Government determined to increase population to 7 mil in 2030.

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For those who are blinded by the common fallacies about immigration and population, namely:

1) foreigners are taking away the job of locals
2) by stopping low unskilled foreigners, local unskilled workers will be better off

Pls do yourself a favor by reading page 20 in Business Times.
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(07-02-2013, 09:22 AM)level13 Wrote: For those who are blinded by the common fallacies about immigration and population, namely:

1) foreigners are taking away the job of locals
2) by stopping low unskilled foreigners, local unskilled workers will be better off

Pls do yourself a favor by reading page 20 in Business Times.

We are happy these jobs are taken by low skilled foreigners we just want the high paying jobs to be given to our own citizens and stop supressing wages.

Open your eyes we are not taking away these jobs, the government is doing it. These low skilled workers are not very difficult to replace and not very critical to big high tech businesses so using these guys to put the short squeeze on you guys the sme and putting you guys on the stove for a while to burn using you guys to prove their point that businesses will suffer is just a means for them to get further justification to tear down the floodgates to bring in more people.
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> For those who are blinded by the common fallacies about immigration and population, namely:
> foreigners are taking away the job of locals
> by stopping low unskilled foreigners, local unskilled workers will be better off

> Pls do yourself a favor by reading page 20 in Business Times.

In my opinion, there is a case for allowing unskilled workers to do selected work e.g. cleaning, construction.

For the PMET and mid level professionals and senior management levels, you have to experience it to feel it.

(06-02-2013, 11:28 PM)Bibi Wrote: Mah BT has no right to speak about anything. He is a complete failure in planning and forecasting. Affordable and enough flats for all. After KBW took over his role, KBW kept building till non stop.

Mah should be placed in private sector as he has a good business mind. COE and BTO were both his idea.

Japanese took steps by research into building robots to replace insufficient workforce.

Exactly right.

1. Our ministers is good at putting out fires

2. They always see what other countries do, see the plus and minus. No creation. It's copying and adapting.

In a first world government, they are paid F1 driver salaries. But end up copying and adapting, and put out fires...
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(07-02-2013, 09:22 AM)level13 Wrote: For those who are blinded by the common fallacies about immigration and population, namely:

1) foreigners are taking away the job of locals
2) by stopping low unskilled foreigners, local unskilled workers will be better off

Pls do yourself a favor by reading page 20 in Business Times.

What is the title of the article please? There is no page number online. thanks.
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(06-02-2013, 11:46 PM)godjira1 Wrote:
(06-02-2013, 09:52 PM)yeokiwi Wrote: Lee Yi-Shyan and Mah Bow Tan..
These two belongs to survive at all cost camp.(mostly at the cost of low income singaporeans)
Quoted examples from Japan. But, he did not mention that the japanese are not complaining about aging population.

Quote:Silver tsunami & dwindling workforce can destabilise economies: Lee Yi Shyan
By Imelda Saad | Posted: 06 February 2013 2136 hrs

SINGAPORE: Senior Minister of State for National Development and Trade & Industry Lee Yi-Shyan has painted a sobering picture of an ageing population and shrinking workforce.

Speaking in Parliament on the Population White Paper and Land Use Plan on Wednesday, Mr Lee pointed to the experience of Asian neighbours like Japan and Taiwan as examples of how the silver tsunami and dwindling workforce can destabilise economies.

For example, a city outside Nagoya called Gifu has seen shops along the main street closed for good.

In Hokkaido, in a small town called Yubari, half of the population is above 65 years old.

Mr Lee said Yubari's small working population means a measly tax base.

Four years ago, the city government went bust after owing a debt of US$315 million. The city was later forced to embark on an 18-year austerity drive.

Mr Lee said: "It retrenched half of its civil servants. Public service in the City was badly affected. The public library was gone. Six primary schools merged into one. The General Hospital closed down two thirds of its facilities to save utilities. It also halved its number of ambulances and asked its elderly patients to walk to the hospital by themselves."

The effect of two decades of economic stagnation in Japan, said Mr Lee has led to what is described as "the Waniguchi (crocodile's mouth) effect" - Soaring public expenditure coupled with a drop in tax revenue.

Mr Lee said the huge silver tsunami is destabilising Japan.

He said the country did not manage to raise its working population because it could not build a consensus to allow immigration to boost the workforce.

Similarly in Taiwan, Mr Lee pointed to an article which described the economy as "a small tax revenue country but large welfare state."

Mr Lee said Singapore is not operating in silos.

The world, he said, will continue to move forward, regardless of Singapore's demographic and internal problems.

It is against this larger picture, he said, that Singapore has to define its path forward.

Mr Lee said: "It makes sense for the nation to maintain a sustainable and stable Singaporean population while we are still young, and while external conditions are favourable."

Mr Lee noted there are lessons to be learnt from the experiences of other countries.

The number of elderly citizens in Singapore aged 65 and above will increase considerably from around 340,000 in 2011 to 900,000 by 2030.

Mr Lee cited China's rapidly ageing population to highlight issues which Singapore may face in the future.

He said: "China is beginning to see the "4-2-1" phenomenon: one child having to look after two parents and four grandparents. This inverted pyramid means a heavy burden for the children. When both parents and grandparents are retired, there is also the "aged caring for the aged" phenomenon and this is becoming common in our communities."

Echoing the sentiment, former Cabinet Minister Mah Bow Tan said Singapore cannot afford to lose its edge and become less competitive.

He urged Singaporeans to keep their hearts and minds open.

Mr Mah said: "We have spent a lot of our time looking inwards, talking about our discomforts, our space. We have not asked ourselves how we are going to compete with outside world. How we are going to earn a living to live the good life. It is almost taken from granted that the good life will continue even if growth slows. We expect new infrastructure to be rolled out, even as growth slows. We want more subsidies for health care and housing and let's have less foreign workers and a slower pace of life. Where will the revenue from all this come from?"

Mr Mah, who is MP for Tampines GRC, said government revenue comes mostly from income taxes, consumption taxes and asset taxes, all of which are dependent on economic growth.

He added Singapore needs a bigger population with better educated and trained citizens as well as talented non-residents to supplement the home-grown talent.

Hi yeokiwi,
Sorry. my understanding is that Japanese thinktanks are worried sick about the aging population but their politicians have no time to fix that kind of problems (except in an extremely piecemeal fashion). They are far more resistant to immigration than we are, for eg they recognize they could use some cheap foreign help to take care of their elderly, targeting the Filipinos, but somehow the legislation required the foreign workers to speak some high level Japanese which made it close to impossible to import enough.

Nonetheless we don't want to go down the Japanese route since just growing the foreign workers doesn't help, we need to raise the TFR as a base case, else it's really not a good solution.

To Temperament. I resent being called Sink porean and such derivatives and I do not believe I am the only one. I'm proud of being a Singaporean (in spite of a lot of things), so there.
HA! HA!
ME TOO! Who likes it?
And i sincerely think we are if the "famous 60%" still vote the same in 2015/6.
Can you deny a lot of "outsiders" (FTS) think we are except of course THE PAPYS? Me think FTS are right in a way if the famous 60 % don't realise in time they are shortchanging their future and their generations to come.
Some people think maybe SINK apore has to change to sing "NEGARAKU" in the end as Papys screw the people so much that we really can't survive on our own anymore.
Sorry, i too don't like to be called Sink aporean. But i also think FTs & Outsiders are right.
So if we can we should together tell it to the PAPYs on their faces before it's too late. i think we all have a chance 2015/6. Let's hope by then, we are not screwed further by PAPY's "Instant Noodle" (shamefully borrowed expression) or promised Christmas Tree solution.

i don't believe what they (PAPYs) say anymore. At least for me. Say one thing result shows another. Or always like to practise:- "Give you a drum stick then take back a chicken from you later"; especially during election time or pushing for new policy like remember the "GST". They put some money in your pockets didn't they in a way before they push the GST down your throat?
FYI, HK. failed to start GST after us.
Sorry i too don't like to be called SinK aporeans by FTS & OUTSIDERS.
But i will keep on remember i am now a SINK aporean until things change for the better. i think we all can together in 2015/6. Hope we are not to late by then.
WB:-

1) Rule # 1, do not lose money.
2) Rule # 2, refer to # 1.
3) Not until you can manage your emotions, you can manage your money.

Truism of Investments.
A) Buying a security is buying RISK not Return
B) You can control RISK (to a certain level, hopefully only.) But definitely not the outcome of the Return.

NB:-
My signature is meant for psychoing myself. No offence to anyone. i am trying not to lose money unnecessary anymore.
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(07-02-2013, 10:04 AM)wee Wrote:
(07-02-2013, 09:22 AM)level13 Wrote: For those who are blinded by the common fallacies about immigration and population, namely:

1) foreigners are taking away the job of locals
2) by stopping low unskilled foreigners, local unskilled workers will be better off

Pls do yourself a favor by reading page 20 in Business Times.

What is the title of the article please? There is no page number online. thanks.

Title: Is 6.9M population too much for singapore?
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(07-02-2013, 10:19 AM)level13 Wrote: Title: Is 6.9M population too much for singapore?

I will leave it to you ladies & gents to think about this article.

Is 6.9 million really too much for Singapore?
Some common fallacies about immigration and population

By ng yew-kwang

SINGAPORE is debating whether the estimated 6.5-6.9 million population projection for 2030 is too high. While not discussing all important relevant aspects, this article discusses some common fallacies about immigration and population.

When people encounter serious congestion, it is very common to think: "If the number of cars on the road were halved, how nice it would be!" or "If the number of passengers in the carriage is halved, how nice it would be!"

Thus, many people blame congestion and pollution on the population size. One should also consider this: Given the amount of per capita investment, if the population size and number of cars were halved, the width of the road would also roughly be halved. There would then likely be more instead of less congestion!

With fewer people, the MRT could not have so many lines; the frequency of trains and buses would also be much lower. I live inside the NTU campus and have occasions to catch the No 179 bus. Once, just before reaching the bus-stop, I saw two 179 buses passing. I thought I would have to wait at least 15 minutes, but the next 179 bus came in less than two minutes. This is the advantage of a larger population most people ignore.

Another common belief is that immigration reduces the per-capita amount of resources and hence is bad for locals by reducing per-capita incomes. This is wrong because generally immigrants cannot take away the resources owned by local people and government without payment. Immigration need not reduce per-capita incomes; even if it does, it does not normally makes locals worse off economically.

The immigration of unskilled workers may lower the wages for these workers and make local unskilled workers worse off. However, other factors of production, including land, capital, and skilled workers have more unskilled workers to work with and hence have higher productivities.

It can be shown rigorously that, even in the absence of economies of large-scale production, the gain accruing to other factors of production will be more than the loss suffered by local unskilled workers. See my

Common Mistakes in Economics: From the Public, Students, Economists, and Nobel Laureates which is available for open access online.

Principles of efficiency

It is true that as unskilled workers tend to have low incomes, the greater gain of richer people in money terms need not be enough to offset the loss in welfare terms. However, it is better to help the poor through the general tax/transfer policies rather than by violating the principles of efficiency.

By focusing only on efficiency (a dollar is a dollar) on specific issues including immigration, we can achieve the same degree of equality at lower cost, as I showed in the American Economic Review in 1984.

Some people are against immigration because they think that immigrants take away jobs that could have been taken by locals; they fail to see that immigration also creates as many jobs elsewhere because these are less direct. They also fail to see the many benefits of immigration like higher diversity and creativity. Without immigration, Singapore would still be a small fishing village; Melbourne would not have so many restaurants serving delicious, diverse, and cheap food.

If we take into account the widely existing economies of large-scale production and the economies of specialisation from the division of labour, the advantages of immigration are even larger. Apart from the conceptual analysis in the book mentioned above, we may also look at the real world.

In the same country, which groups have higher incomes: the people in the sparsely populated countryside or the people in densely populated cities? On the same Earth, do people in sparsely populated Africa or do people in the most densely populated continent (Europe) have higher incomes? Did the spectacular scientific/ technological flowering and the Industrial Revolution take place in sparsely populated or densely populated areas? Without huge immigration, how could the US have become the most powerful nation on earth?

True, Singapore may not be comparable to the US. However, if we take into account the importance of defence, the importance of increasing returns to scale, and specialisation through having a larger population, that is even more important for Singapore.

Harry Clarke and I also showed that, even if more people (either through immigration or natural growth) lead to the greater incidence of pollution and congestion, existing people still benefit from a larger population, provided appropriate taxes are imposed on the pollution and congestion.

In this respect, Singapore is doing the right thing in requiring car owners to have Certificates of Entitlements (COEs) and imposing Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) for the use of certain roads and expressways. The ownership and usage of cars impose external costs (costs that affect others) in terms of congestion, pollution, noise, accidents, and conspicuous consumption.

Thus, high taxes on cars and petrol are efficient taxes. Many car drivers and prospective drivers believe that these taxes are against their interest. This is an incorrect belief.

Without these measures, Singapore would likely become another Bangkok. I would rather be in Singapore without owning a car than be in Bangkok and be trapped in traffic for hours.

Moreover, high COE prices and taxes on these external costs bring in huge government revenues which may help to reduce taxes elsewhere or be used for providing public facilities. Unless the revenues are thrown into the ocean or largely corrupted away, taxes on these external costs are beneficial to taxpayers.

The author is Winsemius Professor in Economics at the Nanyang Technological University

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4 issues:

1) land is limited. Extrapolating from history is like saying he will be 12feet tall when he hits 80 years old
2) low skilled workers are structural issues that cannot be solved easily or dismissed as inefficient. The reason is because they are SINGAPOREANS. There is a reason why labour in undesirable jobs in developed countries are higher paid than office workers
3) I question his maths on per capita income. Is he refering to per capita income of Singaporeans or per capita income as in GDP per capita, or he's switching between the 2 using same nomenclature?
4) His understanding of immigration is as naive as believing company mgt should listen more to HF rather than long term stakeholders. He can't even differentiate between the productivity difference in countryside and cities. On another note 10% of Americans feed MORE than the population of US. These farmers are not exactly poor. Find out why rather than take face value or some irrelevant statistics or comparisons

Not that I disagree with his idea that COE is generally good. But theory is theory. You need to tweak the EXECUTION to attain the optimal results, and not just economics.
Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give. –William A. Ward

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(07-02-2013, 10:40 AM)specuvestor Wrote: 1) land is limited. Extrapolating from history is like saying he will be 12feet tall when he hits 80 years old

To be fair to the author of the article, he did match conceptual analysis with whats happening in the real world. Blindly extrapolating is never acceptable. Do you happen to see a 12ft tall 80 y/o walking ard?
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(07-02-2013, 12:32 AM)natnavi Wrote: I think the main issue here is that this paper is not addressing the root of the problem.

I think WP has done a great job in differentiating between TFR and working population. I also think that this is the way to go ahead.

If the government is really concern about the TFR, then be serious about raising the TFR.

Budget the money in such a way that greater emphasis is placed on raising TFR. Budget day is coming in a few days time. From this budget, we can see where does the goverment think deserve the most priority.

Talk is cheap. Put your money where your mouth is and show the citizens that you are serious about raising the TFR.

I am sure if you give away 4 room HDB to every couples that have 3 kids and more, the TFR will start going up like crazy.

Natnavi, agree with u. We can be far far bolder in trying to raise the TFR.
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