Population woes

[3Boys]

limlim:

3Boys:

But will those 'benefits' be enough in the absence of labour? What secret recipe do we have that cannot be copied by people with enough intellect and willpower? The answer is, None. It's happening ALREADY! People are doing as you say, leaving Singapore and setting up elsewhere. An example is that of Qantas. Does anyone realize how serious that was?

Please don't keep the heads in the sand.

That is already happening with the supply of FTs.

So?

They do not shift bcoz of lack of FTs.

Don't say until the present of FT is the determining factor of whether they maintain their operations here.

I don't get you.

Some are moving away despite having availability of foreign labour, so we should exacerbate and chase the rest away by completely closing the supply?
What of our industries? Close shop? Decamp?

It will be worse without!

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

I just want to know.


Easy credit is known to cause bubbles. What measures will the government be taking to prevent a housing bubble?

Good grief, have you not been reading the papers??

How many rounds of dampening measures have we had since 2010? Tharman just spoke about this last week!

[3Boys]

Good lord people! Educate yourself about the country you profess to love so much. Sheesh!

[limlim]

3Boys:

I don't get you.

Some are moving away despite having availability of foreign labour, so we should exacerbate and chase the rest away by completely closing the supply?
What of our industries? Close shop? Decamp?

It will be worse without!

You've said it.. They move despite the availability of FT, so that is not the reason at all!

Close the supply so what? it's not that there is NO supply of workforce. They can source from local workforce.

They should learn to be lean, and review their process so as to make do with less, but skilled workers, to run the operations. They can pay more to attract talented locals, w/o necessarily incurring excessive costs as they do with less workers.

It requires effort, of course. But it adds value to overall society.

In essence, if they move, there'll be 1001 reasons. They can get skilled workers in that whatever host country, why would they set up camp there and then import FTs? doesn't makes sense.. isn't it? Like LPPL.

But those that will not move, will try means and ways to get FT to lower the costs and make more profits, when FT is actually not crucial to their survival.

[3Boys]

limlim:

3Boys:

I don't get you.

Some are moving away despite having availability of foreign labour, so we should exacerbate and chase the rest away by completely closing the supply?
What of our industries? Close shop? Decamp?

It will be worse without!

You've said it.. They move despite the availability of FT, so that is not the reason at all!

Close the supply so what? it's not that there is NO supply of workforce. They can source from local workforce.

They should learn to be lean, and review their process so as to make do with less, but skilled workers, to run the operations. They can pay more to attract talented locals, w/o necessarily incurring excessive costs as they do with less workers.

It requires effort, of course. But it adds value to overall society.

In essence, if they move, there'll be 1001 reasons. They can get skilled workers in that whatever host country, why would they set up camp there and then import FTs? doesn't makes sense.. isn't it? Like LPPL.

But those that will not move, will try means and ways to get FT to lower the costs and make more profits, when FT is actually not crucial to their survival.

You don't understand limlim, running a business is multifactorial, to some labour is more important, to some, tax regime, innovation environment etc. so SOME industries are more sensitive to labour, some are more sensitive to others, but each of these play a part. If even despite a fairly relaxed labour regime (previously), some industries do not find Singapore attractive, what more if we tighten significantly? It's not all or nothing, just because some industries remain does not mean they are not sensitive to labour conditions. There may just be enough to tip things in Singapore's favor for the time being, but if labour conditions worsen, what makes you think some of those on the edge will not also decamp? Why don't you understand? It's not just saying, oh those companies that don't like it, just leave and good riddance. If you have to be based here, then you are held hostage and too bad, just swallow a business unfriendly labour so that our PMETs can kick up their heels and enjoy an easy life. Isn't growing and giving robustness to economy also important? Is it not just keeping our hostage industries but also attracting others that will lend heft and add value, even if they required mid-high skilled foreign labour that is not available here?

The local workforce is NOT sufficiently large for us to have an economy to be competitively sized to play against the big boys. Imagine a domestic market of only 5 million, if we want MNCs they need to be significantly overseas for their markets. If we a producing for the world, do we not need a commensurate labour force? I'm not talking production line workers, I am talking PMETs like HR, IT, R&D, QA etc. in my experience, we DO NOT have enough of these people locally, I repeat, we DO NOT. It's not just about cost, Honest!

It's so frustrating trying to get this across to you. We DO NOT have enough of a talent base to have the economy the size we need to be secure against giants like Shanghai. Having such an economy is critical so that Singaporeans can continue to have high value employment.

In the final analysis it IS about the Singaporean, it always is!

[3Boys]

Contd…


Limlim, you take the approach that oh, ‘I don’t really care about the pain of the businesses, as long as local employment is protected’. You paint some kind of utopian picture that we can restrict the type of people that we allow our companies can hire, crank up their wages, and still be competitive on the world stage. Instead of speaking in vague terms like ‘be more lean in processes’, which even my 9 year old knows, show me that Singaporeans or the local companies have the wherewithal to execute on that, and not only execute, but be BETTER than our competitors. You speak so often of areas that we have an advantage, can you tell me your understanding of what they are and how tenuous they may be? Have you polled the companies to ask if they truly find these to be so superior to other places, to the extent that if we tighten up significantly on labour, that they would not just leave, and take ALL the jobs with them?

If not, then we have basically sentenced our industries to death. The MNCs will just up and leave (and you say good riddance), but the local SMEs are stuck here…in an inflexible, high cost labour environment that you propose. This is sticking our head sin the sand.

Businesses can be Singaporean too, they have rights also! How can Singaporeans prosper (and therefore be happy), if our businesses are weak and uncompetitive?

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

WeiHan:

I just want to know.


Easy credit is known to cause bubbles. What measures will the government be taking to prevent a housing bubble?

Good grief, have you not been reading the papers??

How many rounds of dampening measures have we had since 2010? Tharman just spoke about this last week!

I knew about the measures to cool off the property market.

But I getting more at the easy credit, why should we imitate western countries in providing easy credit to the extent of encouraging consumption base on loan?

I get banks calling me nowaday asking me to take loan. For what, it will increase bad loan in the long run. Is it a sign that banks can't make enough loan to productive growing businesses and they have to tap into personal consumption market which has a much lower credit rating?

[3Boys]

WeiHan:

3Boys:

[quote=\"WeiHan\"]I just want to know.


Easy credit is known to cause bubbles. What measures will the government be taking to prevent a housing bubble?

Good grief, have you not been reading the papers??

How many rounds of dampening measures have we had since 2010? Tharman just spoke about this last week!

I knew about the measures to cool off the property market.

But I getting more at the easy credit, why should we imitate western countries in providing easy credit to the extent of encouraging consumption base on loan?

I get banks calling me nowaday asking me to take loan. For what, it will increase bad loan in the long run. Is it a sign that banks can't make enough loan to productive growing businesses and they have to tap into personal consumption market which has a much lower credit rating?[/quote]How do you propose to tighten credit further? The rules on down payments for second properties have already been ratcheted up significantly in the last 24 months, and that's where the majority of cheap money is going, causing that bubble you are talking about. The other 2 ways are to limit capital flows, like what Malaysia did during the 1997 financial crisis (this is very drastic and should be avoided unless in a crisis, in my view), OR, raise interest rates, which will cause SGD to appreciate against USD and killing our exports.

There are no good solutions, only less bad ones. Central bankers around the world are struggling with this problem right now.

Anyhow, since I am not the finance minister, I suggest you go to http://www.gov.sg/government/web/content/govsg/classic/factually and post the question there for a professional answer.

They have been talking about this for ages already and everything I have written has been published in op-eds in the press including online, but I guess some people's knee jerk reaction is always that the g'ment is ignorant and stupid and just sitting on their hands.

[limlim]

3Boys:

In the final analysis it IS about the Singaporean, it always is!

Overall.. I hv no issue with your analysis.. if you say there is not enough talents locally.. ok.. let's just accept that first..

However, so often.. we came across many FTs which doesn't seems to possess the \"talent\" at all..

Let's say your argument is totally valid and that FT policy is essential. I feel that there should be proper regulations and enforcement to ensure the quality of imported FTs.

I always wondered.. How did the \"FTs\" actually passed the companies interviews given their qualifications.. is it because they are cheap?

Also, there are many many cases of fraud.. And I can tell you, many times, some relevant departments (lets PUT it this way in case any legal issues) aren't even keen to enforce. You make a report, they may investigate if there are already sufficient evidence to start with, instead of launching an investigate to probe possible wrong doings.

And, take an example of S Pass requirement that salary must be direct credit to bank via GIRO. How many companies actually do that? and did the authorities check via some automated system? the companies come up with all kind of excuses and get away with it. w/o GIRO it is very difficult to enforce that the companies are actually paying the employee per the S pass requirements!


In summary, in theory, proper FT policy is essential for survival.. let's accept it first.

But as currently, very weak control for the policy to produce it's intended effect. Population overloaded with not the kind of FTs that we need or desire.

In the past, pple say FTs are hardworking, committed, posses skills that locals lack etc.. I can more or less agree with that.. but NOW, I do NOT agree with that! FTs nowadays are not like FTs in the past. Maybe bcoz it is too lax now..

[WeiHan]

3Boys:

WeiHan:

It is easy.


Easy credit and low interest rate is the condition favorable for property price increase. However, without fundamental demand, there is no way that high property price can be supported. Thus, increase of population is an important supporting fundamental factor.

The US has an extremely low interest and easy credit too but their housing bubble has burst because there isn't increasing population and a growing economy as a support.

If we were to artificially raise our housing loan to high level, I am sure many foreigners wouldn't choose to migrate to Singapore too since it will so difficult to get a new home. Thus, there is a dynamical interplay between these factors.

You have completely stood logic on its head.

What I meant was that prices have to reflect fundamentals. In this case, property price is correlated to population growth in the very long run. The intermediate or short term is then affected by economic and credit cycles. In other words, I am seeing an oscillating property price which is correlated to economic and credit cycle superimposed on a general rising trend which is reflected by population growth.

This is similar to all price movement in market. Short term price fluctuation can be related to speculation (which is largely correlated with easy credit) but long term price always revert to reflect the fundamentals (mainly supply and demand).