Are you ready for 7 million people on tiny Singapore?
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carilyn:
Agree with him whole heartedly.He has many years of private experience that's why he is in touch with the ground. Why is he not made a minister instead?https://www.facebook.com/kbinderjit/posts/598891680137569
Good speech..
Anyway when it's time to vote I'll be interested to know if he will vote for or against the white paper -
TODAY newspaper today has an article on the inadequacy of focusing on GDP to measure progress (appended below). Albeit in the US context, certain arguments are also applicable to Singapore.
http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/imperfect-measure-progress-gdp
An imperfect measure of progress: GDP
Which is better for a country’s well-being: US$10 million (S$12.4 million) spent constructing a jail, or spent producing a line of smartphones? How about clear-cutting rain forests to produce US$10 million in lumber? Or a storm that requires US$10 million in repairs?
Using today’s most common shorthand of national welfare, gross domestic product (GDP), all of the above are equal. GDP measures only output, and makes no claims on the quality of that output, let alone on subjective concepts such as social progress or human happiness.
It does what it was intended to do — offer a value of marketed goods and services produced in a country in a given time-frame — and does it reasonably well. Unfortunately, politicians have increasingly come to rely on this measure as a singular tool for calibrating public policy. This is a mistake.
As useful as GDP is, it has some crucial flaws. It can obscure growing inequality and encourage the depletion of resources. It cannot differentiate between spending on good things (education) and terrible things (cigarettes).
It does not measure the economic services that nature provides, such as the dwindling wetlands that once protected New Orleans from storms, or those that do not come with a market price, such as raising children.
It fails to account for the value of social cohesion, education, health, leisure and a clean environment — in other words, as Robert Kennedy once put it, GDP measures everything “except that which makes life worthwhile”.
SOME IMPROVEMENTS
This is why more and more economists and activists are pushing to update the GDP. The risk, is trying to incorporate too much into one indicator — particularly when it comes to subjective measures such as happiness or well-being.
A far better approach would be to improve some of the measurements used in national accounts, and develop a wider range of individual indicators of welfare to inform public policy.
In doing so, here are four guidelines to keep in mind.
First, economists need faster access to accurate information about growth, especially during recessions.
Consider that the original estimate of United States GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2008 was a contraction of 3.8 per cent. Over several years, that figure was revised to 8.9 per cent — suggesting a much more severe recession than most people realised in early 2009 when Congress was debating Mr Barack Obama’s stimulus Bill.
Several researchers, notably Mr Jeremy Nalewaik of the Federal Reserve, have said that gross domestic income had suggested the onset of the recession earlier and with greater accuracy than GDP had. Mr Nalewaik and several co-authors argued that a combined GDP-GDI measure would be more accurate, helping to offset some of the errors inhere in GDP and ideally giving policy makers a better economic picture when it most counts.
WHAT’S THE WORTH OF HOUSEWORK, CHILDCARE?
Second, we should take better account of non-market production — like household work — that affects the economy.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis, which compiles the national-income accounts of the US, has done an admirable job in recent years of using “satellite accounts” to take a more comprehensive snapshot of the economy. These enable experimentation with what data the bureau collects, without jeopardising the credibility of the existing national accounts.
For instance, a recent study calculated a satellite account for household production — including non-market domestic services such as gardening and housework, returns on consumer durable goods, and return on government capital — and found that GDP would have been 26 per cent larger in 2010 if it had included such criteria.
The study also found that the historical annual growth rate of GDP would have been slower and measures of income inequality would have been lower. Although such data necessarily entail uncertainty, they can still offer illuminating detail that is missing from traditional measures.
The use of satellite accounts should be expanded prudently, especially to better account for education and healthcare. As a 2005 National Research Council study pointed out, non-market measures should be consistent with existing national accounts and, where possible, should use market analogs to determine value — for instance, by estimating the value of parental care using the cost of private childcare or the income a parent would forgo by staying home.
MEASURE FAMILY WELFARE
Third, because GDP measures average income, it can obscure important discrepancies at the household level.
When incomes rise disproportionately for the well-to-do, for instance, mean income can increase even though many regular workers see their pay cheques cut. As a report from think- tank Demos recently noted, although US GDP more than doubled over the past 30 years, median household income grew by only 16 per cent.
A possible solution, which the authors support: Create new measures of household data for disposable income to better capture welfare of families and buying power.
Fourth, economists are generally converging on the idea that some measurement of environmental impact could be added to GDP.
The current system does not account for pollution, the depletion of natural resources or the economic benefits nature can provide. Fortunately, data on environmental accounting are improving, and it is possible, statistically if not politically, to place a monetary value on environmental depletion that could be subtracted from GDP. One way to begin might be to experiment with satellite environmental accounts.
SOCIAL WELL-BEING
What about measures of social well-being? This information is important, but measures proposed as a replacement or improvement to GDP, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, typically suffer by including ideological or subjective criteria.
Better to collect such data as part of a limited dashboard of additional indicators — on health, the environment, social cohesion and so on — that is separate from GDP. This is the approach recommended by the Stiglitz Commission, which did exhaustive work on this subject for the French government.
GDP is a universal, objective and very useful measurement. But we should recognise its limitations. Increasing GDP should not be governments’ only objective. Nor should GDP be considered a definitive measurement of human welfare.
For that, we will have to expand our data. And, ultimately, hold our politicians to better account.
BLOOMBERG -
Evidently and obviously many many of you still refuse to recognize the dwindling Singaporean people and its attendant dire consequences.
Such a bunch of ostriches burying theirs heads in the sand imported from foreign lands and pretend nothing is going to happen. Hey it is warm and cosy under the sand yeah -
Dora1:
Keke, donch like dat mah, don't ask don't know rite? :imanangel: you may come up with an elaborate hint later in the week, I wait ok? The thought of a stat board with more FT than SC is frankly appalling. :nunchuk:
:spank: You want me to die ah! I'm still working here!ammonite:
Can hint hint which stat board this is? -
crony.in.ksp:
Ostriches do that when they are outrun not by their own kind. Try putting yourself in the position of an ostrich deliberately and relentlessly chased after by a swarm of less worthy opponents made possible with machinery and aided by misguided souls in the name of progress. They aren't equipped with sharp claws or poisonous fangs to defend themselves. What else can they do?Evidently and obviously many many of you still refuse to recognize the dwindling Singaporean people and its attendant dire consequences.
Such a bunch of ostriches burying theirs heads in the sand imported from foreign lands and pretend nothing is going to happen. Hey it is warm and cosy under the sand yeah
Ostriches are anytime better than dodo birds who have no sense of danger and welcome their enemies with open arms.
So much for now. CNY is coming, logging off, got tons of things to do.... Happy New Year to all ostriches and dodo birds alike.
Fatt Fatt Fatt to all but hopefully not Fat Fat Fat from all the excessive eating and drinking. -
crony.in.ksp:
Aiyoyo! Why you call MP Inderjit Singh an ostrich? He's from the PM's constituency, you know? Dun be like that lah. Come, come. Wanna share my imported bird feed? :celebrate:Evidently and obviously many many of you still refuse to recognize the dwindling Singaporean people and its attendant dire consequences.
Such a bunch of ostriches burying theirs heads in the sand imported from foreign lands and pretend nothing is going to happen. Hey it is warm and cosy under the sand yeah -
ammonite:
Keke, donch like dat mah, don't ask don't know rite? :imanangel: you may come up with an elaborate hint later in the week, I wait ok? The thought of a stat board with more FT than SC is frankly appalling. :nunchuk:[/quote]My best guess is TCMPB.
:spank: You want me to die ah! I'm still working here!Dora1:
[quote=\"ammonite\"]
Can hint hint which stat board this is?
TCM practice require high proficiency in Chinese, thus the 70% of PRC? -
pirate:
Haha, li mai hai yee hor lang tuar hor :heresmyfish: yee bo kong shi IS lar... Wa dak 3 pai pun dak bei qu yee wu kong tio IS. :spank:
Aiyoyo! Why you call MP Inderjit Singh an ostrich? He's from the PM's constituency, you know? Dun be like that lah. Come, come. Wanna share my imported bird feed? :celebrate:crony.in.ksp:
Evidently and obviously many many of you still refuse to recognize the dwindling Singaporean people and its attendant dire consequences.
Such a bunch of ostriches burying theirs heads in the sand imported from foreign lands and pretend nothing is going to happen. Hey it is warm and cosy under the sand yeah -
Harlequin:
Haha, li mai hai yee hor lang tuar hor :heresmyfish: yee bo kong shi IS lar... Wa dak 3 pai pun dak bei qu yee wu kong tio IS. :spank:[/quote]Si meh? :whut: Yee wu kong tio IS boh kong sa lah meh? :scratchhead:
Aiyoyo! Why you call MP Inderjit Singh an ostrich? He's from the PM's constituency, you know? Dun be like that lah. Come, come. Wanna share my imported bird feed? :celebrate:pirate:
[quote=\"crony.in.ksp\"]Evidently and obviously many many of you still refuse to recognize the dwindling Singaporean people and its attendant dire consequences.
Such a bunch of ostriches burying theirs heads in the sand imported from foreign lands and pretend nothing is going to happen. Hey it is warm and cosy under the sand yeah -
pirate:
Si meh? :whut: Yee wu kong tio IS boh kong sa lah meh? :scratchhead:[/quote]Wu mei? Wa Bo tak IS kong si mi lar... Tan tao seng, wa tak seng....
Haha, li mai hai yee hor lang tuar hor :heresmyfish: yee bo kong shi IS lar... Wa dak 3 pai pun dak bei qu yee wu kong tio IS. :spank:Harlequin:
[quote=\"pirate\"]
Aiyoyo! Why you call MP Inderjit Singh an ostrich? He's from the PM's constituency, you know? Dun be like that lah. Come, come. Wanna share my imported bird feed? :celebrate:
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