2013-02-20, 13:28 | Link #9606 | |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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P N Balji took a whole essay to get everything George Yeo wanted to say completely wrong. As the saying goes, empty vessels make the most noise. |
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2013-02-20, 13:31 | Link #9607 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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So basically, it is an empty work.
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2013-02-20, 13:48 | Link #9608 | |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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Hence, whither Singapore? There are no easy decisions, only a lot of hard choices. |
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2013-02-20, 14:25 | Link #9609 | ||
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Quote:
I am not a follower of George Yeo, neither do I follow the local politics as much as Singstat. However from his expression during the defeat of Aljunied GRC, there was some resentment in his look that "I could have done better if only......ah well". He is a man of respect, but it seems that he is bogged down either bureaucracy or reversed flow of decision types (by right, stupid decisions go up, good decisions come down. Seems that it was reversed). He has a sensible stance, but he makes too much effort not to offend others, even the wingnuts. Why not spend that amount of knowledge in his head putting those blindsided idiots six-feet under? Quote:
As much as I want a civil war so we can finally start taking everything apart for renovation, we have progressed and come too far to have one. Engineering 101 is a bitch - it always take alot more to fix something than to damage or destroy it, and we have made so many mistakes in the past 10 years that the good work is getting undone one by one. Given the patience level of the populance, the lack of competency of rising political opponents and the lack of time, a societal breakdown is inevitable. We need more people with good ears, a moderate belief and understanding to take over the parliament, not a bunch of plutocrats or magic gunners we have, or soon to have.
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2013-02-20, 14:29 | Link #9610 | |
Unspecified
Scanlator
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Unspecified
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It’s 2013, And They’re Burning ‘Witches’
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2013-02-20, 14:54 | Link #9611 |
Anime Snark
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 41
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Born in the early 80s, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of the generation gap in Singapore. I was raised after the turbulent early years of independence, but before the "easy life" of the late 90s. Having travelled around the world, from England, to Australia, to USA, etc... I just get the sinking feeling that most younger Singaporeans do not simply grasp how fortunate they are, compared to most of the world; and how fragile this "fortune" is.
The Singapore "Miracle" didn't just happen out of wishful thinking. It took a lot of sacrifices to fast-track our nation from 3rd-world slum status to 1st-world wonder. Given our fragility though, it wouldn't taken much of a screw-up to revert back to the "dark ages". There's a reason why the ship has to be run tight. Cheers.
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2013-02-20, 15:04 | Link #9612 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2009
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2013-02-20, 17:24 | Link #9614 | |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Dai Korai Teikoku
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2013-02-20, 18:19 | Link #9615 |
Nyaaan~~
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 40
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If I could, I'd +rep you. Because I cannot, I will simply say, kudos. That said, maybe I'm a grumpy (on the verge of middle-age) man that shakes his fist at young'uns "these days". My added comment is that I started my career in "high finance" in the fading months of 2007 right before the financial crisis. The greed and nonchalance from all perspectives that was uncovered -- consumers, brokers, agents, bankers .. it was astounding. People don't understand how close it all really came to an absurd disaster.
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2013-02-20, 19:41 | Link #9616 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Though the screw-up you mentioned is simply mismanagement when the government started resting on their laurels. And my generation, being that of the late 80s, have good lives that they no longer know what it means to fight for something anymore. I think ROK and Singapore has the same precadiment when it comes to the post-80s generation. Bad attitude kids and ego-trip loving executives all from the same easy background. No humility, fighting spirit and sense of responsibility. *looks at wallet* Well, at least they are filling it. Though I wish they have a better work attitude.
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Last edited by SaintessHeart; 2013-02-20 at 20:01. |
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2013-02-20, 20:26 | Link #9617 | |||
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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Look, if I could choose to build a country with fewer people house and more wealth to spread around, of course I would. Who wouldn't? The point is that Singapore very likely doesn't have much of a choice. Our demographic pyramid is getting top-heavy, with a generation of baby boomers soon to leave the workforce, to be supported economically and socially by an ever-smaller base of younger Singaporeans who are squeezed at the same time by rising prices and greater competition. Where, and how, do we start solving this conundrum? Say we stop immigration completely, what would the overall effect be? An even tighter labour market, which may lead to even higher wage costs, and consequently a higher chance of business failure. So, in the short term, sure, we will enjoy the benefits of having fewer money-grubbing economic "parasites". But, in the long term, we could potentially kill ourselves as an economy. Okay. So let's say we go the whole hog on increasing productivity to make up for the shortfall in labour. But then, what do we really mean by productivity? A letter posted to The Straits Times this morning explained this point extremely well. It's easy to measure productivity growth if you are a manufacturer: if you can help one worker produce 15 units of machines, compared to just 10 units the year before, you've successfully increased productivity. But does the same formula apply in, say, the service sector? Many people confuse value-added activity with productivity. Services may add more value to an economic good, but they are often labour-intensive at the same time. Take restaurant service, for example. You want better service? Well, you'll then probably need more waiters to serve fewer customers each. More attention, better quality service, better value added, right? How does that scale up though? Can we make each waiter serve more customers at the same time? Why, sure we can. But then each waiter would become more stressed out, and service quality consequently plummets. So, productivity increases, but quality drops. So, when the Opposition says the Government is screwed up, it should be spending more money on improving productivity, the real question to ask is, how? Productivity means different things to different businesses, and in many cases, it's really not so easy to achieve productivity growth. In any case, I highly doubt we can achieve so much productivity growth that we can do without further labour input to power dynamic economic growth. Japan has gone down this route. It hasn't done very well. At best, only mixed success. Then, there comes the very blunt question: Why do we need growth at all costs? We've become too materialistic! We've sold our souls to Mammon and are now literally paying the price. Well, as I've explained earlier, we cannot afford to be so cavalier about economic growth. Put yourself in the shoes of a business owner. Given a choice between setting up a business in a market that's growing 10 per cent a year, and setting up a business in a market that's shrinking 2 per cent a year, which market would the business owner choose? Simply put, we need growth, not just to pay future social bills, but also simply to keep the economic momentum chugging along. We can't afford to deliberately shrink the economy. No political economy in its right mind would do that. So, the question is not whether we need growth, but how much less growth can we comfortably live with? And we need to think about this in the context of the costs and benefits of the choices before us. I say again, there are no easy decisions, only tough choices. Hence, whither Singapore? Whichever direction we go, if it's the will of the people, then so be it. I can only hope that we go down that road with eyes wide open, fully congnizant of the sacrifices we'll have to live with if we take that particular choice. |
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2013-02-20, 20:33 | Link #9618 | |
今宵の虎徹は血に飢えている
Join Date: Jan 2009
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@above why this heavy dependence on services in the first place? Value adding is easier done in the technological sectors after all. Always has been my belief that the turn towards services was one of the biggest mistakes ever
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Last edited by Cosmic Eagle; 2013-02-20 at 20:44. |
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2013-02-20, 21:54 | Link #9619 | |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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Quote:
Singapore GDP by industry GDP (2011) at current prices ($m): $326,832.4 Goods producing industries, 2011 ($m): $81,684.5 So, manufacturing accounted for about 25 per cent of GDP in 2011, with services taking up the rest. That seems like heavy dependence. But what if we compare this mix with that of other developed countries? United States manufacturing makes up 12.2 per cent of GDP, according to figures here. I can't find comparable figures for Germany on short notice. But according to this blogger's chart, German manufacturing accounted for roughly 21 per cent of its GDP in 2008. In short, it would appear that Singapore is not that much more dependent on services as a typical developed economy. This trend can be observed in most advanced economies, as explained here. EDIT: Scratch the above. This handy chart on Wikipedia, compiled from IMF data, makes for easier comparison. GDP sector comparisons, by nominal GDP (2012) World: Services: 63.6%, Industry: 30.5%, Agriculture: 5.9% US: Services: 79.7%, Industry: 19.1%, Agriculture: 1.2% Germany: Services: 71.1%, Industry: 28.1%, Agriculture: 0.8% Just for fun, let's look at India: India: Services: 65%, Industry: 18%, Agriculture: 17% So, does it still seem as though Singapore is too heavily dependent on services? Compared to the rest of the world, it doesn't seem to be the case, does it? As for why the global economy as a whole is moving towards greater dependence on services, that's another topic altogether. The simplistic answer is that services provide better value add. For each dollar spent on delivering a service, it is much easier to produce many more dollars worth of output than if we spent that dollar on manufacturing a product. Better value for money, so to speak. But value-add is not necessarily the same as productivity, as I illustrated above, and that's something we have to grapple with, because we want to improve people's wages, and the only sustainable way to do that is to improve each worker's productivity. Last edited by TinyRedLeaf; 2013-02-20 at 22:40. |
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2013-02-20, 22:36 | Link #9620 | ||
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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@ TRL : I am not arguing over your opinion, I am only interested to see how you get to that point. That being said, I think I can agree with you that the retiring workforce is the bane of growth, combined with us getting squeezed like oranges.
We could always soylent green the old people though. Perhaps you can sacrifice yourself to feed us 10 years down the road? Quote:
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ROK still manufactures tech products, it could go the way of Germany if it wanted to. Singapore doesn't have enough place to build the plants;Energizer recently left their last Singapore plant and went Vietnam.
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