Australia a model for sustainable growth

Australia was once a lowly inhabited continent. The population of aborigines was small when the British planted their flag to stake a claim to the land. Finder’s keepers. And when the needed to increase the population, they dumped their convicts there first. Subsequently when the land was safely secured, they started their selective immigration programme, choosing those they are comfortable and compatible with. They don’t dump rubbish in a good piece of land. The initial rubbish was there for a different reason.

With such a huge piece of land, and all the resources, the Australians can take growth and development at a measure pace, without joining the rat race. Even if there were no growth, they will still be living a very good quality of life, by living off the land. They are very careful with their development programme as well as their population programme. They are doing it slow and steady, with sustainable growth in all sectors. There is no hurry to kill or destroy themselves.

But we cannot be like Australia. We are an exception. We must hungry, increase our population and rapid growth are the strategies for our survival. We have no choice. If we are wrong we will just destroy ourself in the process. If we don’t do it, we will also destroy ourself in the process. So just do it, bring in all the rubbish and dump into this little piece of continent and we should be alright. It is sustainable growth.

Ask an economist and the answer is growth

The debate for more population is heating up but the thinking is one track, growth. Without population growth, it will be the end of the Singapore story. Growth is the essence of an economics approach to the country’s problem, or for that matter to any other problems. Send Pavarotti to the economists and the recommendation will be 5% growth annually. Send a yoda to an economist and it will be the same answer, feed the yoda to ensure 5% growth.

Is growth really the solution, or can innovation and productivity be the alternatives? There are many ways to maintain or better the life of the people instead of growth. Under this economics theory of growth, any country, including Singapore, will see its ruin without growth. The realities around the world proved that this is the biggest bullshit.

If the well being of any country is simply to maintain growth through population growth, many countries would have been wiped out from the face of the earth, and many countries with high population growth would have been the most prosperous and with better standard of living.

Can anyone come up with a smarter answer, with so much being paid to feed them for their personal growth? If we go on a path of unstopping population growth, we are as good as feeding ourselves to death. Maybe that is better than dying from starvation. The limitations of our physical size are staring down at us. Why don’t they look at how to improve the life of the people by maintaining the population size as the breaking point is appearing everywhere, even with the creme ala crème in charge?

Did anyone ask why Pavarotti had to die? Has anyone asked why every yoda cannot keep growing by feeding him more and more? It is nature’s way to terminating those who want to grow and grow. Countries are not different in the area of population growth. Unrestraint population growth is a sure way to self destruct faster.

No wonder they don't believe in no salary increment.

Guan Yin: I don’t enter Hades…

Why does this statement of Guan Yin keeps popping up in my mind? ‘I don’t enter Hades, who enters Hades?’ Then I thought to myself, ‘I don’t enter Heaven, who enters Heaven?’

Guan Yin boddhisatva made a vow that she will not become a buddha if she could not save all the sentient beings from hell. She also said that she would go to hell in the places of others if she had to.

I am no Guan Yin. I rather I go to heaven first than others. I want to be rich first than others. It is like a me first, others last. I don’t believe in living by examples, and I am only interested in my well beings first and foremost.

This is exactly what Matilah has been trying to educate the daft Sinkies. Be rich first, no bleeding heart. No hypocrisy. Look after your self interest first. For the rest, it is their problem. Matilah is going to be angry with me. Heheheh.

Workers want pay rise to fight inflation

Just as I posted that workers were rejecting the pay hike recommended by Lim Chong Yah, today’s ST front page news screams, ‘Give pay rise to fight inflation’. And what is this nonsense about pay rise to fight inflation when we just heard over May Day that pay rise will cause inflation? I think I better shout, May Day, May Day, May Day…

I am getting very confuse. On one hand the good old professor wanted to help the workers by calling for more pay hike but got slapped by workers left and right. Now workers want to have pay rise, and to fight inflation when pay rise is the reason for inflation.

KNN, dunno what to say anymore. Who is right? Or who is talking rubbish?

I think it is time to engage a foreign consultancy to look into this confusion and come up with a good explanation to please everyone. Money is no problem.

Khaw Boon Wan at his brilliant best

While Ignatious Lourdesamy replied to a letter by a Tan Siow Teng, repeating that HDB flats are sold at subsidized prices, which is HDB’s version of the subsidised truth, Boon Wan was holding court to take questions in a public forum on housing matters. And he was simply brilliant in his answers.

To a point raised by the audience that HDB flats have shrunk in size, which is a truth that no one needs to bring a measuring tape to confirm, Boon Wan’s answer was that HDB flat had not shrunk in size in recent years. And of course he was correct. He was referring to flats built now and those built in the 1990s. How to beat such clever answer? It would be even easier if he said that HDB flats had never shrunk in size since he took over.

And he confirmed that the space available to a flat dweller was getting bigger as there were lesser people in a flat due to shrinking family size. This is a way Sinkies can improve the quality of their lives, by ensuring that they keep their family small. Don’t worry about having more babies if one wants more spaces and a better quality of life.

Boon Wan also agreed that the quality of life will be affected if we go the Hongkong way of mickey mouse flats. He said public housing will not go that way. So Singaporeans have two ways to improve the quality of lives, by finding a job that pays more or by reducing family size. Maybe a third way is still possible. Take more weight reducing pills or size reducing pills to avoid growing too big, then the flat will definitely look bigger.

And more flats will be built over the next 5 years, even up to 100,000 units if needed. I hope his computation takes into consideration the 20k or 25k new migrants on the way here every year. If not, then there will be shortage of flats again and his assurance that flat prices will not shoot up again will not hold water. The new immigrants are adults, families and would need housing unlike the babies that will be produced by the locals.