so now you are richest man in the world

[limlim]

Funz:

Compassion can be given and should be given to the truly needy, not to those who are able and yet choose otherwise.

Yup.. The govt don't give handouts freely.. but they do give a hand at times when the motivated needy needs it.

e.g. workfare bonus etc.. to encourage pple to be self sufficient and stand on their own. This is better than schemes that breeds or promotes laziness & reliance....

[verykiasu2010]

SingDadNZ:

You don't see Singaporeans sleeping in Metro stations and side walks because they will be arrested with no alternative provided hence why you don't see them sleeping on our Metro Stations. If the same tolerance and compassion is offered to Singaporeans as in the western society , you will be swamped with homeless people. It is much cheaper is sleep in the Metro Station and there will be many takers in Singapore.

so they go back and sleep at where they belong, be it their own place or some arrangements made by MCYS - if they accept help from MCYS.

why are we swamped with homeless people if we allow them to sleep in metro stations and side walk ? and not when it is disallowed ?

tolerance and compassion unchecked breeds abuses.

[WeiHan]

I thought you all have read this article


http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/why-people-didnt-care-to-be-the-richest-country-in-the-world/

Not that i want to parrot it, I really see a few good points made in the article.

1. Singapore has the largest non-PR, non citizen, workforce in the world.The GDP per capita will appear much higher when gross GDP was divide by PR/citizen workforce only. In other words, the productivity of the non-pr/non citizen workforce has been taken into account into the total GDP but when calculating GDP per capita, the number from this workforce has been taken out causing a distorted illusion that our GDP per capita to look unusually high.

2. Median income is much lower than average income. i.e Gini coefficient is high.

3. Methodology not described leading to distorted portray of reality pointed out in point 1. MSM like ST chose to trumpet it with no deep analysis.

[3Boys]

SingDadNZ:

You don't see Singaporeans sleeping in Metro stations and side walks because they will be arrested with no alternative provided hence why you don't see them sleeping on our Metro Stations. If the same tolerance and compassion is offered to Singaporeans as in the western society , you will be swamped with homeless people. It is much cheaper is sleep in the Metro Station and there will be many takers in Singapore.

And show me evidence that there is even a shred of truth in what you are saying, that we will be \"swamped with homeless\" people.

So where are they now, swept under a carpet somewhere?

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

I thought you all have read this article


http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/why-people-didnt-care-to-be-the-richest-country-in-the-world/

Not that i want to parrot it, I really see a few good points made in the article.

1. Singapore has the largest non-PR, non citizen, workforce in the world.The GDP per capita will appear much higher when gross GDP was divide by PR/citizen workforce only. In other words, the productivity of the non-pr/non citizen workforce has been taken into account into the total GDP but when calculating GDP per capita, the number from this workforce has been taken out causing a distorted illusion that our GDP per capita to look unusually high.

2. Median income is much lower than average income. i.e Gini coefficient is high.

3. Methodology not described leading to distorted portray of reality pointed out in point 1. MSM like ST chose to trumpet it with no deep analysis.

1) The most blatant falsehood I have yet to see you post. First, it is completely false (try some of the gulf states). Second, I read through the article quickly an nowhere did I see yawningbread say that we have the LARGEST non-PR, non-citizen workforce in the world.

If you read carefully what he posted, he also did not SAY that that the g'ment HAD taken out the non-citizen workforce from the denominator in it's calculation, but merely that he was UNCERTAIN whether they had been included. And even when he used the the worst case scenario calculation from 2010, we are still around Australia or slightly ahead, which still puts us in the top 5 or 6. Is that such a bad thing?

<edit - I have now re-read his article a third time, and as much as he says the g'ment fudges numbers, his method is very suspect also, being selective and taking the extremes of exchange rate and population calculation to arrive at his pre-conceived conclusions>

2) GINI I agree with you is dreadful in SG.

You are STILL NOT checking your facts, in fact, you are now mis-representing what other people are saying. Here and in your other post about contempt of court, complete mis-representations and a disservice to the people you purport to support.

One more edit - On one more reading, he concedes that this is data that originates from a private company, but he lays the blame on the g'ment for fudging. All one big smokescreen.

[SingDadNZ]

[quote=\"3Boys\"]

SingDadNZ:

[color=#00BF80]You don't see Singaporeans sleeping in Metro stations and side walks because they will be arrested with no alternative provided hence why you don't see them sleeping on our Metro Stations. If the same tolerance and compassion is offered to Singaporeans as in the western society , you will be swamped with homeless people. It is much cheaper is sleep in the Metro Station and there will be many takers in Singapore.

And show me evidence that there is even a shred of truth in what you are saying, that we will be \"swamped with homeless\" people.

So where are they now, swept under a carpet somewhere?[/quote]
[/color]



In every society there are people who fell through the crack in the system. There are people with heavy depression, addictions, physically and are emotionally handicapped. They just can’t function and be productive in a society and many due to old age. In the Asian society the family traditionally absorbs the burden and the cost of looking after the so called unproductive unmotivated members. The western society, it is a collective burden and that is why I pay 33% tax on my salary. A child is cut lose at 18 and are allowed to move out of the family home. A lot of help is given by the society through the taxes for them to make it on their own. Some fell through the crack but many go on to invent great things to make life better for their fellow beings, create mega business and discovered innovative breakthroughs in communication, in the medical field, technology and computers and internet that made all this possible.

Take an example of my 86 years old Singaporean dad. He was a very hard working man and the backbone of Singapore’s formative years. He started work when he was 14 and was retired as an electric fitter at age 55 in 1981. He put his children through university and two of them in London in the 1970’s. On his retirement, his last drawn salary was about $600 and a CPF saving about $25,000. As a child I have watched how hard my parents worked and saved. All his saving was spend on the children and managing a home. In the 31 years since his retirement assuming my mom and dad need about $800 per month (averaged out) to have a basic life style, has cost to date $297,600. That excludes more than $30,000 spent on hospitalization, medicine and dental care in the last 4-5 years. Where do you think the money came from? Many Singaporean will say why don’t they work as a cleaner in a hawkers stall or give out flyers on street corners (which is a common sight of aged people in Singapore). These are the same people who refuse to put a wheel chair friendly bus in our neighborhood even though I appealed to the bus company and the local MPs two years ago. Last year we spent more than a thousand dollars on taxi fare as my dad is unable to stand up due to damaged nerves. What do you think the problem is? Lack of financial resources or lack of empathy for the people who fell though the crack?? Where do you think my parents will be sleeping if we the children did not support them. :siao:

[3Boys]

SingDadNZ:

[


In every society there are people who fell through the crack in the system. There are people with heavy depression, addictions, physically and are emotionally handicapped. They just can’t function and be productive in a society and many due to old age. In the Asian society the family traditionally absorbs the burden and the cost of looking after the so called unproductive unmotivated members. The western society, it is a collective burden and that is why I pay 33% tax on my salary. A child is cut lose at 18 and are allowed to move out of the family home. A lot of help is given by the society through the taxes for them to make it on their own. Some fell through the crack but many go on to invent great things to make life better for their fellow beings, create mega business and discovered innovative breakthroughs in communication, in the medical field, technology and computers and internet that made all this possible.

Take an example of my 86 years old Singaporean dad. He was a very hard working man and the backbone of Singapore’s formative years. He started work when he was 14 and was retired as an electric fitter at age 55 in 1981. He put his children through university and two of them in London in the 1970’s. On his retirement, his last drawn salary was about $600 and a CPF saving about $25,000. As a child I have watched how hard my parents worked and saved. All his saving was spend on the children and managing a home. In the 31 years since his retirement assuming my mom and dad need about $800 per month (averaged out) to have a basic life style, has cost to date $297,600. That excludes more than $30,000 spent on hospitalization, medicine and dental care in the last 4-5 years. Where do you think the money came from? Many Singaporean will say why don’t they work as a cleaner in a hawkers stall or give out flyers on street corners (which is a common sight of aged people in Singapore). These are the same people who refuse to put a wheel chair friendly bus in our neighborhood even though I appealed to the bus company and the local MPs two years ago. Last year we spent more than a thousand dollars on taxi fare as my dad is unable to stand up due to damaged nerves. What do you think the problem is? Lack of financial resources or lack of empathy for the people who fell though the crack?? Where do you think my parents will be sleeping if we the children did not support them. :siao:

So, there are fewer homeless in NZ or Sweden, with far higher taxes and supposedly better support systems?

So, if you do not support your parents, is it your expectation that other taxpayers do so? It's ok to say yes, but just want to make sure I (and you) understand what you are asking for.

Please don't make faces at me like :siao:

You made what I felt was a preposterous statement <You don't see Singaporeans sleeping in Metro stations and side walks because they will be arrested with no alternative provided hence why you don't see them sleeping on our Metro Stations>, and I challenged robustly, that is all.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001543-is-sweden-a-false-utopia

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

1) The most blatant falsehood I have yet to see you post. First, it is completely false (try some of the gulf states). Second, I read through the article quickly an nowhere did I see yawningbread say that we have the LARGEST non-PR, non-citizen workforce in the world.

If you read carefully what he posted, he also did not SAY that that the g'ment HAD taken out the non-citizen workforce from the denominator in it's calculation, but merely that he was UNCERTAIN whether they had been included. And even when he used the the worst case scenario calculation from 2010, we are still around Australia or slightly ahead, which still puts us in the top 5 or 6. Is that such a bad thing?
.

I reproduced the section of his article concerned. I didn't say the g'ment took out non-citizen workforce also. I said, they took out non-citizen/non PR (which I wasn't sure it means non-residential). What I want to say was \"non residential\" but I thought \"non-citizen/non-PR\" will mean the same thing (i.e. because I wasn't perfectly sure non-residential was what he meant). But the gist of the article is that by taking a portion of the workforce out in the calculation, the final GDP/captita has been artificially inflated. What does a few semantic errors discredit what I tried to convey?

Regarding contempt of law, I am still correct. It is used by very few/if any developed countries to silenced critics. Stop putting words in my mouth and discredit me.
==
The closest match with the Wealth Report figure of US$56,532 seems to be our figure of US$58,715. This suggests that the Wealth Report used the per capita GDP for Residents only, converted at about US$1 = S$1.45.

The problem with such a method of calculation is that Singapore’s population is much larger than our Resident Population. In mid 2010, we had 5.077 million on this island, of which only 3.772 million were Residents. And a great majority of the non-Residents hold work passes. In other words, they contribute to the GDP through work. How can we take into account their economic product, yet erase them when it comes to calculating GDP per capita?
===

We are comparing with countries that are on the list, gulf countries are not included since it won't affect the ranking. Thus, mentioning that Singapore has the largest non-residential workforce (in the list) is important because it affects the ranking on the list published buy the report. His article implied what i said.

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

The problem with such a method of calculation is that Singapore’s population is much larger than our Resident Population. In mid 2010, we had 5.077 million on this island, of which only 3.772 million were Residents. And a great majority of the non-Residents hold work passes. In other words, they contribute to the GDP through work. How can we take into account their economic product, yet erase them when it comes to calculating GDP per capita?
===

Has this been proven? Or speculation? yawningbread fudges the data his own way on the way to his conclusions. Don't swallow everything lock-stock-barrel.

It's not semantics, you were definitive in trying to convey that Singapore has the highest (or thereabouts) of foreign participation in the workforce, which is plainly and obviously untrue, even when accounting for the imprecision of your comments.

Check your data and facts before you copy or interpret so one else's opinions, and you will less likely come off as uninformed.

I stand by my comment on the contempt of court issue, your original statement was again definitive with no nuance, as opposed to the blog you attributed to, which WAS nuanced.

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

Has this been proven? Or speculation? yawningbread fudges the data his own way on the way to his conclusions. Don't swallow everything lock-stock-barrel.

You will have to read his article and point out possible areas that he has erred in his analysis in order to prove that he has rpoven or is he just speculating.

I think is reasonable. The \"extreme\" in exchange rate that he used actually don't change the gist of the reasoning much.

3Boys:

It's not semantics, you were definitive in trying to convey that Singapore has the highest (or thereabouts) of foreign participation in the workforce, which is plainly and obviously untrue, even when accounting for the imprecision of your comments.

Singapore indeed has one of the highest \"non residential\" ( of course, is in term of percentage of total workforce we are refering to, can't be talking about absolute number, right? sorry for my imprecision again but I thought it is understood) participation in the workforce. It is even more so if we just consider the list of the ranking concerned.