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?

Singapore Fiddling Carbon Reduction Numbers

Singapore is an island nation, with vast amounts of low lying land reclaimed from the sea filled with shopping malls. The highest point on the island, apart from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew getting on his high horse from time to time, is a jungle covered hill called Bukit Timah. It's probably fair to say that Singapore stands to suffer more than most countries in the event of climate change, and that is why it is such a disappointment that the government of Singapore is not being honest about what, if anything, it intends to do to prevent global warming.

The official line is that Singapore will achieve a 16% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, based on a comparison with the "business as usual" case. There are a few problems with this, for example the magnitude of the proposed reductions is in fact very modest, and the making of the reductions is actually dependent on the rest of the world also agreeing to making significant commitments. Such a shame that the Singapore government is not willing to take a lead a topic that any forecaster can see is bound to be a significant issue for Singaporeans in years to come.

However, the real problem with the proposed reduction is not the magnitude or the lack of leadership, but rather that the numbers are completely disingenuous, and that this reduction is in fact nothing of the sort, because the "business as usual" case, which the reduction is supposed to be relative to, is a purely invented hypothetical scenario that appears to have no realistic basis in fact.

The Singapore government has published carbon emissions data from 1990 to 2007, and the average annual growth in emissions is 3.6%. What we might expect is that "business as usual" represents a continuation of that 3.6% trend, and the 16% reductions are below that. However, what we actually find is that the "business as usual" outlook predicts an arbitrary 5% annual increase in emissions, and not coincidentally at all, we discover that achieving the stated "goal" of reducing carbon emissions by 16% in 2020, actually involves nothing more complicated than "reducing" the annual growth in carbon emissions to 3.6%! That means, the reduction of 16% actually involves doing nothing at all.

So Singapore actually plans to do nothing on the topic of climate change, a course of action that will probably cause all sorts of problems for everyday Singaporeans, but less so for the rich elite who can always move to a nice bungalow or landed house on high ground in Bukit Timah.