Singaporeans and foreign talents (FT) do not have the same equal
footing. Singaporeans have family ties here, they intend to live
here for the longer term and make financial committments like
buying a house.
How does a Singaporean compete with FTs? They can squeeze 10 person
to an apartment to save money. Are the average Singaporean family
able to do that? Can you sqeeze your parents and your sister and
yourself into a room and lease out the other 2 rooms of your HDB?
These FTs have lower expectations on everything in life, from
hygiene, to quality of food and comforts.
These FTs have families back home, SGD 100 they remit back to China
become RMB 500. A frugal family in China can probably survive on
that for a month, give the same amount of SGD 100 to your dad or
mom, see how long it last in Singapore. Singaporean's fixed cost is
high because our roots and families are here.
The FTs does not need to pay CPF, which effectively wipes off 20%
of a Singaporean's cashflow.
A Singaporean graduate after completing University education has
debt obligations to meet, family to support and a certain level of
living standard to maintain.
A Chinese FT University education in China is much cheaper compared
to Singapore, therefore they have no debt, or less debt to
repay.
Are you sure the Chinese has better work ethics, or are they just
willing to accept a higher level of risk?
Take for instance the numerous cases of tainted food and hazardous
products. Doesn't it show that they are willing to take in more
risk and compromise on quality, health and safety.
If you buy a bowl of noodles in a canteen from China and a bowl of
noodles in a canteen in Singapore. You will notice the vast
differences in the standard of hygiene.
Labour is not 100% mobile even in a free economy, as labourers have
emotional attachments to their country and people around him. It is
not easy for everybody to move to a certain country and adapt. The
reason why our economy is so open to FTs is caused by our
government's policy of increasing the FT population. They no doubt
have their reason, which I think is mainly economic and political
in nature. Economically, they know that price is always sticky
downwards, therefore their intention of importing more foreign
talents is to push down price levels. But it seems like their plan
to decrease price levels have failed, because we have seen then
astronomical increases in ministerial salaries. If price levels
have indeed gone down due to competition between foreign talents
and Singaporeans, there would be no need to increase Ministerial
salaries. In fact ministerial salaries should have been reduced,
instead it went up.
I always think that a government's prime directive is to protect
its' citizens, whether it be security, economic or otherwise. Other
countries tend to have a strict quota regarding foreign immigrants
so as not to over expand and put a strain on other resources.
Though the import of FTs will increase the overall GDP, but GDP per
capita will drop due to more inefficiencies (marginal product of
labour falls).
By increasing FTs at such a dramatic rate only increase inflation,
because there are more competition for resources. e.g. such as the
recent increases in property prices, though they bode well for
Singaporean land owners and HDB owners. Like your tragedy of the
commons (dissipation of rents), with so many foreigners competing
for resources with the locals, it will lead to inflation and
substandard of living for locally bred Singaporeans. You can more
or less see such effects in our overcrowded MRT system during peak
hours and sometimes during off peak hours.
I always believe in one concept, one cake can only feed so many
people, if the government decides to take a bigger piece (by
increasing their own salaries), then there will be less to go
around.
