Singapore- From First World to Third

1) The deterioration of SMRT and transportation in general.
When SMRT trains started running in 1987, I remember the buzz and excitement it generated. There was alot to be proud of. Metro train travels became part of our daily lives and travelling time was reduced. Happy days.
But ever since its listing in 2000, company execs (and technically PAP since Temasek Holdings own a majority stake in the entity) indiscriminately focused on cost cutting, revenue generation and keeping shareholders happy.
Today, train breakdowns are as commonplace as tissue paper packets used to "reserve" seats in eateries all across our business district. SMRT has become a national shame.

Whilst performance have gone down, fares have headed the other way. The regulatory body Public Transport Council has sanctioned nearly every adjustment request from buses, trains and taxi operators. These companies are majority-owned by the Singapore government.

The roads are no better. Toll gantries known as ERP are erected all over the island, expanding from town and business districts to heartland areas, in the name of traffic flow management. Yet the expressways and even in-roads are still jammed. Once I overhead an Australian remarking that if they did this ERP thing down under, the public would have the mayor lynched.

COE or the piece of paper that allows you to purchase a car now costs as much as a brand new Mercedes C Class in Australia!


2) The unspoken wage decline.

The real earnings, the most accurate measure of wage growth as it takes into account inflation, have been on a steady decline for as long as one can remember. UBS's latest prices and earnings studies reaffirms this. Singaporean's wage levels are in the league of Brazil, Slovakia and Malaysia. Nowhere near Swiss standards for sure. That's shocking considering how highly paid our leaders are.



An International Labour Organisation report also documents that Singaporeans put in the longest work hours globally!

3) Corruption in public service

-Golden tap, first class travels, undeclared directorships and a "peanut" salary package of just $550,000 per year. The man TT Durai was the head of the National Kidney Foundation. Instead of focusing efforts to help dialysis patients, his corporate extravagance and misdeeds were just small symptoms of the wider elitist network that the government has created.

-A senior civil servant at the Singapore Land Authority defrauded the government and bought luxury cars with the dirty money.

-Most recently, the former heads of the Singapore Civil Defence Force and Central Narcotics Bureau were arrested for alleged misconduct. Both were high flying government scholars chosen by the PAP establishment. Looks like there's going to be alot more fire fighting for PM Lee's party if the regime's foot soldiers can't start kicking the bad habits.

Corruption exists in nearly every country but Singapore's sycophantic media has always been quick to point out how the nation is one of the least corrupt in the world.

Unfortunately for them, the irksome social media has all but erased decades of cover up for ruling party.

Watch this space for more revelations of breaches of trust.

4) Ballooning public debt

President Tony Tan claimed in his recent Lunar New Year speech that owing to PAP's fiscal prudence, Singapore does not have high sovereign debt. But that's not true.

CIA and Eurostat estimate that Singapore's public debt is 105% of GDP or ninth highest in the world!

Most of the obligation is probably to the Central Provident Fund (CPF). When the PAP liberalised CPF for housing, they had the opportunity to "borrow" money cheap (the interest rate that CPF pays account holders) to fund their activities. Over the years, misguided policies and investments (mostly kept from Singaporeans) created losses that the government increasingly can't keep up with. See Temasek Holdings, GIC and other stat boards and GLCs.

This is why the PAP keeps raising the minimum sum and withdrawal age because they just can't afford to return the money to retiring Singaporeans.

More puzzling, none of the extraordinarily high debt is due to citizen welfare schemes for the state provides almost none, which is the case for most developed state with significant government obligations.

Singaporeans have a right to know where and how government borrowing is really spent all these years.

5) Love affair with foreign talent (or trash)

60% of registered doctors in 2010 are foreigners.

50% of expats earned more than 200k a year.

38% of the population are foreigners/PRs attracted by pro foreign employment policies, lax banking rules and good physical infrastructure.

30% of our private homes were bought by foreigners in 2011.

20% of A&E patients in our hospitals are foreigners... and enjoying subsidies.

Singaporeans aren't xenophobic. Many of us have grown suspicious of foreigners who are perceived to take away many PMET jobs that Singaporeans want to do. Most of these foreigners are here for the quick buck and simply use the country as a stepping stone (and Visa-less travel) to their dreams elsewhere.

Further, you just have to question the true ability and qualifications of some foreigners. There are reports of foreigners paying for fake certs to get into Singapore.

A prestigious club in Singapore had to sack its CEO for not producing a Masters cert which he claimed to have obtained.

The country's football association removed its French deputy CEO for not disclosing his bankruptcy before taking up the job.

We're not exactly sure how foreign CEOs like Jackson Tai, John Olds and Philip Paillart (combined total tenure of 4 years), added value to Singapore's biggest bank DBS before departing with very golden handshakes.

We're not sure how three expats who started a brawl and two of them subsequently fled the country before facing court, got jobs with leading banks here. It's outrageous how they let foreign trespassers post bail and retain their passports when they refused to allow bankrupt Opposition leader Chee Soon Juan permission to travel to attend an innocuous award ceremony.



Reinvention

As the PAP's soul searching continues 4 months after the party's most disastrous poll performance, PM Lee Hsien Loong is urging his careers first, country second, politicians to "reinvent" themselves.

The word "reinvention" normally has a positive spin to it. The Internet reinvented the way people connected and. Apple reinvented the cell-phone into a lifestyle accessory. Lady Gaga reinvented fashion...just kidding.

Then he continues "to anticipate and counter attempts to score political points by those who do not want us to succeed; and to gain recognition for the good work of the Government."
Two things can be inferred here
1) That people voted opposition because they don't want PAP to succeed
2) PM Lee still feels this current government has done good work

Firstly, people voted opposition because they want Singapore to succeed. This is another example of how PAP politics puts party above country. Remember numerous party members chanting "Majullah PAP" during elections?

Secondly, as long as the current generation of leaders continue to live in fantasy world and believe they have been performing well, there will be no reinvention.
There will only be repetition. Repetition of the same old party serving policies.

Case in point, the PAP is now using research carried out by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) to justify the need for this relentless influx of foreigners. The paper made Nobel prize-worthy discovery that our population will decline without migration. It somehow also generated a mind-boggling 48 different population scenarios, far more elaborate than Paris Hilton's social life.
Oh by the way, the IPS is chaired by the venerable Lee Kuan Yew himself.

Falling birth rates is common in many developed nations. Western European countries are no different.
Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway have managed to raise their birth rates close to 2. (2.1 is the universally accepted rate for a population to replace itself). Some of the common features of their success include:

• About 12 months of paid leave for working mothers
• Weeks or months of paternity leave, in some cases mandatory
• Generous if not full subsidies for state run child care
• Flexible work schedules

In a nutshell, these countries have implemented schemes to take the financial burden off early parenthood.
Contrast with PAP run Singapore:

• Mothers get max 4 months paid leave
• Fathers get a total of 6 days childcare leave, subject to time spent at current employment
• Average subsidies in place but mothers must work for at least 56 hours per month. Close to none for non-working mothers
• Flexi hours exist in Singapore???

So instead of focusing on long term solutions, PAP simply disburses one time monetary amounts through the Baby Bonus scheme and then wonder why fertility rates continue to decline.

Like a gambler going for broke, the government then imports inordinate amounts of foreigners to boost population growth. This turns the rat race into a sprint so most Singaporean couples just don't want the burden of raising kids.

Further, who does rising population growth really benefit?
Singaporeans?
Unless you call these benefits:
1) Stagnant wages
2) No job security
3) Rip off housing prices
4) Expensive healthcare
5) Elusive CPF savings
6) Overcrowded public transport and spaces
7) etc

Population growth benefits the PAP.
Let's take a look at the commonly used equation for GDP.
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

GDP is the holy grail for our ministers. It not only determines their bonuses, it also masks the real story behind the country's standard of living so long as GDP keeps growing.

As you can see, the more people there are on this island, the more private consumption increases.
When the Indian national eats at a food court, that contributes to private consumption.
When the PRC masseuse buys a bar of soap, that contributes to private consumption.

So you can see why the government will never accept falling demographics.

Still, there is one reinvention that is more powerful than the rest.
The reinvention of our political landscape is the key to how Singapore survives the next 50 years.
40% of the populace have reinvented themselves and given us these.

Reinvention is cool.

Eat That Peanut

Couple of days after I'd written about Singapore Airlines (SIA) losing market share, the company shocked the business world today by reporting that Q1 profit dived 82% from a year ago.
I don't like to say this but hey... I told you so!

As usual, they said fuel prices were to blame. Which airline isn't affected by it?
And seeing that they, together with subsidiary Tiger Airways, have been appointing "foreign talents" to head up operations, we would expect them to do better.
Instead, competitors like Emirates and Cathay Pacific have been steadily chipping away at SIA's market share.

Former Straits Times journalist Rodney King's book "The Singapore Miracle - Myth and Reality" threw doubts on the PAP's claims of "cutting-edge efficiency, global competitiveness, economic freedom and transparency."
A must read for anyone concerned about our future sustainability as an economic success. While it may not be as ubiquitous as a certain other politician's books, you should be able to find it at Kinokuniya at Ngee Ann City and Select Books at Tanglin Shopping Centre. And there's always Amazon.com.

When ex-SDP candidate and current Presidential hopeful Tan Jee Say introduced his S$60 billion National Regeneration Plan (NRP) during the lead up to the May Elections, many PAP Ministers including his former employer Goh Chok Tong rushed to shoot it down.
The reason is simple.
This plan benefits Singaporeans, not PAP.
Part of it involves training another 30,000 teachers and building 300 more schools. The aim is to bring down class room size which has remained the same (40) since I was in primary education in the early 80s!
It will also save Singaporean parents the unnecessary grief of the daunting balloting for primary school places.

Another part of it advocates a regeneration of our manufacturing industries and move towards higher productive and higher valued service-related industries. Currently, the MNCs and Government Linked Companies are enjoying huge amounts of tax breaks, rental subsidies etc but are creating lower quality jobs for Singaporeans. Many MNCs are also guilty of exploiting the lax foreign labour laws and hiring foreigners to occupy the better positions.

Why is the PAP so apprehensive of the NRP? Afterall, it is endorsed by a former British Head of Civil Service. (The British incidentally were responsible for many of our institutions, including our Civil Service)

- MNCs might start to pack up and leave. This reduces demand for foreign workers and affects population growth. GDP is hit and Ministers lose some of their bonuses.
- GLCs may be dismantled much like what happened to the Chaebol. With so many of the party's fraternity related to these GLCs, it's anathema.
- They will have to start spending more on healthcare, education and social services. Which leaves little for Temasek and GIC to play with.

In 2008, a political storm swept across Malaysia resulting in Barisan Nasional's worst electoral showing ever.
And to this day, the storm hasn't let up.
This minor democratic success served as a wake up call to the country's ruling elite culminating in the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

Call it funny, creative, cheesy or anything else, its exactly what Singapore needs. Malaysians may already have surpassed our quality of life. The ETP should help them race ahead one day.