APEC 2024 Peru. Biden shafted to a corner in the back row. Xi in front row next to Peru's President
12/17/2008
What would the average Singaporeans want?
Forget about a Swiss standard of living. Let those who can go for it. Let’s look at the average Singaporeans and use it as a reference point for public policy. My model of an average Singaporean family is a young couple, two kids, a 4 rm flat, a small weekend car, a $5k pm household income. In the case of the 4rm flat, the pricing should be such that it can be fully paid up in 15 years or less without emptying whatever cpf contributions the couple are putting in. And the family does not have to break their backs to make ends meet every month and still able to go on a short holiday in the neighbouring countries.
Is this too much to ask for? You young people out there, what are your views? I think if govt policies and all the pricing for essential goods and services are tailored towards such an eventuality, the quality of life of the average Singaporeans will be pretty good.
Forget about the crazy idea of working to death or working till 85. Only nuts or people with no sense of appreciating that living is more than just working will want to work till death do us part. There are more to life than just working. There are the children to enjoy and grow up with, the smelling of the roses along the way, the little indiscretions that spiced up the dull and routine lifestyle, the little adventures of ups and downs to challenge and pick oneself up after a fall, and all the little things that one wants to do at one’s whims and fancy.
A good govt shall work towards providing an environment that makes all these little silly things possible. No need for the illusion of a Swiss standard lifestyle which only a few will attain. For those who can, good for them, but for the majority, the above are not too much to ask for. Has the govt mixed up its priorities? What is the point of a world class infrastructure, world class this and that if the average citizens could not enjoy even the simple things in life? Rush rush to keep themselves alive to pay bills.
Any political party aspiring to give the people a better life shall take note of these simple aspirations. Some of you may want to add or subtract from the above model. Some may want a little more, some a little less. It’s ok. Give the average people a life, not a millstone to hang.
There you go again. Never satisfied. Singapore depends on attracting foreign money, businesses and talents to boost economy and vibrancy. Of course we must have the best in everything from infrastructure to schools and hospitals. That is the way for Singapore to survive. If we follow your model then we just sit back, cater for the average Singapore family, let other countries around us progress shesd of us, and soon we will be left behind. At that point in time we will find it difficult to maintain even your model for the Singaporeans.
ReplyDeleteThe PAP has the priorities just right. Lets move on the way we are going and for those who disagree, tough!!
actually you are quite right. if the singaporeans cannot make it here, they better ship out.
ReplyDeleteIt really doesn't matter what the 'average Singaporean' wants. It is not important.
ReplyDeleteSingapore is too slow in attaining its destiny:
People BY The Government, FOR The Government
i.e. The Government Get The People They Deserve, thus it is up to the government to control people and command the economics, culture, family life, social life etc. — the whole ball of wax relating to human activity on the island.
It is the job of the government to script the destiny of Singaporeans, therefore the most important thing is what does the government want, and when it is decided all of us can rest assured that it will be for the common good of all.
Singapore will become a shining example of what it is to have TOTAL GOVERNMENT CONTROL
Let me do my part to defend Red Bean. =D
ReplyDeleteJust a 1 liner from me actually.
What's the point of having World Class facilities if we need to Work to Death to enjoy it? =D
Ok, more points just to compare.
Nice Roads, smooth flat, pretty long but not endless. (Too bad it's too ex to own a car. Can't Enjoy)
Great Hospital, Great Doctors, Great Nurses (Maybe Even Sexy, but i rather not fall sick. Even if fall sick, i rather go Queue at polyclinic coz it's way cheaper. But damn queue till ai si liao)
Elite School, Top Notch Education (According to some sources only, but there are comments tat students from SG are not very creative or ve much initatives. And not to mention tat i may not be able to get in since there's competition for enrolment in the form of foregin students.)
I wonder if there's any end to Working to get Money to Buy that "Insert Item That You WANT"
matilah is getting very ingenious with his brave new world.
ReplyDeletepeople by the govt, for the govt. the first part must be genetic engineering for the perfect worker.
like it or not, the australians and the europeans are living and enjoying life. of course they got carried away a bit. but it is better to enjoy life than not enjoying it at all.
ReplyDeleteit is like having love and lost than not having been in love. you can substitute love for anything.
in paradise, not that we are not enjoying our lives. we are, by working and working and working.
The evil devils in the white free countries live by a mythical philosophy based on the autonomy and dignity of the individual. Individual enterprise and achievement is (immorally) highly prized, and that includes 'pursuing one's happiness' so they take drugs, over-consume and engage in rampant sexual escapades.
ReplyDeleteThe evil citizens of these 'liberated' countries also believe in a market economy where each person gets to choose how he spends his money which he has 'earned' from production and exchange.
This is nonsense. They are 'enjoying themselves' because they like in a mass delusion. Thankfully, S'pore is well on the way to avert these delusions.
The govt will give people the RIGHT IDEAS and all individualism will have to be taken away, by force if necessary, so that the govt can enact whatever "overall good" it thinks applies to the citizenry.
In the evil-white-devil countries, the people vote to choose their govt and impose limits on what the govt can do and cannot do.
Outrageous!
Under TOTAL GOVERNMENT CONTROL, parliament will vote to choose what the people should do and impose limits on their freedom.
The evil white devils have got it all backwards:
People by the government FOR the government
matilah, i got this strange feeling. i am somehow attracted to the evil devils way of life. they are so appealing to me. am i slipping away from goodness?
ReplyDeletei have this strong urge to join the dark side.
Trust me. I've lived now most of my life amongst these devils. I have to hide on a beach and become a bum — which means I have no (government-directed) purpose except for what I can invent in my own mind — I can do as please. It's scary!
ReplyDeleteIt would be much better if I had a govt to tell me what to do. I have to be responsible, and I have to pay for my mistakes... c'mon, have a heart. It's tough, but so far I've manage to survive.
Sometimes I get into the spirit of things and join the evil devils in their revelry and love of life. But deep deep I know I am deluding myself.
To prevent the same sort of fate from affecting my Mother Country, I must act and come out with ideas to help my Illustrious Government.
Confucianism is in serious need of a 21st century upgrade.
poor chap. you are so pitiful. you need to be saved. you need to be uplifted from your life of sin and drudgery.
ReplyDeletewelcome home prodigal son.
Hi Matilah Singapura;
ReplyDeletecan't help envying You!
Btw, what is your opinion of a single party rule for SIN?
redbean;
your articles are getting more interesting. Do put some writings at TOC to share with readers there, You will be sharing your thoughts with more readers.
Your great insights are very enlightening. Thank You for sharing them with us! Keep writing sir.
patriot
oh patriot,
ReplyDeletei have posted a few there in the hdb threads.
and you shouldn't envy matilah. we need to save him from a lost life. let's bring him back to paradise, full of luxury and orderliness. and no need to think anymore. just being led along. so blissful.
Is working until death really a chore? trumps, li, warenB or lee just to name a few wudnt be working had work been as bad a chore as you think. Work is indeed a virtue, and work is life, better get used to it.
ReplyDeleteWork is bad huh, what else you do besides working? screw, sleep, eat, talk cock, golfing, shopping, cruising, what else? dun you think it can be frightening to do these repeatedly day after day?
What is your mission in life? Waiting to retire? low lives who have not been there and done that always think the grass over yonder is always greener, that's why i dun blame you.
Hi Anon @ December 17, 2008 7:34 PM,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy working. But i dun enjoy working and worrying tat if i lose my job i may not be able to survive beyond 3 mths.
I prefer working and noeing tat i can set aside a signaficant amt per mth so tat in the event i lose my job, i can still survive.
Now i can't think like the above. Even though i'm a middle income but for my future i ve to live a hand to mouth basis.
bingo!
ReplyDeletethis is the freaking problem with our govt.
they think everyone wants to slog like hell til death so as to accumulate wealth like them.
some like me just want the average life just like u described.
why must they put everyone on a treadmill?
maybe those who desire the fast life can ship out instead! its my country as much as it is theirs. let our vote decide.
thru out mankind, slothfulness, disinclination to work or exert, laziness, idleness are seen as sinful and wrong, never as a privilege.
ReplyDeletethe word retirement is a recent vocabulary that is probably connocted by holiday makers, you know the planners and tour agencies. together with words like father's day, valentines's day, or teacher's day etc, they dun exist before the twentieth century and had been "invented" to target the unthinking, unsavy and gullible masses for commercial reasons more than anything. you have been taken in again buddy.
Inasmuch as you dun feed your family becos you like to, you dun work for the same reason. You wish there is a choice, when infact you are stuck like everybody else. Becos of that passionate nite, you or your forebears get to push the pram and be part of this thing call humanity.
ReplyDeleteGuess what? living and working are inseparable insofar as responsibilities are concerned, and retiring is always a privilege that is meant for the landowners class, not nobodies tom dick or harry.
Working and accumulating wealth are not the same thing, mother theresa worked but didnt accumulate wealth. so dun get confused. nobody is asking you to think big and grow rich. The idea is, work is meant to be a part of the satisfaction and fulfillment process of living. If you dread or hate your job alot, i wud suggest that you see a psychoanalyst first before you consider retiring.
retirement is not a new term or a modern creation. even in olden china, the mandarins always looked towards returning home and retired. the rich gentry of the west always enjoyed their retirements.
ReplyDeleteand it is not a privilege of the rich, just a few years back, all civil servants have a pension scheme to retire into their golden years. this was replaced by a cpf scheme which is now dysfunctional. the cpf scheme was a retirement scheme but not you need it to pay for your first 30 years of mortgage. only after that would you have any money to save for retirement.
it is a systemic flaw, our social formula of working, living and retiring has been badly screw up. someone has changed the meaning of living and working. it is only whether you agree that this is a good thing or a bad thing.
we have inflated the prices of everything, the cost of living, so that people must work and work just to be able to pay for them.
ask you father or grandparents who lived through the 50s and 60s. many could afford to live on their pensions without stressing the smalls stuff. when you are old and in retirement, you need not have to do a lot of things. just take life easier and enjoy the passing of time.
or you would think that all the ah peks and ah mahs working in the food courts and hawker centres are leading a good life.
anon 526:
ReplyDelete> Btw, what is your opinion of a single party rule for SIN? <
Single party rule should be stopped immediately and replaced by The Single PERSON rule.
In the white-devil countries the deluded people make a distinction between govern and rule.
To govern means that the authority is always with the people and the sheeple choose a government to represent their interests in the socio-political context, as well as to protect their liberty and freedom. In this type of system the AUTHORITY comes from The People (Sheeple)
In the white-devil-delusion system The Government is by the people for the people, and therefore the people get the government they deserve.
You can see this is fraught will all sorts of dangerous outcomes, namely the government is accountable to the people — who mostly don't have the 'magic brains' of those special people destined to run the country. How ridiculous!
When the government RULES over the people, the government becomes the sole agency of absolute territorial powers, which decides how the people should be and how the people (the ruled) should conduct their lives.
In this system is it The People who are accountable to the government, which imposes absolute rule over the people.
It then follows: The Government get the people it deserves, and because they are the absolute rulers (as suggested by Confucius, but he was incomplete in his analysis) it is People by the government FOR the government.
In other words, the people's job is to serve the government.
To me that is a more rational system. Then the government can plan the society for hundreds, if not thousands of years in the future.
i bow to thee, great master.
ReplyDeletebow, bow, bow, (3 times)
your teaching is so profound.
i am now fully enlightened.
Matilah Singapura;
ReplyDeleteI love the Answer very much when You said the Single Party Rule Should be replaced by SINGLE Person Rule. But
there is a problem with a SINGLE Person Rule. What if that SINGLE Person is old. How reliable will be his faculty and therefore reliabilities of his policies? And
who and how to succeed him as he has to go like any other mortals.
Yourstruly: patriot
To patriot:
ReplyDeleteSingle person rule can be run indefinitely. Simply pass on the rule to A Chosen One from the next generation in the Supreme Ruler's Family.
i.e. Father passes the rule onto the son — or chosen son.
When the genetic engineers get it right in the govt bio-tech labs, the process will simply be a matter of applied science.
As I said before, the idea is to rule DYNASTICALLY.
the age of immortality is near.
ReplyDeleteTo the gentleman who claimed that PAP got it alright,I say to you:Bull.
ReplyDeleteFortunately it seems to be that PAP is now forced to re-examine its own policies,all the doctrines of old man LKY.
I would just like to tackle one aspect of PAP economic policy:the input of more labours.
It is a fact that one can achieve GDP growth thro' 3 factors:increse in labour input,capital input or productivity increase.
PAP has chosen the most easy and most obvious:increase in labour input and more capital
Spore has the biggest population growth in 2007,that was 4.4%,no 2 is Dubai with 3.8%.
Of course GDP growth was well and good,not so when we calcualte the per-capita GDP,becauase FW are lowly paid and less educated.
Why are we doing this?simple,it is part of LKY's doctrine,so long as GDP grows,we do what we like and make mistakes,some careless mistakes.
Increase in capital is thro' higher indirect taxes,that is why Singaporeans are assets rich but cash poor,a rich government which used to have a huge portfolio of investment,high reserve but never thought it necessary to return the diviends to its stakeholders.Of course now no more.