I digress?, I am keeping to the topic.
I have reiterated my stand. I think because of your scorn
for LKY and his party, it did not register with you.
Which topic were you keeping to ?
What has my "scorn for LKY and
his party" to do with your reiterated stand ?
Or is this a sly allusion to elevating your status to
being equal with LKY - hence qualifying for my scorn in not
registering your reiterated stand ?
Anyway my statement is my statement. It cannot be false, it
can only be resonable, acceptable, or absurd.
If statements can be absurd - can they be
true ?
If not true, should absurd statements not be false then ?
Regretably, in countries that are consistently manipulated by
autocrats - even false statements can be made to be reasonable, or
to be even palatably acceptable to those who are ignorant to
the facts - or continuously fed with "half-truth".
Can your statement offered for public consumption not be false
?
You ask this question, and it shows that you already know
what my stand is.
"To put it all in a nutshell - are you prepared to see
Singapore being so dependent on foreign labor to justify the
maximum economic expansion for Singapore - to the extent of
ignoring the pitfalls experienced by other countries such as the
named Middle-eastern countries ?"
What makes you think that only you are privy to the details of
the Middle-eastern countries' experience? Isn't knowledge of
their experience the the cause of the statement which is the
title of this thread
S'poreans must not create an image that new immigrants
are not welcome.
What possibly can give you the idea that the details of
the heavy dependence on foreign labor by Middle-eastern
countries - is privy to yours truly alone ?
Was the knowledge of the fact - that Middle-eastern
countries can be held ransom to the massive foreign labor - the
motivation for the PAP to make the statement that is now the title
of this thread ?
If your position is true - it is remarkable that the PAP has now
fallen backward to a "policy of appeasement" - to make
foreigners secure so as to serve Singapore in ever larger numbers
despite the fact that they can hold Singapore's Economy to
ransom by sudden withdrawal of their services in one form or
another.
Can this make Singapore more resillient and achieve the ideals
of Total Defence - or was that another PAP propaganda that has
served its time and no longer relevant and inconvenient to the new
real circumstances ?
Foreign workers here have their horror stories to tell too, but
as can be seen they are by and large well treated. This
eliminate or reduces one of the causes of foreign labour to
leave.
The fact that horror stories exist can only be attributed to the
haphazard and poorly thought out policies being implemented without
the safeguards being put in place before implementation.
Has this not been the characteristic manner in which the PAP
Government work even with policies and legislations made towards
governing Singaporeans ?
If you are as knowledgeable as you claim to be
with the foregin labor situation in the Middle-eastern
countries - can it be assumed that you can
be aware that the citizens of those Middle-eastern
countries named are well looked after by the respective governments
- in ways unheard and unseen in Singapore ?
The foreign workers - that migrate to those Middle-eastern
countries - are there for short-termed contract, and do not
compete with the locals for jobs, nor do their presence result
in the wages being suppressed for the local citizens, nor
do they compete for the resources and infrastructures
built to benefit the local citizens.
Why did the foreigh labour exit en mass from those
countries? International crisis, marked improvements in their
homeland, or simply there are greener pastures
elsewhere. Whatever the reason the danger is there. Singapore
knows it.
Did you miss out also the national policies that change
with each change of the government from which these
foreign labor come from ?
Does the Singapore Government know about the many dangers posed
?
Hardly, considering the typical rush to implement a poorly
thought out policy, and then tinker with it as "works in progress"
- which explains for the flip-flop policy changes over the last
decade, and the many belated admissions even by MM LKY to past
policies viewed with hind-sight.
One danger that did not dawn on the Singapore Government is that
with so much emphasis on the foreign workers - it was
not obvious that it is the Singaporeans bearing the brunt of
all the negative effects of a misguided policy.
Singaporeans are now seeing the belated actions being
taken to remedy the situation - and done so only with the view of
the up-coming General Election.
To answer your question, (which is cleverly crafted for me to
accept or reject a negative situation), I say this: I would
like Singapore to make hay while the sun shine, to take
all the opportunity of the present circumstances to move ahead
and to progress as much as possible. Yes this would spread our
resources thin, requiring the influx of foreign labour. I have
stated I am agreeable to this, and do so again, as opposed to
being restrained by the dangers of being too dependent on foreign
labour. When the time comes, and they leave Singapore in a
lurch, that would be another bridge to cross. In the mean
time, Majulah Singapura.
So should I expect Singapore, in view of those pitfalls,
to restrain from going all out?
No.
It is not a surprise that you will emphasise
"to take all the opportunity
of the present circumstances to move ahead and to progress as much
as possible" - when you have not been able to see the
pitfall suffered by Singaporeans, which the present PAP Government
recognised belatedly only because of the upcoming Elections.
It is also obvious that your position is a by-product of the
PAP's characteristic ways of rushing out the policies no matter the
cost, fixing it as 'works in progress', dropping it quietly when
the policy is a failure without any further accountability to
the social, economic and financial costs incurred.
You are a product of all the excesses that was made
possible from the successes accumulated by the early
generations that toiled, and have no idea as to how to conserve and
focus on what we can do best.
Is there any surprises left in the callous attitude to the loss
of $100 Billion - without any further squeak by all concerned, and
the continued pseudo-bravado with the more excesses in new
foreign investments ?
It is not smart to work on a high speed train while at the
same time laying tracks ahead as you plan its next
course.
Can the high speed train work any faster, when you are uncertain
what lies ahead, even as you have no clue as what the plan
should be as to where you intend to lead the tracks
to ?
Not knowing what the meaning of the word "fear" - does
not necessarily mean that one is brave, it merely show that one is
either ignorant of the language used, or plain dumb.
