Government determined to increase population to 7 mil in 2030.

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a lot of the unhappiness on the ground can be solved if the govie changes its mindset on the price of land.

currently all land is treated as part of the nation's reserves and hence everything needs to be priced right to feed the coffers.

but this makes:
1) HDB prices high. this is high since resale is pegged to market which in turn wobbles in relation with private.
2) Cost of business for SMEs and mom-and-pop stalls goes nuts. This in turns leads to cost problems with food, childcare etc.

Low cost employment will not go away - LHL's first task was the junior minister in MTI to solve the recession of 1985 (which was self caused by Tony Tan's wage increment to force productivity to rise) - his solution is to just cut all wages+CPF - i will be surprised if he will ever change his mind on this issue given the shock he was given 30 years ago.
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(05-02-2013, 03:54 PM)d.o.g. Wrote:
(05-02-2013, 03:31 PM)edragon Wrote: If the element of speculation is taken out, then those remaining lease of 49 years (50% of 99-years lease) will be in trouble as most will sell it at a slight loss and get a 2nd HDB with brand new 99 years to start with.

There won't be any trouble for the new category of non-resaleable flats, because the buyback price is set according to depreciation. So it doesn't matter how many people sell back to HDB, they all get back the same amount. Like what happens when you turn in your COE - you always get back the pro-rated amount, it doesn't matter if everyone else is doing the same.

And for pure "roof over your head" type of housing, a 99-year lease is not necessary. 60 years is plenty - you buy the flat at 30, raise kids for 25 years, then you have another 35 years to enjoy your flat, then you die. Few of us will live beyond 90. If you buy a flat with a shorter lease, it's cheaper. Simple as that.
No doubt it is cheaper as a utility (use and discard) but what will happen to the statement, "You own a piece of Singapore and that's where you belong". Our HOME our Singapore."
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(05-02-2013, 04:42 PM)edragon Wrote: No doubt it is cheaper as a utility (use and discard) but what will happen to the statement, "You own a piece of Singapore and that's where you belong". Our HOME our Singapore."

"You own a piece of Singapore" is a delusion perpetrated by the government. With HDB flats you never own the unit, all you own is a 99-year lease. The HDB title deed makes clear that you are merely a LESSOR and not the OWNER. The only way to truly be an owner is to own freehold land.

So let's call a spade a spade.

We now have 99-year transferable leases selling for astronomical prices. Why not try a small issue of 60-year non-transferable leases selling at reasonable prices? If they prove popular then ipso facto they work. If they don't work, back to the drawing board.

We have had "senior" studios with 30-year leases, jumbo flats made from combining adjacent units, HUDCs, ECs, rental flats made from dividing larger unsold flats etc. So the HDB is not closed to new ideas. What's wrong with trying a couple of blocks out for the new lease type? If they don't work, go back to transferable leases. No big deal.
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I do not give stock tips. So please do not ask, because you shall not receive.
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Hi d.o.g.,

Can you not call a HDB flat a spade?
Reality is harsh! No "happily ever after" in this summer wonderland. Smile
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A Dynamic Population for a Sustainable Singapore: Reclaiming Back Singapore – MP Chen Show Mao

Kindly refrain from quoting the whole post.

Madam Speaker, the White Paper states that “To be a strong and cohesive society, we must have a strong Singaporean core.”

It also states that"our population and workforce must support a dynamic economy that can steadily create good jobs and opportunities."

Our experience over the past few years suggests that to achieve these objectives would require much planning.

Our population will eventually reach the limit of our island’s space.
It would be more responsible to plan now for economic growth that would rely on fewer labour inputs, while maintaining a Singapore core, than to leave the underlying economic and social issues till later.

The Workers’ Party proposes that we target to increase our resident workforce growth by up to 1% per year from now until 2030. This includes Singapore citizens and permanent residents. The foreign workforce should be held constant and increase when we do not achieve our target for growth in the resident labour force.

We should focus on growing our Singapore core of workers over time through efforts to increase our TFR (total fertility rate) and LFPR (labour force participation rate).

The government has recently announced additional incentives for having babies. However, there are structural problems that require longer term solutions, which also affect Singaporeans’ decisions to have babies. These include the lack of work-life balance, escalating housing prices, the stressful education system and even a crowded environment and others. Other governments have been more committed and have shown significant success in reversing declining fertility.

How will we grow our resident workforce if the number of new entrants is not increasing due to declining fertility trends? We need to look into ways to increase our labour force participation rate, so that more residents of working age are encouraged to enter the workforce. Our current labour force participation rate was 66.6% in 2012.

There are 1,063,400 economically inactive residents, 306,100 or 29% due to family responsibilities, 163,800 or 15% are retired. The numbers for the latter will increase due to ageing workforce. Both represent scope for LFPR increase — getting stay-at-home parents to reenter/enter workforce and reemploying elderly workers.

Historically, in the last 10 years from 2003 to 2012, LFPR increased by 3.4% points, or 0.34% points per year. We should focus on fostering LFPR increase in the future.

Under the WP proposal, assuming the Government meets its current productivity growth target, we could enjoy 2.5 to 3.5% GDP growth per year up to 2020, and 1.5 to 2.5% GDP growth per year from 2021 to 2030, which is in line with the growth rates of most mature economies.

In this scenario, we are looking at a projected population of 5.3 to 5.4 million in 2020, and 5.6 to 5.8 million in 2030. Most importantly, we will not need to take in so many foreign workers and immigrants to supplement the local workforce, which will help us maintain a Singapore core.

The Workers’ Party does not endorse proceeding headlong into the government’s suggested path.

Underlying its plan is that population injections of that magnitude are required for a dynamic economy. Instead, we believe we should focus on growth through a Singapore core. To quote a population expert, immigration is “essentially a one-way policy tool with permanent or long-term social, economic and environmental consequences, and it cannot be reversed without human rights violations” . The land use data prepared by the Urban Redevelopment Authority shows how little room we have to move if the White Paper is endorsed. Under the plan, we will use up significantly more land, with only 4% of land reserve left for future generations. By then, we would be even worse positioned to meet the challenges of a sustainable population policy, we will have less room for error in planning, with a population of 6.9 million on the island.

At this critical time, we urge calmness and caution.

Unlocking Existing Value In Our Current Population

Madam, The Workers’ Party is not being facetious when we reversed the wording of the white paper title to A Dynamic Population for a Sustainable Singapore to describe our alternative approach.

For the White Paper, population growth has to be sustained to feed into a dynamic economy like so many pieces of coal into the furnace to drive the Orient Express. For the Workers’ Party, the people is the heart and soul of the nation, and it the duty of the government to provide the conditions for a dynamic people to thrive. A sustainable economy is a must, but it must be one that serves a dynamic Singaporean workforce, not the other way round.

Our model hinges on resident workforce growth over the long term through the encouragement of local labour force participation, the principal aim of which is to get more Singaporeans to be economically active and independent. And also structural reforms to set the Total Fertility Rate on the path of recovery to replacement rate.
For the Workers’ Party, A dynamic Singaporean population is the very purpose and meaning of our existence as a nation and economy, an existence that should be sustainable.

We believe that any labour force growth should take place via a targeted 1% per annum growth in the resident labour force. Over the short term, our resident labour force grows only when young citizens or permanent residents enter the labour force. Over the longer term we should target to increase the existing Labour Force Participation Rate — currently at 66.7% — instead of immediately turning towards importing new workers to supplement any shortfall in the growth in the resident labour force.

We can target three groups of our existing population that are currently economically inactive and remove the barriers that may be keeping them from entering or even re-entering the labour force. These are: resident foreign spouses, stay-at-home parents and also the elderly.

At present, resident foreign spouses who are on Long-Term Visit Passes or Dependant’s Passes are not eligible to take up employment. If they want to do so, they must apply for work passes and be subject to the qualification criteria and are tied in to a specific job. Those on the new LTVP+ scheme do not need to apply for work passes but instead need to apply for a Letter of Consent. Relaxing some of these requirements may make it more likely for LTVP and LTVP+ holders to enter the labour force. And indeed an average of 19.5% of Work Pass applications by these foreign spouses on LTVP are unsuccessful. It could be even more difficult for these foreign spouses to meet MOM’s requirements if they are hoping to work part-time or on a flexible basis because they have other responsibilities at home.

As for stay-at-home parents, encouraging them to re-enter the workforce can be in the form of introducing better, more affordable and convenient childcare and support, perhaps in conjunction with incentives to employers, and as some have mentioned, also in terms of making flexible working arrangements (for example job-sharing arrangements, increased availability of part-time jobs or working from home) more available and even making them the norm for parents of young children. We see several OECD economies with both higher TFR and higher Female Labour Force Participation Rates than Singapore. Clearly more can be done, and the public sector should lead the way. While current government programmes such as work-life and flexible-work initiatives aim at providing incentives to get economically inactive Singaporeans into the workforce, more can be done in this area and structural changes may be needed in our family-friendly support structures in order to allow a greater proportion to beyond the 35 per cent of employers who were offering at least one form of work-life arrangement in 2010.

Independent Active Ageing

The last group that we should look at are the elderly.

The government has been trying to get more elderly people to remain in the workforce for a longer period and indeed the employment rate for older workers aged 55-64 has increased in recent years. But as we pointed out before in parliament, these numbers only tell us these workers are employed, but not whether there is under-employment.

Studies have shown that older Singaporeans are also healthier.

We believe that our elderly should be able to work for as long as they want to and are able to.

And there is scope for older workers to help grow the resident workforce. The male Labour Force Participation Rate for those aged 60-64 was 74.6%, and 52.6% for those aged 65-69% in 2012. For women, the figures are 41.7% and 26.3%.

Yet, age discrimination in hiring and in the workplace is a common concern of many Singaporeans. The Singapore Workforce reports mention ‘Employers’ discrimination (e.g. prefer younger workers)’ as major reasons why discouraged workers have given up their search for a job.

We should actively investigate if additional administrative or legislative measures could be taken to remove this impediment to our older workers entering or staying in the labour force.

In addition, government incentives for businesses to redesign jobs, processes and also workplaces specifically for older workers should play a larger role in the government’s measures to improve productivity. More targeted measures can be done to help older workers remain as productive as their younger counterparts. When older workers are able to be more productive, employers would be more inclined to retain or hire them.

We have all been shown the charts for growing old-age dependency ratio, which is the ratio of persons aged 20-64 years to persons aged 65 years and over. When we look at it, we should also bear in mind that with improvements in health and life expectancy, many of our elders are healthy and able to work longer, and indeed many want to. Not to mention that many have other economic resources of their own. They are not all economically dependent.

Madam, An ageing population is a triumph of development.

We should stop seeing elderly Singaporeans as just a drain on our economy and as a hindrance to our goal to keep Singapore dynamic. Older Singaporeans have much to offer us, and not all of it can be measured in economic terms.

In fact, our elderly Singaporeans are essential to maintaining a Singapore core. Older Singaporeans are custodians of culture and, as some have suggested, can be employed in schools to teach subjects such as social studies and national education, or encouraged to volunteer to do so. This is also a way of encouraging cross-generational sharing and learning, particularly in a society where family trends are shifting and there may be less opportunities for inter-generational sharing within the family.

Stopping the Waves of Emigration

The White Paper warns us:
“A shrinking and ageing population would also mean a smaller, less energetic workforce, and a less vibrant and innovative economy. [...] Young people would leave for more exciting and growing global cities.”

We need to ask ourselves the reasons why Singaporeans are leaving? Are they leaving because they feel Singapore does not offer them the right economic opportunities? That they would need to support their ageing parents or other elderly Singaporeans if they stayed? Or are many of them leaving because they feel Singapore is becoming too crowded, costly and competitive, that they would like to live somewhere and bring their children up in a place with more space and greater well-being? How does increasing the population to up to 6.9 million by 2030 allay these concerns and make it less likely for Singaporeans to decide they have to leave the country of their birth in search of a better life for themselves and their children?

Madam, the assumptions and conclusions laid out in the White Paper need to be looked into again. I oppose the motion.

http://wp.sg/2013/02/3516/

For more alternative point of view articles, please refer here
http://wp.sg/newsroom/

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true we all got distracted......govt is so smart.....clap clap clap.....that's the way.....hee hee hee


Why is there no discussion on 6 million by 2020?
http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/02/05/why...n-by-2020/
You can find more of my postings in http://investideas.net/forum/
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(05-02-2013, 05:02 PM)d.o.g. Wrote:
(05-02-2013, 04:42 PM)edragon Wrote: No doubt it is cheaper as a utility (use and discard) but what will happen to the statement, "You own a piece of Singapore and that's where you belong". Our HOME our Singapore."

"You own a piece of Singapore" is a delusion perpetrated by the government. With HDB flats you never own the unit, all you own is a 99-year lease. The HDB title deed makes clear that you are merely a LESSOR and not the OWNER. The only way to truly be an owner is to own freehold land.

So let's call a spade a spade.

We now have 99-year transferable leases selling for astronomical prices. Why not try a small issue of 60-year non-transferable leases selling at reasonable prices? If they prove popular then ipso facto they work. If they don't work, back to the drawing board.

We have had "senior" studios with 30-year leases, jumbo flats made from combining adjacent units, HUDCs, ECs, rental flats made from dividing larger unsold flats etc. So the HDB is not closed to new ideas. What's wrong with trying a couple of blocks out for the new lease type? If they don't work, go back to transferable leases. No big deal.
a lot of things on this earth is delusion or illusion, just to quote albert einstein - reality is merely an illusion albeit a persistent one

this is particularly true on this island - too many persistent illusions created by the saint men in white
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Debate till they lost their direction ?

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I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
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d.o.g. Wrote:
Quote:For example, as more Singaporeans take up professional jobs, there is a need for foreign workers to take on the lower-skilled jobs, said Mr Teo.

I have a different view.

The Singaporeans who clean tables at hawker centres and deliver McDonald's meals are in no position to take up "professional jobs" in private banking or IT services. All the foreign workers do when they show up is to depress wages for these lower-skilled Singaporeans.

For jobs like call centres, yes they can be outsourced. But tell me, how do you outsource your local cleaner and dispatch rider? You can't, which means that bringing in foreign workers makes no sense at all.

Do you think the cleaner and dispatch rider don't want to "upgrade" themselves and make more money? Sure, some are happy where they are. But the majority would upgrade themselves to earn more if they could. Our dear ministers need to understand that not everyone is going to be a first-class honours graduate with a straight career path from management trainee to CEO (or MP) in 15 years. Many people cannot make it to university at all.

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The job of the government is to make sure that EVERYONE in Singapore has the chance to make a decent living. Not import foreigners to depress wages and then tell the Singaporeans in these jobs that "too bad this is globalization, deal with it".

Fundamentally we have to understand that cost and income are 2 sides of the same coin. If we want Singaporeans' wages to go up, Singaporeans' cost of living must also go up. Your income is someone else's cost. Your costs are someone else's income. The only way you can have high income and low costs is if someone else is being underpaid. For the past 2 decades that someone has been the lower-skilled Singaporeans, who have seen their lot get from bad to worse.

Once upon a time those suffering were mainly those in the service industries like cleaning, hawkers, shop assistants etc. Many people felt that with an education they could avoid these jobs and their poor wages. So they were happy to vote for globalization since they were net beneficiaries. But now even the middle class is feeling it, as foreigners increasingly compete for "normal" white-collar jobs like nursing, IT support etc. And so as their interests are threatened, the middle class - who form the bulk of the population - are rebelling.

Is there a solution? I personally think so.

First, jobs that cannot be outsourced should be closed to foreigners. Costs will go up, which will force business productivity to go up. Those who can't raise productivity will close and free up workers for businesses that can. The result is that locals' wages in these sectors will go up. Presto - we have eliminated one segment of the working poor - because now they get a living wage. When these foreigners go home it will also relieve pressure on the housing and public transport infrastructure.

Second, jobs that CAN be outsourced should be opened up. These are jobs that will leave anyway if Singapore is not competitive. So things like call centres, remote medical diagnosis (of X-rays etc), chip design etc should have no quota on foreigners. If, after having 100% foreigners, the business can't hack it, it will leave anyway.

Third, a mindset change among Singaporeans. Instead of a me-versus-you mentality and complaining about the cost of food and transport, recognize that we have had it too cheap for too long and that it is time to get back to reality. Ultimately, when the people we pay earn more, they in turn will spend more and contribute to OUR income. Only when money circulates can an economy grow. I think a public campaign here, featuring Singaporean cleaners, bus drivers, hawkers, shop assistants etc, would be more worthwhile than yet another courtesy campaign.

Can we do all this overnight? No. But then, the PAP prides itself on planning decades ahead, does it not? So what is it waiting for, 2016?

(05-02-2013, 01:25 PM)thinknotleft Wrote: If we totally exclude foreigners from those jobs that cannot be outsourced, we may experience
- large rises in cost of living (biz have no choice but to pass the cost of wages to us),
- wage inflation for all workers including PMET (all of us will want higher wages when cost of living increases.)
- possibly loss of competiveness (if you are a boss looking to open a factory, wage costs are always a consideration)
- more crowded trains and buses than now (definitely our children will not aspire to be bus or train captains, so no local bus/train captains = no train)

If we look at the actual cost of living, excluding childraisng there are a few key components:

housing
food
transport

The cost of housing has very little to do with wages and a lot to do with the cost of land. This is something the government can fix. HDB can sell at cost/cost-plus, that would bring down the cost of new flats. HDB can also sell a new category of flats that cannot be resold, only returned to the government for a pro-rated refund. This would create a category of housing that has no speculative element, and should be popular with those who only want a roof over their heads.

Food is actually a very small expense for most of us. The median wage in Singapore is just over $3k per month. But most of us can get by on $10-15 of food spending per day. This is 10-15% of income. Even if your food costs go up 30% the impact is 3-5% of income, it is definitely bearable.

Transport cost is large or small depending on whether you have a car or not. Without a car most people will spend less than $5 a day on public transport. For 20 working days, that's $100 a month or 3% of income. Even if fares went up 50% the impact is less than 2% of income, still bearable. With a car the cost is much higher, often $1,500 or more per month. This is mainly due to changes in the COE supply which is within the government's control.

So you see, increasing the wages of our hawkers and bus drivers by 50% will cumulatively impact the higher-earning group by less than 10% total. The lower-income, who will feel the impact more, are precisely the group who will have the higher incomes. So net-net I think Singapore wins, a small cost for the well-off is a large benefit for the poor.

As for the unattractiveness of driving buses, SBS admitted previously in the Straits Times that their problem with hiring locals was the poor base pay. When they changed the package so that the base pay was increased to $1,000 they had more applicants for the job.

We do not need to reach the extremes of the UK where schoolteachers quit to drive the Tube trains because the hours are shorter and the pay is better. But we can do a lot more for the bus and train drivers - they have dozens and even hundreds of lives in their hands, their pay does not reflect their responsibility at all.

And likewise our street sweepers and garbage collectors are not being paid fairly for their labour. How can people in these jobs, who are struggling to survive, be proud to be Singaporean? For a country to survive it cannot just be the elites who are proud to be citizens, even the poor and downtrodden must feel that it is "their" country.

If the general population feels that their country has become a "rich man's land" how can they be expected to support the government or do National Service? The first thing they will try to do is leave - and that is what many have done over the years. If you look at the CIA Factbook:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications...2rank.html

Singapore has the 6th highest net migration rate in the world. On a per-capita basis, only Qatar, Zimbabwe, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United Arab Emirates had higher net migration rates. Singapore's net migration rate in 2012 was 15.62 per 1,000 persons. In other words, 1.5% of the population left last year.

If Singapore is truly "My Home" why is everyone trying to leave? And no prizes for guessing who leaves - it's the educated, the highly-skilled and highly-paid. Precisely the people that Singapore can ill afford to lose.

For reference, the net migration rankings (actual number per 1,000) of other nations/regions often compared to Singapore:

Australia #17 (5.93)
Hong Kong #25 (3.90)
USA #26 (3.62)
UK #29 (2.59)
Malaysia #135 (-0.37)
Indonesia #153 (-1.08)

Negative numbers represent net immigration.

As usual, YMMV.

This is so good that I need to QFT.
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I used to live in a quiet part of singapore, where the beach is a short jog away.
I also enjoy cycling when I was growing up, being more ulu, there were not many cars, cycling was safe and fun.
There were enough amenities all the while, some amenities were a bit further back then I didnt mind.
I still live in the same location, now it is no longer quiet, it is no longer the peaceful place I used to know.
This fish tank is getting too crowded. 6.9M population, is there even a need to debate this?
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