I really enjoy reading about Singapore politics nowadays, ever since the exciting 2011 General Election. We're living in exciting times, things perhaps may change now as people are actually standing up to voice their dissatisfaction. Despite being of voting age I have never voted, and probably had my name struck off the registry which doesn't bother me and yet it does, I feel like a bit of an outsider and now all I can do is merely observe.
The Singapore government has warmly embraced hundreds of thousands of foreigners, some highly skilled and some working basic hospitality jobs, allowing them to lead cushy lives and providing them with nearly on-par benefits with us, the native Singapore citizens. I have not worked a tax-paying, CPF-contributing job (had to love being a tutor back in the day) but as long as my dad is a tax-paying Singapore citizen surely I am not a complete outsider. I've only been in Australia nearly 4 years and I love Singapore as the place I grew up in, but all this civil tension is going to boil over sometime and get messy. The government has cited various reasons for herding in foreigners by the masses, and when it backfires they provide weak excuses, insult and threaten Singaporeans and yet keep hammering away at their terrible policies, haha perhaps in an attempt not to lose face? To avoid an I-told-you-so?
So here I am, just over a year from graduation and having to make a pretty big life changing decision soon as to where I am going to be for the next few years. Maybe this is just my opinion, but the veterinary profession is rather politically and economically isolated. Maybe I could go back home and save myself the trouble of moving elsewhere, but I wonder if that is the right decision. Educated Singaporeans are packing up shop to start anew elsewhere, seeking a better life and I have yet to hear anyone who's made the move complain about anything really apart from getting used to paying larger taxes. Surely this is sending some sort of message to the ruling party? How will you one day afford to import highly-skilled labour once the population has been saturated with foreign blue-collar workers? How far will you underpay them? How will you afford to keep the rich Singaporeans rich when there is no local middle class to exploit after you've run your cheaply paid foreigners into the ground?
Ahh... So I wonder what the future of Singapore will be like. Will the government heed and finally listen to the people as a democratically appointed government should? Or will they press on with stupid policies only to buffer them with exponentially stupider, stifling and less accountable policies?
STOP IT WITH THE QUESTIONS ARUNA. Okay. I'm just mind-mapping outcomes. Interestingly enough, I googled 'working in singapore' to find this;
Contact Singapore is an 'alliance' of the Ministry of Manpower.
Next, I googled;
I am probably taking it out of context. But it's just funny how they are on both ends of the spectrum. Amazing.
Haha, I wonder when the kiss-assery will stop and when Singapore will emerge as the badass nation that it truly is.
The Singapore government has warmly embraced hundreds of thousands of foreigners, some highly skilled and some working basic hospitality jobs, allowing them to lead cushy lives and providing them with nearly on-par benefits with us, the native Singapore citizens. I have not worked a tax-paying, CPF-contributing job (had to love being a tutor back in the day) but as long as my dad is a tax-paying Singapore citizen surely I am not a complete outsider. I've only been in Australia nearly 4 years and I love Singapore as the place I grew up in, but all this civil tension is going to boil over sometime and get messy. The government has cited various reasons for herding in foreigners by the masses, and when it backfires they provide weak excuses, insult and threaten Singaporeans and yet keep hammering away at their terrible policies, haha perhaps in an attempt not to lose face? To avoid an I-told-you-so?
So here I am, just over a year from graduation and having to make a pretty big life changing decision soon as to where I am going to be for the next few years. Maybe this is just my opinion, but the veterinary profession is rather politically and economically isolated. Maybe I could go back home and save myself the trouble of moving elsewhere, but I wonder if that is the right decision. Educated Singaporeans are packing up shop to start anew elsewhere, seeking a better life and I have yet to hear anyone who's made the move complain about anything really apart from getting used to paying larger taxes. Surely this is sending some sort of message to the ruling party? How will you one day afford to import highly-skilled labour once the population has been saturated with foreign blue-collar workers? How far will you underpay them? How will you afford to keep the rich Singaporeans rich when there is no local middle class to exploit after you've run your cheaply paid foreigners into the ground?
Ahh... So I wonder what the future of Singapore will be like. Will the government heed and finally listen to the people as a democratically appointed government should? Or will they press on with stupid policies only to buffer them with exponentially stupider, stifling and less accountable policies?
STOP IT WITH THE QUESTIONS ARUNA. Okay. I'm just mind-mapping outcomes. Interestingly enough, I googled 'working in singapore' to find this;
Contact Singapore is an 'alliance' of the Ministry of Manpower.
Next, I googled;
I am probably taking it out of context. But it's just funny how they are on both ends of the spectrum. Amazing.
Haha, I wonder when the kiss-assery will stop and when Singapore will emerge as the badass nation that it truly is.
1 comment:
Well, this is exactly what they avoid talking about in public. For the pure reason that Singaporeans (and the opposition parties) tend to be fixated on the micro than the bigger issues to come.
In essence our only resource (our people) aren't enough to sustain the growth of industries we have created to build this grand facade we've put together to create this grand case study of a nation that ascended so quickly up the GDP ladder by authoritative policies and being told what to do.
Although we have a high 'millionaires' per capita, this is built on many who made their money by the property boom and/or money made during the unregulated condo buying loophole. There are also a huge number of folks resorting to SME entrepreneurship to be able to keep up. Everyone wants to be a towkay than work for someone because there is no workers welfare/rights. In my first workplace I was one of the highest paid at $2500 a month who was also one of the youngest. There were folk with 3 kids earning $1800 a month doing everything.
But imagine the hell that would be created if they implemented minimum wage. How many of these SME businesses would go bust because they don't even make that much to be paying their staff, its built to pay it's owner.
And the circle goes on.
I could be wrong. *shrug*
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