
The next 30% will be the survival class, surviving everyday. And the rest will be the struggling class, maybe 15%.
With the above demography, it is going to be very tough to plan our policies by simply pushing everything to be world class. The govt hospitals have been adapting to this reality, that not everyone is first class and have 5 classes of wards to cater for the different level of needs.
Public policies must not forget this reality. By dumping world class services to the underclass is cruelty. Have mercy on those who cannot afford world class services. But if you ask the masses if they want world class facilities and services, it is like asking them if they want to strike Toto. The reply is obvious.
Let us be kind by providing good and decent services to the appropriate consumers and world class services to those who can pay. Keep your brutal truth at home.
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2 comments:
Redbean, the brutal tooth is I am seeing double.
Personally, I have problems with the Marxist idea of dividing people into "classes", like one would do for animals - bacteria, viruses etc.
I mean, who decides who is "world class" and by what criteria?
I'll even bet that those classified as "world class" or "rich class" might be struggling or surviving.
I know of towkays who use 40-50k a month to live, and when they retire they complain about "surviving" on 15-20k a month. They even feel a "loss of face" because they downgrade their car from "famous" German brand to "common" Japanese brand. I ask them (on purpose, just to 'poke' them) "What the fuck is the problem? The Japanese and Germans were allies in the last war! Anyway can I buy you a kopi-o and a roti kaya? You look like you're starving!"
The only way you are going to get "decent" services which have so much variety and various prices to suit different pockets is if you allow the market to be FREE and allow FREEDOM OF ENTRY to market players.
For e.g. Thailand has excellent medical services - and affordable - because healthcare is WIDE OPEN. As long as you as a healthcare provider don't kill or injure people, you can do business.
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