7/06/2008

With heart and mission

Vivian Balakrishnan was famous for his answer to Lily Neo in parliament when the later pleaded to his ministry to increase the allowance for those on public assistance scheme. His reply was something like, do they want to eat in a restaurant or a food court or in a hawker centre. This image has been stucked with Vivian since then. I think Vivian is having a change of heart. Despite all the great men still talking about the virtues of market forces and not meddling with them even when prices are escalating without control when a little control is demanded and can stop the spiralling, Vivian is saying something else. 'Government policies and the free market are no longer enough to ensure economic growth....No longer can (these)...guarantee that there is no hunger, poverty and unfairness in the world.' In essence what he said is that 'he believes the cooperatives' way of doing business, "with heart and mission", is even more critical.' The heart is coming into the picture in govt policies. This will be good news to the less fortunate and they should stop accusing the govt of not having a heart. The heart is appearing and growing. And this will be the case if everyone thinks like Vivian and acted on it. If....

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