I hope that Singaporeans will not be stupid enough to believe in this PR stunt. Knowing full well that if he doesn't do something to appease the people, in the next elections, things will go very wrong for the PAP (which most of us think, will go very right for Singapore).
Wouldn't it have been easier to just give that increment amount to charity in the first place? Oh yea, you can't do that. If you do that, you can't show that you are a wonderfully generous and caring person. I mean, it is so much easier to show that you are kind and compassionate when you give away your own money (money which you don't need) then if you just put it in the Singapore budget for charity.
But I really doubt Singaporeans will be smart enough to see through this. I really doubt that anything will change in the next elections because for a very simple reason, we are not only stupid but very gullible and the gahmen knows which buttons to press so that we'll vote them in again.
So after the PAP comes into power again in 2011, this will once again happen. We stupid peons will rave and rant about they wanting to increase their pay to 4.5 million, and after they do that, a great PR stunt (like this one) will be done again and we stupid peons will forget everything and believe in the love and compassion of our PM and ministers. And we'll vote them in again.
As my friend believes, we'll never learn.
Further reads:
PM Lee's Sacrifice | New Direction in the Justifications
Today
12 April 2007
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
-------------------
Decision to hike ministerial pay was 'most difficult', but a necessary one to make: PM
Lee U-Wen
u-wen@mediacorp.com.sg
BY PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong's own admission, this is not the best of times for the Government to be grappling with an issue as sensitive as a pay hike for ministers and civil servants. Certainly not when the income gap in Singapore is seen to be widening, and not everyone is enjoying the benefits of the returning good times. In fact, some speakers during the three-day parliamentary debate on the issue even wondered whether Mr Lee and his ministers had undermined their moral authority to govern by giving themselves such large pay increases.
So, when Mr Lee took the floor yesterday to wrap up the debate, he decided to address just such concerns: Minutes into his two-hour long speech, Mr Lee said he would freeze his pre-increment salary of $2.5 million for the next five years, promising to donate any increase in pay to charity.
That means a donation of at least $3 million, or a minimum of $600,000 in each of the five years. Under the phased pay revisions announced on Monday, Mr Lee will draw a salary of $3.1 million this year, a 25.5-per-cent jump from what he drew last year.
The Prime Minister said he did not expect other ministers to follow his lead.
"I'm the one carrying the ultimate responsibility ... I know that ministers and MPs already support various worthy causes, but it should not be an ostentatious display of how self-sacrificing they are. That is a private matter for them to decide at their own discretion," said Mr Lee.
While his decision is likely to win applause from many, one MP asked whether some Singaporeans may view it negatively.
Madam Ho Geok Choo (West Coast GRC) said: "I fear that there may be people out there who take his magnanimous gesture as a retreat and a face-saving admission that the policy (on ministers' salaries) is flawed."
Responding, Mr Lee reiterated that it was his personal choice.
In his speech, Mr Lee said he agreed with MPs who had argued that joining the public service required "sacrifice and selflessness".
Still, he added, choosing the right people for the job was "not an auction" to show who was willing to make the bigger financial sacrifice.
In a speech that was at times emotional and peppered with anecdotes from
his own 23-year career in politics, Mr Lee spoke about his fears of
Singapore getting a corrupt premier in the future.
"I'm worried about somebody wanting to be Prime Minister, hoping to be
paid not a single cent but still collect $400 million - under the table
..
"We don't expect ministers to earn as much as top earners in the private
sector, but it must not be too far out of line with what is earned
outside," said Mr Lee, who also shared with the House that he turned 55
this year and has drawn his CPF.
On the timing of the pay hikes - less than three months before the Goods
& Services Tax will be raised by 2 percentage points to 7 per cent - Mr
Lee conceded that the timing could have been better.
But then again, he said, there is "no good time". The last major salary
revision was seven years ago, and there was a growing "urgency" to close
the gap on the private sector benchmarks in order to ensure that the
public sector would continue to attract, and retain, top talent.
"Politically, this is the most difficult decision for me to take ... It
was Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew who
encouraged me to do it. They know the importance of having good ministers
to help them with their work."
Mr Lee also touched on the link made by many MPs between ministerial
salaries and public assistance payouts for poorer Singaporeans.
"When you make such comparisons, the problem can become very emotional ...
General welfare is something we can promise, it's very easy and popular.
It's like having a God of Fortune giving out money and everyone is happy.
You don't need very capable ministers to do that," he said.
However, if the Government were to tread down this path, it would suffer
"long-term repercussions", he said. "The wiser approach is to grow the
economy, and use the fruits of growth to implement policies that truly
improve the lives of the poor."
Mr Lee also paid tribute to 94 MPs in the House, whose monthly allowances
have each been raised from $11,900 to $13,200. He said the lawmakers here
compare well with parliaments in other countries.
And while Mr Lee had said the buck stops with him when it comes to
donating his salary increment, one MP - Dr Lily Neo (Jalan Besar GRC) -
announced at the end of the session that she would follow his lead.
12 April 2007
05 April 2007
Be mindful of the affective gap
I think this article by Catherine Lim is worth noting and "archiving". It basically embodies what we mere peons think. Not as if it is going to make any difference in the outcome.
It is taken from the Straits Times (free internet edition) on 5 April 2007.
April 5, 2007
MINISTERIAL PAY:
I HAVE followed with intense interest the current debate on increasing ministerial salaries to match those of the highest earners in the private sector. And I have noted the impassioned arguments from both sides: the Government insisting on its necessity if top talent is to be recruited to ensure good leadership, and the public expressing its reservations, doubts and unhappiness.
I would like to go beyond the emotion and the rhetoric, and see the issue in the larger context of the PAP model of governance, in particular its special brand of pragmatism in solving problems. It is a hard-boiled pragmatism which even the severest critic will concede has contributed greatly to the Singapore success story. And one which, paradoxically, even the strongest supporter will concede is liable to harden into inflexibility.
In the case of ministerial salaries, the PAP leaders' thinking seems to have gone along these lines: Singapore needs a good, strong government if it is to prosper or even survive. Hence, it needs to recruit top talent. Since there is competition for this from the private sector, it has to offer equally attractive salaries. It has to act quickly and decisively, otherwise the country will face a serious crisis of leadership, which can occur in three increasingly dangerous stages:
# Talented people will not be attracted to government service.
# Even if they are, they will soon be enticed away by the private sector.
# But even if they are not enticed away, they will resort to corruption as compensation for their inadequate salaries, and thus bring ruin to society.
Rounding up the austere dialectic is the urgent plea to doubting Singaporeans: Do you want Singapore to go the way of corrupt societies?
I would like to point out, respectfully, a basic flaw in this rationale. In keeping with the overall, hard-nosed realpolitik that has characterised PAP rule, it fails to take into account the affective factor that is present in any relationship, whether between individuals or ruler and ruled.
This factor comprises that special constellation of emotions, moods, attitudes and ideals which somehow elude being quantified and reduced to monetary terms. I first analysed its role in the relationship between the PAP Government and the people over a decade ago in a political commentary titled The Great Affective Divide, noting the emergence of a serious emotional estrangement despite the country's stability and prosperity.
Subsequently, I variously described the conflict in terms of the people's wish to see a greater role for Heart as opposed to Head, EQ as opposed to IQ, Heartware as opposed to Hardware, etc.
The policy regarding ministerial salaries illustrates this conflict. Its definition of the talent that is eagerly sought as ministerial material does not appear to take into account attributes beyond those of intellect. It assumes that what is good for the corporate world must be good for government, and that therefore there is a common target of talent out there, which both will compete fiercely for.
But in reality, the commonality of talent is only in those attributes of mind and personality such as great intelligence, far-sightedness, boldness of vision, creativity, determination of purpose, etc, that are the hallmarks of today's high achiever. Beyond this overlap, the emotional aspect comes into play.
And here, there is a dramatic parting of ways. For while the ideal political leader is imbued with nobility of purpose and altruistic instincts, the ideal CEO is impelled by the very opposite - raw ambition and ruthless drive. The first set of qualities is desirable for a life of public service; the second would be disastrous.
Indeed, a brilliant achiever without the high purpose of service to others would be the worst possible ministerial material. To see a potential prime minister as no different from a potential top lawyer, and likely to be enticed by the same stupendous salary, would be to blur the lines between two very different domains.
Next, the rationale goes against the very spirit of the social contract that it is supposed to protect. There is a compact, largely implicit, that governs the government-people relationship in every mature society in the free world, and it has as much to do with what is felt deeply in the heart as with what is worked out logically in the head.
By this compact, political leadership is less a salaried job and more a vocation, with all that this implies of selflessness and sacrifice on the part of the leaders, and trust, respect and regard on the part of the people. It is this reciprocity that defines a social compact and confers upon it a sort of sacrosanct quality. The ultimate reward for the leaders, whether or not they consciously seek it, is a revered place in the nation's history, in the hearts and minds of future generations. Hence, material reward is only secondary.
Nevertheless, no Singaporean with any practical sense of the real world would want to see a minister denied a salary commensurate with his status and dignity, or living less well than any prosperous Singaporean. If the average Singaporean still aspires to the famous '5Cs' representing the good life, he is only too happy to see a minister already well in possession of these.
But, at the same time, no Singaporean would expect a minister to feel disgruntled if he is paid less than the top CEO. If the disgruntlement actually causes him to leave his job, then he was not cut out for public office in the first place. Thus, to offer him a matching salary to enable him to stay would be to demean that office.
There is clearly a need to balance material needs and public service. The balance, in the view of many Singaporeans, has already been achieved with the existing ministerial salaries, if benchmarked against those of high-earners across a broad range of professions, and also against the salaries of ministers in countries such as Sweden and New Zealand, consistently ranked among the foremost, corruption-free democracies in the world.
The policy of increasing ministerial salaries may have the effect of upsetting this balance and, more seriously, doing away altogether with the compact of trust and respect. It will create a new affective divide, or reinforce any existing one, between the government and the people, and reduce their relationship to a purely impersonal business contract.
Even in a society often described as aggressively materialistic and coldly efficient, there are, fortunately, Singaporeans who believe idealism has a place, and that the fire, passion and commitment of the Old Guard, who saw Singapore through the difficult early years with little hope of financial reward, are still alive in some young Singaporeans.
The policy on ministerial salaries will, at the least, breed weary resignation in Singaporeans: What's the use of giving one's views at all? And, at the worst, give rise to toxic cynicism: What's the use of teaching our young such values as caring and selflessness and sacrifice if each carries a price tag?
Catherine Lim is a freelance writer.
It is taken from the Straits Times (free internet edition) on 5 April 2007.
April 5, 2007
MINISTERIAL PAY:
Be mindful of the affective gap
By Catherine Lim, For The Straits Times
I HAVE followed with intense interest the current debate on increasing ministerial salaries to match those of the highest earners in the private sector. And I have noted the impassioned arguments from both sides: the Government insisting on its necessity if top talent is to be recruited to ensure good leadership, and the public expressing its reservations, doubts and unhappiness.
I would like to go beyond the emotion and the rhetoric, and see the issue in the larger context of the PAP model of governance, in particular its special brand of pragmatism in solving problems. It is a hard-boiled pragmatism which even the severest critic will concede has contributed greatly to the Singapore success story. And one which, paradoxically, even the strongest supporter will concede is liable to harden into inflexibility.
In the case of ministerial salaries, the PAP leaders' thinking seems to have gone along these lines: Singapore needs a good, strong government if it is to prosper or even survive. Hence, it needs to recruit top talent. Since there is competition for this from the private sector, it has to offer equally attractive salaries. It has to act quickly and decisively, otherwise the country will face a serious crisis of leadership, which can occur in three increasingly dangerous stages:
# Talented people will not be attracted to government service.
# Even if they are, they will soon be enticed away by the private sector.
# But even if they are not enticed away, they will resort to corruption as compensation for their inadequate salaries, and thus bring ruin to society.
Rounding up the austere dialectic is the urgent plea to doubting Singaporeans: Do you want Singapore to go the way of corrupt societies?
I would like to point out, respectfully, a basic flaw in this rationale. In keeping with the overall, hard-nosed realpolitik that has characterised PAP rule, it fails to take into account the affective factor that is present in any relationship, whether between individuals or ruler and ruled.
This factor comprises that special constellation of emotions, moods, attitudes and ideals which somehow elude being quantified and reduced to monetary terms. I first analysed its role in the relationship between the PAP Government and the people over a decade ago in a political commentary titled The Great Affective Divide, noting the emergence of a serious emotional estrangement despite the country's stability and prosperity.
Subsequently, I variously described the conflict in terms of the people's wish to see a greater role for Heart as opposed to Head, EQ as opposed to IQ, Heartware as opposed to Hardware, etc.
The policy regarding ministerial salaries illustrates this conflict. Its definition of the talent that is eagerly sought as ministerial material does not appear to take into account attributes beyond those of intellect. It assumes that what is good for the corporate world must be good for government, and that therefore there is a common target of talent out there, which both will compete fiercely for.
But in reality, the commonality of talent is only in those attributes of mind and personality such as great intelligence, far-sightedness, boldness of vision, creativity, determination of purpose, etc, that are the hallmarks of today's high achiever. Beyond this overlap, the emotional aspect comes into play.
And here, there is a dramatic parting of ways. For while the ideal political leader is imbued with nobility of purpose and altruistic instincts, the ideal CEO is impelled by the very opposite - raw ambition and ruthless drive. The first set of qualities is desirable for a life of public service; the second would be disastrous.
Indeed, a brilliant achiever without the high purpose of service to others would be the worst possible ministerial material. To see a potential prime minister as no different from a potential top lawyer, and likely to be enticed by the same stupendous salary, would be to blur the lines between two very different domains.
Next, the rationale goes against the very spirit of the social contract that it is supposed to protect. There is a compact, largely implicit, that governs the government-people relationship in every mature society in the free world, and it has as much to do with what is felt deeply in the heart as with what is worked out logically in the head.
By this compact, political leadership is less a salaried job and more a vocation, with all that this implies of selflessness and sacrifice on the part of the leaders, and trust, respect and regard on the part of the people. It is this reciprocity that defines a social compact and confers upon it a sort of sacrosanct quality. The ultimate reward for the leaders, whether or not they consciously seek it, is a revered place in the nation's history, in the hearts and minds of future generations. Hence, material reward is only secondary.
Nevertheless, no Singaporean with any practical sense of the real world would want to see a minister denied a salary commensurate with his status and dignity, or living less well than any prosperous Singaporean. If the average Singaporean still aspires to the famous '5Cs' representing the good life, he is only too happy to see a minister already well in possession of these.
But, at the same time, no Singaporean would expect a minister to feel disgruntled if he is paid less than the top CEO. If the disgruntlement actually causes him to leave his job, then he was not cut out for public office in the first place. Thus, to offer him a matching salary to enable him to stay would be to demean that office.
There is clearly a need to balance material needs and public service. The balance, in the view of many Singaporeans, has already been achieved with the existing ministerial salaries, if benchmarked against those of high-earners across a broad range of professions, and also against the salaries of ministers in countries such as Sweden and New Zealand, consistently ranked among the foremost, corruption-free democracies in the world.
The policy of increasing ministerial salaries may have the effect of upsetting this balance and, more seriously, doing away altogether with the compact of trust and respect. It will create a new affective divide, or reinforce any existing one, between the government and the people, and reduce their relationship to a purely impersonal business contract.
Even in a society often described as aggressively materialistic and coldly efficient, there are, fortunately, Singaporeans who believe idealism has a place, and that the fire, passion and commitment of the Old Guard, who saw Singapore through the difficult early years with little hope of financial reward, are still alive in some young Singaporeans.
The policy on ministerial salaries will, at the least, breed weary resignation in Singaporeans: What's the use of giving one's views at all? And, at the worst, give rise to toxic cynicism: What's the use of teaching our young such values as caring and selflessness and sacrifice if each carries a price tag?
Catherine Lim is a freelance writer.
They'll never listen will they?
MM Lee today spoke up about the pay hike and using the same old (over played) reasons of it. Yes, we know we need "top talent" to lead the country (of course it depends on what "top talent" really means). Yes, we know that Singapore cannot afford to slide ever, or we'll never crawl up again. Yes, the PAP is the best gahmen on the face of this planet. Yes, the ministers sacrifice a lot to "serve" our country therefore we must compensate them...
We all know the tune. We all can sing it before the first note is even played.
The problem is this, the people are not fed-up or angry about the pay hike per se, they are pissed that there was so much controversy in the GST hike and "workfare" for the people. It would seems that just to get a $30 increase for the poorest people in Singapore, there was such a huge debate about not becoming a "welfare" state (which by the way, in the PAP dictionary is a vulgar word, welfare I mean not state). and it was a miserable $30. And yet, here we have MM stating the increase in ministers' salary is only "0.13% of the gahmen's total expenditure or 0.022% of Singapore's GDP" (Singapore's 2005 GDP $110.6 billion, not sure if it is SGD or USD but I'll use SGD). This means that ministers' salary is $2.4 billion a year (I don't think this takes their pension into account).
$2.4 billion, 0.022% of GDP. How many percent of our GDP is used to help the bottom 10% of the population? Why is it helping people who are in the runt is such a terrible thing and yet giving ministers a $1 million increase is okay? Why is this, that is so wrong morally and goes against Confucius teachings is acceptable in Singapore but really not acceptable to other first world countries?
And the way the ministers put it, we, the peons, have no part to play in the building of Singapore into what it is today. It is all through the blood and sweat (and don't forget sacrifices) of the gahmen only. We, the peons, just sat back and twiddled our thumbs.
Further reads :-
Where’s the check and balance in deciding minsterial salary?
Singapore's 'fat cat' ministers to get fatter
Paternal Nanny: Justifications and the Perpetuation of Paternalism
Today
05 April 2007
A QUESTION OF DOLLARS AND SENSE
-------------------------------
MM Lee: 'Sense of proportion' needed over ministers' pay
Lee U-Wen
u-wen@mediacorp.com.sg
TAKE a step back and look at the bigger picture, as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew would have Singaporeans do.
To an average family earning, say, $1,500 a month, a minister's annual salary - $1.2 million at entry level - might seem "astronomical".
But what if that paycheque comes with the responsibility for running a $210-billion economy?
Here is another comparison to put things into perspective. Political appointment-holders - from parliamentary secretaries to ministers - take
home $46 million in total a year.
A mind-boggling sum? But it makes up just 0.13 per cent of total Government expenditure, or 0.022 per cent of Singapore's Gross Domestic Product.
On the other hand, if this $46 million was cut to, say, $26 million, the country would save $20 million - but at the risk of jeopardising people's jobs, homes, assets and security.
Speaking for the first time on the issue since Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean last month raised the need for a pay revision, Mr Lee warned of the risk of talented Singaporeans shying away from the public sector, and a disastrous "revolving door" style of government where its top leaders step down every five years.
A country's strong foundation, he said, has to be built on people that stay in the job long enough to gain sufficient experience and become capable ministers.
"This is a system we worked out, it is above board, it's working. If you are going to quarrel about $46 million - up or down another $10 to $20 million - I say you don't have a sense of proportion," he said.
He added: "The cure for all this talk is a really good dose of incompetent government."
Mr Lee - who mooted the idea of formal private sector benchmarks for ministerial salaries in January 1994 - made these comments to the Singapore media in Sydney yesterday, ahead of the civil service pay review in Parliament on Monday.
Noting that his own annual income of $2.7 million was a "fraction" of what the top manager in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation earns, he said: "For people like me in Government, to deal with the money which we have accumulated by the sweat of our brow over the last 40 years, you have to pay the market rate - or the man will up the stakes and join Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs.
"You would have an incompetent man and you would have lost money by the billions."
Asked if political leaders should be ready to sacrifice for the good of the people, the Minister Mentor called it an admirable sentiment.
But he highlighted the difficulty of persuading private sector achievers to sacrifice their lucrative salaries to join politics, "with no guarantee of success". He cited how Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen, a successful cancer surgeon earning $4.5 million, gave up private practice in 2001 for a job that paid $600,000.
Dr Balaji Sadasivan, now Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and for Information, Communication and the Arts, was a top neurosurgeon "who took a chance".
Said Mr Lee: "When he was not made a minister in the selection process, (then-Prime Minister) Goh Chok Tong asked if he would like to go back to private practice. He said: 'No, I will do this.'"
Moving on to examples from the sports world, the Minister Mentor spoke of how top tennis players and famous footballers such as Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane were paid handsomely for their talent. That, he said, was the key to producing champions.
"It's a competitive world in which we live, and if we can't compete we are not going to live well," he said.
We all know the tune. We all can sing it before the first note is even played.
The problem is this, the people are not fed-up or angry about the pay hike per se, they are pissed that there was so much controversy in the GST hike and "workfare" for the people. It would seems that just to get a $30 increase for the poorest people in Singapore, there was such a huge debate about not becoming a "welfare" state (which by the way, in the PAP dictionary is a vulgar word, welfare I mean not state). and it was a miserable $30. And yet, here we have MM stating the increase in ministers' salary is only "0.13% of the gahmen's total expenditure or 0.022% of Singapore's GDP" (Singapore's 2005 GDP $110.6 billion, not sure if it is SGD or USD but I'll use SGD). This means that ministers' salary is $2.4 billion a year (I don't think this takes their pension into account).
$2.4 billion, 0.022% of GDP. How many percent of our GDP is used to help the bottom 10% of the population? Why is it helping people who are in the runt is such a terrible thing and yet giving ministers a $1 million increase is okay? Why is this, that is so wrong morally and goes against Confucius teachings is acceptable in Singapore but really not acceptable to other first world countries?
And the way the ministers put it, we, the peons, have no part to play in the building of Singapore into what it is today. It is all through the blood and sweat (and don't forget sacrifices) of the gahmen only. We, the peons, just sat back and twiddled our thumbs.
Further reads :-
Where’s the check and balance in deciding minsterial salary?
Singapore's 'fat cat' ministers to get fatter
Paternal Nanny: Justifications and the Perpetuation of Paternalism
Today
05 April 2007
A QUESTION OF DOLLARS AND SENSE
-------------------------------
MM Lee: 'Sense of proportion' needed over ministers' pay
Lee U-Wen
u-wen@mediacorp.com.sg
TAKE a step back and look at the bigger picture, as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew would have Singaporeans do.
To an average family earning, say, $1,500 a month, a minister's annual salary - $1.2 million at entry level - might seem "astronomical".
But what if that paycheque comes with the responsibility for running a $210-billion economy?
Here is another comparison to put things into perspective. Political appointment-holders - from parliamentary secretaries to ministers - take
home $46 million in total a year.
A mind-boggling sum? But it makes up just 0.13 per cent of total Government expenditure, or 0.022 per cent of Singapore's Gross Domestic Product.
On the other hand, if this $46 million was cut to, say, $26 million, the country would save $20 million - but at the risk of jeopardising people's jobs, homes, assets and security.
Speaking for the first time on the issue since Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean last month raised the need for a pay revision, Mr Lee warned of the risk of talented Singaporeans shying away from the public sector, and a disastrous "revolving door" style of government where its top leaders step down every five years.
A country's strong foundation, he said, has to be built on people that stay in the job long enough to gain sufficient experience and become capable ministers.
"This is a system we worked out, it is above board, it's working. If you are going to quarrel about $46 million - up or down another $10 to $20 million - I say you don't have a sense of proportion," he said.
He added: "The cure for all this talk is a really good dose of incompetent government."
Mr Lee - who mooted the idea of formal private sector benchmarks for ministerial salaries in January 1994 - made these comments to the Singapore media in Sydney yesterday, ahead of the civil service pay review in Parliament on Monday.
Noting that his own annual income of $2.7 million was a "fraction" of what the top manager in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation earns, he said: "For people like me in Government, to deal with the money which we have accumulated by the sweat of our brow over the last 40 years, you have to pay the market rate - or the man will up the stakes and join Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs.
"You would have an incompetent man and you would have lost money by the billions."
Asked if political leaders should be ready to sacrifice for the good of the people, the Minister Mentor called it an admirable sentiment.
But he highlighted the difficulty of persuading private sector achievers to sacrifice their lucrative salaries to join politics, "with no guarantee of success". He cited how Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen, a successful cancer surgeon earning $4.5 million, gave up private practice in 2001 for a job that paid $600,000.
Dr Balaji Sadasivan, now Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and for Information, Communication and the Arts, was a top neurosurgeon "who took a chance".
Said Mr Lee: "When he was not made a minister in the selection process, (then-Prime Minister) Goh Chok Tong asked if he would like to go back to private practice. He said: 'No, I will do this.'"
Moving on to examples from the sports world, the Minister Mentor spoke of how top tennis players and famous footballers such as Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane were paid handsomely for their talent. That, he said, was the key to producing champions.
"It's a competitive world in which we live, and if we can't compete we are not going to live well," he said.
04 April 2007
Least we forget
Let us recap what happened after the 2006 elections.
1) Public transport hike
2) GST increase by 2% (disguised as money to help the poor)
3) Continue stagnation/regrassion of pay for the lower/middle income households (even if they have an increase, the average Singaporean's pay didn't increase enough to cover all the other increases)
Nice to know that everything is going up except the take home pay of the average Singaporean. So the amount of money you'll have to spend on necessities goes up but you pay either didn't go up as much or is the same or even worse decreased.
And to add injury to insult
4) Increase in ministers pay by $1 million
Need I say more and about how "caring/ compassionate" the budget is.
Furthermore, Ministers get pensions too.
So our not only have money that they can never finish using but also are set for life, while most of us have to plan for retirement.
1) Public transport hike
2) GST increase by 2% (disguised as money to help the poor)
3) Continue stagnation/regrassion of pay for the lower/middle income households (even if they have an increase, the average Singaporean's pay didn't increase enough to cover all the other increases)
Nice to know that everything is going up except the take home pay of the average Singaporean. So the amount of money you'll have to spend on necessities goes up but you pay either didn't go up as much or is the same or even worse decreased.
And to add injury to insult
4) Increase in ministers pay by $1 million
Need I say more and about how "caring/ compassionate" the budget is.
Furthermore, Ministers get pensions too.
So our not only have money that they can never finish using but also are set for life, while most of us have to plan for retirement.
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