The Singapore economy continued its recent anaemic performance registering a quarter on quarter fall of 6.5% in Q2.
While the PAP has been vigilant in heaping self praises when the economy does well, its highly paid ministers go mysteriously quiet when the opposite occurs.
We do however get the customary incoherent rumblings such as the televised segment by Lim Swee Say.
Although the politicking in US Congress borders on silly, we should never disregard the need for a well-balanced government. If the Republicans and Democrats existed without opposition, then the US will be raising debt ceiling at a whim or following through a one-sided tax policy. This is potentially even worse for the global economy.
Incidentally, the US$2.1 trn increase in the debt ceiling is equivalent to giving US$295 to every man, woman and child on earth!
It's precisely the one-sided, unopposed policies of the PAP regime that has made Singapore ever so vulnerable to the global economy. Of course, no open economy is immune to what happens in US or Eurozone but the continued reliance on labour-intensive electronics and pharma manufacturing is worrisome.
For land scarce economies, services is the way to go. While the PAP has taken steps to increase services share of the economy to about 60%, it pales in comparison to Hong Kong's 90%.
And most of the increase came from the two casinos.
Our financial services sector lags far behind Hong Kong. IPOs in Singapore have slowed to a crawl in a time when big MNCs like Samsonite and Prada raised billions on HKSE. Despite the recent return to risk aversion, more massive offerings are still expected.
Our aspirations to be an education hub has suffered numerous setbacks. The number of private schools have fallen drastically caused in part by prior lack of proper monitoring from authorities.
In 2007, top Australian university UNSW unceremoniously pulled out of Singapore before the first students walked through its doors.
Don't let the high level of foreign enrollment in local universities fool you. According to a study by the British Council, Singapore does not feature within the top 10 countries favoured by foreign students. The "foreign talents" we are taking may not be the cream of the crop.
DPM Teo Chee Hean said there could be serious economic problems if what happened in the US were to happen to a smaller country and that the Singapore government has been undertaking many measures to deal with issues - such as building more HBD flats.
I may be missing his point but how does buidling more HDB flats alleviate economic woes? Maybe permanently barring private developers from building HDB flats would. How about imposing more restrictions on foreigner/PR ownership of public flats? In retrospect, if Mah Bow Tan had been relieved of his post sooner, that could have helped.
Party supporters will claim that most economies around the world are reeling right now and it isn't fair to judge their leaders' performance.
But wait, they do know we do have the highest paid ministers in the world. Our PM is paid 4-5 times more than President Obama.
This means that we have the right to expect superhuman performance from our government. Singaporeans must demand more ingenuity from Lee Hsien Loong ruling a tiny island than Obama watching over 50 American states.
Which is why the Elected Presidency, whether custodial or not, is so important. Law Minister K Shanmugan and a few others have been busy de-emphasising the Presidential powers. Outgoing President S R Nathan went as far as to say that the President is constitutionally obliged to act on advice of Cabinet. In other words, a puppet.
Then why elect a President? The PAP might as well promote one of its own all the time.
The President should have some power to check the decisions of each incumbent government.
The least he could do is to censure MPs who play with their mobile phones during the singing of the national athem on "live" TV...such as Pasir Ris Punggol GRC MP Penny Low.
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