On the way to breakfast this morning, I met a friend. He's also of the politically aware and concerned type. He knows GMS & co. too. He opines that HDB price and FT influx are the issues, not minimum wage. Minimum wage would only benefit FT who'd accept low wage anyway. However, Singaporeans with no homes to return to abroad would be stuck here suffering. FT policy is depressing the wage and depriving the job from citizen, not the lack of a minimum wage policy. The government argument is that any wage increase would be met by corresponding business closure and job decrease. That doesn't hold water as we've all seen around the first world that high wage and high business cost can still sustain high living standard without junior citizens unemployed and senior citizens cleaning tables and toilets. Human economic society and capitalism should go hand in hand. The government shouldn't be letting go of one hand of people for the sake of national economic figure. It defeats the purpose of being a government on one hand and being citizen on the other. There's nothing to be proud of or brag about belonging to a US$40,000 GDP country when you're broke and broken.
