Sights and sounds at Punggol East By-Elections

[HitandRun]

It's a bit like having a tender with your suppliers would you rather have 1 supplier or many many different suppliers they will come in all of them jumping in to win your deal and they will impress you and let you squeeze them by giving you freebies bring you out for meals maybe even entertainment and in the end you will still get the best deal. Do you really care which company is a better supplier even more expensive as long as you meet your own targets? And is that really a bad thing?

I like your interesting analogy except that it has a big flaw. In a call for tender, the customer is the subject matter expert in the sense that he knows exactly what he wants/needs. That why he can provide a RFQ with the scope of works clearly defined and can make a selection on a more objective basis even in the presence of noise (marketing fluff).

However, the average electorate would not know a lot of stuff, e.g. (a)what is the optimal immigration level; (b) optimal car population; ©optimal budget for defense, etc. It is only natural that he will make his selection on his own (narrow) view of the country's circumstances and the ability of the politicians making the pitch. Eventually, democracy will degenerate into a game of which party is better able to "bribe" their way through.

[sgd]

" Do you really care which company is a better supplier even more expensive as long as you meet your own targets? And is that really a bad thing?

If singaporeans can squeeze the max from these people who have been squeezing us all along is that really so bad?"

That's one of the lesson of HDB fiasco under Mah when a lot of contractors collapsed about 10 years ago due to the lowest price bidding and HDB was tight on cash flow.

Nobody likes to be squeezed, even politicians. I always believe people will perform best when they are fulfilled. Question is the lack of accountability that's been festering in the elitist ideology ie I know better than you. This is not the same and runs counter to meritocracy.

Pianist is right that public services cannot be benchmarked to economic goals. Capitalism is just a TOOL to make them efficient, rather than become goals in itself. Otherwise we should just abolish defence since it is not a profit generator.

Our politicians will perform better if they are being pushed. You and I and everybody in this forum can say whatever we like or how we like things to be run our end goals are different but we have zero control and no say over what the government does. The government can ignore us and they mostly do. The only way we can make them not ignore us is to put in a credible opposition.

I learnt this from my ex-boss many years ago to deal with a fierce dog get another dog to deal with it. To way to deal with somebody of power who is difficult you cannot do it they only way is to get someone else with almost same level to come in to find a way to deal with him.

[sgd]

It's a bit like having a tender with your suppliers would you rather have 1 supplier or many many different suppliers they will come in all of them jumping in to win your deal and they will impress you and let you squeeze them by giving you freebies bring you out for meals maybe even entertainment and in the end you will still get the best deal. Do you really care which company is a better supplier even more expensive as long as you meet your own targets? And is that really a bad thing?

I like your interesting analogy except that it has a big flaw. In a call for tender, the customer is the subject matter expert in the sense that he knows exactly what he wants/needs. That why he can provide a RFQ with the scope of works clearly defined and can make a selection on a more objective basis even in the presence of noise (marketing fluff).

However, the average electorate would not know a lot of stuff, e.g. (a)what is the optimal immigration level; (b) optimal car population; ©optimal budget for defense, etc. It is only natural that he will make his selection on his own (narrow) view of the country's circumstances and the ability of the politicians making the pitch. Eventually, democracy will degenerate into a game of which party is better able to "bribe" their way through.

I see it as the same thing.

The customer ( you and I)
The suppliers (all the different parties)

The deal (for our votes)

Election rallies - are entertainment

What we all want are, places in school for our kids, high paying jobs for our people, priority for our housing and cheaper, better rides for our transports, less cramped conditions, cheaper better sexier prints money, build us an island and transport us to it. in other words we want everything in the sky isn't it? Well we can't have everything, we can't have our cake and eat it but we can preassure them to give us most of it and that's the next best thing.

Politicians don't care about money about property or about wealth (at least most of them don't) they only care about control and power so we get some body else who are equally crazy about it to compete for our votes. It will be very beneficial for us as citizen.

what are our votes? colorful bits of paper

[Temperament]

"HA! HA! HA! HUH!
IS Pinky Loong Talking CORK or SENSE?

You decide.
But even Taxi Drivers & MAN-In-The-Street can tell.
It's just another episode of his "Im sorry, I'm sorry story". Only this time he didn't shed crocodiles tears.
i think Papys finished liu come 2015/2016."

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/s...67/1/.html

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has admitted the government did not have 20/20 foresight, resulting in problems with inadequate infrastructure in the country.

He was speaking at the "Singapore Perspectives" conference on governance organised by the Institute of Policy Studies on Monday.

Acknowledging the problems of insufficient housing and inefficient transportation network, Mr Lee pointed out that the government was blind-sided by the outcome of some international events.

He elaborated that in 2000 and 2001, the 9/11 terrorism attack on the United States plunged countries into recession. Singapore dealt with a slow economy with minimum population growth and local housing prices went down.

But by 2005 and 2006, Mr Lee said the mood changed and the economy started picking up.

So, he said, the government did what it thought would have been appropriate then. It decided to make up for lost time by growing the population and boosting the economy.

He acknowledged that infrastructure like housing and transport didn't keep up with that growth.

Mr Lee said: "I decided that we should try and make up for lost time because you want the economy to grow. You want Singapore to make progress and you don't know how long the sun is going to shine. As it turned out, the sun remained shining for longer than we expected. So the population grew faster than we expected, our infrastructure didn't keep up.

"Should we have given ourselves more buffer and said let's build and be ready? I think in retrospect, clearly we could have done more. Could we have predicted that we would have five years where the economy would grow brilliantly and our population would increase so rapidly? I don't think we could easily have said that.

"Should we then have said, 'I didn't plan for this infrastructure, let's tell the businesses to go away and let's forget about the growth, we don't need the IRs, we don't need these extra jobs, we just stay where we were'. I think that would be very risky. So we went ahead.

"The strains showed up. It's quite instructive how they showed up. They didn't show up gradually, progressively but quite suddenly. When the global financial crisis came at the end of the decade, 2007/2008, we expected to go for a very deep dive.

"In fact in one quarter, we had minus 10 percent growth. Nobody talked about house prices, there was no shortage. HDB - we watched the market every day, the resale market was dead but we did the right thing with our Jobs Credit and other measures. We avoided a bullet, the world economy recovered faster than expected.

"In the middle of 2009, the wind changed...those of you in business, you would remember that in the course of two weeks, during one or two private property launches, somehow the wind changed. It's like the spring breeze touched your face and the market was off. By August, we were thinking of measures to cool things down and we've been trying to cool things down ever since.

"So we lacked that 20/20 foresight. Next time, we will try to do better, certainly to have a bigger buffer and not to cut things so fine. But I think it's very difficult to know, 10 years from now, how many you will need.

"Even if you know how many persons there will be in Singapore, you can't say how many houses they will need. Will they buy it? Or will they say, 'oh, I'm not certain because the economy is not looking good or the politics are not certain, well, I'll hold off'? But when the market goes up, it goes up with a vengeance and we've paid the political price, we learn from it."

In the 90-minute question and answer session, Prime Minister Lee also tackled a number of issues which included whether the wide-ranging social nets in Singapore would encourage citizens to become more dependent and if Singapore needs more space for discussion.

Mr Lee is of the view that the government needs to do more but he wants the government to be helping from behind the scenes, as opposed to Singaporeans expecting the government to jump in all the time.

On why there is still a need to moderate social space involving social media, for example, Mr Lee said the online community in particular is not moderating itself.

Extreme views are put out and responses and disapprovals are also extreme. So this cannot be left to itself.

Mr Lee said: "We don't believe the community in the social space, especially online, moderates itself. It doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

"You have views going to extremes and when people respond to their views, they may respond in an extreme way, and when people decide to disapprove of something which was inappropriate, the disapproval can also happen in an extreme way.

"It's in the nature of the medium, the way the interactions work and that's the reason why we think it cannot be completely left by itself."

- CNA/ir

[d.o.g.]

the population grew faster than we expected

ICA knows the name of every single new citizen and PR. How can the population be growing faster than expected when ICA is the one creating the growth by issuing new ICs?

HDB, for its part, knows the exact number of unsold flats and the exact number of flats being built. Did nobody in ICA and HDB talk to each other? It would have been as simple as saying: "We just approved 20,000 new citizens and PRs last year, comprising 8,000 families in all. Please make sure we have enough unsold flats or new flats coming up to house them."

our infrastructure didn't keep up

LTA knows the exact number of cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles on the roads. It also knows the exact number of trips made on the MRT and the buses. It also knows the capacity of the expressways and the capacity of the train network.

Did nobody in the road works department talk to the COE department? You know, like "Road length per car is down to XXX. We need to build more roads or limit the car population."

What about LTA talking to SMRT and SBS? Something like "Commuter trips are now 95% of capacity during peak hours. You need to add capacity."

So the fact that the infrastructure did not keep up is entirely the fault of the government.

Should we have given ourselves more buffer and said let's build and be ready?

I thought this was the job of the government? Didn't the government of the 60s, 70s and 80s do exactly this and build ahead of capacity?

In fact CAAS has continued to do this, which is why you never have a jam at the airport - it is always smooth sailing for travellers because capacity is way ahead of usage. CAAS pro-actively builds ahead of capacity in order to maintain a good user experience. That is why Changi Airport consistently wins awards for being the best airport etc and is often considered among the top airports in the world. Somehow the rest of the government has lost this ethos.

As for cost, if you take a look at Changi Airport Group's financials, it is hugely profitable. So you CAN build ahead of capacity and still make money. But of course Changi Airport has to compete for hub traffic with the likes of Bangkok and Hong Kong. The rest of the government faces no real competition, does it?

If Changi messes up the hub traffic goes elsewhere. When LTA messes up, the commuters have to pay for it via expensive COEs, train breakdowns etc. When HDB messes up, prices skyrocket and you wait 5 years for a new flat. The economic cost to Singapore of a train breakdown is real. So is the cost of laboring for 30 years to pay off a flat. Yet nobody is being held accountable. Has anyone senior in LTA or HDB been fired? No. Has the old transport minister or home affairs minister been censured? No. SOMEBODY was responsible but nobody is being held accountable.

Today it seems the government has not learnt from the mistakes of the past 5 years because:

1. Bus Backup. Despite continued train breakdowns, there is no parallel bus network running alongside the train routes to relieve peak hour jams and to provide a backup during breakdowns.

2. SMRT Retail. Despite the SMRT CEO saying they will focus on engineering, the government gave a SMRT JV the rights to manage retail space at the upcoming Sports Hub.

3. COE Prices. Despite sky-high COEs, the LTA has not moved to even out the supply of COEs. Spikes and dips occur because the age profile of the car population is not uniform. The LTA can solve this quickly by issuing more COEs when there are spikes and withholding COEs when there are dips. Over one 10-year cycle the age profile evens out and COE prices stabilize. Car dealers will also no longer face boom/bust cycles.

4. HDB Prices. Despite sky-high HDB prices, the HDB continues to define its new flat subsidy as "discount to market" instead of "cost" or "cost plus". So much for the Speak Good English campaign when HDB itself uses its own special broken English. And why are we allowing the HDB to make money off the citizens, when the HDB was set up to provide AFFORDABLE housing?

Just my $0.02. I am not anti-PAP, they have done a lot of things right. But I am anti-stupidity, especially when it comes from leaders who are supposedly the best people for the job.

[Thriftville]

Great post dog!
Regarding SMRT's JV, I guess gov wanna give SMRT other revenue source; instead of depending on fare hike.

[Ben]

[Many people are being misled to believe the politicians run the country. The americans change administrations once every 4-8 years how the country can keep functioning if they keep changing people? So are our political system any different? The Politicians don't run the country it is the civil service that runs everything and there's an army of them to do everything. The politicians are like ceo of companies they have managers to run things for them so they have power lunches with this or that counterpart or senator or congressman, their job is high level just to build contacts and once a while meet the people session. You notice meet people session there's at least a note taker they are taking notes so they can divide work out to people later on. So don't worry the civil service are running things. The politicians anybody can take over their job.

If you still believe that the politicians here are indispensible just take a look at the current cabinet all are new people, not a single one from SM Goh or MM Lee era have remained, if really those guys were indispensible then our country would have collapsed the moment they stepped down why things are still running? So you see politicans don't run the country and I don't think it's difficult to do power lunches either.

As for the civil service entrenched in the branches of PAP yes is there but these are average citizens like you and me they have their own families to support and bills to pay so is not like they going to walk away from their jobs if WP run things tomorrow, these days when people walk away from their jobs in mass protest they will get thrown into prison as we have learnt quite recently from smrt bus drivers.

So don't worry too much no party is indispensable as what cfa says.

A leader is not indispensable, agree, but they are not replaceable, and great leaders are very, very important. Look at what Steve Job did to Apple Inc. Did Steve do most of the things himself? Obviously no, but he provided the inspiration and vision and transformed Apple Inc into the most valuable company in the world. Another example, look at what happen to USA after 8 years of rules by George Bush? The economy of USA was in a far worst situation at the end of his 8th years as compared to when he took over. He has an army of people doing all the work for him, and these are brilliant people. But what happen when you have the wrong leadership? Who to blame? The Americans themselves. Why did they vote for him, and voted for him again to the second term? Because his opponent is too weak? So leaders are important, very important. To be honest, I am very worried who will be our next PM.

[specuvestor]

^^Agree. In the 90s it was fashionable in japan to say that political leaders are not important because the economy roared regardless. It is as if we value players say management is not important for a company

The civil service structure was established by the PAP with British background. it is arguably one of the most efficient ones in the world if we travel around. The system is ALSO structured so that the executive is not incapacitated if the minister is absent. Nonetheless the board of directors are just as important to provide direction and oversight vs the executive committees of CEOs, just as elected ministers vs the Perm Secretary, which is just a "job".

What I am for is more alternative views and keeping our leaders accountable. But that cannot be bitching without solutions. I hear a lot of coffee shop complains but I never hear credible solutions or people stumble saying the ministers should know/do better. To me a the diff between a constructive criticism and destructive is that the former has credible solutions. And it cannot be solutions that doesn't benefit society as a WHOLE. It is easy to say crash the property prices but is that the optimal solution given the other considerations? There is no such thing as BEST solution.. there is only OPTIMAL. We cannot please everyone.

With regards to d.o.g's post, I agree with the communication part and the root of the problem is Singapore Inc mentality of the previous PM. Public services from power supply to transport cannot be determined on a capitalistic nature in the first place. As I said many time, capitalism is a efficient tool but grossly ineffective. The govt has mixed up the purpose under Goh and we are now suffering the consequences.

Like Andy Grove says: Only the paranoid survives. 50 years ago, the jewel of British admin was Ceylon, the best managed police force was in Philippines, and the richest SEA country was Myanmar. It only takes one generation to screw things up. I'm wondering how many people understand this hard truth.

[pianist]

the communication breakdown also because of net economic value tagging...every ministry and every stat board..in their eye is just more revenue more $...and nothing else..
so even that mahbowtan can go to the absurdity to say if peg newhdb flat price to cost or cost++, it will be equivalent to raiding the nation reserve..he the most impressive i think.

how would the ceo of smrt provide those hard figures when she was from non-engineering background - just wanna see colors, art, rental space selling?