CNA: MM says S'pore not Disney world
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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1124752/1/.html
Higher property price is good
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GE: MM Lee says Singapore is not Disney World
By S Ramesh / Imelda Saad | Posted: 25 April 2011 1757 hrsSINGAPORE: Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has a simple message for voters in the heat, dust and clamour of the election campaign - he has urged them to look at the fundamentals.
In a statement issued just two days before Nomination Day, he reminded Singaporeans not to risk their assets, property values, and job opportunities.
He said the People's Action Party is fielding 24 new candidates of proven character, of high calibre, and with a track record of performance that showed they will not fail in taking on responsibilities.
This, after the Party combed the whole of Singapore to select those with the highest integrity and ability to chart the way forward for the country. Amongst them are at least five heavyweights, people with proven strength of character and capabilities who will form the fourth generation leadership to take Singapore forward into the 2030s.
Mr Lee explained that the PAP got Singapore to where it is by the careful and painstaking selection of their successors, men and women of integrity and quality. They have filled the top positions in Parliament, the administration, the Police and Armed Forces.
Mr Lee stressed that the secret of Singapore's success has been selection by merit, the candidates' capabilities and strength of character. And he added that his generation of leaders laid the foundations that created today's Singapore during the period 1959 to 1990.
Furthermore, his successors and their teams built on the foundations and they too had Ministers of integrity and high quality.
Highlighting Singapore's achievements, Mr Lee reminded voters that no country in the world has housed 85 per cent of its population in public housing of high quality with the remaining 15 per cent able to afford to buy condominiums and landed properties.
Mr Lee said: "We decided in 1965 that Singapore must become a property-owning democracy. So at the bottom of the market in 1965, when investors thought that Singapore would not survive after our separation from Malaysia, we acquired and bought up all vacant lands and all fire sites. I also removed the right of seaside owners for compensation for loss of their foreshores so that the government could reclaim land without the high cost of compensating the owners of seaside properties.
"But without your hard work, and the willingness of that first generation of you, our citizens, to put up with hardships, we would not have succeeded."
Mr Lee said young couples are impatient waiting for their homes. And nowhere else in the world can a couple getting married, look forward to a home well below market price and after five years of occupation, sell their homes at a significant premium.
He also asked voters to consider how a house in Singapore is worth 10 to 20 times the price of that same house built in Indonesia, or 5 to 10 times a similar one in Malaysia.
The Central Provident Fund was also expanded and this has enabled people to buy homes, co-pay for medical and dental expenses, and still have an adequate balance for retirement.
Mr Lee said his team planned for this and laid the foundations for long-term stability and growth.
Also, schools, hospitals, universities, the Police Force, the Armed Forces, and the Air Force were all built from scratch, from ground zero.
So Mr Lee's message to voters: Do not rock the foundation and remember where Singapore came from, and how difficult it was that the country has got to where it is.
He said there is always a risk when one generation passed on the baton as the next team may unthinkingly toss out what they have inherited. That is why he feels Singapore will never reach a point where we it can be on auto-pilot, so that any team can just take over.
The Minister Mentor reminded Singaporeans they are not living in Disney World.
He acknowledged that the cost of living is a current problem and inflation is higher this year, because petrol and electricity prices have gone up, and so too have some food prices. Mr Lee noted that the government is helping households to cope with this, especially with the Grow & Share package.
He said: "But remember that we import all our energy and food, and our standards of living have also gone up. We are not buying the same basket of food and daily necessities we were five or 10 years ago. We are eating out more, and buying much more costly goods like air conditioners, flat-screen TVs, iPhones, etc. All the technical and new technology gadgets of the advanced world are within the reach of average Singaporeans."
So his message to the electorate - vote for men and women of proven character and track records of high performance and make the right choice, to secure the future of their children and grandchildren.
-CNA -
Once more, they are asking us to vote them out.
Cos they have no track record, no character and no performance.
They defined all feedback as gossip and brush them out.
They threaten and denied all efforts to improve the present system by attacking the party that raised them.
They are too chicken to debate and defend their policies against any opposition party.
They choose to stage a wayang forum on TV and claimed that it have highest viewership.
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something isnt right here!seems like PAP are giving up spore by giving strange tell tale signs. its too easy.....thats what worries me!it seems as if the PAP are intent on giving up power even from looks of it n letting opposition do the job of governin spore. never look at a gift ina horse mouth.
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no shit sherlock... Disney World is better run than your mickey mouse outfit with your head cheerlea-duh Tin-whatsherface with her branded bag for douchebags
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Vote for proven character. ay ay ah old man lee, I find no proven character in PAP. Your son is a all rounder flop.
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Sg is Disneyland, make believe only.
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Disneyland in Singapore?
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Originally posted by Clivebenss:The Central Provident Fund was also expanded and this has enabled people to buy homes, co-pay for medical and dental expenses, and still have an adequate balance for retirement.
Is this still true? -
There u go....threats on property and what?!?!? job opportunities? In other countries, you buy land, that place is yours forever and ever, not 99 years. And you can stay in a landed property for half that price of a 3 room flat, with nice garden and garage. Cars have no COE bullshit too. There are other ways to control the car population.....something which i can touch on if any forummer here is interested to dispute.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
There u go....threats on property and what?!?!? job opportunities? In other countries, you buy land, that place is yours forever and ever, not 99 years. And you can stay in a landed property for half that price of a 3 room flat, with nice garden and garage. Cars have no COE bullshit too. There are other ways to control the car population.....something which i can touch on if any forummer here is interested to dispute.
I am interested to know. Please share with us.
PM Lee said he wanted to increase the car ownership from 1 in 10 to 1 in 7, 4 years ago. Now see.
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Originally posted by alize:
I am interested to know. Please share with us.
PM Lee said he wanted to increase the car ownership from 1 in 10 to 1 in 7, 4 years ago. Now see.
he changes his mind often.
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Originally posted by alize:
I am interested to know. Please share with us.
PM Lee said he wanted to increase the car ownership from 1 in 10 to 1 in 7, 4 years ago. Now see.
What contradiction? They said they encourage more public to take public transport.
Forever double standard. Do you people of Singapore trust in a double standard political party, if no, please vote them out.
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Originally posted by Clivebenss:
he changes his mind often.
Yes, I observe that. It she temperamental like those charbors.
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They are not giving up their fat bonus and salaries.
They are just in their own Disney World and think that whatever crap they sprout, the people will be very scared and vote them.
They still believe that they will stay in power just because they give every one 800 dollars.
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we r not in disney world, his son is
he is referin to his son lah
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Originally posted by Icerage:
we r not in disney world, his son is
he is referin to his son lah
his son in disneyland and gay world. -
Originally posted by alize:
I am interested to know. Please share with us.
PM Lee said he wanted to increase the car ownership from 1 in 10 to 1 in 7, 4 years ago. Now see.
Ways to control car population besides COE:
1) Minimum downpayment plan of 30% car's value, which means maximum loan banks can give is 70%.This can be effected via legislation.
2) Only those with income above $30,000 p.a. can secure loans for cars.....just like the credit card system. Or if one does not meet that income value, put down a collateral that is three-quarters the car's value.
3) Increase MRT frequencies so that it becomes less packed and give tax rebates or incentives to people who give up driving.
4) Impose higher road taxes for households that have high car to individual ratios. Maybe 4 cars in a household of 4 people can be considered in that category.
-
http://forums.delphiforums.com/3in1kopitiam/messages?gclid=CPKp083N-5YCFRcJbwodw1ksZw
Are you paying attention LKY?
Right, I'll begin then...
To the Men-in-White
by Neo Yu Wei on Sunday, 24 April 2011 at 22:14
You guys were once my heroes. When I was young, I was so proud that I had a government that was indeed one of the world's best, if not, THE BEST. Although LKY was (and still is) portrayed as a fearsome, if ruthless leader, he was much respected. When he appeared as our PM on the world stage, my heart never failed to swell with pride because it was obvious that he was also someone other world leaders respected.
But not now. The problem is, you are victims of your own success. And the world has changed, yet you remain stuck in the 1960s. This is why your once-fantastic branding is being eroded, why I find it hard to support you like before.
1) You were too successful
First, there was LKY and he was a great leader. He was like a god and [is] still being treated like one. He "miraculously" transformed a small, poor, resource-less little island into a country that now has one of the highest GDPs in the world, where other countries are now trying to learn from. No one can take that achievement away from the first PAP team and indeed, I would guess that this is also the main reason why many in the older generation are still your loyal fans. I may not agree to all the strategies you've used then (and some were downright questionable) but I can't deny that you had some very good reasons to do so.
But unfortunately, when you've set the standard of governance so high, every other subsequent PAP team that comes along can only look worse and worse. And it doesn't help that you constantly try too hard to be perfect. The higher the bar is set, the more difficult it is for the PAP teams that come after to match it.
In a way, I think LKY only does his own team a great disservice by publishing so many personal memoirs, recounting again and again how good he was. Because the more god-like he is, the more voters like me will wonder, how can we ever have another "god" like him to lead us? And the answers you propose will always be a disappointment. Because, against a god, everyone will look like a mere mortal. Didn't anyone tell you that you can't replicate a god using your same old cookie-cutter?!! Great leaders are first of all rebels, don't you know (and LKY was one too!)?2) You were too smart for your own good
No one can or has been able to rival you in terms of your (mostly) rational and well-thought through, sound policies. Especially in terms of our economic policies. You're so darn good with your cost-benefit analyses, your economic forecasts, your financial planning. Every policy you rolled out is justified using very rational arguments that the opposition and the public find hard to counter argue. You are top-notch, because you have a very brainy team, all with impeccable qualifications from world renowned universities.
Unfortunately, this made you assume that only you have the brains and everyone else is just an idiot who needs only to listen and obey. The game of politics cannot be played by cold logic alone. And it certainly can't be won by treating your voters as morons.
An example of this would be the issue of bringing in the IRs. Yes, your cold, rational argument makes very good economic reasons for having casinos in Singapore. No one can argue against that. But not everything can or should be measured by dollars and cents or by the amount of GDP it will generate for Sg. We're no longer the generation in the 1960s that constantly had to worry about money or material matters.
We've moved up the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In fact, most Singaporeans work ridiculously long hours, are constantly too stressed to even go on dates or have sex (hence the low marriage and fertility rate) that we're all very very disillusioned with the constant drive for wealth. Increasingly, we want to slow down, have time to smell the flowers and be with our families.
And having casinos that will bring in more crime (organised ones too), encourage more addictive behaviour and increase broken families will not sit well with a population who now values quality of life rather than personal wealth. Yet, you bulldozed these concerns and won yet again with your cold, rational, economic arguments because there wasn't enough opposition in the parliament to stop you.While people may buy into the cold logic of your policies now, your lack of empathy and human touch are slowly alienating voters. The breaking point may not be now, but you can be sure that the disconnection is getting wider by the day. It's a time-bomb that will go off at some point.
3) You forgot evolutionary laws, history and your own past
While you're very brainy, you're mostly all technocrats and specialists. You've scorned the social sciences and the humanities, you think these are only for sissy people whose A Levels don't qualify them for specialist degrees. Yet, if you had been more well-informed in these areas, you might have learnt some valuable lessons about power. History, for example, is the best teacher that could have taught you that power never ever ever ever lasts forever. Indeed, the more you try to hang on to it, the more it will invite adversity.
History would also have taught you that every regime was once in opposition. As Marx could have told you, the history of mankind is all about class (or power) struggles. You may be in power now, but one day you'll be overthrown. However, you have hope of leaving your great legacy behind if you take a leaf from the pages of human evolution, which would have taught you that it's human diversity that has helped the human race to overcome the odds, to survive this long.
But instead of embracing diversity, you tried your hardest to kill off any form of alternative views, whether these come from within your party or externally. You only wanted to hear your own voice or voices that are exactly the same as yours. This inbreeding will eventually be your demise. Most of all, you forgot your own roots, where you were once an opposition party too. You focused so much on hanging on to your power, you forgot your original vision, you forgot your voters and you forgot why you are governing Singapore.
4) Power breeds fear and paranoia
In the beginning, you used power in order to stabilise the political situation so that you can give the masses homes, food, clean water and their livelihoods. That seemed a justifiable use of power even though it involved some ruthless and ugly tactics. But over the years, you started to crave power for itself.
Again, you forgot the story of Macbeth (see, I told you the humanities are important!!) - where an originally good leader was so obsessed with his new power that he saw everything as a threat towards it. He became so paranoid that he even killed his best friend whom he thought was after his throne. He only heard what he wanted to hear from dubious soothsayers (which turned out to be half-truths). Needless to say, Macbeth eventually had a tragic end.Like Macbeth, you've become so obsessed with winning overwhelmingly in every GE that you use every weapon you have, every trick up your sleeves to clobber the opposition to smithereens. Smear campaigns, legal suits, changing electoral boundaries, raising the cost of candidature, forming GRCs, threatening the electorate with upgrading...it's like watching the Brazilian football team beat the Singapore team by 82-2, except in football the rules are fairer and the referee neutral. Why do you need to resort to such gangster-like ways? You could have won overwhelmingly anyway with all the talent you have! I'm not sure how long this bullying strategy can go on but sooner or later you'll become the thug that the electorate can't wait to get rid of.
5) Power corrupts absolutely
Power is not power without money. And in this aspect you've outdone yourselves by pegging your salaries to the private sector. You're the highest paid politicians in the world and your income is >40 times that of the median income of the general population (only less than Kenya). Of course, you justify it with yet another one of your cold, rational arguments of attracting and retaining the best talents in the government. But seriously, how can you compare public sector salaries to the private sector? In fact, many of your candidates have never worked in the private sector before and one wonders if they'll survive even for a day in a private company.
Yet, they are paid private sector salaries, paid not from profits but from taxpayers' money. And though I fully agree that politicians must be paid their worth, don't you think getting 40x the median income is crossing into the lines of corruption? Ok, even if all our Ministers and PM are worth every cent of their $4m annual salary, it also means that they have to perform much much much better than any other government in the world.
Again, you have set the standards and expectations so high, you only have yourselves to blame when you cannot meet those expectations from the ground. And the more you fail to meet their expectations, the more the electorate will think you're not worth your astronomical salaries. It's a vicious cycle that you've started and it's going to be very hard to stop now.
You talk about the so-called "crutch-mentality" of the poor, yet this same mentality can be applied on yourselves. When you've used money as the main means to attract people into your party, you've basically recruited people who value money above serving the country in the people's interest. These politicians who are in it for the money will not have the incentive to think independently or to represent the people's interests because they've got millions to lose if they don't toe party lines. Because they're paid millions, what incentives do they have to empathize with someone struggling with 2 jobs to make ends meet? Very soon, the voters will feel that you're just a bunch of corrupt officials, no different from those in many 3rd-world countries.
The way I see it, you only have yourselves to blame for this situation you're in. The only way you can somehow reverse these trends is to learn from Madonna (see, you never thought popular culture could teach you anything right?). She keeps herself relevant not by sticking to the same old formula again and again. That would have killed her career long ago as it did to countless of other pop stars. Rather, she keeps re-inventing herself and her image to keep them relevant to the current times. And she pushes the boundaries. She's always ahead of her time and like a true leader, she sets the trends not follow them. She's a rebel.
Yet, all you have done is to remain exactly the same as you were in 1960s. The electorate is increasingly tired of your same old scare tactics using HDB upgrading as a stick, tired of you saying that Singapore will go to ruins if the opposition wins, tired of you always using smear campaigns against opposition candidates, tired of your arrogance and lack of empathy, tired of you giving out inconsequential hongbaos before elections only to increase your own salaries by millions after.
You keep encouraging us to think out-of-the-box, yet you're perpetually stuck in the same adversarial mindset towards the opposition. If you can only start to think of your relationship with the opposition as a mutual symbiosis - you share a portion of power with them in return for your longevity and credibility. Power is always temporary, but your legacy needn't be.
Just look at the current Conservative Party of UK which traces its roots back to the Tory Party in 1678. Do you think they could have survived this long without any meaningful opposition, no defeats, no radical internal reforms? Are you so politically shortsighted that you can only see your future in the next 10, 20 or 50 years?
C'mon, think further!! And didn't anyone tell you that in other to be the best, you need to have competition? Otherwise, how can the electorate be sure that you're indeed the best, if they can't compare you to any other party?
I'm no military strategist, but I do think that sometimes, you need to lose some battles first in order to win bigger battles later. It will not be a bad thing for you to lose a few GRCs in this GE. In fact, if I were you, I will be celebrating. Because nothing gets people going like failure.
Rather lose some small battles now than to wait for the big bomb to explode later. By then, not only will you disappear into the dust heap of history, so too will Singapore. That will be your ultimate betrayal to this country that you so painstakingly and successfully created out of a little red dot on the map.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Ways to control car population besides COE:
1) Minimum downpayment plan of 30% car's value, which means maximum loan banks can give is 70%.This can be effected via legislation.
2) Only those with income above $30,000 p.a. can secure loans for cars.....just like the credit card system. Or if one does not meet that income value, put down a collateral that is three-quarters the car's value.
3) Increase MRT frequencies so that it becomes less packed and give tax rebates or incentives to people who give up driving.
4) Impose higher road taxes for households that have high car to individual ratios. Maybe 4 cars in a household of 4 people can be considered in that category.
Of course, the COE and ERP can take their places. After all, it means a never ending source of easy govt revenue, even after 500 freaking years.
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Originally posted by SevenEleven:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/3in1kopitiam/messages?gclid=CPKp083N-5YCFRcJbwodw1ksZw
Are you paying attention LKY?
Right, I'll begin then...
To the Men-in-White
by Neo Yu Wei on Sunday, 24 April 2011 at 22:14
You guys were once my heroes. When I was young, I was so proud that I had a government that was indeed one of the world's best, if not, THE BEST. Although LKY was (and still is) portrayed as a fearsome, if ruthless leader, he was much respected. When he appeared as our PM on the world stage, my heart never failed to swell with pride because it was obvious that he was also someone other world leaders respected.
But not now. The problem is, you are victims of your own success. And the world has changed, yet you remain stuck in the 1960s. This is why your once-fantastic branding is being eroded, why I find it hard to support you like before.
1) You were too successful
First, there was LKY and he was a great leader. He was like a god and [is] still being treated like one. He "miraculously" transformed a small, poor, resource-less little island into a country that now has one of the highest GDPs in the world, where other countries are now trying to learn from. No one can take that achievement away from the first PAP team and indeed, I would guess that this is also the main reason why many in the older generation are still your loyal fans. I may not agree to all the strategies you've used then (and some were downright questionable) but I can't deny that you had some very good reasons to do so.
But unfortunately, when you've set the standard of governance so high, every other subsequent PAP team that comes along can only look worse and worse. And it doesn't help that you constantly try too hard to be perfect. The higher the bar is set, the more difficult it is for the PAP teams that come after to match it.
In a way, I think LKY only does his own team a great disservice by publishing so many personal memoirs, recounting again and again how good he was. Because the more god-like he is, the more voters like me will wonder, how can we ever have another "god" like him to lead us? And the answers you propose will always be a disappointment. Because, against a god, everyone will look like a mere mortal. Didn't anyone tell you that you can't replicate a god using your same old cookie-cutter?!! Great leaders are first of all rebels, don't you know (and LKY was one too!)?2) You were too smart for your own good
No one can or has been able to rival you in terms of your (mostly) rational and well-thought through, sound policies. Especially in terms of our economic policies. You're so darn good with your cost-benefit analyses, your economic forecasts, your financial planning. Every policy you rolled out is justified using very rational arguments that the opposition and the public find hard to counter argue. You are top-notch, because you have a very brainy team, all with impeccable qualifications from world renowned universities.
Unfortunately, this made you assume that only you have the brains and everyone else is just an idiot who needs only to listen and obey. The game of politics cannot be played by cold logic alone. And it certainly can't be won by treating your voters as morons.
An example of this would be the issue of bringing in the IRs. Yes, your cold, rational argument makes very good economic reasons for having casinos in Singapore. No one can argue against that. But not everything can or should be measured by dollars and cents or by the amount of GDP it will generate for Sg. We're no longer the generation in the 1960s that constantly had to worry about money or material matters.
We've moved up the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In fact, most Singaporeans work ridiculously long hours, are constantly too stressed to even go on dates or have sex (hence the low marriage and fertility rate) that we're all very very disillusioned with the constant drive for wealth. Increasingly, we want to slow down, have time to smell the flowers and be with our families.
And having casinos that will bring in more crime (organised ones too), encourage more addictive behaviour and increase broken families will not sit well with a population who now values quality of life rather than personal wealth. Yet, you bulldozed these concerns and won yet again with your cold, rational, economic arguments because there wasn't enough opposition in the parliament to stop you.While people may buy into the cold logic of your policies now, your lack of empathy and human touch are slowly alienating voters. The breaking point may not be now, but you can be sure that the disconnection is getting wider by the day. It's a time-bomb that will go off at some point.
3) You forgot evolutionary laws, history and your own past
While you're very brainy, you're mostly all technocrats and specialists. You've scorned the social sciences and the humanities, you think these are only for sissy people whose A Levels don't qualify them for specialist degrees. Yet, if you had been more well-informed in these areas, you might have learnt some valuable lessons about power. History, for example, is the best teacher that could have taught you that power never ever ever ever lasts forever. Indeed, the more you try to hang on to it, the more it will invite adversity.
History would also have taught you that every regime was once in opposition. As Marx could have told you, the history of mankind is all about class (or power) struggles. You may be in power now, but one day you'll be overthrown. However, you have hope of leaving your great legacy behind if you take a leaf from the pages of human evolution, which would have taught you that it's human diversity that has helped the human race to overcome the odds, to survive this long.
But instead of embracing diversity, you tried your hardest to kill off any form of alternative views, whether these come from within your party or externally. You only wanted to hear your own voice or voices that are exactly the same as yours. This inbreeding will eventually be your demise. Most of all, you forgot your own roots, where you were once an opposition party too. You focused so much on hanging on to your power, you forgot your original vision, you forgot your voters and you forgot why you are governing Singapore.
4) Power breeds fear and paranoia
In the beginning, you used power in order to stabilise the political situation so that you can give the masses homes, food, clean water and their livelihoods. That seemed a justifiable use of power even though it involved some ruthless and ugly tactics. But over the years, you started to crave power for itself.
Again, you forgot the story of Macbeth (see, I told you the humanities are important!!) - where an originally good leader was so obsessed with his new power that he saw everything as a threat towards it. He became so paranoid that he even killed his best friend whom he thought was after his throne. He only heard what he wanted to hear from dubious soothsayers (which turned out to be half-truths). Needless to say, Macbeth eventually had a tragic end.Like Macbeth, you've become so obsessed with winning overwhelmingly in every GE that you use every weapon you have, every trick up your sleeves to clobber the opposition to smithereens. Smear campaigns, legal suits, changing electoral boundaries, raising the cost of candidature, forming GRCs, threatening the electorate with upgrading...it's like watching the Brazilian football team beat the Singapore team by 82-2, except in football the rules are fairer and the referee neutral. Why do you need to resort to such gangster-like ways? You could have won overwhelmingly anyway with all the talent you have! I'm not sure how long this bullying strategy can go on but sooner or later you'll become the thug that the electorate can't wait to get rid of.
5) Power corrupts absolutely
Power is not power without money. And in this aspect you've outdone yourselves by pegging your salaries to the private sector. You're the highest paid politicians in the world and your income is >40 times that of the median income of the general population (only less than Kenya). Of course, you justify it with yet another one of your cold, rational arguments of attracting and retaining the best talents in the government. But seriously, how can you compare public sector salaries to the private sector? In fact, many of your candidates have never worked in the private sector before and one wonders if they'll survive even for a day in a private company.
Yet, they are paid private sector salaries, paid not from profits but from taxpayers' money. And though I fully agree that politicians must be paid their worth, don't you think getting 40x the median income is crossing into the lines of corruption? Ok, even if all our Ministers and PM are worth every cent of their $4m annual salary, it also means that they have to perform much much much better than any other government in the world.
Again, you have set the standards and expectations so high, you only have yourselves to blame when you cannot meet those expectations from the ground. And the more you fail to meet their expectations, the more the electorate will think you're not worth your astronomical salaries. It's a vicious cycle that you've started and it's going to be very hard to stop now.
You talk about the so-called "crutch-mentality" of the poor, yet this same mentality can be applied on yourselves. When you've used money as the main means to attract people into your party, you've basically recruited people who value money above serving the country in the people's interest. These politicians who are in it for the money will not have the incentive to think independently or to represent the people's interests because they've got millions to lose if they don't toe party lines. Because they're paid millions, what incentives do they have to empathize with someone struggling with 2 jobs to make ends meet? Very soon, the voters will feel that you're just a bunch of corrupt officials, no different from those in many 3rd-world countries.
The way I see it, you only have yourselves to blame for this situation you're in. The only way you can somehow reverse these trends is to learn from Madonna (see, you never thought popular culture could teach you anything right?). She keeps herself relevant not by sticking to the same old formula again and again. That would have killed her career long ago as it did to countless of other pop stars. Rather, she keeps re-inventing herself and her image to keep them relevant to the current times. And she pushes the boundaries. She's always ahead of her time and like a true leader, she sets the trends not follow them. She's a rebel.
Yet, all you have done is to remain exactly the same as you were in 1960s. The electorate is increasingly tired of your same old scare tactics using HDB upgrading as a stick, tired of you saying that Singapore will go to ruins if the opposition wins, tired of you always using smear campaigns against opposition candidates, tired of your arrogance and lack of empathy, tired of you giving out inconsequential hongbaos before elections only to increase your own salaries by millions after.
You keep encouraging us to think out-of-the-box, yet you're perpetually stuck in the same adversarial mindset towards the opposition. If you can only start to think of your relationship with the opposition as a mutual symbiosis - you share a portion of power with them in return for your longevity and credibility. Power is always temporary, but your legacy needn't be.
Just look at the current Conservative Party of UK which traces its roots back to the Tory Party in 1678. Do you think they could have survived this long without any meaningful opposition, no defeats, no radical internal reforms? Are you so politically shortsighted that you can only see your future in the next 10, 20 or 50 years?
C'mon, think further!! And didn't anyone tell you that in other to be the best, you need to have competition? Otherwise, how can the electorate be sure that you're indeed the best, if they can't compare you to any other party?
I'm no military strategist, but I do think that sometimes, you need to lose some battles first in order to win bigger battles later. It will not be a bad thing for you to lose a few GRCs in this GE. In fact, if I were you, I will be celebrating. Because nothing gets people going like failure.
Rather lose some small battles now than to wait for the big bomb to explode later. By then, not only will you disappear into the dust heap of history, so too will Singapore. That will be your ultimate betrayal to this country that you so painstakingly and successfully created out of a little red dot on the map.
LKY is telling Disney bedtime stories to those who want to listen.
He misses his late wife too much.
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That lady is so gusty
but wise -
as a chinese sayin goes : Fortune will not last more than 3 generations
seems its endin at the 2nd, when the oldman is still alive
-
Self-contradictory?
Describe Singapore like Disneyland, then say its not Disneyland?
So its Universal Studios? -
How prophetic. Although this joke was mentioned eons ago, the essence of it remains timeless.
Customer: Where can I find a copy of the fascist's book?
Bookkeeper: In the fairytale section.