Sometimes people just do not understand one thing, our economy is not really as sound as our leaders try to make us believe.

If we have the right leaders who know how to motivate people from the begainning we should have done better or much better than now.

Just look at our own neighbourhood shops. How many of them are doing well?

Our leaders were not truly caring for the people. They were only concerned with their own limited and narrow self-serving glorifications and claims of success.

If they have practised full-scale promotion or encouragements of practical talents in every field we could have upgraded our economy long ago.

The government only pays lip service by showing some schemes from time to time here and there but actually it is running down the whole economy with increasing taxes and fees and withholding services which should have been provided based on taxes being paid by citizens.

That is why while Korea or Finland keep producing international brands of products due to their business vibrancy through motivating its own talents we are only able to depend on some MNCs to produce certain items which are easily overtaken by China and India due to their cheaper labor costs.

Our whole economic performance today is very still shallow largely dependent on economic cycle play using share markets and property to give an superficial appearance of success due to international economic recovery.

There is nothing original in our economic management like upgrading to a truly  value-adding manufacturing or saleable products which we can claim as our own.

If we want to claim to be a first world's country our economy has to be truly upgraded to one based on practical knowledge applications by the masses with government recognizing all the practical talents in every field and not just by promoting their own kinds of academic scholars.

We are totally at the mercy of foreigners being too dependent on them without directions of where we are going. Even FT is a wrong policy like welcoming more study mamas or prostitutes to be imported as part of foreign talents.

After so many years of appealing to foreigners to invest here we are still not able to attract good committed foreign companies here. Instead we are losing our own practical talents to many other countries and now have to resort to importing many mundane foreigners here called foreign talents who are neither here nor there.

In another downturn these foreign companies and foreign talents will be deserting us once again as has happened too often in the past.

Singapore is not a successful economy. It is a make-belief economy which claims to be successful during economic upturn while most of the time it is in down turns while other economies are doing well.

The most important question one always forget to ask is "could we have done better if our economic management is not so shallow and superficial" as has happened for years.

Will we have lost so many talents to other countries because of the general negative impact caused by such wrong approaches in economic management.

If only from the 1970s, we have a government which truly respected its own talents and not have treated them so badly with heavy direct and indirect taxes and back charging for all kinds of basic services in the name to avoid welfare which actually is a clever excuse to make more and more monies with profiteering schemes of all kinds, we would have reached a higher standard of living for ordinary citizens by now.

By increasing costs of living with over-paying the entire government from ministers down to the civil servants while withholding services and hoarding taxes as government's surpluses our government is actually running down the whole economy which will easily fumble again and again in any downturn.

I disagree that that we are having a first-world economy which our MM Lee wants the citizens to believe. It is part of his self-glorification and nothing more. He should have done better from 1970s by changing his many policy errors if he wants to be respected as a truly great leader

The main thing, I think, is not whether to question whether LKY should or should not have been there from the 1970s. This is something that cannot be changed, nor can it be repeated (another LKY, anyone?).

The more important question, I think, is

Can Singapore do better without LKY/PAP now?

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http://forums.asiaone.com/showthread.php?t=9133

Originally posted by robertteh:

By increasing costs of living with over-paying the entire government from ministers down to the civil servants while withholding services and hoarding taxes as government's surpluses our government is actually running down the whole economy which will easily fumble again and again in any downturn.

Hello...since when all civil servants are over paid.....your statement is pretty sweeping here...

Back up with proof ...

The question should be "What would you, or anybody have done from 1970s and what kind of a better Singapore would be?"

That is academic, the more relevant question would be "if LKY kicks the bucket today, what changes are necessary to make Singapore a better place?"

The people of Singapore have their view of the government they want, it is your view that are different that is causing the split.  

Dear Robert,

I sympathize with your feelings. I keep certain things in mind when I look at these things.

Firstly, running a government and a country isn't easy. I'd assume that most times we'd try to look for other models and policies to follow rather then shape our own because we may not have sufficient confidence and expertise to shape our own.

We're also constrained by having to choose policies from other countries that may be fundamentally different from our own and such policies may not have their intended effect or have unplanned effects. Some would include the unexpected social impacts of economic policies.

You brought up many good examples of policies that can be improved. Do you have suggestions for policies to address these issues?

... I been looking at this thread's title, and felt that there was something wrong in it...

... finally I've realized what it is...

... on the contrary, I feel people should be asking; "Could LKY have done better without Singaporeans?" Indeed, if the people have not supported him, or voted for his party, would he be where he is today & all that money... ?

maybe you should also ask yourself

Could you have achieve more in your life if you spend less time in this forum talking about LKY.  

... speaking of achieving more in life, I think there can be many variants to this question such as "Will costs of living be lower without LKY?" ...

"Hello...since when all civil servants are over paid.....your statement is pretty sweeping here...

Back up with proof ..."

I would say that iron rice bowl or bill collector jobs have been over-glamorised in our civil service with every new recruits without proven track records of the elite groups enjoying super-speed promotions and regarded as CEOs comparable to Sim Wang Hoo who are only bureaucrat people who pass law and put up controls of all sorts to levy funds and use public monies to provide expenditures like happening in any clubs or management corporations.

Such iron rice bowl people have been wrongly treated as talents with ability to restructure our economy to world class standards or solve our many problems.

The fact is have they all these years done so and have they even been talented enough to lower citizens' burdens in paying everything from A to Z created by all the profiteering schemes to suck monies from them.

So under such conditions, the $400K - $600K salaries paid to top civil servants and $80K-$150K paid to middle executives like senior teachers or senior assistants in schools are therefor grossly overpaid.

Furthermore many civil servants are nowadays having lesser job scopes and responsibilities as compared with before with many traditional duties being taken off them due to more laws being passed to protect their own enclave.

Our Policemen nowadays do not have such major responsibilities like apprehending certain crimes happening with private estates because they  have passed such duties to private security agencies or the management corporation.

Even in immigration offences or assaults the police men would come and take down particulars and would normally tell victims to be his own policemen and investigate the wrongs and file their own private summons on the excuse that these are not seizable offences.

If they say we need to restructure the economy to value-adding and technology or knowledge driven model, have they actually done that?

With only excuses they keep postponing solutions to problems.

marketing or inventions or innovations to be worth millions.

Propagandas and self-glorifications through the controlled media have resulted in many of us believing our leaders and top civil servants are that talented.

They cannot even solve certain urgent problems faced by people which lower-paid outsource private companies have been solving.

Originally posted by eagle:

The main thing, I think, is not whether to question whether LKY should or should not have been there from the 1970s. This is something that cannot be changed, nor can it be repeated (another LKY, anyone?).

The more important question, I think, is

Can Singapore do better without LKY/PAP now?

in my opinion, sg can definitely do without PAP. we need a 2-party system ala the states. i see workers party's growth to be the alternative voice a healthy sign.

no, we cant do without LKY, who do u think is actually steering the ship now?

I think the is a sweeping statement and is unfair

I can simply say tat all opposition parties r completely useless. If they r better than the opposition party now will be as strong as PAP. Look at america and tat is a better example than singapore. Similarly, I can also say u r completely useless. If u r better, than u will become bill gates and set up a good product tat can sell overseas and make billions for our economy. Then u can also conclude singaporean r lousy. Because if they r good, they will become damn rich, set up many companies with international brand, replace LKY long time ago with a better leader and singapore become the paradise of the world

U know just go behind, comment the others r lousy, then finding a better example to back up your argument is totally lame. U just have the benefit of hindsight and comment how others had failed, when during tat time nobody know wat is going to happen in future. U r living now. Tell me wat policies should we implement NOW not wat should we implement in the past. If I got the benefit of hindsight, I win 4D every week.

Originally posted by stupidissmart:

I think the is a sweeping statement and is unfair

I can simply say tat all opposition parties r completely useless. If they r better than the opposition party now will be as strong as PAP. Look at america and tat is a better example than singapore. Similarly, I can also say u r completely useless. If u r better, than u will become bill gates and set up a good product tat can sell overseas and make billions for our economy. Then u can also conclude singaporean r lousy. Because if they r good, they will become damn rich, set up many companies with international brand, replace LKY long time ago with a better leader and singapore become the paradise of the world

U know just go behind, comment the others r lousy, then finding a better example to back up your argument is totally lame. U just have the benefit of hindsight and comment how others had failed, when during tat time nobody know wat is going to happen in future. U r living now. Tell me wat policies should we implement NOW not wat should we implement in the past. If I got the benefit of hindsight, I win 4D every week.

... if all that you have said is possible to do at present, we wouldn't all be just confined in here to air our views & objections...

My point is, if u wanna comment, comment on something reasonable

In chinese, tis is call "事后英雄". After everything had become past, he described how he can be a hero or how he can do a better job then.

Originally posted by HyperFocal:

 

... speaking of achieving more in life, I think there can be many variants to this question such as "Will costs of living be lower without LKY?" ...

 

I am sure if LKY did nothing as PM, the cost of living in Singapore will be lower, so will be our income, literacy rate, life expectancy. We might not even be singing majulah singapura.

Face it...SG's Economic growth is largely due to domestic factors. Do we export lots of stuff? No...its due to rising property prices that we grow economically.Its simply moving money from one pocket into another. Real growth? Look at China, India. Enough said.

Originally posted by SpecOps87:

Face it...SG's Economic growth is largely due to domestic factors. Do we export lots of stuff? No...its due to rising property prices that we grow economically.Its simply moving money from one pocket into another. Real growth? Look at China, India. Enough said.

I guess you really have no clue about what you are saying.

I guess it's time we need new blood...

According to some people, without LKY our share market will fall, property prices will fall and investors will run away.

Actually our market with LKY sticking around has fallen to the bottom. We will have more recessions than other countries. Our wages have fallen. There is a temporary recovery recently in the property and share market not because of his creativity or entrepreneurship but because pf world recovery with the rise of China and India.

Because of lack of economic restructuring to keep up with technology and practical knowledge applications and his he failure to understand motivation of people and how economy works our economy has fallen badly to the bottom since the 1970s.

It is aggravated by his continuing past policies during his time of over-charging and profiteering by the government on lands and all assets belonging to people through all kinds of hypocrisy creative accounting and legalistic wrangling.

So with him around for longer we will not be doing better but worse. If he has set up  pro-progress and pro-people policies since 1970s we will not be seeing losses due to migration of our talents to other countries by the thousands.

We would have won the people's confidence for with lesser charges and fees we would have achieved greater competitiveness through knowledge applications by all.

His basic policies of promoting the elites and foreigners have hit bottom and failed to uplift the economy. He has basically run out of solutions.

The only way to him to run this country seems to be to take and suck from the people. That is selfish government and a selfish government cannot succeed in the long run.

So what is the solution?

If you were PM, what would you do?

Another variant we could ask was, would there be more entrepreneurs without LKY? Some people said LKY managed to do the impossible - extinguishing the entrepreneurial spirit in Chinese.Arts and Innovation also cant seem to thrive under LKY rule despite many repeated attempts over decades to move up the economic value chain.

With a rigid education system, propaganda media and regimental lifestyle and regime supporting FTs, combined with a hostile political environment, all creativity, innovation spirit and business acumen has been killed off.

A lifeless and souless society.

Lee Kuan Yew should be proud of himself.

All those with the resources are leaving this island for good.

They are tired of Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP ruling clique.

the way i see things,

although I must say sg is super bombastic,

i cannot in anyway not consider migrating as an alternative to retirement. This means, its more likely I will not migrate but it will always be a backup plan waiting to be used because there is stil l substantial chance I will have to.

I believe if time can turn back,those ppl who voted LKY n his party PAP will vote other politicians and parties instead.

Reason?They now know that LKY is not such a good leader after all.They now know that LKY can screw up so many things when he gets old and his “Never-retired attitude” bring disaster to this nation.Just like Mao Ze Tong did to Communist China in the past.