[Ifroham4]

TS

I read your article and I noticed that you are writing using economics to make your point. Though I agree that there is general malaise and a deteriorating and unsustainable model is apparent I am sure that you do not understand economics. Economics is a little understood discipline and not easy to grasp.

Singapore does not have primary resources or space to do much. We therefore need foreign capital and the right industries to maximise space use. In fact without constant flow of foreign capital we would be doomed. We also struggle with home grown industries not because we are not smart but because of our size, there is little scale to throw out thousand ideas based on thousand experiments and trials for at least one meaningful one to float to the top. We therefore rely on foreign capital to do all these things. Thus the manufacturing in the early years and Pharma in later years both via foreign capital.

Productivity is certainly a major issue and as long as cheap labour is available, productivity will suffer. Agree on this.

You seem to have identified all the issues - such as growing divide between rich and poor, social cost etc but you seem to have used to used your version of alchemy economics to put all this together. For instance the slave labour of the confederate states cited makes no sense at all and there are many others.

The issue is not cheap labour, It is the overcrowding and the accompanying social costs that is the issue. Even Singapore entrepreneurs chase the region for cheap labour. The appropriate model is sustainable employment for citizens, the economic climate to allow citizens to develop in their career and skills and see a growth in real income as they become better (productivity increase) over the years. This then directly impacts the social climate in a positive way. This government appears to run out of ideas, applying bandaids such as search for cheaper labour and hold on to sunset industries.