What I hate about the current Singapore

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

\"History shows that governments can raise birthrates close to replacement levels if they adopt the right policies. France and Sweden, for example, have crafted thoughtful, comprehensive and consistent policy responses that have largely reversed their declining birthrates over the long run.\"- Mind the Baby Gap



However, TFR in Singapore fell and kept falling until it became the lowest in the world [CIA Factbook]. How did this happen despite PAP govt claims that it was encouraging families to have more children?

The PAP efforts to get the TFR back up is tainted by other goals. In the late 80s when the problem was detected, the PAP govt wanted to take an eugenics approach to solving this problem with the graduate parents scheme - they wanted only graduate parents in particular married graduate women to have more children[Graduate Mother's Scheme]. The scheme neglected ordinary citizens, most of whom were not graduates and the govt saw a backlash at the 1986 elections and the scheme had to be scrapped. To get the TFR back up, govts that have succeeded implemented simple and non-discriminatory schemes e.g taking care of the delivery and medical expenses for the child during the early years. Giving financial aid, say, to families who need help to care for a child encourages more people to have children. However, these are not the type of schemes PAP implemented - the policies implemented by the PAP are highly discriminatory and tainted by other objectives.

Take the HOPE scheme as an example. It is meant to help poorer families with children's education and housing. However, families only qualify for aid if they have only one or 2 children - they get nothing if they have more children. Doesn't a family with 3 children need more help? How does denying help to families with 3 or more children lead to better outcomes for them? This help scheme is hijacked for the purpose of social engineering to discourage certain groups from having more children. How can our TFR be raise when hundreds of thousands of families belong to these groups are discouraged from having more children? How many of you come from modest income families with more than 2 children...you wouldn't even exist if your parents went on the HOPE scheme!

Instead of simple financial incentive given to all women who have children, the govt decided to give financial incentives in the form of tax rebates - $20,000 for the 3rd & 4th child[Link]. These tax rebates have to be used within 5 years. Such financial incentives are targeted at high income families who can fully utilize the rebate because they pay higher income taxes - those earning $40K and below claim less than one tenth the rebate. Anyone with common sense knows that giving more money to those who are already highly paid and less or nothing to those who need it most is a bad incentive scheme to encourage Singaporeans to have more children. These schemes are not effective and have failed to boost our TFR.

We are in our present situation because of various policies the PAP has pursued over the years. Now they are using the current low TFR figure to justify importing more foreigners. Why not revamp the incentives scheme and encourage more women to have children by removing the discriminatory nature of the current schemes? Why not solve the housing issue and ease the burden of married Singaporeans?

The ugly truth is this ....I don't think the PAP govt cares if the workforce is largely native Singaporeans or imported. Only ordinary Singaporeans care and worry about this. For the PAP, Singapore is Singapore Inc and they take a corporatist view of things. Companies love to recruit trained personnel from other companies especially their competitors. It is cheaper to let other countries educate their people and supply us with a workforce. The moment China opened up, the PAP leaders were eager to conduct a war for talent to bring Chinese students here. In other countries, it may be done by private companies but never at the govt level in such a big scale. Leaders of other countries, be it South Korea, Japan or Taiwan focus on developing their own people to the fullest and relying on their own people to compete globally - they may recruit a small number of special talents e.g. S. Korean national soccer team coach but it is their own people that do the heavy lifting. It is this faith leaders have in their people that takes a country forward to achieve great things. Leaders who get into power and wished they had some other country's people will lead its own citizens from one disappointment to another.

For the PAP, it doesn't matter if this economy runs and hums with your children when they grow up or the somebody from the Philippines, China or India. But ask yourself, if you do not defend this island and contribute to its development for your family and your children, what else is it worth doing for?

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And you swallow this lock stock and barrel?

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

And you swallow this lock stock and barrel?

Let's see who can take this apart. Are there even any factual error used to derive his conclusion?

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

3Boys:

And you swallow this lock stock and barrel?

Let's see who can take this part. Are there even any factual error used to derive his conclusion?

Let's start with your first statement. \"I hate to learn that it's the govenrment's discriminative policies that cause the present low birth rate.\" Conveniently ignoring the fact that Asian countries like with our type of demographic, and WITHOUT large foreign workforce presences, have exactly the same problem.

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

WeiHan:

[quote=\"3Boys\"]
And you swallow this lock stock and barrel?

Let's see who can take this part. Are there even any factual error used to derive his conclusion?

Let's start with your first statement. \"I hate to learn that it's the govenrment's discriminative policies that cause the present low birth rate.\" Conveniently ignoring the fact that Asian countries like with our type of demographic, and WITHOUT large foreign workforce presences, have exactly the same problem.[/quote]No. We have the worst number. It could easily be attributed to wrong policies. Without the bad policies, the problem could be present but with bad policies, it aggravates the problem. That was my impression.

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

No. We have the worst number. It could easily be attributed to wrong policies. Without the bad policies, the problem could be present but with bad policies, it aggravates the problem. That was my impression.

If you look at 2005-2010 average data, we are there with Korea, Macau, Japan. To attribute low TFR solely to policies (much less, discriminatory one) is clearly fallacious.

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

WeiHan:

No. We have the worst number. It could easily be attributed to wrong policies. Without the bad policies, the problem could be present but with bad policies, it aggravates the problem. That was my impression.

If you look at 2005-2010 average data, we are there with Korea, Macau, Japan. To attribute low TFR solely to policies (much less, discriminatory one) is clearly fallacious.

1. Can you quote reference of data? the author claims that Singapore has the lowest TFR and he gave examples of similarly developed economies that have successfully reverse the low TFR trend.
2. I don't think it is fallacious to call the government policies discriminatory. How do you expect the effectiveness of the policies to be if only top income earners benefit from having more children? Bottom line is that we can't see the sincerity in the government effort in encouraging higher fertility rate. So accusations in the article may hold water.

[Irrelevant]

Weihan


Home Ownership Plus Education (HOPE) Scheme

The HOPE scheme is for families with gross household income of $1,500 per month or less. How many kids do you reckon that a family with household income of $1,500 should have?

[concern2]

Irrelevant:

Weihan


Home Ownership Plus Education (HOPE) Scheme

The HOPE scheme is for families with gross household income of $1,500 per month or less. How many kids do you reckon that a family with household income of $1,500 should have?

Ironically, sometimes, the lower the income, the more the children. However, not sure about these days since people are more educated. Think the bench mark is 2?

[WeiHan]

Irrelevant:

Weihan


Home Ownership Plus Education (HOPE) Scheme

The HOPE scheme is for families with gross household income of $1,500 per month or less. How many kids do you reckon that a family with household income of $1,500 should have?

I don't get why are you showing me this?

isn't it even worse? Birth rate is dropping and they are only giving incentives to the highest income bracket to have more children. Not much incentives if you belong to the middle-low income group. And with this HOPE, they are blatantly discouraging more children from the low income group. I try not to call this discriminative social engineering but many will say that it is.

You can see that so little is done to promote local total fertility rate and they are pinning hope on quick solution like immigration. Giving expensive scholarships to foreigners...So what is this immigation about? Wouldn't they add to severity of greying population 20-30 years down the road instead of solving it even partially?

[Strparent]

What I hate most about current Singapore ?


seeing so many elderly citizens HAVING TO clean tables and collecting empty drink cans - yes, the same seniors who worked all their lives to bring up their children ( where are they and what are their priorities now ? ). Many elderly have to fend on their own and are struggling to make ends meet.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpFYx6Xt1A][/youtube]

3Boys:

Four letter word for you.....P I G S.

You know what they are.....

Social policy and high subsidies, anyone?

as much as I agree that social policies and high subsidies may lead to excess spending ( those in PIIGS and other western countries sometimes over-implement these policies to appease voters ? ), I definitely think we are UNDER subsidising the needy elderly.

Said it too many times, tried as much as I can on personal basis, but these sad cases are getting more and more. The younger generations are losing their compassion, their filial contributions and duties, etc ( from whatever reasons and causes - another story ), and the result is many more needy elderly.

and if I hear one more time that those elderly people who pick empty cans and clean tables are doing it to a) pass time and wanting to stay in workforce and b) they are actually very rich - ... I swear I will strangle the ignorant self-centred arschloch who say that :mad: