Monday, October 18, 2010

Singapore's strong points are now diminishing

Singapore had a few strong points for the past decades - an honest soceity and a clean and safe environment. These points have been eroded in recent years. We now see:

  • stabbing incidents 
  • blatant cheating in the financial sector - land banking, scams, lies in marketing
  • flooding 
  • fires in HDB flats
What is happening?

We have a large increase in population, with many foreign workers living in Singapore. Singapore is getting crowded, adding to stressful living. Some people could not find jobs to make a living, so that have to resort to other means. 

We do not have adequate people in the police force, fire service and other public services. Many people prefer to work for the financial sector which pays well (and they can pay well as they are making huge and unjustified profits from ignorant consumers!)

Is this the future that we want?

Tan Kin Lian



10 comments:

C H Yak said...

Would you like to add one more point?

Multi-million dollar fraudulent cases involving young 30+ year old well- educated professionals in both public service and private sector.

Unknown said...

What a sad state singapore is in! Why are we chasing GDP when it wont bring happiness to us? I really hope there is a radical shift in thinking in the leaders. Wake up to our feelings. Ask ourselves truly... ARE WE HAPPY NOW?

nanyanguo said...

Didnt a deaf frog said he is happy when he sees his cpf statement every month? What matters to this deaf frog and all his other deaf frog masters and colleagues is they are happy. To them, u not happy is your own business.

David Soh Poh Huat said...

it is very sad, 'our legal system endorsed cheating'. encounter a case 1st time offender of > $30k sentenced 8 mths, 2nd time of > $23k sentenced 28 weeks, released after 3 mths. We are really encouraging people to be professional conman. Now this person is enjoying this profession

Ray said...

Ask yourself how are you encouraging honesty in our society? What are you doing to make sure honest people can survive, that they can make a livelihood?

Give you an analogy: Let's say I am selling a real genuine diamond for $1,000. My competitor is selling a fake diamond (made of glass crystal) for $800. Are you going to come to me to press my diamond price down to $1000? Don't I derserve to make a livelihood for being honest? If you then decide you want to buy the $800 fake diamond, don't you then deserve what you get???

Ray said...

Another thing... just look at how you react towards people who break the truthful bad news to you. How did you react to the bad news that the SLA officer defrauded government of $12million?

For me, not only would I not blame the government, but I would praise them for this incident. I prefer people who tell me the truth (even if it is bad news), to people who dishonest sweet-nothings, and people sweep bad things under the carpet. Only this way, then we can encourage people to uncover and tackle dishonest behaviour.

Unknown said...

Fraud, muder, robbery, scams etc..happen everywhere around the world not just in Singapore. People start to compliant on these things and I believe it arises from the frustrations with the Govt response to basic issues that the common people face while at the same time trying to upsell how good and developed Singapore is to attract foreigners here. Some of the reasons have been highlighted but responses are far from convincing and yet very disheartening to hear. Such as inequality in wages which is being responded by "Cheaper, Faster, Better" and "High unemployment rate with minimum wages". Not enough for retirement, increase retirement age and yet "Happy to see CPF statement". Increase the assistance fund to the poor is responded by "Do you want meals in restaurant or hawker center" etc.. I personally do not want to pay millions of $ to ministers that provide such responses. Is time for our ministers to be more humble and intelligent when addressing such issues.

rex said...

Rex comments as follows,

Yes, Singapore used to be a shiny example of efficiency in all things. The mistakes at the YOG is really comical:
- wrong signature in the certificate given to the volunteers
- wrong date of delivery of expired F1 tickets
- volunteers rewarded with free Sentosa Resorts tickets were made to q up many many many hours, there was a complain in TemasekReview website, but no response from the authorities.
- mas selamat escape
- animals escape from zoo
- marine bay sands sued by international lawyer association for seriously botched job in providing conference facilities.
many many more jokes which even the malaysians will laugh at us.

What went wrong?
Answers:
People who make mistakes are not admonished. PUB boss got national day award despite the massive unexplainable (to most people, to-date) floods. Ho Ching made wrong choices in investment and the entire team remain unscathed.

People who do the right things are not recognised (e.g Tan Kin Lian championed the cause of the minibond victims) Instead, recognition and rewards is given simply, to those who obey PAP don't question their authority.

We need to make right a lot ot things, top down.

rex

michael13 said...

We need both top down and bottom up. The root cause of big problems facing Today Singapore - insufficient numbers of people especially the young shown keen interest in Politics. Unfortunately, the ruling PAP government is unable to lead effectively and the medias do not always tell the truth. The next General Election will be crucial to determine how far Singapore can go.

Ray said...

It's not just about obedient people. We have to be careful that we do not wind up with some sycophantic people.

As a boss, I prefer to have people who would raise their disagreements to me in my face. At least we have opportunity to work it out together. Rather than have people who say "ok, ok" to me, and then do something else behind my back.

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