My brush with FT

[Bystander50]

  On 12/8/2009 at 10:42 AM, Bigg said:

all new FT male,18years and above should enter 2 years NS first. hows that?

 

Won't serving NS automatically convert them to shitizens?

But at least better than nothing, an opportunity got the MIWs to lock up their CPF.

 

[1fast1]

  On 12/8/2009 at 5:39 AM, Bystander50 said:

All parties would do the same once they have a firm grip on power.

Compare the ruling party back in the 60s - early 80s and now, in which era do they really feel the ground and has more foresight.

 

This is what happens when one government is in power for too long. Don't be surprised that in the end, sg will be brought down by the ruling party.

It's already repeated a few times in histroy by looking at the Ming and Qing dynasties or the Malacca Sultanate.

 

Right - that's why one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes goes like this:

 

"Politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed often, and for the same reason."

 

(Exactly which reason the joke is alluding to is not quite clear. I always though, "because they turn dirty" is the clean answer and "because they become full of s--t" is the dirty one).

Edited December 8, 2009 by Turboflat4

[Topgun]

  On 12/8/2009 at 11:23 AM, Turboflat4 said:

Right - that's why one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes goes like this:

 

"Politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed often, and for the same reason."

 

(Exactly which reason the joke is alluding to is not quite clear. I always though, "because they turn dirty" is the clean answer and "because they become full of s--t" is the dirty one).

 

 

Both answers still mean they're smelly and need to be discarded. Cannot be reused nor recycled

Edited December 8, 2009 by Topgun

[Arowana1]

  On 12/8/2009 at 4:46 AM, Rollagt said:

After I ORD at 2002, I work part time at a local Uni as an admin assistant while waiting to go Uni.

 

There is a recruitment for IT related position, I am told to photocopy the candidates CVs for the interview and I get to see their profile and asking pay.

1st candidate is a undergraduate whom will be graduating in a month's time. He is a malaysian with Spore PR + no working experience and ask for $2.5K

2nd candidate is from India with 1st class honours + some professional certificates and had 8 years IT work experiences in India + winning a few awards for duno what projects and was featured in the papers. Asking pay is $2K .

 

1st class honours from where?

 

8 years of experience but learn to eat snake better or do more work?

 

awards from where? got standard one or not?

 

end of day, are u looking for a good worker or someone who is looking more to leverage off u instead?

 

i will offer 2k to the malaysian. if we dunlook after our own, who will? not saying we give him free lunch but if he can get the job done, i prefer to trust own kind !

[Pchmj]

Got an encounter this evening when I was having dinner at Mac. As you know, there will be a crowd during dinner time. I was queuing up when this 30+ yr old FT walks in, find a table and sit down. He take out his water melon bought from fruit stall outside, it's a 1/4 cut. Without buying anything, he starts to eat the melon in a disgusting manner, when hands are wet, he just flick off to the side .

 

After finishing the melon, he still did not buy anything or go away, instead, take out his chinese newspaper to read. It's was already crowded and all tables occupied. Strange that the staffs didn't chase him away. Well, this is FT for us. If he buy a drink or anything, I got nothing to say if he wants to hog table, but no...

 

BTW, I can't confirm he's a FT but from his looks, 99% he is, I think all of us can differentiate by the looks.

[Topgun]

  On 12/8/2009 at 11:55 AM, Pchmj said:

....BTW, I can't confirm he's a FT but from his looks, 99% he is, I think all of us can differentiate by the looks.

 

In a few years you won't be able to tell from their dressing or accent unless they're FOB (fresh off the boat)...

Edited December 8, 2009 by Topgun

[Drive_carcar]

  On 12/7/2009 at 3:23 PM, Pufferfish1 said:

but on a serious note, i went to the 313 new shopping mall at orchard for lunch.

went to the bah kut teh stall paid $9 DOLLARS, YES $9 DOLLARS FOR A BOWL of bah kut teh, the people serving me all PRC, then i went to buy drinks at the stall, the lady manager from china, cashier from china, cleaner from china, cook from china.

 

suddenly i felt " A Singaporean in China Foodcourt" dont believe me. go to 313 food court at level 5 . and you be singing sting song " an englishman in new york"

 

 

I'm an alien I'm a legal alien

I'm an Englishman in New York

I'm an alien I'm a legal alien

I'm an Englishman in New York

 

Sorry man bro.... foodcourt jobs no S'porean takers.

 

$9 BKT is really very expensive, next time just vote with your feet, and go somewhere else better okay?

[Drive_carcar]

  On 12/8/2009 at 3:05 AM, Axela72 said:

How we know the opposition party is same or different mentalilty?Later win vote liao do the same thing, how?

Let's see here.... current govt is CONFIRMED that kind of mentality... Opp maybe or maybe not....

 

Think I'll take my chances...

[Pchmj]

  On 12/8/2009 at 12:11 PM, Topgun said:

In a few years you won't be able to tell from their dressing or accent unless they're FOB (fresh off the boat)...

 

Can, my boss been here 10+ years and one look you will know, no need to open mouth. No matter how they dress. It needs at least 2 generations I suppose, my neighbour daughter 3 or 4 yrs old also one look will know. Talk also very loud, every night at home gets irritated by them, now also. Grandparents talk loud, grandson sama sama, accent also.

[Topgun]

  On 12/8/2009 at 12:32 PM, Drive_carcar said:

Let's see here.... current govt is CONFIRMED that kind of mentality... Opp maybe or maybe not....

 

Think I'll take my chances...

 

A change is needed Of course we don't expect an Oppos gahmen next GE, but give the PAP's arrogant nose a thumping

 

[Pchmj]

For my area, we are kind of being 'forced' to vote for them. Opp team is a group of young people who nobody knows and from a weak opp party. Our PAP head is a minister, a good one who can do things. So PAP wins by the most % compared any other areas.

Edited December 8, 2009 by Pchmj

[Hermitage]

  On 12/8/2009 at 11:55 AM, Pchmj said:

Got an encounter this evening when I was having dinner at Mac. As you know, there will be a crowd during dinner time. I was queuing up when this 30+ yr old FT walks in, find a table and sit down. He take out his water melon bought from fruit stall outside, it's a 1/4 cut. Without buying anything, he starts to eat the melon in a disgusting manner, when hands are wet, he just flick off to the side .

 

After finishing the melon, he still did not buy anything or go away, instead, take out his chinese newspaper to read. It's was already crowded and all tables occupied. Strange that the staffs didn't chase him away. Well, this is FT for us. If he buy a drink or anything, I got nothing to say if he wants to hog table, but no...

 

BTW, I can't confirm he's a FT but from his looks, 99% he is, I think all of us can differentiate by the looks.

 

Excellent account! Your words project very good imagery! I nearly wanna vomit when I imagined this disgusting FT! WTF man?!?!

[Jayq]

Singaporean are becoming the minority in the country.

[Ngck]

  On 12/8/2009 at 6:17 AM, Ace said:

to me answer is no but to our dear leader yes, our tax base is too low to support their salary

 

 

yeah.... not just the salary alone.. they sold us such a beautiful dream......

 

which can only be prop up by huge influx of FT to support the system

[Atonchia]

The main cause of the FT influx was because the 'foresight' or rather the offsight of the 1st generation leaders who sucessfully launched the 'stop-at-two' birth control policy. That's why the lack of X & Y generation to fill the gaps due to economic growth.

 

 

http://countrystudies.us/singapore/14.htm

Excerpts from this website

 

Population Control Policies

 

Since the mid-1960s, Singapore's government has attempted to control the country's rate of population growth with a mixture of publicity, exhortation, and material incentives and disincentives. Falling death rates, continued high birth rates, and immigration from peninsular Malaya during the decade from 1947 to 1957 produced an annual growth rate of 4.4 percent, of which 3.4 percent represented natural increase and 1.0 percent immigration. The crude birth rate peaked in 1957 at 42.7 per thousand. Beginning in 1949, family planning services were offered by the private Singapore Family Planning Association, which by 1960 was receiving some government funds and assistance. By 1965 the crude birth rate was 29.5 per 1,000 and the annual rate of natural increase had been reduced to 2.5 percent. Singapore's government saw rapid population growth as a threat to living standards and political stability, as large numbers of children and young people threatened to overwhelm the schools, the medical services, and the ability of the economy to generate employment for them all. In the atmosphere of crisis after the 1965 separation from Malaysia, the government in 1966 established the Family Planning and Population Board, which was responsible for providing clinical services and public education on family planning.

 

Birth rates fell from 1957 to 1970, but then began to rise as women of the postwar baby boom reached child-bearing years. The government responded with policies intended to further reduce the birth rate. Abortion and voluntary sterilization were legalized in 1970. Between 1969 and 1972, a set of policies known as "population disincentives" were instituted to raise the costs of bearing third, fourth, and subsequent children. Civil servants received no paid maternity leave for third and subsequent children; maternity hospitals charged progressively higher fees for each additional birth; and income tax deductions for all but the first two children were eliminated. Large families received no extra consideration in public housing assignments, and top priority in the competition for enrollment in the most desirable primary schools was given to only children and to children whose parents had been sterilized before the age of forty. Voluntary sterilization was rewarded by seven days of paid sick leave and by priority in the allocation of such public goods as housing and education. The policies were accompanied by publicity campaigns urging parents to "Stop at Two" and arguing that large families threatened parents' present livelihood and future security. The penalties weighed more heavily on the poor, and were justified by the authorities as a means of encouraging the poor to concentrate their limited resources on adequately nurturing a few children who would be equipped to rise from poverty and become productive citizens.

 

Fertility declined throughout the 1970s, reaching the replacement level of 1.006 in 1975, and thereafter declining below that level. With fertility below the replacement level, the population would after some fifty years begin to decline unless supplemented by immigration. In a manner familiar to demographers, Singapore's demographic transition to low levels of population growth accompanied increases in income, education, women's participation in paid employment, and control of infectious diseases. It was impossible to separate the effects of government policies from the broader socioeconomic forces promoting later marriage and smaller families, but it was clear that in Singapore all the factors affecting population growth worked in the same direction. The government's policies and publicity campaigns thus probably hastened or reinforced fertility trends that stemmed from changes in economic and educational structures. By the 1980s, Singapore's vital statistics resembled those of other countries with comparable income levels but without Singapore's publicity campaigns and elaborate array of administrative incentives.

 

By the 1980s, the government had become concerned with the low rate of population growth and with the relative failure of the most highly educated citizens to have children. The failure of female university graduates to marry and bear children, attributed in part to the apparent preference of male university graduates for less highly educated wives, was singled out by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 as a serious social problem. In 1984 the government acted to give preferential school admission to children whose mothers were university graduates, while offering grants of S$10,000 to less educated women who agreed to be sterilized after the birth of their second child. The government also established a Social Development Unit to act as matchmaker for unmarried university graduates. The policies, especially those affecting placement of children in the highly competitive Singapore schools, proved controversial and generally unpopular. In 1985 they were abandoned or modified on the grounds that they had not been effective at increasing the fecundity of educated women.

 

In 1986 the government also decided to revamp its family planning program to reflect its identification of the low birth rate as one of the country's most serious problems. The old family planning slogan of "Stop at Two" was replaced by "Have Three or More, if You Can Afford It." A new package of incentives for large families reversed the earlier incentives for small families. It included tax rebates for third children, subsidies for daycare, priority in school enrollment for children from large families, priority in assignment of large families to Housing and Development Board apartments, extended sick leave for civil servants to look after sick children and up to four years' unpaid maternity leave for civil servants. Pregnant women were to be offered increased counseling to discourage "abortions of convenience" or sterilization after the birth of one or two children. Despite these measures, the mid-1986 to mid-1987 total fertility rate reached a historic low of 1.44 children per woman, far short of the replacement level of 2.1. The government reacted in October 1987 by urging Singaporeans not to "passively watch ourselves going extinct." The low birth rates reflected late marriages, and the Social Development Unit extended its matchmaking activities to those holding Advanced level (A-level) secondary educational qualifications as well as to university graduates. The government announced a public relations campaign to promote the joys of marriage and parenthood. In March 1989, the government announced a S$20,000 tax rebate for fourth children born after January 1, 1988. The population policies demonstrated the government's assumption that its citizens were responsive to monetary incentives and to administrative allocation of the government's medical, educational, and housing services.

[Pisces69]

  On 12/8/2009 at 12:50 AM, Louisckp said:

tat why they give 1 day 'cooling day' to cool us down before vote for opposition....

===============

 

Ty try to "bribe" us with such cheap stuff. I wonder how many sporeans r really so cheap to fall for these tactics anymore?

[Bigg]

  On 12/8/2009 at 1:17 PM, Pchmj said:

Can, my boss been here 10+ years and one look you will know, no need to open mouth. No matter how they dress. It needs at least 2 generations I suppose, my neighbour daughter 3 or 4 yrs old also one look will know. Talk also very loud, every night at home gets irritated by them, now also. Grandparents talk loud, grandson sama sama, accent also.

 

 

yeah like i said they talk like as if overseas call. must shout.

[Garfield1]

  On 12/8/2009 at 1:43 AM, Sgnick said:

I am more worried about FTs that got middle management positions. They will then hire/promote people from their own country, and soon u will see their team/dept all same nationality as the manager with the odd 1 singaporean or two in that team who gets all the s--t jobs and can forget about promotion because they dont have the correct skin colour. This is already happening in IT industry.

 

For some of us who wants to work in an all Singaporean environment, can consider working in the government sector. I have a lobang for IT professional, with 6 years experience in IT infrastructure. Pay quite attractive. Interested can PM me.