big bucks!

Big Bucks That is the headline in the Sunday Times in an article asking who are the people in Singapore earning top dollar. 'Last year's income tax assessments showed that, in 2005, $4.29 million was the median pay for the eight top earning lawyers, $3.72 million for accountants, $3.33 million for bankers, $2.7 million for MNC executives, $2.3 million for local manufacturing head honchos and $0.62 million for engineers.' What would be interesting would be the median pay for the top eight civil servants and the top eight politicians. They are somewhere there, probably better than the engineers but how far from the rest is not known. The only figure that I am uncomfortable is the median pay of bankers. There are only 3 local banks and published figures showed that the top 6 got paid more than $5 million. And this did not include the top earners of foreign banks here. The $3.3 million definitely appeared pretty low from my guess. I am just guessing. From the figures given, it seems that the top five lucrative jobs that are paying big bucks are lawyers, accountants, bankers, heads of MNCs or local manufacturing and not forgetting civil servants or politicians. Engineering is out and should be forgotten. A little about comparison. Why lawyers and accountants? These are professionals like doctors and architects or professional gamblers. Their jobs are not in the management of a huge corporation like running a bank or a MNC. The latter two are more similar in nature to running a ministry. Is there any flaw in comparing individual skills or flairs against management skills, the management of large number of people and making decisions that affect a large number of people? I cannot see the rationale from a job evaluation perspective. Logically speaking, all the head honchos should be paid more than the lawyers and accountants as the skills of these professionals only affect a very limited number of people and have lesser widespread consequences. The head honchos should be demanding for higher pay.

It is cultural differences!

It is cultural differences! Why Singaporean employers feed their maids with a bowl of plain porridge or a piece of bread a day? Don't blame them. It is cultural differences. The Singaporeans believe that Indonesians needed only that to live. Another reason, which is more compelling, is that the Singaporean employers do not understand what the maid needs or what is a proper meal for a maid. Poor thing, all these first world people! These are the reasons given by maid agencies to justify why maids were fed with a piece of bread or a bowl of porridge a day and expected to work for 24 hours. I strongly recommend that we should introduce public lynching in Singapore. At least it will teach the world class Singaporeans a little about human decency or what a human being needs to eat to be kept alive.

Myth 127

Myth 127 Sacrifice family for the Nation Our politicians are the most self sacrificing people in the country and deserve to be paid well. They wear so many hats, spent 18 hours working and 6 hours sleeping and dreaming about how to run the country, and totally have no time for the family. Where on earth can you find such honourable people who are willing to give up so much to serve the people? And when it is time to retire, and continue to receive a well rewarding 2/3 of their last drawn salary, to spend time with the family that they have neglected, they choose to stay on to work for the people and nation. They will work till they die on the job. The success of Singapore is a result of their sacrifice and commitment to the nation.

The choice of where to peg

The choice of where to peg Would it be nice if the top govt official's salary is pegged to a middle civil servant's salary? I can immediately see the advantage of such a pegging. It is likely to benefit the salary of all civil servants, at all levels. As with the present formula, pegging to the top earners, almost to the top, would only mean that the income gap will get wider and it becomes a case of 'cannot be helped' even if everyone knows that it is undesirable. But if we pegged it at the middle civil servant level then the income gap may not widen that fast. But it still could, and the final amount could still be very large, depending on how many times is seen as decent and acceptable, and that it will not lead to them running to join the private sector or to prevent corruption from taking place. Then again, the reality is that no amount is enough. Long long ago, $5000 pm for minister is enough. Then $50,000 is considered very good. But if time permits, the number can keep going up, $100k pm or maybe eventually $1 million pm. It is all relative and depends on human greed. No one is humble enough to ask how many bowls of super grade rice he can eat a day, or how many bungalows he can sleep in a night, or how many limousines he can drive at one time, or how many pretty lasses he can sleep with in one night. Hey, that reminds me of what Einstein said about limits. The difference between a genius and an idiot is that a genius knows his limits.

The Evil corner

The Evil corner While we crow about how first world we are, how many millionaires and billionaires we have, how many millions should our top officials be rewarded, and all the good lives, let's not ignore the little evil corners that live among us. As we gain material wealth and comfort, and a better quality of life, as we upgrade ourselves to a position where all the menial tasks are done by maids, we should not forget that maids are human lives, just like everyone of us. The incidents of maids being ironed or becoming a punching bag have not appeared on our papers for a while. Maybe our evil corners have behaved a little better. Maybe not and the ironing and punching have continued but not reported. But the ill treatment of the maids is still going on going by the number of distress calls that the help agencies are receiving. The Indonesian Family Network group alone received 45 calls for help. And 25 of the calls were for food deprivation where employers deprived their maids of food or feeding them with leftovers or nothing at all. These inhuman acts within our society is a shame and make us no better than animals. First world? And for these things to happen regularly, daily, only speak on the mentality of a people, all the way from top down, that they could live with such human cruelties. By not doing anything about them is as good as being an accomplice to the crime against humanities. The perpetuators of such acts must be dealt with seriously, instantly and shame, yes shame publicly. Let such crimes be wiped out completely from this so called first world island, and completely from their mentality that this can be tolerated. There are laws provided to deal with the culprits. But for so many incidents to repeat itself daily means that it is not enough. It has to be stopped immediately if we are to be seen as a civilised people. When the evil corners are still thriving and lurking among us, let's stop crowing about how great we are as a people and as a nation. Ok, after airing a little conscience, let's start to justify about how many millions shall one get.