General Election 2015 - 11 Sep 2015

[Vid]

http://m.ibtimes.com/chinas-president-xi-jinping-makes-just-1600-month-1180885

 

Politcians in other major economies are taking home less than one quarter vs Singapore ministers.

 

For PAP to perform better than the 2011 election, our multi millionaire ministers have to cut their salary to the global norms, otherwise it is very difficult for them to earn the respect from the public, despite all the enviable track record in the last 50 years of successfully building this country with one of the best infrastructure and prosperous economic models in the world.

Cannot compare like that. Ours got no corruption leh...my PM tell me one.

[Volvobrick]

me thinks next big erection is cumming this yr end after NDP or 1q16

 

my thinking too, late this year or early next year. When property prices (and rentals) come down without crashing, when more COE released (and COE premium comes down), when most get the flats they applied for, and now better still, oil price crashes leading to lower inflation and electricity tariffs.

 

As they said before, "the ground is sweet"..... Expect more Aljunied bashing too.

[Duckduck]

 

my thinking too, late this year or early next year. When property prices (and rentals) come down without crashing, when more COE released (and COE premium comes down), when most get the flats they applied for, and now better still, oil price crashes leading to lower inflation and electricity tariffs.

 

As they said before, "the ground is sweet"..... Expect more Aljunied bashing too.

 

 

must celebrate 50th bday happy happy mah...

[darth_vader_]

calling me a disgrace for f**king FT.

suing citizens whom you are suppose to be serving.

[Ronleech]

Maybe take the lead in the retrenchment exercise too...and leftover one multitask to save cost for taxpayer.

 

What recession ? ....

 

How come ministars no pay cut, lead by example ....

 

[Super7]

Cannot compare like that. Ours got no corruption leh...my PM tell me one.

 

then how come PM wants to increase resources to fight corruptions leh??? newspaper reports say one....

 

Maybe instead of paying high high salaries to stop corruptions, the money can be better spent on such resources to check/catch the culprits!!?? why pay the thieves money just to stop them from stealing?? also, beefing up the anti-corruption resources will create more jobs, beeffing up the theives' salaries wont. Just kidding hor, hope he dont get angry....

[Super7]

http://m.ibtimes.com/chinas-president-xi-jinping-makes-just-1600-month-1180885

 

Politcians in other major economies are taking home less than one quarter vs Singapore ministers.

 

For PAP to perform better than the 2011 election, our multi millionaire ministers have to cut their salary to the global norms, otherwise it is very difficult for them to earn the respect from the public, despite all the enviable track record in the last 50 years of successfully building this country with one of the best infrastructure and prosperous economic models in the world.

 

They say time has changed, last time founding leaders/ministers worked hard to build sgp from scratch through difficult time but didnt take big pays, nowadays cannot find such talents who are willing to make such "sacrifices"..... how come?

 

Ans:- Maybe the food we eat today caused such a change [sweatdrop] that;s why its better to bring back old school food to create such sacrificial mindsets again. [thumbsup]

 

[Vid]

 

then how come PM wants to increase resources to fight corruptions leh??? newspaper reports say one....

 

Maybe instead of paying high high salaries to stop corruptions, the money can be better spent on such resources to check/catch the culprits!!?? why pay the thieves money just to stop them from stealing?? also, beefing up the anti-corruption resources will create more jobs, beeffing up the theives' salaries wont. Just kidding hor, hope he dont get angry....

 

The only way to fight money is.... with money lor. [laugh]

[Super7]

 

The only way to fight money is.... with money lor. [laugh]

 

oh ya, how can i forgot this:- there's no problem money cant solve [thumbsup]

[Ingenius]

There is no such thing as totally no corruption in any government around the world, it's just a matter of more, or little. Just like crimes, low crime rate, high crime rate.

[Neutralsg]

Prof Tommy Koh is one of the few prominent Singaporeans worth listening to. The government should take heed to such citizens who have no political agenda just like Catherine Lim who speaks her mind for the sake of Singapore and Singaporean's well being. Alas, ego remains to be a stubborn parasite which seems inherent in most of today's politicians to even acknowledge the merit in such opinions :(

At least he has more guts than the roti prata puppet man... MIW give $354m scholarships to foreigners while our own children suffer... Truly a first world-world class most expensive govt and bestest in the world!! Huat ah!!


Dr Tommy Koh disturbed by high inequality in Spore
January 3rd, 2015 | Author: Editorial

Dr Tommy Koh
Dr Tommy Koh, who is the former ambassador to the United Nations, is disturbed by the current wide income gap and inequality in Singapore.
He said this in an article which was published in the media today (3 Jan).
Our per capita income is one of the highest in the world, he said. Singapore is, however, not perfect. There are areas in which we can and should do better.
I am disturbed by the inequality in Singapore. We have one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world, he added.
He said that he is unhappy of seeing many Singaporean children growing up in poverty.
About a third of our students go to school with no pocket money to buy lunch, he explained. As a trustee of two education trusts, I am reminded each year of the large number of needy students in our schools and tertiary institutions.
60% of university students need financial assistance in Singapore

He also disclosed that he was shocked when a university president recently told him that 60 per cent of the university students need financial assistance.
He did not say which university it is.
Indeed, it was shocking to hear this latest disclosure from Dr Koh about our own students needing financial help while the government is pouring millions to sponsor foreign university students every year.
To add insult to injury, foreign students are defaulting on tuition grants (MP Png continues to press MOE for answer) but MOE refused to give an answer about the numbers who are defaulting when WP MP Png Eng Huat asked in Parliament in Mar 2014:
After pulling out all the stops for these foreign Students, how many of them took advantage of our generosity and left Singapore without serving a single day of the 3-year grant obligation?
MOE is currently unable to provide a definitive answer to this question. Even among the current group of International Students who had not started work upon graduation and/or who have not sought permission to do so, MOE did not want to reveal the number of defaulters in this group. I understand the ministry is tightening its tracking and enforcement efforts for bond fulfilment and I hope we will have a clear answer one day.
Later in Parliament, when MP Png pressed on the issue again, Education Minister Heng Swee Kiat changed tact and decided to focus on telling the House about the benefits of sponsoring foreign students to study in Singapore (Heng highlights the benefits of sponsoring FT students). Mr Heng said that mixing with FT students helps local students learn how to work with people of other races and cultures. They also augment Singapores manpower supply, he said. But Mr Heng refused to give the details of foreign students who defaulted and skipped town.
Thanks to Mr Pngs constant probing, MOE revealed that more than $210 million tuition grants are being dished out to foreign students every year (MOE gives $210M in tuition grants to FTs yearly). On top of tuition grants, NCMP Yee Jenn Jong estimated that at least some $144 million are being awarded to foreign scholarship holders every year. He mentioned this during the Punggol East by-election rally in 2013 [Link]:
I have also probed into how much our government spends on foreign scholarship. This is not because I am anti-foreign scholars, but because I feel we are spending too much with questionable returns. Through a series of parliament questions, I figured the government gives out more than 2,000 new scholarships to international students each year (see - Two thousand scholarships worth $36 million are awarded to foreign students each year). As each scholarship is valid for 4 years, there would be over 8,000 international scholars in Singapore. I worked out that it cost our government at least $144 million each year. This figure excludes the scholarships given by Government Linked Companies, which MOE is unable to provide data for, and other allowances which may not be included in the answers.
We were also told that a third of the scholars did not achieve at least a 2nd upper honours, the usual standard expected of scholars. When asked in parliament, the Minister said that MOE has strict criteria for scholarship renewal, which include achieving consistent academic performance throughout. Yet from the results achieved by the scholars, MOE does not appear to be strict in enforcing this.
So, together, it is estimated that some $354 million are being used to sponsor foreign students every year.
Other than students, Dr Koh also wrote that he is worried about the growing number of elderly poor. He said, Many of them are in poor health and have inadequate savings. Many of them live in loneliness, having no family or been abandoned by family and relatives.
A culturally and politically mature Singapore

And Dr Koh wants to see a culturally and politically mature Singapore.
I would like to see Singapore grow in cultural and political maturity. A culturally mature people accept diversity and welcome different points of view. A politically mature society is one in which the vanquished are gracious in their defeat and the victors are magnanimous in their victory, Dr Koh said.
I hope that Singaporeans would be less obsessed with money and less materialistic. My mentor, Mr S. Rajaratnam, once said that Singaporeans were in danger of becoming a people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.
We did not heed his warning. As a result, I fear that Singapore is in very grave danger of becoming a market society, Dr Koh added.
Actually, in this regard about the obsession with money, Dr Koh should have asked former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew instead.
Former Permanent Secretary Ngiam Tong Dow once had a heated argument with Lee Kuan Yew over the COE scheme, as disclosed by Mr Ngiam.
Mr Lee then asked Mr Ngiam, Ngiam, are you the Permanent Secretary of the Budget and Revenue Divisions at MOF?. Ngiam answered yes, to which Lee Kuan Yew replied, Whats wrong with collecting more money?

 

[Neutralsg]

LKY could have scored a perfect 10 had he not prioritised his personal interests (i.e. in my eyes, his insisted on getting a) Mah Bow Tan who is a loser by the back door whom turned out to be one of the more disliked ministers, b) his son as a Premier over many other more capable and worthy politicians & c) Ho Ching to take the reins of Temasek) over that of national interests :(

The other 2 in the picture i.e. Dr Goh & former President Ong as well as others like Dr Toh Chin Chye are truly good men he had in his team.

 

i love the old PAP

it had good men, really good men

men who sacrificed

men who loved Singapore

heros whom everyone could look up to

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2015 by Neutralsg

[Crazy_turtle]

Ong Teng Cheong .. respect ..simply not enough leaders like that around to protect singaporeans

[Marvelicious]

LKY could have scored a perfect 10 had he not prioritised his personal interests (i.e. in my eyes, his insisted on getting a) Mah Bow Tan who is a loser by the back door whom turned out to be one of the more disliked ministers, b) his son as a Premier over many other more capable and worthy politicians & c) Ho Ching to take the reins of Temasek) over that of national interests :(

The other 2 in the picture i.e. Dr Goh & former President Ong as well as others like Dr Toh Chin Chye are truly good men he had in his team.

 

 

Imo, LKY's biggest failing, other than what you mentioned, would be to stay on in parliament when he should have stepped down in the 80s or 90s. I am pretty sure he would have been much more well-liked had he not hold on to power longer than he should. He should have stopped when he was at the top, just like footballers. Heck, I think there would even be talks among the people of building him a statue had he stepped down when he was at the top.

 

Instead, he continued to rule with an iron fist, suing and using overtly heavy-handed treatment on his political opponents and going as far as to threaten us (mothers, sisters working as maids overseas, make us regret, homes turning to slums...) if we do not vote his party.

 

He failed to realise that the world is a lot more connected now. People travel and read extensively. We are more educated, know what is going on in other countries, how other leaders rule and how their people live, and we make comparisons. We start to want to make our voices heard and stand up for what we believe in.

 

Alas, he does not want us to have an independent mind. He thinks that we are still back in the 60s to 90s when the electorate could be easily cowed and bullied by his strong-arm tactics. He thinks that we should still be led by the nose and that pap knows best, and that we lesser beings do not know any better. Policies are rammed down our throats, and our voices reach only deaf ears.

 

Worse is passing the legacy down to his son, Pinoy Lee, esp when the old man is still hovering around him. This has further cowed the parliament, esp the pap ministers and mps. By awarding them multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, and pegging their increment to GDPs, they have become protective of their rice-bowls and are afraid to oppose Pinoy Lee or make alternative suggestions. As long as the country is running, and they receive their obscene salaries every month they are happy to just let things run its natural course and not rock the boat. Their main concern is this: How to raise the GDP by any means.

 

Just like how you will do your best to meet the KPI set by your bosses, however vile your means may be. When GDP goes up, it looks good on their report cards. But how has high GDP benefitted the common people, you and I???

 

What makes the matter worse is that most, if not all the ministers and mps come from an elite background. Stay in condos, landed properties and have led mostly a sheltered life from young. They mostly drive or are chauffeured driven. Now, couple this with their obscene salary, how would they even understand or see the challenges that the poor and middle income have to go through?

 

And even if they know that there are deep issues, which I am sure some of them do, do they dare to voice out against pap and jeopardise their diamond-encrusted rice bowl? Well other than Inderjit Singh?

 

There are so many things wrong with this country now, and I think the problems will become more evident and worse in the future. If ever pap is unseated, the new party will have a lot on their plates to clear. It's not going to be easy for them.

[Spring]

Interesting interview by PM Lee with S'pore journalists earlier this week.

Covered quite a range of topics.

 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pm-lee-on-his/1593386.html

[Wt_know]

election ai lai liao?

Edited January 16, 2015 by Wt_know

[Ender]

election ai lai liao?

Don't know how soon, but I do know Eat-lection is here now,

[Super7]

Ong Teng Cheong .. respect ..simply not enough leaders like that around to protect singaporeans

Chan Chun Sing wrote to US media to attack Chee CJ now, calling him a failure etc etc. Aiyo, as if the media there bother with it!?

 

Maybe any mud-smearing near election time will score ccs some browny points. Not that I am a supporter of csj though.