You know speakup
And you still do not understand what Bill Gates is doing. It's
NOT social obligation. It tells me how myopic your views are. It's
his calling to put his wealth into good use for the benefit of
mankind, NOT because he thinks he's obliged to, but because he
believes in what he is doing. Please don't insult Bill Gates, like
how you insult all of us. Just coz you don't have a gracious spirit
doesn't mean others cannot have a higher calling.
There is nothing wrong with what I am comparing. You say there
is no such thing as higher calling. I merely tell you that there
are volunteers who believe in higher calling. I did not compare
them to whether it is a job or not. Again, you are losing your
bearings.
Anyway, I am too lazy to address your other views coz you just
go round and round the same old poisoned thoughts. Not to mention
you can't even answer why you think a govt with a focus on higher
calling will fail. You just conveniently hide and delude
yourself
What makes you think that it must be that one makes sense, and
the other perspective does not make sense? It could be that both
perspective make sense, just that again, you are poisoned with the
"0" or "1" extreme views that MM Lee has. "It's either you vote for
PAP, or Singapore will collapse"
You can continue, but you still cannot give a good reason why
you think their pay is acceptable. You cannot even give examples of
mindblowing ideas that our leaders have implemented that justifies
how good they are.
Again, you are nothing but a product of propaganda, because you
can't even say why you think they are good, except that MM Lee
tells you so. They got the job done? Tell us which part?
And between paying $2,000,000.00 and $400,000.00 (market rate)
to get the same amount of work done, I will choose the latter. Why?
Coz the 1,600,000.00 can be better used to help the lower income
group.
While i can understand where you're coming from, i still think
it's rather naive or unrealistic to believe public offices would be
filled with people who has intentions of social obligations who
would not care much about salaries.
I do not think that it is the person who is corrupt, but the
power and authority that the position holds itself is corrupting.
You may feel you would act differently in that position, but i
retain my belief that you would behave differently when you get a
taste of the power ( And the hidden "responsibilities").
So i would agree with that ministerial salaries should be high,
even above other global politicians' equivalent. At least it would
discourage corporations from being able to bribe them to do things
beneficial to the corporation but bad for the citizens.
I can see what the PAP (and most probably LKY) is trying to do
with Temasek and the GICs. Rather than allow a foreign bank or
corporation to bribe the politicians into doing things for them the
government (PAP and LKY) would provide that bribe.
I don't like having to arrive at this conclusion, i find it
distasteful to the extreme but at the very least i see the
reasoning.
However, i would disagree in the increasing number of redundant
senior positions. Why the hell do we need so much Ministers of
State and Senior Ministers for? Why is a Minister Mentor position
with no direct responsibilities commanding equivalent salary with
the President?
If they are indeed so good wouldn't it made sense to release
more of them into the private sector to spurn growth instead of
leaving them clogging the pipelines and creating an extremely
bloated bureacracy ?
With the Internet and Globalisation, knowledge and information
is growing at a rate never seen before. What these ministers
initially scored high marks for in their youth might even be
horribly wrong conclusions in the first place. The same way how so
much of the theories and mathematical formulas prominient
Economists have lauded as undeniable have crashed and burned in the
recent Depression.
Identifying talents when they are young in their schools might
have worked when Singapore is building itself up.
But furthur researchs into how the human brain perceive
information and knowledge have proven that such conceptions result
in a self fulfilling prophecy. (Since you've decided the individual
is ministerial material, you intentionally give him/her more access
to material and experience so that in the end they would naturally
make good ministers, or at least the illusion that they know their
job)
It's the same as in the Army, where men are judged to be
Officers or Specialists out of BMT (Though i heard this has changed
somewhat). In the end you get clueless officers who frankly
couldn't lead anyone but still get promotions and better salaries
by virtue of their original training.
What LKY original developed as a strategy worked wonderfully for
Singapore the first few decades of his career. But it is my opinion
that he has started to believe his philosophy to the extent of a
religion where Faith trumps Proof.
