Are you ready for 7 million people on tiny Singapore?
-
3Boys:
Sorry hor, I didn't ask to abolish NS completely but asked to cut defense budget to very minimum.
Oh someone please help this lady!! :faint:JannettLee:
To me, Defence spending is completely wasting money! Even South Korea is spending lesser money per soldier than us. They should cut defence to very minimum.
Next thing she'll say we abolish NS completely......
Why spend so much money? we are not going for war, even if we do, you thought we can win the war ? -
JannettLee:
Sorry hor, I didn't ask to abolish NS completely but asked to cut defense budget to very minimum.
Oh someone please help this lady!! :faint:3Boys:
[quote=\"JannettLee\"]
To me, Defence spending is completely wasting money! Even South Korea is spending lesser money per soldier than us. They should cut defence to very minimum.
Next thing she'll say we abolish NS completely......
Why spend so much money? we are not going for war, even if we do, you thought we can win the war ?[/quote]With this kind of thinking.....no need to even spend on defence...why do minimum.....just spend zero lah.... -
pirate:
Oversight is referred to the above-mentioned in pinkIrrelevant:
As Singapore govt spending as % of GDP is less than half of these developed countries, we will need to ramp our our healthcare spending very significantly to match theirs.
It's not a matter of deciding let's spend x% of GDP on healthcare. It's a matter of deciding what needs to be done to make healthcare more affordable for Singaporeans, and then project how much it will cost. A question such as \"how many % of GDP we should spend on healthcare\" is putting the cart before the horse.
Given that Singapore gov had underspent on public healthcare for the last decade or two, it is natural that it has to spend more just to play catch-up.
Yeah, yeah. Some would question my statement that we had underspend on healthcare for the last decade or two. But the fact remains that we had underbuilt hospitals (90% occupancy rates!) and underproduced doctors. Yep. I am from the generation where students get rejected from medical school because their results were too good and were told to go do engineering. \"We don't want all our top students doing medicine.\" Hence the present shortage of hospital beds and the need to import FT doctors. Hence our present inadequate medical school capacity (cannot get enough qualified teaching staff!) and the necessity for the gov to pay to send our kids to overseas medical school. I don't even want to talk about the shortage of nurses. -
Like I expected CM7 can't cool the property market!
Looks like CM8 is coming soon......................................................... :evil: (please also target commercial properties now and regulate REIT to cut business cost!)
New private home sales jump by 43% in January
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporebusinessnews/view/1254423/1/.html
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SINGAPORE: Sales of new private homes in Singapore jumped by about 43 per cent on-month in January 2013, despite the latest round of cooling measures introduced last month.
According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), 2,013 units of new private homes - excluding executive condominiums - were sold in January, compared to 1,410 units sold in December 2012.
A URA spokesperson said about 60 per cent of the 2,013 units were sold before January 12 - before the latest cooling measures took effect.
The remaining 40 per cent of the units were transacted from January 12 onwards.
The data released by URA on Friday showed that 350 units of new private homes located in the core central region were sold in January.
Meanwhile, developers moved 376 new units in the city fringe and 1,287 units in the suburban areas. -
Protest, voter anger put political risk in Singapore's future
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/protest-voter-anger-put-political-risk-singapores-future-063715842--business.html
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gilbert Goh is an unlikely radical.
But as anger swells over living costs and immigration in Singapore, one of Asia's richest and most expensive countries, the bespectacled 51-year-old unemployment counsellor is moving beyond the fringe of political activism to the center of a rancorous debate over the nation's future.
In a country where nearly all media are state-linked and open dissent can easily fall foul of the long-ruling government, Goh's call for a public protest on Saturday is striking a nerve.
It is also raising the once-absurd prospect of political risk in one of the world's biggest financial and trading centers that has been built on a reputation of stability.
Goh set up a Facebook page in early February calling for the protest after the government said the island's population of 5.3 million could grow by as much as 30 percent by 2030, mostly through foreign workers to offset a chronically low birth rate.
Since then, more than 5,300 people have said they will or may go to what Goh has billed as a peaceful, non-political demonstration at Speakers' Corner, a park exempt from otherwise strict controls on assemblies in the regimented city-state.
Such numbers would make it one of the largest demonstrations since Singapore's independence from Britain in 1963.
\"We want to have human rights to be able to speak freely without the fear of reprisal,\" said Goh, a former social worker who runs a support group for the unemployed and ran for election in 2011 for the opposition National Solidarity Party.
\"I think I have a little bit more guts than your average Singaporean and I love my country a lot.\"
The protest reflects growing disquiet over the vision of the country set forth by the People's Action Party (PAP) that has ruled for five decades.
Founded by Lee Kuan Yew, the father of the current prime minister, the PAP is credited with transforming Singapore from a colonial outpost in the 1960s into a global business centre with world-class infrastructure, clean streets, an efficient civil service and the world's highest concentration of millionaires.
Part of that success is built on cheap foreign labor and a consumer class full of expatriates. Immigrants make up nearly 40 percent of the population, up from about 25 percent in 2000.
But many Singaporeans now struggle to get by on an average monthly wage of about S$4,100 ($3,300). High taxes have inflated the price of the cheapest new car to about S$110,000 and housing prices have doubled in a decade.
\"NO LONGER AFRAID\"
Fluent in social media, a new generation is openly questioning the ruling party's wisdom. Many are emboldened by a surprising by-election in Punggol East, a relatively young ward where the Workers' Party took a seat in parliament from the PAP last month by a convincing margin of nearly 11 percent.
\"Many Singaporeans are no longer afraid of the PAP,\" said Bridget Welsh, an associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University.
\"The erosion of political support reflects a lack of trust in the leadership. The PAP is following old formulas based on materialism and depending on technocrats for solutions. They've lost the political skills of engaging and persuading.\"
In many ways, the PAP is a victim of its own success.
Between the 1970s and 1990s, Singapore was Asia's economic star, growing 8 percent a year on average. Wages, affluence and expectations rose just as fast. Emerging from its top-notch schools, Singaporeans are very accustomed to stability and efficiency in a region beset by graft and polluted megacities.
Now online forums bristle with criticism of the government's white paper on population released in January. One number in that document - 6.9 million - set off a debate over how many people can fit onto an island half the size of London and how much the national identity will be diluted.
The government insists though that the 6.9 million figure is not a target, but a scenario helping it plan for the future.
\"The conversation on population does not end today and we do not yet have answers to all the problems,\" Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on his Facebook page last week as the white paper cleared parliament after a heated five-day debate.
\"I hope Singaporeans will continue to give us your feedback to allow us to improve our policies and Singaporeans' lives.\"
A senior government official declined to comment on the issues surrounding the white paper.
\"NOT A DIALOGUE\"
The PAP holds 80 of 87 elected seats in parliament and there is little chance it will lose power in the next general election in 2016. The Workers' Party, despite recent gains, has expressed its desire to work constructively with the government.
But gone are the days when political risk was simply not an issue. Stung in 2011 by its worst election showing in history, when 40 percent of voters went against the PAP, the government has become more open in seeking input from citizens and factoring their views into policymaking.
To address the discontent, it has restricted the influx of lower-skilled foreign workers and tried to cool property prices. Steps to encourage parenthood include more spending on housing grants, subsidized childcare and cash gifts for newborns.
But some question if the government is really listening.
\"The 6.9 million population plan was an announcement, not a conversation, not debate, not a dialogue,\" Seth Heng wrote in a Facebook post ahead of Saturday's demonstration.
That sentiment is echoed in online forums and the letters pages of newspapers.
\"Do we really need to increase our population by that much?\" Chang Wei Meng wrote in a letter to The Straits Times. \"What happened to achieving the Swiss standard of living?\"
Top factors influencing voters who switched from the PAP in the Punggol East by-election were the cost of living, the government not listening and the affordability of housing, according to a survey by local consultants Blackbox Research.
\"If this phenomenon is repeated elsewhere, it could represent a real challenge for the government in the run-up to the next general election,\" it said.
Goh, the organizer of Saturday's protest whose Facebook page features quotes from U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. President John F. Kennedy, expects the PAP to lose 10 to 12 seats in the 2016 election.
The Workers' Party and others are not ready to form a government, he said, but could keep the PAP on its toes.
\"They have been in power too long to know what to do to change,\" Goh said. \"We still have faith in the government but we want more opposition voices.\"
($1=1.2398 Singapore dollars)
(Additional reporting by Kevin Lim and Jion Chun Teo in SINGAPORE; Editing by Jason Szep and Neil Fullick) -
The point of NS is that we are serious about defence and we fight to win. Right now, there is no one in the region that can come in and beat us, NO ONE.
Please quit embarrassing yourself. -
What is the point of having Singapore Conversation if you don't even listen and consider anyone of them?
Singapore Conversation: 12 key themes so far
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapore-conversation--12-common-themes-so-far-101122917.html
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Affordability, the question of the Singaporean identity and differing definitions of success.
These are among the 12 common themes that have been borne out of the five-month-old Singapore Conversation thus far.
The committee behind Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) released a 25-page document detailing the key themes on Thursday morning, after an extensive series of dialogues involving over 10,000 citizens across various age groups and backgrounds.
The first OSC dialogue was organized for elderly residents in a Yuhua market in early October.
Under the theme of Affordability, Singaporeans involved in the OSC dialogues expressed worry over rising living costs not being able to keep up with increasing affluence. Expensive medical care and rising property prices were cited as pains among Singaporeans.
“If the high costs of living on food, transport, medical, housing and utilities remain hesitantly unchecked or escalate further from now, future retirees would be left with nothing much for their old age,” said an OSC participant.
Singaporeans also wanted to see national identity develop in a more “natural and communal” way and not through commercial icons such as Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer.
Commenting on the evolution of success, an OSC participant said, “There is a need to imbue a mindset that someone who earns less is not necessarily less successful.”
Snapshot of conversation
Other perspectives include having an accountable government, reviving the “Kampong Spirit” of togetherness and accommodating different definitions of the family unit, including gay citizens.
An OSC spokesperson said that the document aimed to provide “a snapshot of the conversation to date” by gathering commonly surfaced ideas to share to other citizens who have not participated in the dialogues. The spokesperson stressed that “it is not possible” to capture all views in one document.
The National Conversation was first mooted by PM Lee Hsien Loong during last year’s National Day Rally and it aims to involve as many Singaporeans as possible in a discussion about the future of the country.
The Committee plans to engage even more citizens in its next set of dialogue sessions. Sessions are held under Chatham House rules, which meant that quotes from participants cannot be attributed to themselves to maintain anonymity and encourage openness.
Here’s how you can take part:
Facebook –http://www.facebook.com/OurSGConversation
Twitter – You can tweet your using the hashtag #oursgconv.
Dialogue sessions and discussions – check calendar of events for the latest updates. In the meantime, you can sign up for sessions here. -
JannettLee:
Oversight is referred to the above-mentioned in pink[/quote]But my post was referring to the exact opposite!! The one that was embedded in pirates reply to which you agreed to!pirate:
[quote=\"Irrelevant\"]As Singapore govt spending as % of GDP is less than half of these developed countries, we will need to ramp our our healthcare spending very significantly to match theirs.
It's not a matter of deciding let's spend x% of GDP on healthcare. It's a matter of deciding what needs to be done to make healthcare more affordable for Singaporeans, and then project how much it will cost. A question such as \"how many % of GDP we should spend on healthcare\" is putting the cart before the horse.
Given that Singapore gov had underspent on public healthcare for the last decade or two, it is natural that it has to spend more just to play catch-up.
Yeah, yeah. Some would question my statement that we had underspend on healthcare for the last decade or two. But the fact remains that we had underbuilt hospitals (90% occupancy rates!) and underproduced doctors. Yep. I am from the generation where students get rejected from medical school because their results were too good and were told to go do engineering. \"We don't want all our top students doing medicine.\" Hence the present shortage of hospital beds and the need to import FT doctors. Hence our present inadequate medical school capacity (cannot get enough qualified teaching staff!) and the necessity for the gov to pay to send our kids to overseas medical school. I don't even want to talk about the shortage of nurses. -
3Boys:
If you cut NS to 1 year, you will have no one to come in and beat us too. You thought others didn't come in is attributed to our defence?
The point of NS is that we are serious about defence and we fight to win. Right now, there is no one in the region that can come in and beat us, NO ONE.JannettLee:
You really can't comprehend! Who is Moron?
As I said, you don't go for war and why asked our boys to flight war? If other want to walk into our backyard, you thought you can flight?
The budget can be cut by having the boys to do a shorter NS. say for 1 year instead. Why other countries can do with less duration for NS? why can't Singapore? South Korea is a very good example and yet they are in the war threat all the time but still can do with shorter NS.
Please quit embarrassing yourself.
You don't argue for the sake of arguing. I'm asking to cut defence budget but not asking to abolish defence. -
3Boys:
But my post was referring to the exact opposite!! The one that was embedded in pirates reply to which you agreed to![/quote]It is their oversight that Singapore gov had underspent on public healthcare for the last decade or two, that's why we have to spend more just to play catch-up that I agreed to.
Oversight is referred to the above-mentioned in pinkJannettLee:
[quote=\"pirate\"]
It's not a matter of deciding let's spend x% of GDP on healthcare. It's a matter of deciding what needs to be done to make healthcare more affordable for Singaporeans, and then project how much it will cost. A question such as \"how many % of GDP we should spend on healthcare\" is putting the cart before the horse.
Given that Singapore gov had underspent on public healthcare for the last decade or two, it is natural that it has to spend more just to play catch-up.
Yeah, yeah. Some would question my statement that we had underspend on healthcare for the last decade or two. But the fact remains that we had underbuilt hospitals (90% occupancy rates!) and underproduced doctors. Yep. I am from the generation where students get rejected from medical school because their results were too good and were told to go do engineering. \"We don't want all our top students doing medicine.\" Hence the present shortage of hospital beds and the need to import FT doctors. Hence our present inadequate medical school capacity (cannot get enough qualified teaching staff!) and the necessity for the gov to pay to send our kids to overseas medical school. I don't even want to talk about the shortage of nurses.
Hope this clarifies.
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