2/06/2008

Doing the opposite

We encourage entrepreneurialship. We want our people to take risk. High risk high returns. We must teach our people to be entrepreneurs. Hahaha. The real thing is that we are just doing the opposite. We reward employees and make the job as an employee so comfortable and rewarding that everyone is looking for a job. Singaporeans are looking for a job in Singapore and around the world. We are grooming the best employees for the world market. And the last hope for Singaporeans to take a little risk, to manage their lives and find their dreams is also dashed. We are keeping your money and we are going to manage it so that you will get $600 a month for the rest of your life. So safe, so secure, so predictable, no chances, no errors. Singaporeans will live a comfortable life as an employee with a monthly pay check from his employers and then a monthly pay check from his own savings. No need to take risk. The entrepreneurial dream is just a dream.

1 comment:

  1. > We must teach our people to be entrepreneurs <

    A laugh indeed. No one can "teach" someone to "be" an entrepreneur any more than you can teach someone to be an Olympic athlete or a musical virtuoso. One can be a good business person, a good athlete and achieve a high standard on a musical instrument, but the "creame d'la creame" is still the domain of the few blessed with the "right genes" and the right nurturing.

    Entrepreneurs are truly the salt of the earth. They, for the most part are "invisible", but are indispensable for modern life. The very room you are in right now using your computer contains thousands of examples of "successful" entrepreneurship. For e.g. someone had to create the stuff which makes up the walls, the roof, the furniture, the paint, the electrical cabling, the machines that make all this stuff, the finance behind the factories making this stuff, the transport required to move this stuff from where it was made t where it is mow....and so on.

    Entrepreneurs bear risk so the rest of us don't have to. Even if we invest in their ventures, our risk position is limited to what we have chosen to put in. However it is win-win all around if the venture is successful: goods and services improve the lives of people, the revenue generated from sales are used to employ people, re-invest in business, spend on commercial goods and services...etc.

    To ensure that entrepreneurs can do their stuff, they must be left alone. Thus the best way for the govt to increase the level of entrepreneurship in any country, is to LEAVE THESE ARTISTES ALONE.

    Encouraging local entrepreneurship is a good idea, but opening the market so that ANYONE from ANYWHERE who has an entrepreneurial dream, can pursue it, in Singapore is the best idea of all.

    To that end, giving credit where credit is due, the S'pore govt has done the right "promotion". Now all they have to do is stay out of the way, and allow the artistes freedom to create.

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