Well, what youre talking about is trade. Every country depends
on trade, even the reclusive North Korea(who likes to alien
themselves from the world) needs some amount of Foreign aid in
terms of food and medicine to help their citizens.
Singapore naturally has had a huge trade surplus, which means we
export more goods to other countries. What you described is a trade
deficit or a more correct term to use would be imports
2) Singaporeans are working too hard and too tired working coz' we
have no choice. Why? Coz' our land is too small and we have no
natural resources, therefore we muz work harder to balance the
scale. But this will lead to some social issue or in fact we are
facing it now-----too stressed and some even migrate...
[/quote]
Well, every country has to work hard
unless youre a citizen of
Brunei(free education, cheap oil, cheap land, get to pray 4 times a
day) or some EU nations like Denmark whereby the social welfare
system is very relaxed(Once you retire or choose to retire, you get
50% of your last drawn salary)
.but theres drawbacks too in
Brunei, the std of living is very low and in Denmark the tax rate
is 50% or higher.
3) Falling birth rate. Well this problem arised from problem 2.
Everyday working so hard go home too tired to 'do it'...Of coz the
main problem is Singapore cost of living is too high and bringing
up a child requires effort and money. Looking at now busy parents,
where got the time to teach right values and give proper care to
the child. And the child grows up to have a lot of problems. By
looking at the recent news, i need not to go into further
details. [/quote]
Were just becoming a more modern metropolitan city, look at every
fast paced city, Singapore is comparable to london, new york in
terms of pace and std of living, its the dilemma of living in a
modern city. People care about money more than about family
values
.
Example: How many would choose option 1?
1) Having 5 kids, a crumpy HDB flat, no 5Cs
.
2) Having 1-2 kids, executive HDB flat, car, some of the 5cs
4) Our educational system. Well looking at the system now we are
having. I can say it is complete joke. What we are learning now in
schools is 1/2 1/2 and we are learning too much irrelevant stuffs
which most probably not be useful. Also we are not given a choice
or not emphasised on learning specifed skills when we are young,
therefore when we go out to work, we still need to spend extra time
upgrading and thus lead to problem 2. Spending all the time on a
few specific skill and specialise on them are more enjoyable and
less stressful compared to study all kinds of subjects where
actually just for scoring high marks. [/quote]
Well, while you were in primary or secondary school, did you
already know what you wanted to do? Did you know which area or
field you wanted to focus in? If youre not exposed to different
subjects, how would you know which one you liked?
E.g I now holding a diploma for multimedia infocomm technology, but
i wasted 4 years in sec sch learning chemistry, physics, history
geography whereby i most probably forget. Then the 3 yrs in poly i
can tell you what i learned is still not enough to equip myself in
the workforce. Therefore Singapore employ foreigners instead of us
coz they have better knowledge but i can tell u they know nothing
of other things rather than the specific knowledge they
specialised. Bill gates started programming at the age of 5 if i am
not wrong and he don't study like history, geography, chemistry
etc..but look at him...how much did he earn every minute?
[/quote]
Well, almost every professional job out there requires you to keep
learning new technology, new rules and regulations, new programs,
new innovations
.
5)Emerging economy India and China. Well looking at the trend,
China will catch up with Singapore around 15 years time. The
problem China still facing now is the corruption and security
issue. Compare them to Singapore, we are having this advantage. But
once their government do something to it. China will be better than
Singapore. [/quote]
The reason why China is doing so well is because theyre a low cost
base thats one, another is that there is 1 billion Chinese
consumers in the market over there and amongst other reasons as
well
.
Singapore can excel by producing high tech and bio products such
bio-care, medicine
which they are building currently the biopolis
project on the way
Conclusion
Based on the main problems that I mentioned above, I think the main
problem that also the main reason that Singapore will still be same
or be worse in future is because Singapore is too small with no
natural resources. We are working too hard to balance the scales
but this is no good to the society in the run. [b]But we can do
nothing about it and we can only try our best to maintain what it
is now.
Well, the problem with todays youth is that, a little bit of work
and they all cry about it
Imagine your grand fathers time, when they came by boat to
singapore to work as labourers for the british
imagine how hard
the conditions were
working from a labourer to a clerk
In the first 30 years of Singapore, we were at a growth stage,
companies were doing well
now you have to realize that we have
reach a mature stage and growth slows down
its the norm really
look at Japan after WWII, it was booming however look at it
now
If you read Romance of the three kingdoms, i think you will know
Zhuge Liang who was a great leader and strategist. During the time
where Zhuge Liang was aiding Liu Bei in charge of the government in
Xinye which was a small city that is hard to defend with no natural
resources. But with Zhuge Liang's governing, Xinye developed in a
prosperous city like Singapore. But he did tell Liu Bei that in the
long run, things will not look good coz the fact that Xinye is too
hard to defend and low population. Therefore in the end, they gave
up Xinye and moved to a bigger and more resources Jingzhou. But of
coz, the movement from Xinye and Jingzhou was due to war by Cao Cao
great army where even Zhuge Liang himself knew cannot defend even
with his great tactics and well trained soldiers. [b]But who can
ensure in future Singapore will not face a war?? Even if we managed
to win a war, but the damage going to cause is aso too
huge.
No one single civilization has ever stayed at the top. Think about
it, back 3000 years ago, China was the biggest so called empire
with the best technology, I ask you to think of China during the
1970s, you would say China is doing really bad or no one really
thought anything good of China until later. Or the fall of the
Roman empire, or Genghis Khan who defeated almost all of
Euro-Asia
.
