With Singapore having no other natural resources except for
Human Resource - at this time of global economic crisis
- can Singapore redirect the focus on growth by
having policies to accelerate economic growth through domestic
consumption ?
The Cost of Singapore’s heavy export
reliance is that Singapore will always be subjected to the
swings of economic fortunes from other trading nations.
Kenneth Jeyaratnam had asked - ’Will this be
Singapore’s Lost Decade ?’
In his view - "As a
city-state of 4.5 million people depending heavily on trade in
goods and services, Singapore is highly vulnerable to external
shocks. A larger
population would enable the country to build domestic demand to
help balance fluctuations in external demand. Besides,
export-oriented services targeted for expansion such as tourism,
entertainment, health care, and education would benefit from a
larger domestic market that would help increase scale and thus
lower costs. The Government is planning for a substantial increase
in population; it has revised its long-term population projection
in its planning framework from 5.5 million to 6.5
million."
For the brilliance of one "swei-siao hog" in this Speaker's
Corner - with an IQ of 2 but need 3 to grunt - since
human resource is the only natural resource - it will be brilliant
to see Singapore indulging in "Human Trading" by bringing in
more immigrants to boost the population size in Singapore from 4.5
million to 6.5 million.
Is it impossible for the Singapore Government to
"accumulate annual surplus when international inflation rate
exceeds local minimum liviable wage" ?
The Singapore PAP Government has assured that the
“MAS will adopt a policy of targeting a modest
policy to maintain price stability for sustained economic growth.
In setting the exchange rate policy, the MAS seeks to strike the
right balance between inflation and growth
considerations.”
With such an assurance given, will it be impossible for the
present modest domestic economic activities to be further
developed and accelerated ?
Perhaps views can be further developed with the help of some
other blogger's efforts in writing on ‘Simple guide to Singapore domestic
consumption’.
Has anyone really considered why are the implications of growth
fueled by consumption? In a world with finite resources, our
so-called economic growth through consumption is merely short-term
gratification with production of goods solely for profit with no
thought for the environmental (See Story of Stuff),
not to mention psychological impact on society.
To quote from an article from The New Scientist:
...
But there's another, more recent factor that's
making things even worse, and it's an invention of human culture rather than
an evolved trait. According to Rees, the change
took place after the second world war in the US, when factories
previously producing weapons lay idle, and soldiers were returning
with no jobs to go to.
American economists and the government of the day
decided to revive economic
activity by creating a culture in which people were encouraged to
accumulate and show off material wealth, to the point where it
defined their status in society and their
self-image.
Rees quotes economist Victor Lebow as saying in
1955: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make
consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into
rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego
satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up,
worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing
rate".
In today's world, such rhetoric seems beyond
belief. Yet the consumer spree carries on regardless, and few of us
are aware that we're still willing slaves to a completely
artificial injunction to consume, and to define ourselves by what
we consume.
"Lebow and his cronies got together to 'create' the
modern advertising industry, which plays to primitive beliefs,"
says Rees. "It makes you feel
insecure, because the advertising industry turned our sense of
self-worth into a symbolic presentation of the possessions we
have," he told me. "We've turned consumption into a necessity, and
how we define ourselves."
The result is a world in which rampant consumption
in rich countries is rapidly outstripping the resources in the
world needed to satisfy demand.
...
"Advertising is an instrument for construction of
people's everyday reality, so we could use the same media to
construct a cultural paradigm in which conspicuous consumption is
despised," he says. "We've got to make people ashamed to be seen as
a 'future eater'."
