At Grave Risk

Read this article. It explains the pain felt by many unemployed people in America. They are not able to find job, even though they are quite well educated.

Let us reflect on the situation in Singapore. Many of our people can find jobs, but the earnings are not sufficient to pay for the high cost of living. Both couples have to work, just to earn enough for themselves. This is why many families cannot afford to have children. Are we better off than America?

Singapore suffers from the same problem as America - a wide gap in income between the top people (who take away too much) and the rest of the population. Both countries follow similar economic policies,i.e. deregulation and free market, that contributed to this big gap. Both countries appeared to be doing well when the housing prices were inflating.

The housing market in America has burst. The housing market in Singapore is still going strong ... but only for the time being. When our housing market burst, we will suffer the real pain.

We have to build our prosperity on real work and not on financial bubbles and inflated asset prices. We are wasteful due to the false sense of prosperity. We tear down buildings that were built 10 years ago. Many of our educated people waste their years of training to work as property and insurance agents, to earn the high commission. The government and big companies spend astronomical sums for infrastructure, buildings, computer systems and management consultants and levy high taxes and fees to recover these spendings.

To avoid the fate of America, we have to reduce the income gap, cut down on the wasteful expenditure and find ways to control the prices, fees, levies and taxes.

Tan Kin Lian