So I went to their webpage and poke around. I found their manifesto and my blood turned cold as I read on.
The Reform Party believes that Singapore belongs to its people and that government should serve the people and not the other way around. We want to build a first-class modern nation, in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world. We believe that Freedom and Prosperity go hand in hand.The people who had written this must have no knowledge of global economic at all. If anyone in the party would, they could have updated their manifesto quickly.
Without freedom of expression and a climate of ideas fostering innovation and creativity we will not only fall further behind the already rich nations of the US, Europe and Japan but also the new, and considerably freer Asian states such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Even our customary advantages in education and infrastructure are being eroded by India and China as well as many of our ASEAN neighbours.
So what's wrong? Here's why.
- "We want to build a first-class modern nation, in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world."
Sorry for bursting your bubble but rich and advanced democracies are as rare as hens's teeth in the world. Due to the wealth effect, most of the "rich" countries are actually dead broke. Many people got no idea that we are now in a new currency war since 2009, the on-going European sovereign debt crisis and the upcoming collapse of dollar of the United States.
We living in the age of Keynesian economics, which in simple turns allow governments to please their people by pushing off the debt incurred to the next government. It is like a credit card on the national scale. The western governments at this point had already busted their accounts and on the verge of not being able to even meet the minimum payment.
No. I do not want to want to be anywhere "in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world." - "...we will not only fall further behind the already rich nations of the US, Europe and Japan but also the new, and considerably freer Asian states such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong."
Please replace the term "already rich nations" with "already bankrupt nations". Take a look at the World Debt Clock and tell me again, who is rich? Does wearing a nice suit and driving a new car makes you feel rich and wealthy? This is the wealth effect playing in our minds.
I am not expert in freedom of expression so I will not be commenting on that. - "Even our customary advantages in education and infrastructure are being eroded by India and China as well as many of our ASEAN neighbours."
Actually our real customary advantage is our way of governance, something that is not perfect but mostly done right. With the fall of the Western powers in full swing, and the ascendance of China, we still have a good advantage over our ASEAN neighbours.
Let's look at their policies pledges
- Providing Cheaper and Better Lower-Income Housing by releasing more land for house-building and allowing the private sector a greater role.
I must agree that our housing prices are soaring really fast recently. Providing cheaper housing (assuming public housing) has also a flip side of reducing the value of the existing housing, both private and public housing.
Let's look at the scenario as the prices of housing actually falls. The private housing sector prices will first dip and then bounce right back as both foreign and local buyers will take the chance to enter the property market.
Morever, as the currency war rages on, the flow of hot money will enter Singapore and take advantage of the situation, pulling the gap between private and public housing even further.
The net effect will be that the prices of all existing public housing will fall a bit, making existing owners fuming and unable to upgrade to private housing as their existing housing will now fetch a lower price and the private housing will still be, if not more expensive than now. - Universal health insurance to be funded through current CPF contributions replacing current Medisave and Medishield schemes.
This might be a good idea. While it might not replace the current schemes, complementing them may be a viable option. - Basic Old Age Pension payable to all provided they have worked and paid into CPF for a sufficient number of years.
No no and no. This is a 1000% bad idea sold by politicians all over the world to get themselves elected, then passing the cost to future generations to come. Due to the effects of inflation and overly optimistic investment gains, the cost of the pension scheme will always overrun the ability of the sources paying for it. Almost every pension system in the world is on the verge of blowing up.
Please no pension scheme of any sort, they will just bankrupt us all. There is no free lunch. You cannot get something out of nothing. - Reform of CPF to make contributions above those necessary to fund health and unemployment insurance and basic pension voluntary.
Need to check whether this is sustainable. Is there any maths for this? - Universal child benefit scheme (as part of Guaranteed Minimum Income) to replace current tax breaks that heavily favour women on higher incomes.
Raising children is indeed expensive in Singapore. This might help. - Guaranteed Minimum Income for those in work to replace current Workfare system and to be integrated with child benefit and tax system.
This will certainly appeal to the lower income groups. - A Minimum Wage to encourage businesses to raise productivity.
While it sound good, this policy got the potential to backfire really badly. How? As a business, the priority is to manage cash flow and reduce overheads. With a minimum wage law in place, what will a business do? For jobs that are already paying below the minimum wages, the permanent staff will be retrenched and the positions filled with temporary and contract workers!
Any jobs paying slightly above the minimum wage will simply pay the minimum wage. I will trust businesses to be creative and employ more foreign workers to take up the jobs that the Singaporeans refuses to get paid for.
Worse yet, the jobs simply disappear as they moved to neighbouring countries since we are now more expensive. Instead of helping the poor, this policy will kill them off.
Check this article, "The miniumum wage" from Freedom Daily. - Reforms to Foreign Worker Policy to ensure that business gets the skilled labour it needs but that our own citizens come first.
I am in the IT industry and the number of foreign workers is simply huge. Singaporeans are completely out numbered here. While interviewing people for open positions, the foreign skilled labour are usually cheaper, highly skilled and more experienced then Singaporeans. From a business perceptive, it's getting hard to be a patriot. - Reductions in or exemptions from GST for certain categories of goods like food that form a higher proportion of total expenditure for those on median incomes and below.
The problem is not GST but inflation. It is inflation that bumps up food and energy prices not GST.
Inflation and fiat money
The key point that I must stress that the money you have in your bank and wallet isn't really money after all. No, it does not represent real money, nor it's a IOU of any sorts. It's call fiat money. It's pieces of paper that a country's government prints and declare the value of. The intrinsic value of fiat money is the value of the paper and ink used to print it. It is not tied to anything except pure faith that the next person recognise it. Any gain or loss of confidence in the fiat money in a country causes exchange rate changes.
Since fiat money can be printed at will, there is practically no way to measure the value of the dollar bill that you are holding. It's like hot potatoes been passed from one to another. The problem is that eventually, the fiat money loses it's value over time because all government simply prints more and more. The act of printing money like this causes inflation. Because of the globalised ecomony, this actually became a weapon of mass economic destruction.
Quantitative easing and inflation
Since World War II, the United States had screwed up on their economic policy very badly, and by any definition, completely bankrupt. Since 2008, to buy more time, and leveraging on their position as the world's reserved currency, they had printed money so fast that their printing press could not print any faster, and they had to resort to adding zeros to bank balances.
This caused the net effect of exporting inflation to the whole world. If you are demanding for an explanation of why things are getting more expensive, I will squarely blame the United States. As goods and services, commodities are all priced in US dollars, the appearance of newly created-out-of-thin-air-money caused the prices of everything to soar.
While our government can control inflation to a certain extend, things are going to get worse. - Universal free and compulsory education from pre-school through to secondary level.
Sounds good. - Expanded university enrolment and increased investment in improving quality of education for everyone.
I didn't like it when I need to pay for my Australian degree with my own cash. But I blame myself for slacking too much in my first 20 years of my life too. - Increased assistance for older workers and women re-entering the labour market to retrain and acquire new educational qualifications.
Similar to my comments at policy #7, this might turn against the people which the policy was meant to help. - Reduction in NS to 18 months initially with aim to reduce it to one year as soon as feasible.
We all heard how NS was meant to secure our future blah blah blah. I must agree 2.5 years is too long, 2 years? How about 1.5 years? - Requirement for new citizens and PRs to do NS or to pay lump sum tax instead.
Most new citizens are adults. Getting them to perform NS and to pay lump sum tax will only drive them away. This is economically a bad idea. I rather entice them to stay, integrate with us as citizens, and their children will serve NS. - Privatization of Temasek and GIC and distribution of equity to Singaporean citizens of more than five years standing.
Temasek and GIC represent Singapore and the wealth are not for distribution. The role of the two entities are a lot more than companies making a quick buck. - Continuing Business and Foreign Investment Friendly Environment coupled with low tax rates.
Yes! This is our rice bowl too. By the way, Singapore is also notorious for being a tax haven in the business world. Naughty but we need every edge we got. - Greater help and support for local SMEs to grow world-class companies.
Great. Such things can always be improved on. - Abolish restrictions on freedom of expression to encourage creativity and innovation necessary for a 21st century knowledge-based economy.
Catchy but doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's like stringing several buzzwords together. Let's assume the freedom here refers to political freedom. Political freedom of expression had little to do with encouraging creativity and innovation. The 21st century isn't all about knowledge-based economy either. Is there a serious restriction on freedom of expression in the first place? In the Internet world, you can say all you want. We don't have a Great Firewall of Singapore. - Reduce waste and inefficiency in government starting with slashing ministerial salaries and replacing it with performance-linked earnings tied to indicators directly related to your welfare.
Let's face it. Politics is always tied to money. Money always corrupts. This government is not corrupted and had done a good job. If this is the price of running things as they are, it is not expensive at all.
Singaporeans growing up in Singapore had lived a fairytale all their lives. You actually have to dig hard before you can find any signs of corruption. Corruption is what bring down governments, societies and countries. It's a serious problem all over the world. Ask your foreign friends and you will understand how bad corruption can affect everyone. If their lawmakers and government can work like the Singapore government does at this price, they will gladly do so.
Indicators tied to your welfare...we are not a welfare state. Politicians are not stupid. If they cannot get their money upfront, the squeeze it out of you elsewhere. From there on, it will be a slippery slope which will only end up in tears.
I have always regard the following as the golden rule in my life, borrowed ironically from a Citibank advertisement that I have seen when I was in Secondary school.
"Money is power"
And later I learn that the opposite is also very true.
When a party is in power, the must absolutely know how to handle money. This is very important. Extremely so.
When you are getting married, you will want to make sure that your partner is healthy, with common goal in life, has good track records and can make sound decisions, especially financially. There is no Mr or Mrs Perfect but there is always Mr or Mrs Right. Will you want to get married with a partner who promises a lot but has no track record of delivering and has no foreseeable way of doing so? Will you stake your future because you feel you want to take a leap of faith, taking a risk when the odds are against you?
How many stories did you hear about couples with horrible financial management? Your savings will be wiped out, your bright future gone and only doom awaits.
The economy is the lifeblood of the country. There is no way, I will vote for a party that has no idea how to handle the economy, selling populist ideas which sound very nice but will lead us to the path of doom. There is no way I will take risk like this, for pile of chips Singapore has is the only pile we will ever have. There is no second changes in this brutal world.
I am voting for my country based on the best interest of my country, not some short sighted populist policies that will only lead us to the dying economies of Europe, Japan and United States.
The Reform Party have to seriously get their priorities right. You need to sell policies, and implement them in a way that is sustainable and desirable. While their policies have good intents, the directions are mostly populist tactics and increase expenditure and reducing our competitiveness.
There is no prize for guessing who I am going to vote for. The party with the best proven track record and best plan for the future will get my vote.
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