“If Singaporeans want a slower pace of life, they must also accept a trade-off in living standards”
~PAP Law Minister K Shanmugam
It is no surprise why Singapore is on the rat race to the bottom when the leaders have people like K Shanmugam in their ranks. Speaking in a forum at NUS, the esteemed Law and Foreign Minister who has been a lawyer all his life dished out his million dollar pearls of wisdom on Singapore’s economic direction. It is however more of a threat and warning to Singaporeans that their standards of living will be compromised if they choose work-life balance.
Shanmugam’s message aligns the ruling party’s consistent agenda – GDP, at any cost. Even if it means importing 2 million foreigners that depresses salaries and cause a relentless rise of inflation, letting new citizens be exempted of National Service, building gambling dens, shortchanging people’s welfare and healthcare, bastardizing the quality Singapore brand with cheap foreign labor, ruining family-planning and wealth of the poor and middle income, screwing up the public transport, denying Singaporeans’ their deserved retirement, trivializing freedom, imposing stricter media control, and disadvantaging Singaporeans with benefits in employment, education, security, CPF and taxes. All these are done in the name of growth. Despite having scholars and an army of grassroots, the PAP is either unaware that their machinery of GDP growth from CPF changes to ERP and COE, has benefited no average Singaporean or they simply do not care.
Growth in PAP context refers only to the GDP, growth in all other aspects – social, political, productivity, happiness and income – are on a free fall. In the period between 2003 to 2012, Singapore saw a consistently positive GDP growth similar that of countries in the South East Asia region. However at the same time, Gallup polled Singapore as the most unhappy nation in the world [Source], more letters of demands by PAP leaders were sent out to both Opposition members [Source] and citizens [Source], and income growth for the bottom 20% were stagnant for over a decade [Source] while the middle class barely get by [Source]. Just in 2012, the rich saw their income growth soared 5.1% and the number of millionaires and total wealth in Singapore increased 11.1% – all these on the backdrop of stagnant wages for the middle and low income earners. The growth promised by PAP is an exclusive one reserved for the rich, while the average folk continue to be priced out by the influx of rich foreigners.
So for Shanmugam not to be half-correct, the statement should be:
“If Singaporeans want a slower pace of life, the rich people must also accept a trade-off in living standards.”
Wiki Temasek
TRS Content Partner