Who finally will save Singapore from autocracy and elitism

last SG · 2006-03-28T12:21:03+00:00

He must be wise and persistence with The Real Truth, very careful to be label with bad character and with ill-objectives. Yet if he had to stay in Changi Pr...

loneFighter SG

we need to be more democratic ..look at the casino issue..ppl want a referendum but govt refused Rolling Eyes

Gladiatos SG

singapore...we work by selective democracy...things that die die the govt wants no need referendum....otherwise if u ask they give... Smile

Atobe SG

It looks like the Swiss Standard of Living is now permanently DEAD Exclamation

If the Swiss way is to be the way for Singapore to go, surely the Swiss political consultation between the government and its Citizens should also be emulated.

The Swiss has a built-in mechanism in which all important legislations that affect the Swiss standards will require the Citizen's agreement by way of a Referendum.

The exercise of a Referendum is easily and efficiently executed in a professional and no-nonsense approach.

NOBODY is ABOVE THE LAW - this includes the politicians.

If Switzerland continues to be held out as a Role Model for Singapore to follow, perhaps we should follow every aspect in which Switzerland is able to progress despite having faced bianess and world class competition.

headset SG

Dude, i feel ur fire..
Like you i too am sick and tired of this.
I feel the Current Government is bloody detached from the common man and merely sees fit to pasify us with burocratic babble that basically says nothing more than, "We know best So Shut Up".
They ask if we want Casinos.We say we dont want casinos here, they say its their decision to make... then i say dont ask us us in the first place.

How can men who dine with platinum spoons have any grasp of what it means to go hungry?
Where are our independent labour unions?
Workers have no voice.
The people have no voice.
How then is this even a democracy?
I suggest a nation wide forum period before elections.
The parties in contention should deabate these ideas brought up in the forums. All this should be done on live TV and considerations of the will of the people should be deabated for all to see.
Though Democracy ensures nothing more than the enforcement of the will of the majority, it sure beats the implicit tyrany of the walthy minority elite.

king108 SG

Cool I think only warm-hearted people can finally save singapore from autocracy and elitism.

headset SG

true… we need brave warm people.

durai SG

You're kidding! The ministers in S'pore are probably the highest paid in the world! How much more do you want to pay them?

We must understand that we need not pay top dollars to our ministers in order for them to do well. They are supposed to be doing well if they want to take up the posts. Anyway, top dollars can't guarantee total honesty cos' even TT Durai could not help but favoured himself in many of NKF's transactions.

Robertteh is giving his views and we should be open enough to think objectively on the issues that he's making.

durai SG

Vito, can you be a gentleman and listen to alternative views?

What Robertteh is stating has got its merits. Of course not everything he says is 100% correct but at least he has been giving constructive comments.

snow leopard SG

agwee wholeheartedly

snow leopard SG

while i agwee with you, i think ObviousMan's just ridiculing our million dollar men and poking fun at them ...

robertteh SG

(posted to Feedback Unit in reply to Mansonm, on 31.3.2006)

So I take it you now understand that I have posted my views based on facts and substance.

I have no disagreement with your view that our leaders have done well up to 1970s. Our leaders must not rest on their laurel of past success. They obviously have allowed some of the past policy assumptions to dominate for far too long. As a result, there exist many problems in recent years as posted.

Our leaders are still too reluctant to accept that their past policies have caused problems. High cost of living with utilities and basic housing now taking away a big chunk of average earning of ordinary workers. Wages have dropped terribly compared with earlier years. Asset values have fallen by 30% on average. So it is wrong to pretend these are not the problems.

One major problem is we are now lacking heavy-weight ministers of the calibre of Dr. Goh Keng Swee and Hon Sui Seng who could accomplish economic restructuring as promised in the 1970s. Our recent ministers do not understand motivation, and relationship between high costs, economic vibrancy, self-relience and entrepreneurship which are more crucial than creating surpluses.

There are too many idea men and very little action men among the ministers in charge of the cconomy.

So far despite many economic restructuring exercises, we are losing out to other Asian tigers who are surging ahead in technology applications from electronics to IT and telecommunication.

We should not keep pretending that all is well when our domestic sector of the economy is very weak and hardly growing despite our GLC-dominated GDP recovering recently after the prolongerd recessions long after other Asian tigers have recovered.

So I am not that wrong in saying that our post-1970 ministers have failed in resructuring the economy and that is the principal reason our economy had fumbled so hadly in the recent recessions in recent years.

We need a heavy-weight minister who can change the past policy aimed only or mainly at attracting foreign investments. They must have the passions and determination to strategically upgrade our own domesitc sector to value-adding technology-driven model.

Even India, Thailand where ministers are not paid half of what our ministers are paid and without the constant habit of boasting their ministers' leadership and talents are doing better than our ministers of late.

Government should not cover up such problems and shortcomings. They can rebut or debunk my views about such failures if they want to. I don't think the economic recovery in 2004/5 mean anything unless they have fundamentally addressed the whole of education, and practical knowledge application at all levels.

They should serve the people with humbleness, due diligence and not boastfulness, assumptions or look-good justifications.

Ministers should now set up an economic master plan which is modelled after the Korean or Taiwanese, Finland or Switzerland to encourage all to apply the latest technology and knowledge instead of all the empty slogans about creativity, talents, foreign investments and their own abilities.

king108 SG

Mr. Green Don't hold nice dream for those in the electronic sector, it's matter of time and may be within years, companies are going to China because of the big domestic markets and also lower energy and labour cost...

Currently, Singapore is bringing back some of the heavy industries that were discarded due to "low tech" such as ship building and lately "vehicle assembly". We are driving towards the end of a cliff and still looking for an alternate route...hash hash...

The model that we may follow is only Japan, and no other countries. Cause they are similar to us. Island country, no mineral, no metal, no oil, etc and having similar problems such as greying problems. To get into their model, things will needed to remodel, and culture needed to change, etc. The current employment system for foreigners also needed to review strictly. Don't try to get a outside look alike model, it will creating more problems than saving us.

No Taiwan, No Europe, No USA and definitely No China.
Note: I am no japanese, I don't have japanese girlfriends....

Lowclassman SG

Are the ministers going to bring their $$$$$ along with them to the HELL.....Why must they peg their salaries with the private sectors?
If this is the case...........
Why not all these farkings compare with BIll gates, Standey Ho, Queen of England, Sultan of Brunei, Suharto's clan, all the super rich of the world??????

What morale is this???

To paticipate in politics is serve and save people on ground, not just keep
saying how much they have done to bring singapore up and to draw undisclosed multi-millions salaries.

king108 SG

Originally posted by Lowclassman:

Are the ministers going to bring their $$$$$ along with them to the HELL.....Why must they peg their salaries with the private sectors?
If this is the case...........
Why not all these farkings compare with BIll gates, Standey Ho, Queen of England, Sultan of Brunei, Suharto's clan, all the super rich of the world??????

[b]What morale is this???

To paticipate in politics is serve and save people on ground, not just keep
saying how much they have done to bring singapore up and to draw undisclosed multi-millions salaries.[/b]

Fellow obviousman is only putting our legs... and poking them for fun only :mrgreen Mr. Green

robertteh SG

What is enough to pay the ministers. Even if tomorrow when MM is to go to the parliament and lvote to receive double their present pay to $10,000,000.00 [a they can still come up with some craps to say that their pays are lagging behind some benchmarks. It all depends on justifications and presentations. In the hand of a lawyer, anything can be pleaded and even a murderer can be defended depending on how one pitches the argument.

So there is no such things as enough. The next moment, the people are paying them only peanuts or merely a small percentage of GDP and they are the leaders who created all the wealth of citizens and should share the citizens' houses, wealth and all and should get more. What a bull.

Now for the reality check, many past ministers who have retired or quit politics did not seem to be able to start something like turn around poor performing businesses except when employed in GLCs.

The test is for them to prove it in the private sector but none of the talents have proven their worth despite all the claims made by MM and SM.

If they can set up venture like Microsoft and help the economy, they could the prove their point but that so far is not happening.

oxford mushroom SG

For many Singaporeans, if Aldolf Hitler can increase their pay packets by 10% every year, they will vote for him. The question is not so much how highly paid our ministers are…it’s whether they can increase prosperity for citizens.

LinYu SG

I agree with your last statement whole heartedly. All Ex-Ministers and Ex-MP could only disappered into GLC or Government-link companies such as NTUC Fairprice which compete with our local business on uneven ground such as rental of premise in HDB housing estate.

Furthermore there is/are Ex-MP on charges for offences in business dealing proofing that with the high salaries, dishonesty is still present.
Mad Mad Mad

will4 SG

I think the Spore minister had been doing a good work esp the present team.

king108 SG

Mr. Green I believed that there must be a realistic price for them to serve us and also to increase prosperity for singapore citizens. The current pay package is definitely heavenly good.

Cenarious SG

i think the cleverest people in singapore deserve to get that kind of high salary

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