General Election - Coming Soon - 11th September

[calugaruvaxile]

See? You found your own split: the douchebags and the leftist dreamers .

[JR8]

JR8, there was a movie called "immortal", a french cgi sf. The mayor had a marvellous quote, something like " there is no neutrl, t;here is only the rich and the poor, the winners and the losers, the integrated and the rejected. The whole f*****g world is split". I can't find the exact words now, but i'm afraid it's a much more realistic image of the human society than your peaceful coral reef.

No matter what, any election only change the elites for which the governace runs. Not the system. It never happened in the history.

'Only rich and poor'? depends how you define it, but I'd put just say 60% of SGns as 'middle-class'... so they fall outside of your definition. Also (IMHO), 'winning' has nothing to do with wealth: Errr unless wealth is a means unto itself (like in SG, perhaps).


p.s. I didn't suggest a coral reef is peaceful, far from it, just that it tends to self-balance, and every creature present is pivotal to the success of the whole.

[PNGMK]

Talk to some locals.... they're adamant this is a chance now to get rid of LKY's legacy.

[sundaymorningstaple]

PNGMK, you are right. The problem is, they don't realize that to get rid of LKY's legacy, it will mean the end of Singapore as we know it. The advanced city-state of today IS LKY's legacy. Most MNC's will bail out when they are forced to hire only substandard locals to fill the PME postions and reduce the manpower otherwise known as foreign labour because if the opposition gets to form the government, the reserves will be raided, minimum wage will be enacted and CPF will be returned. Unemployment will rise and the country may well die aside from the port until the Kra canal is built, that is.

[Wd40]

Good time to remit all your Sing dollars out, just in case.

[calugaruvaxile]

PNGMK, you are right. The problem is, they don't realize that to get rid of LKY's legacy, it will mean the end of Singapore as we know it. The advanced city-state of today IS LKY's legacy. Most MNC's will bail out when they are forced to hire only substandard locals to fill the PME postions and reduce the manpower otherwise known as foreign labour because if the opposition gets to form the government, the reserves will be raided, minimum wage will be enacted and CPF will be returned. Unemployment will rise and the country may well die aside from the port until the Kra canal is built, that is.

This is exactly why i said "for your own good, i hope pap will win".

Today's opo promises all those " good" populist things to get into the power. But they have no real agenda for a new economy or a new society. Maybe they have an idea of what to do when they're in power, maybe they will just throw populist bones.
No one really knows any real numbers about reserves, cpf, etc. Hopefully the treasury is full.
Why oposition sucks? It had no chance to develop. This will lead to bad times.

[JR8]

Today's SG is not the friend of MNCs. Have you thought, that's why so many have left, or have left a token presence. In later years they are coerced into social engineering projects, and are at a corporate level are made to pay for that participation. Clearly they have a choice. And they'd have a greater choice if the near neighbours were better able to get up to speed.

The advantage of SG used to be, good airport, good coms, quite well educated locals who speak English. That used to be a unique combination within the region, as HK was vs China until quite recently.

SG better come up with it's own local winning plan; if it wants foreigners out. Beyond being a a very expensive Disneyesque stop-over for tourists, and a place with lots of posh shops, I'm not sure what it is. Suggestions, i.e. of the kind that might secure the country's economy for the next 25-50 years?

p.s. Same reason I wouldn't buy property in SG, I, rightly or wrongly, just don't buy the future.
And no, this doesn't mean I don't like SG. Or that I'm not impressed with what it has achieved. ... Just I don't see what it can try and do for 'Act 2', and it shows no signs of knowing either.

[nakatago]

Today's SG is not the friend of MNCs. Have you thought, that's why so many have left, or have left a token presence. In later years they are coerced into social engineering projects, and are at a corporate level are made to pay for that participation. Clearly they have a choice. And they'd have a greater choice if the near neighbours were better able to get up to speed.

The advantage of SG used to be, good airport, good coms, quite well educated locals who speak English. That used to be a unique combination within the region, as HK was vs China until quite recently.

SG better come up with it's own local winning plan; if it wants foreigners out.

On a personal note, I'm glad I saw the writing on the wall. Being a helpless drone, my only choice was to vote with my passport.

I strongly suggest everyone else do so as well.

[PNGMK]

I work for an MNC, one of the pioneers that LKY brought in (seriously it's in our corp history). We have a had a long and fruitful relationship with Singapore. Although I'm not privy to the inner sanctum I can sense that relationship is beginning to fray and part.... first sign is a large part of the business is being moved to Battam....

[calugaruvaxile]

i'm ... AMAZED that you use the term "friends" in a business context. singapore is not "friendly"?

singapore "welcomed in" business from the 70's. these businesses employed the sg workforce and paid taxes, services, etc. sg was happy. there was money to build this and that. then sg needed more money, to build more, better and bigger thisandthat. so they "welcomed in" more business (strangely enough, they did not - or could not - make their own: always choosing the easy path ...). and after some iterations, there were no more workers to employ in sg. so the companies started to fight over workers (this is the famous moment when the electronic engineers began to "job hop" and the pm was promising to train more and more ee's). then inevitably, the work market had to open, that the necessary workforce can be brought in (the same way the businesses were brought in).
but - much like with tolkien's dwarfs, the excessive greed brought the social fabric to destruction. but that's not the only issue! for decades, the social contract in sg was economic prosperity for undisputed power. the economic prosperity is not a quantifiable issue. it only works by comparison (only the gradients are measurable). this is why the sg kids are always sent to camp in the poor countries, so they will be happier at home. anyway, as long as the populace had an increase, they were happy. nowadays they want more, but they have less. the social contract is at risk. so what can the govt do? 1) give more to the populace (obvious choice, isn't it? but wait ... they don't own their own economy ...) 2) make the comparison term worse. this is where the white expat becomes the enemy.

there is no "unfriendliness". just fight for power. and pure calculus.

and the oposition? they will take over the same plan. if they had a different plan, they would have made it public. but they have to do it better than pap, so in no time they might do interesting things, like forcing the mncs to become joint ventures (china-like)

[ecureilx]

and the oposition? they will take over the same plan. if they had a different plan, they would have made it public. but they have to do it better than pap, so in no time they might do interesting things, like forcing the mncs to become joint ventures (china-like)

just my 2 cents

Take the example of Chinese car makers who cloned some popular brands. The original brand owners screamed blood, and then the Chinese offered the original brand owners exclusive rights to supply the engines, an area the Chinese are weak - effectively making a JV with the brand owners- most brand owners decided to agree, because of China's buying power of 2 billion

Rather do business with the devil, and make some money in the process, than make the devil more angry and lose out- seems to be the new attitude of the Western and Japanese companies who have seen their ideas and IP stolen.

Now back to Singapore, just wondering, why would most MNCs take a similar approach, if Singapore decides to dictate new terms ? Just thinking aloud

Take Ship building and repair- almost all builders, including Singapore owned ones, have progressively moved even the repair facilities to other countries, countries where labour is cheap, and quality has improved a lot as well. Put some pressure on them, they will promptly bye-bye- to Singapore

And as I said before, the competition hasn't been sleeping. Like the example of Malaysia- from a country that made dependent passes a pain years ago, forget about Work Passes, go with a good and decent business plan with enough investment money, you can get extremely special privileges, with the MM2H quietly slipped, making Malaysia a good place to run a business, have a family, and worry about nothing.

I know a few MNCs, who's staff are all on some form of MM2H, they even have their in laws on long term pass, and the family children are all happy and comfortable, no complaints of foreigner enclaves, or anti foreigner bashes- and in fact, they seem more than welcome to have their own do's unlike here .. same guys who were crying when their mother and father couldn't get LTVP here in SG.

The annoying Malaysian Bureaucracy is only for those who walk in with a few hundred thousand $. Walk in with a few million $ investment, Malaysia is a heaven

Even The extreme foreign investor unfriendly Philippines has been evaluating ideas to remove or reduce the restrictions placed on Foreigners, even at the risk of pissing off the entrenched oligarchs, to protect whom most of the foreign investor laws were enacted.

[PNGMK]

Good point about Malaysia.

[rajagainstthemachine]

add to that we have Modi coming in with Make in India... Not that I particularly like him or his right wing Hindu party but he's been jet setting around trying to get as many foreign investors to move production/manufacturing to India.. but the drawbacks are many, India isn't an expat friendly country and culturally/socially on a retrograde path.

[ecureilx]

.. but the drawbacks are many, India isn't an expat friendly country and culturally/socially on a retrograde path.

during the height of the civil war in Sri Lanka, when bombings were as regular as the daily weather report, Investors still poured in, due to Sri Lanka's extremely investor friendly policies and especially for the garment manufacturing industry, even the top honchos from US, Europe and such places had no qualms living and working in Sri Lanka, as longs the place gave great returns. Sri Lankan allows 100% duty free import and export for export oriented businesses, and a lot of other benefits- including a company that was supplying accessories for Indian manufacturers, who struggled to get things done in India, went to Sri Lanka, and within 2 weeks, the Board of Investment had lined up the land, with zero issue on the title, and told him he can import all what he wants and get it up and running as soon as possible, and the Board of Investment with legalise the missing paper work later, and even arranged the investor to start interviewing the local crew who can help him kick start the work. And with some tax reduction scheme between India and Sri Lanka, the investor found that it is cheaper to run the operation in Sri Lanka than fight with the Indian Red Tape system- and 20 years later, he has only grown in Sri Lanka.

For high to medium risk / high return investors, as long as they have assurances that they can repatriate their profit, they wouldn't care much about the culture or society.

Or so I feel.

it is only the extremely conservative investors who seek extremely safe havens.

And in any case, I am sure India has also learnt the secrets of the neighbour's successes.

[calugaruvaxile]

just my 2 cents

Take the example of Chinese car makers who cloned some popular brands. The original brand owners screamed blood, and then the Chinese offered the original brand owners exclusive rights to supply the engines, an area the Chinese are weak - effectively making a JV with the brand owners- most brand owners decided to agree, because of China's buying power of 2 billion

Rather do business with the devil, and make some money in the process, than make the devil more angry and lose out- seems to be the new attitude of the Western and Japanese companies who have seen their ideas and IP stolen.

Now back to Singapore, just wondering, why would most MNCs take a similar approach, if Singapore decides to dictate new terms ? Just thinking aloud

Take Ship building and repair- almost all builders, including Singapore owned ones, have progressively moved even the repair facilities to other countries, countries where labour is cheap, and quality has improved a lot as well. Put some pressure on them, they will promptly bye-bye- to Singapore

And as I said before, the competition hasn't been sleeping. Like the example of Malaysia- from a country that made dependent passes a pain years ago, forget about Work Passes, go with a good and decent business plan with enough investment money, you can get extremely special privileges, with the MM2H quietly slipped, making Malaysia a good place to run a business, have a family, and worry about nothing.

I know a few MNCs, who's staff are all on some form of MM2H, they even have their in laws on long term pass, and the family children are all happy and comfortable, no complaints of foreigner enclaves, or anti foreigner bashes- and in fact, they seem more than welcome to have their own do's unlike here .. same guys who were crying when their mother and father couldn't get LTVP here in SG.

The annoying Malaysian Bureaucracy is only for those who walk in with a few hundred thousand $. Walk in with a few million $ investment, Malaysia is a heaven

Even The extreme foreign investor unfriendly Philippines has been evaluating ideas to remove or reduce the restrictions placed on Foreigners, even at the risk of pissing off the entrenched oligarchs, to protect whom most of the foreign investor laws were enacted.

apologies, i did not make myself clear. what Sg populace asks vocaly is high-paid jobs. what the mncs are saying is "you're not fit for these jobs (even if you have the right academic paper in your pocket)". you (as govt) cannot directly interfere with a company's HR development plans. you can't tell the HR department "you must promote or hire sg citizens for this position". the reason is that you can't force any entity to do what you want with that entity's money. you can regulate PRs (the reason why my company loses experienced people to aussieland) WPs, etc. but these punish the companies, not force them to hire your locals. if you want to have a say in a company's HR policy, you must own a fair share. thus, the idea of allowing foreign companies ONLY as JVs with temasek, or hell knows what. this was my point.

why do you think a-star exists? part of the plan was to JOINTLY develop IP with private companies, therefore make a bridgehead into the private sector's business. it did not work, as ALL the companies bar the very small rejected the trade.

instead of building their own, Sg tries hard to infiltrate the others ...