A review of government performance under PM Lee Hsien Loong

last SG · 2007-02-14T13:07:33+00:00

i think it is still premature to bring this topics up as I think he would be better jude after another election.

stupidissmart SG

Look, meritocracy should never be a fix all for problems. Fairness it may be, it is the GOvt's obligation to develop the local economy but so far they only paid attention to the GLCs and not really bothered with the SMEs. A company like Youtube will never emerge in Singapore chiefly because the company will likely get slaughtered by the GLCs before it even emerges, never mind the fact that getting cash for starting up will be near impossible. The contracts the Govt doled out were IT contracts for providing e-Government. If you are going to talk about size and resources, Israel with population of 6billion, though it receives generous aid from the US, is constantly involved in armed conflict which constantly saps their economy has a very very vibrant tech industry compared to us. Here in Singapore, money is plenty but startups are few. Has anybody wondered why?

If u ask me, the gov do help out local business to step out with a series of possible assistance

http://www.business.gov.sg/EN/Government/GovernmentAssistance/

Need funds to expand overseas? Get a loan of up to S$15 million to buy fixed assets and finance your overseas projects or orders.

Get a grant to develop new design events that involve cross-disciplinary innovation e.g. design collaborations between architects and fashion designers.

Start-ups that meet certain qualifying conditions do not need to pay tax on the first S$100,000 of chargeable income (excluding Singapore franked dividends) for any of the first 3 years of tax assessment falling within Year of Assessment 2005 to 2009.

Then come the point of giving contracts to companies with no track record but it is alocal company. On the other thread there r people who ask why does the gov give money to keep people for not performing. Now if we give contracts to company with no track record, and they r more likely to fail since they got the contract without merit, strength or reduction in cost, r u going to point your fingers at the gov for wasting taxpayer money when it fails ?

Wait. That 1.4 billion on the budget was tax. It wasn't listed as cash dividend. If you read the budget one more time, it was listed as tax. Tax <> shareholder's dividend. It is totally different. Also, Temasek isn't the only Govt company that manages the Govt's cash. There is also GIC, which is a pitch black source of information.

U read it wrongly. It is stat board contribution. And most, if not all, GLC r Temasek linked. SIA, DBS, Singtel, Sembcorp, Keppel etc r all owned partially by Temasek

And just why not? They set a minimum wage in the US, UK and most developed countries. Most of the developed world has a minimum wage. You certainly can't force companies to give higher wages but the fault of the stagnant wages lies in the fact that we heavily rely on foreign investment and the MNCs don't offer wages that are competitve as there is no incentive to do so.

There is a minimum wage for singaporean if u wanna know. And if we force the company to give high wages, they will leave the country. They leave their own country to come to singapore to invest, wat makes u think they will not leave singapore if they found a better place ? Then how ? Where should the money come from ?

Pumping more money into GLCs? You are kidding right? How would pumping in cash increase wages? Likely it will end up in the Govt's pockets again. Why not set up a more vibrant local economy and reduce dependence on foreign companies? That way, even if they pull out we can fall back on the local economy. This grotesque dependency on MNCs has to stop. They will eventually pull out anyway, just as the electronics industry has since been hollowed out years ago, which is why the Govt is trying to replace it with biotech factories.

Because GLC r definitely loyal to singapore since they r owned by singapore gov. The profit it made went to the gov coffer which effectively means it go to the citizen. And put it tis way. U set up a local company and chances r it will leave to other cheaper countries in tis globalised age. Wat makes u think they will be different from MNC ? We still face the probem of hollowing. IMO GLC is a good idea because instead of the profit going to individuals, it go to the country.

The issue of stagnant wages in Singapore is more acute as the housing itself is incredibly expensive. The minimum price of housing is way higher than the developed world. Bah, I'm going to stay here anyhow.

U will be surprise tat public housing in singapore is relatively cheaper compared with other developed cities

Look, by your own admission, the park's profits doesn't all end up in the shareholders. The profits of the park aren't exactly stellar and likely it will take decades to recoup the loss. Billions of dollars of investment doesn't mean the the investment ends up in the hands of the park owners. Most of it goes into setting up the factory and not rental space. Not to mention, I wonder what sort of incentives were given to the investors to set up shop.

I need to repeat a point. ALL LOSSES R RECUPERATED SINCE 2003. THEY WENT PAST THE BREAKING POINT AND REGISTER PROFIT. TECHNICALLY SUZHOU IS A COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. THERE IS NO LOSS. I REPEAT. NO LOSS.

stupidissmart SG

Look, you can't compare cities to cities. Most people don't live in the city. They live in the suburban areas where the price of land is way cheaper. The cost of a HDB flat is in fact good enough to buy a house in a rich area. They just drive to work in cars that are way cheaper than what you get here. Those who live in the city itself often do not have a choice in it. I know of people who work in the banks on Wall Street but they are given fat salaries of 300K a year which is way more than any Singapore could earn on a starting pay.

Cities r big, and on many instances many times bigger than singapore. It takes hours to travel to from the suburban and the road r jammed. To get from the suburb to the city is as difficult as people buying a house in johor and travelling to singapore to work. I know of people in singapore drawing fat salary as well. And there r poorer people working on wall streets tat draw a salary similar to singapore here. Is the same

Look, quit coming up with excuses for the land inflation. LKY said it himself in his memoirs about the policy which he admitted to be an utter failure. The originator of the policy himself said so. You wish to offer a silly reason for a policy whose purpose wasn't even that? COntrol of land? The Govt controls all the levers of land already. It owns all the land in Singapore and doles out time limits on the use of the land. How much more control do you want to get? This is not a matter of control at all. The whole bloody point of the affair was fatten the checks of the rich who benefited greatly from the inflation. Ngiam Tong Dow himself wrote that this entire fiasco hurt our competitiveness and our Govt had to dole out larger subsidies to attract investment. There is a cyclical nature in all these price controls, and they all point towards increased costs of living.

The gov lose control of the land when it was leased to developers. ANd there is not much land in singapore. U say lee admit he made an utter failure policy ? Which page of the memoirs say tat ?

Now, if you say that the Govt must earn profits from HDB, won't that conflict with the original mission of the HDB of providing cheap affordable housing? The price of a HDB flat fast approaches some of the cheapest condos around. What is the point of HDB then? Another Govt Cash cow?

The objective is to provide affordable housing. They never state it is going to make housing for a loss or they nto going to make profit. IF no profit is made, how is it going to be substain ? If gov do not gain tax from it, then how to balance the budget ? If u talk about condo and hdb is is fair to compare the square meters and location instead of comparing the most expensive executive hdb to the lousiest smallest condo in ulu sembawang.

Your own words: "Have u no confident in your points and certain they can't stand scrutiny ?" Aside from the bad English, "Confidence" was there. What confidence is there when a former PM tosses aside whatever you say and even call you stupid instead of calmly delivering a reply?

Ok I finally get wat u r trying to say. Well the people here also called PAP as devils, pigs, stupid, greedy, Durai, another NKF etc as well. These exchange goes both ways and if u have confidence your points r right, u do not have to fear questioning.

It is after all in the Govt's interest that no single business lobby become so powerful that they can lobby collectively for their interests and have significant hold on the Govt. So the Govt does it the usual way of inclusiveness; they get involved directly and buy people over with money and then are in a position of keeping taps on people. It should not be a surprise that many of the MPs come from GLCs.

An interesting conspiracy theory... I have heard another story from another person claiming "singapore have no real enterprise in the past because the people find jobs tat pay well so easily tat it makes no sense to start a business which take a lot of hardwork and can make u bankrupt"

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