Back in the early days of Singapore, when the HDB was first founded, it had the very laudable goal of producing a large quantity of cheap public housing, and to reflect its public service mission, it was a government department famously run by Lim Kim San, who worked for no salary for 3 years!
Nowadays, the situation is very different. Not least because it is hard to imagine the PM's wife (or the MM's daughter in law) working for no salary, but more seriously because the HDB was incoprorated into a private company in July 2003 then in 2004, it was 100% bought out by Temasek Holdings. To me this seems strange, HDB has gone from a selflessly run public service, to being owned by a profit driven private company, presumably with a highly paid board and shareholders demanding a dividend and return on equity. If you doubt the fact that Temasek is not a profit driven organisation, just look at the reaction on line every time they announce another huge loss on one of their investments, and their complimentary efforts to boast of their rates of return. So there inevitably will be some tension in HDB between providing an affordable public service to Singaporeans, and delivering profit to shareholders and Temasek Holdings.
So the question is whether this is a hypothetical conflict of interest or a real cause for concern to Singaporeans. This question doesn't have a simple answer, we can only try to infer the reality by look at the affordability of public housing to the average Singaporean. Luckily, the analysis has already been done for us by Eugene Yeo at Temasek Review and unfortunately the answer is that housing in Singapore is either "Unaffordable" or "Severely Unaffordable" by the internationally recognised Median Multiple measure.
Of course the Singapore government, through the state controlled media, would like to promulgate the idea that housing is perfectly affordable, the ultimate answer is for Singaporeans to ask themselves if they truly believe that, or if housing actually feels more expensive and harder to come by every year.
Showing posts with label SingaporePLC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SingaporePLC. Show all posts
Thursday, 28 October 2010
What PM Lee's National Day Speech didn't say about FTs
PM Lee devoted a large portion of his National Day speech this year to the hot topic of Foreign Talent, an area for concern to many Singaporeans as the recent influx of FTs causes competition for jobs, housing, seats on the MRT and all the other public services that are shared by everyone living in Singapore.
Unfortunately he made it pretty clear that he is out of touch with Singaporeans real concerns on the influx of foreign talent, in so far as he focussed most of his examples on the benefits of attracting highly talented specialists from modern developed western countries, whilst neglecting to mention the negative impacts of effectively flooding Singapore with cheap labour from less developed Asian countries.
Take for example his comments about Microsoft, who hire the best IT brains in the world to deliver the sort of cutting edge software they are supposed to be known for. This sort of FT arguably is a real talent, who can contribute valuable skills to the economy of any country and which Singapore should probably be happy to accept in reasonable numbers. The real problem comes from more mid level roles in Engineering, Accountancy, Administration etc, roles that many Singaporeans go to University to study for, could surely do to a high standard, but find themselves directly competing with foreign nationals for. This is a completely pointless competition, as since there are plenty of Singaporeans who can do the jobs, the question of why the FTs are here at all is a very valid one, and one which the Minister Mentor's son did not address.
The oft cited response to this is that Singaporeans are supposed to train up, and better themselves to compete in the global marketplace, and on the face of it that is a laudable aim. The problems however with this reasoning are many. First and most obvious is that it is a bit brutal to tell your children to go get a Masters and compete properly after they've gone to University for a few years and got a degree in a good subject. This is not an issue for those lucky enough to get a job handed to them by their parents, but not all Singaporeans are lucky enough to be the son or daughter in law of MM LKY. Even more important than this though, is the fact that this "global competition" is not one of skills but of price. It is easy to see this from the fact that so many Foreigners of Dubious Talent (FDTs) come from countries with lower costs of living and salaries than Singapore, for a chance to earn some money for a few years and leave again.
What happens is that an enterprising young Chinese or Malaysian comes to Singapore to do a job that a Singaporean can do, (for example as an accountant in a car sales office) but with a view to living cheaply, saving up a bit of money (which is actually quite a lot back home) and then leaving again. Since they tend to be young, and their plan is to make money and leave after a few years, they are quite happy to live cramped in large numbers into small apartments or condos. The result of this is that young Singaporeans, trying for example to start a family, probably having similar qualifications as many of these overseas temporary visitors, simply cannot compete if they want to live a normal life, as their rental bills and thus salary expectations are bound to be higher.
PM Lee didn't talk about this side of the foreign talent issue because it is one that he has no answer to. It pushes the wages and standard of living for ordinary Singaporeans down, and the only people it benefits are the foreigners who head back to their own country with a nice pile of money to show for their time in Singapore. Actually, there is one other group that this benefits, and that is Singapore's government Ministers, who have performance related bonuses linked to GDP growth, and GDP can certainly be pushed up by importing cheap labour.
So the question for ordinary Singaporeans is this, does the government represent citizens own best interests, or their own performance linked bonuses when they import cheap foreign "talent", and why does PM Lee not want to address these questions in his national day speech?
Unfortunately he made it pretty clear that he is out of touch with Singaporeans real concerns on the influx of foreign talent, in so far as he focussed most of his examples on the benefits of attracting highly talented specialists from modern developed western countries, whilst neglecting to mention the negative impacts of effectively flooding Singapore with cheap labour from less developed Asian countries.
Take for example his comments about Microsoft, who hire the best IT brains in the world to deliver the sort of cutting edge software they are supposed to be known for. This sort of FT arguably is a real talent, who can contribute valuable skills to the economy of any country and which Singapore should probably be happy to accept in reasonable numbers. The real problem comes from more mid level roles in Engineering, Accountancy, Administration etc, roles that many Singaporeans go to University to study for, could surely do to a high standard, but find themselves directly competing with foreign nationals for. This is a completely pointless competition, as since there are plenty of Singaporeans who can do the jobs, the question of why the FTs are here at all is a very valid one, and one which the Minister Mentor's son did not address.
The oft cited response to this is that Singaporeans are supposed to train up, and better themselves to compete in the global marketplace, and on the face of it that is a laudable aim. The problems however with this reasoning are many. First and most obvious is that it is a bit brutal to tell your children to go get a Masters and compete properly after they've gone to University for a few years and got a degree in a good subject. This is not an issue for those lucky enough to get a job handed to them by their parents, but not all Singaporeans are lucky enough to be the son or daughter in law of MM LKY. Even more important than this though, is the fact that this "global competition" is not one of skills but of price. It is easy to see this from the fact that so many Foreigners of Dubious Talent (FDTs) come from countries with lower costs of living and salaries than Singapore, for a chance to earn some money for a few years and leave again.
What happens is that an enterprising young Chinese or Malaysian comes to Singapore to do a job that a Singaporean can do, (for example as an accountant in a car sales office) but with a view to living cheaply, saving up a bit of money (which is actually quite a lot back home) and then leaving again. Since they tend to be young, and their plan is to make money and leave after a few years, they are quite happy to live cramped in large numbers into small apartments or condos. The result of this is that young Singaporeans, trying for example to start a family, probably having similar qualifications as many of these overseas temporary visitors, simply cannot compete if they want to live a normal life, as their rental bills and thus salary expectations are bound to be higher.
PM Lee didn't talk about this side of the foreign talent issue because it is one that he has no answer to. It pushes the wages and standard of living for ordinary Singaporeans down, and the only people it benefits are the foreigners who head back to their own country with a nice pile of money to show for their time in Singapore. Actually, there is one other group that this benefits, and that is Singapore's government Ministers, who have performance related bonuses linked to GDP growth, and GDP can certainly be pushed up by importing cheap labour.
So the question for ordinary Singaporeans is this, does the government represent citizens own best interests, or their own performance linked bonuses when they import cheap foreign "talent", and why does PM Lee not want to address these questions in his national day speech?
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