Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Gambling with the economy

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Gambling with the economy

The banks have forgotten their roles in raising funds for industry. They are now operating a large casino, taking bets. Read this story.

My comment
I sat in an interview panel of students applying for a place in a university. Half of the students wanted to work in a bank or the finance sector. This is bad for the future of the country. They want to earn big money from a business that makes its profits from gambling, and pretending to be other than gambling.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...: I am an engineer. I work in an MNC and earning $3.5k per month. I realise i cannot even afford a 4 room HDB flat near my parents which is in clementi. If students want to earn big bucks, we cannot blame them as this is for their survival in Singapore.; April 20, 2010 11:19 PM
Anonymous said...: They just want to make money and get out of Sinkapore.; April 20, 2010 11:28 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 11:19 PM
We should voice our concern to correct the situation. It is bad that a qualified engineer cannot make enough money for a decent living.

We should not tolerate many young people going into "gambling" for the big bucks, and justifying that they need to make this type of money to enjoy a good life.

Singapore should not deteriorate to such a shameful state of affairs.; April 20, 2010 11:56 PM
Anonymous said...: anything finance there are lots money
to be made..the most lucrative is life insurance..no need university qualification... just pass some tikam tikam exams and you are ready to tikam away the future of the consumers. Load the consumers with rubbish and dubious wholelife, endowment or regular ILPs , just these 3 products and you will be rich. Why bother about conscience? Money is the conscience today.So long you have the money nobody asks where you get them from.
Look at the men and women in suits posed for the ad, respectable and successful looking. Who would question them? In fact the people who worship them are the people who are their victims but of course they don't know.These consumers don't know that they don't know.; April 21, 2010 12:03 AM
Anonymous said...: i agree with this, partially because i am studying to be, and will be working as an engineer for a few years. engineers that work to create actual "products" and add value to singapore are underappreciated in singapore.

this problem of engineers being underpaid and subsequently leaving to go into finance is rather common has been acknowledged before by the singapore engineering societies. the government is also trying hard to train more engineers, with many publicity/awareness campaigns.

however, i do not see how these measures will help to increase the pay/wages engineers and keep them in the industry.

does anyone have any concrete suggestions?; April 21, 2010 12:29 AM
Anonymous said...: At the rate we are going, Singapore is becoming one big Wall Street, where you need to be an investment banker, a lawyer, or a doctor in order to lead a decent living. The rest of us just have to work until we drop dead -- and that is just provided we stay in 3-rm or 2-rm flats and only eat in non-air-con hawker centres.

Funny thing is that PAP seems happy that singapore is travelling down this road.; April 21, 2010 12:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Well, that is the trend nobody can stop making money, shameful state of affair?; April 21, 2010 12:46 AM
undergrad said...: Engineers have good grasp of maths and science. These are tools that are relevant in statistics and in producing trend lines.

We have many in Gov that are engineers.
Making products is very basic which can be handled by an engineer from China or India and cheaper too.

Concrete suggestions? the Gov already controls the UNiversities' intake of students and the courses.
I want to study Marine biology and eco systems. I have to go overseas.
I want to study Arboreal science, I have to go overseas, and when I do, I wont come back, because there is no employer here that needs my knowledge.

This country needs and wants only technocrats.; April 21, 2010 3:58 AM
michael said...: The greatest impact on chasing after money is the result of a much weakened family bond. In addition, the society do not value and respect the aged and the experienced. It's true that Singapore is indeed at this sad state. Our present government is materialistic, many policies are materialistic set-up. You can hardly find one that is holistic by nature and long-term. All want instant results. Election gimmicks will soon be the next ones.; April 21, 2010 6:04 AM
Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

Anon, said:Funny thing is that PAP seems happy that singapore is travelling down this road.

Actually, PAP had given up on Singapore already. It was officially declared on 23 Dec 2009 interview with National Geographic to the Americans. http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2009/12/comment-posted-in-this-blog-well.html
For me that was a watershed-speech that rocked me out of my seat. The second political tsunami came with Minister Shanmugam's declaration that Singapore is not a country, again addressed to Americans. The media embargoed comments from the intellegentsia. Are we robots? This must be the most communist country of all the communist countries on Earth! At least the communists admit they are communists.

Time passed since December 2009.

But, I will never forget those two landmark speeches and the absurd way the media handled them. It was too hot for them to handle!

Success of the country is not about Today, nor Yesterday. Those who argue "give credit when credit is due" are dinosaurs living in the past.

It's about Tomorrow. It's about HOPE. People must be always be able to hope that if they work hard they can succeed. Motivation to work is more precious than anything else, in the world.

rex; April 21, 2010 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...: As I had posted earlier, Goldman Sachs should be courted by the EDB to set up global HQ here in Singapore.

Our engineers want to be bankers. To be honest, everybody it seems wants to be bankers. The job pays well. Singapore girls like bankers more than engineers.

Nobody wants to 'build a better product" anymore. The only exception being the folks at Apple.

But you can't blame the students either. Would you want your kids to be the "hewers of wood and drawers of water?"; April 21, 2010 9:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Just study what interest you. So what you end up working in a bank? Who is going to guarantee that you will earn good salary & bonuses?; April 21, 2010 9:19 AM
Anonymous said...: The manufacturing industry is going to be a dead duck very sooner than we think.
M y son is the only local student in his class of Master Degree in Engineering Design in NTU, the rest of nineteen students are from the rest of Asia.
The Govt is emphasizing on Services and Bio-med to drive economy. My son says his future rests on immigrating to countries where manufacturing industry still reign. What a waste of his education here in Singapore. Only gambling activity, whether in casinos or in banks are encouraged here, and where our bright engineering students are drawn to for high pay, doing an activity to bet on financial markets.
And this is what my son is not happy about Singapore, as his passion lies in Engineering. May as well close down the Engineering faulty in our Us entirely.
A very great pretender of industry.; April 21, 2010 11:35 AM
C H Yak said...: As long as "money" is used as a tool to for control and to influence and implement policies, there is no cure to this culture.; April 21, 2010 11:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Decades ago when erolment into the three polytechnics (NP, SP & TP) to study electronic engrg needs at least an aggregate of 13 points for GCE O levels. Then, getting into the two local universities NUS & NTU for poly grads was so few and for those who did so, the etites from the polys. Nowadays, enrolment to any of the 5 polys is so easy and plentiful of places at the local uni now for poly grads. so it really makes no wonder the quality of the engineers that the local education system can produce nowadays. Alot of my peers who did engrg degrees had most switched to non-engrg careers e.g. insurance, property, sales, marketing, and teaching (high percentage here). can engrg career really can survive in singapore where "foreign talents" with multiple degrees and masters (from GOD-knows-wher unviersities) flooding the engrg industries? Also the dwindling mfg industries base here in Singapore? Engrg knowledge is even revolving, what you learn in school is probably old technology by todays' standard, and the more one work as an engr, the less marketable one will become - and sooner or later, even his work will be taken over by the cheaper, younger and probably smarter FT(s), or the factory go bust, re-locate, downsize etc, and he'll end up without a job.

Frankly, my wife and I both possess engrg qualitifcations. We have made earlier switches to non-engrg industry for others.

Frankly, what is the future of engineers in singapore nowadays?; April 21, 2010 12:23 PM
Anonymous said...: During my time, getting into a Polytechnic is more difficult. Nowadays people are treating Polytechnics as a dumping ground for non-elite students.; April 21, 2010 3:46 PM
Anonymous said...: The reality is that we probably should close down one engineering faculty and re-direct our resources and students towards a new faculty in casino management.

Problem is we don't have any local Singaporean expertise.

Except maybe the Ah Bengs that run the illegal casinos along the alleys of Geylang.; April 21, 2010 4:10 PM
fong said...: I am a 31-year-old Singaporean living and working in the United States. In the past eight years, I have seen various friends who majored in economics, accounting, Japanese, visual arts and law (all of them at excellent universities in Singapore, U.K. or U.S.) who have all ended up working for the finance sector in Singapore. I agree the biggest commenters that the biggest problem is that Singapore's economy is not diversified enough to supply well-paying jobs in other fields.; April 22, 2010 12:28 AM
Anonymous said...: The argument of paying bankers sky high bonuses because they are making huge profit for the banks is wrong.

Because, in order to make huge profit for the banks, these bankers will have to

1) either design financial products (such as minibonds, pinnacle notes, high notes, credit linked notes …) which make unreasonable large profit from the customers. These products are likely bad or toxic.

2) or to take huge bets (such as credit default swaps …) with other bankers on some events.

This could be the main cause of the financial crisis and the reason why during the financial crisis, some bankers still enjoying sky high bonuses while others (investors, pension funds, university endowment funds ….) lost a lot of money.; April 22, 2010 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...: i was also engineering trained locally with a 1st class honours ..but never had the 'real chance' to do engineering work after graduation in 2003. had always been in banking industry...sometimes thinkin back, is quite a headache..; April 23, 2010 12:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Engineering in Singapore has no future. Why? It can be easily replace by influx of cheap foreign engineers doing the same job. Why pay a Singaporean engineer higher pay?

Rem long ago, engineers are highly paid. Now the pay is decreasing and standards of living is increasing by folds. Ironically engineers are becoming poorer while other professions are being richer. No doubt people are switching to non-engineering jobs.

For me for sure, dun think i will ask my son to take up engineering. Passion does not take u far. Be realistic.; April 23, 2010 11:34 AM
Anonymous said...: This begs the question, why have engineers in sg the first place? Or for the matter, why do we even do manufacturing work in sg at all? The whole population should be in the finance sector, that will really get our GDP up!

Why are engineers in REAL developed countries so well paid then? Do we really want to compete in terms of cost or competency? Do we want to compete on competency with developed nations, or do we want to compete based on cost with developing nations?

Finally why can trained engineers switch easily to the finance sector while non-engineers can't get into engineering? why do the sector pay more for less?; April 23, 2010 3:46 PM