Talking Donkey
Alfrescian (S)
interesting reading,take your time.
[video=youtube;beXaKMfwBXM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=beXaKMfwBXM[/video]
Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:46 AM
SINGAPORE'S HUGE PROBLEM. "Going extinct is no fun"
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. tags : demography, fertility, Singapore Going extinct is no fun The founder of Singapore looks on with dismay as his country heads into the sunset.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore, is one of the great statesmen of the 20th century. At 88 he is a bit unsteady on his feet and attends a lot of funerals, but his mind is as clear as ever. A man of steely resolve, he turned a tiny, defenceless, impoverished, racially and politically divided island with no natural resources into an economic powerhouse.
Today Singapore is a leading financial centre, is the world's easiest place to do business, is ranked number 8 in foreign exchange reserves, has the world's top-ranked education system, and is the world's least corrupt country. Economically Singapore is a miracle and Lee Kuan Yew is its wizard. Last weekend the Lion City celebrated the 47th anniversary of its independence with cheers and fireworks.
But there is a cloud over Singapore's existence. Although it is situated in a volatile part of the world, the threat is not war or tsunami or cyclone. It is its own imploding birth rate. In finances, Singapore is at the top of the league table; in fertility, it is at the bottom. With a birth rate of 0.78 it has been ranked by theCIA World Factbook at 222 out of 222. To compensate for the falling number of babies, Singapore imports people. About 35 percent of Singapore's workers areforeign-born and about 23 percent of all residents.
In short, like the great man himself, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore is slowly dying. The government is trying desperately to boost the birth rate with generous benefits, dating services and louche advertisements. And still the birth rate falls.
Lee is watching this tragedy with tears. Speaking at a National Day celebration dinner on Saturday, he sounded desolate: "If we go on like that, this place will fold up, because there'll be no original citizens left to form the majority, and we cannot have new citizens, new PRs to settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms. So my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult but the problems, if we don't find the answers, are enormous�
"Our educated men and women must decide whether to replace themselves in the next generation. At the moment, 31 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men are opting out. Not leaving a next generation.
"So, just ponder over it and you will know the solution is not simple. But we've got to persuade people to understand that getting married is important, having children is important. Do we want to replace ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants and work permit holders? That's the simple question."
Perhaps it's rude to ask this of a man mourning the mortal illness of a child whom he conceived, dandled on his knees and coached through adolescence, but who is responsible for this disaster?
The answer is Lee Kuan Yew. Great men make great mistakes. In the 1960s and 70s he worried about the Population Bomb and enacted stern population control policies. He encouraged sterilisation, urged Singaporeans to "Stop At Two", and imposed harsh financial penalties for those who didn't. By the late 80s, the government had panicked and changed its tune to "Have Three or More (if you can afford it)". A future prime minister was already warning Singaporeans that "passively watch[ing] ourselves going extinct" threatened national survival.
It was too late. Singaporeans had acquired a taste for shopping and small families. Now their country's future belongs to immigrants and workers from nearby China, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore has to face the possibility of cashing in its chips.
Singapore's woes may be of its own making but there is a lesson here for the rest of us. In a small nation, the impact of an ageing population is felt more keenly and more swiftly than in larger countries. Singapore has to face the possibility of cashing in its chips. But demographic trends are inexorable everywhere. When birthrates fall below replacement level, as they have throughout the developed world, migrants with very different cultural values replace the native-born.
Going extinct is no fun at all. Just ask Lee Kuan Yew.
Related articles on Singapore’s Problems…..
THE LAST OF NATIVE SINGAPOREANS
Singapore with its highly publicized world rankings in having the best education, best healthcare, best welfare, best law and order, best country for business, the third richest country in the world, etc. etc., is the latest magnet for the rich and famous - the good, the bad and the ugly, - looking for low tax havens to park their money.
The two casinos in Singapore combined rank second in revenue after Macau and outperforming Las Vegas. Yet, few people wonder why two casinos in Singapore could out perform the combined revenues of 42 casinos in Las Vegas Strip especially when most of these casinos have the same or more gambling tables than Singapore’s two casinos. In other words, it means that two char kuey teow stalls do more business than 42 char kuey teow stalls combined. It is a remarkable feat that with less than 10% of Las Vegas Strip casinos workforce, Singapore’s two casinos have managed to do better. Macau needed 33 casinos to outperform Las Vegas. There is something questionable in the poll or fishy in the business.
Singapore was listed in Feb 2012 by Forbes magazine as the third richest country in the world with GDP (PPP) per capita of nearly US$56,700 (SG$71,200). Again, this ranking is questionable when the majority of the workforce in Singapore are getting less than S$2,000 a month. Perhaps the reason is that the billions of dollars brought in by the super rich to park in Singapore has raised the per capital income to a ridiculous and deceiving figure. The middle class is a dying breed in Singapore, you are either the super rich like the ministers who are paid obscenely by the millions or the poor working class who are paid peanuts.
When I visited Singapore last month, I was shocked by the large number of PRC FTs in the City. They seem to be everywhere, pushing, shouting plus exhibiting all the bad habits from China. I have lived and worked in China for more than ten years and have known lots of intelligent, well mannered and polite Chinese. Somehow, these Chinese FTs in Singapore are taken from the very bottom of the barrel. It looks as if China has deliberately released their undesirable people to Singapore to relieve it of its social burden. Very, very few FTs can speak English, Singlish or the basic Chinese dialects of Singapore. They speak their own Mandarin with heavy countryside accents. From my experience, these are the rough and tough Chinese I have seen in China who cannot be easily intimidated by police as they have nothing to lose. It would be a nightmare for Singapore police if these FTs decide to go on riots because of lack of jobs. The police cannot assume that it would be as easy as dealing with kiasi native Singaporeans. For example, I was physically attacked by a Chinese FT in Chinatown just for telling him not to ride his bicycle in the pedestrian path. These people have no qualm beating up an old man or anybody.
Native Singaporeans are losing out in every sector of the economy - jobs, housing, education, etc. to this huge influx of new immigrants. They take over most of the jobs in the service industries, i.e. hotels, food courts, retail centres, hawker centres, etc. and now native Singaporeans have to speak their language in order to get any service or anything done. Most local food are no longer authentic but blended with Mainland Chinese cooking flavor. Native Singaporeans are losing their identities, culture, local cuisine and very soon their Singlish and future.
Are these Chinese FTs, LKY said are smarter and more hardworking than Singaporeans?
In Chinatown, there were PRC women in their forties flirting with local old retirees. The Singapore consulate in China must be blind and daft to grant PR status to these women. What economic values can these middle age women bring to Singapore except to con those dirty old men of their retirement fund and hopefully cast a vote in favor of PAP? The government should check it out in Chinatown. If they bring in another million FTs as planned, the City is going to explode with overloaded infrastructures.
Instead of assimilating into the Singapore culture, the new immigrants from China are demanding that curry and sambal cannot be cooked in HDB estates because they stinks and they cannot stand the smell. They insult native Singaporeans by calling them "dogs", "pigs" and lately "chimpanzees". Just imagine if these Chinese FTs start to call Australians dogs, pigs and kangaroos in Australia. They would be packed and sent home. In Singapore, native Singaporeans were told by their leaders to reflect on themselves???
Former foreign minister, George Yeo once bragged that membership fee to be a Singapore citizen was $500,000. Now they are giving away citizenship free and in some cases even gave money and begged them to come. Singapore will go down in history as the only country in the world that surrender their country to foreigners without a fight. All the sacrifices and hard work by native Singaporeans over decades are going to be handed over to unappreciative foreigners.
What are the chances of the native Singaporeans having a decent and respectable living for future generations. From the looks of things, it is not good.
First, you have the vision extraordinaire senior Statesman, LKY, calling his own citizens daft and needed to repent despite bragging about having the best education in the world. He further insult his own citizens by saying that PRC immigrants are smarter and more hardworking than native Singapore despite bragging that Singapore has the best workforce in the world? Few ministers or new immigrants have any respect, sympathy or concern about the plight and welfare of native Singaporeans. Social problems like transportation, floods, housing, are dismissed as “unavoidable” or “once in fifty years”. or housing are “affordable”.
The plight of native Singaporeans would be left unheard as no one in power would plead their case. Former foreign minister, George Yeo once warned, “know your place in society before you engage in political debate”. If you think, it is bad now, it would be worse in the future.
The descendants of ministers with obscene multi-million salaries and those kiasi citizens who were in the 60% that voted for PAP would not be spared as new Chinese, Pinoys and Indian immigrants do not depend on their votes to win elections. It is a damn disgrace to give away the sovereignty of your country and become second class citizens in your own country. If this irreversible immigration policy was done by the opposition, the entire opposition would likely be put in jail for treason. With the present 1.5 million FTs and more coming, you do not need to be a genius to calculate that within two generations, Chinese FTs, Pinoys and Indians will outnumber native Singaporeans and they will govern Singapore. Sadly that will be the extinction of the once happy, hardworking and peaceful race - the last of native Singaporeans and like the Indian tribe, the Mohigans, they will be lost in history. Paradise gone for the native Singaporeans, betrayed and abandoned by their own MIW leaders who promised them Swiss standard of living.
Ironically, it would be left to the once despised diaspora ex-Singaporeans called the Quitters to tell this sad story.
[video=youtube;beXaKMfwBXM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=beXaKMfwBXM[/video]
Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:46 AM
SINGAPORE'S HUGE PROBLEM. "Going extinct is no fun"
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. tags : demography, fertility, Singapore Going extinct is no fun The founder of Singapore looks on with dismay as his country heads into the sunset.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore, is one of the great statesmen of the 20th century. At 88 he is a bit unsteady on his feet and attends a lot of funerals, but his mind is as clear as ever. A man of steely resolve, he turned a tiny, defenceless, impoverished, racially and politically divided island with no natural resources into an economic powerhouse.
Today Singapore is a leading financial centre, is the world's easiest place to do business, is ranked number 8 in foreign exchange reserves, has the world's top-ranked education system, and is the world's least corrupt country. Economically Singapore is a miracle and Lee Kuan Yew is its wizard. Last weekend the Lion City celebrated the 47th anniversary of its independence with cheers and fireworks.
But there is a cloud over Singapore's existence. Although it is situated in a volatile part of the world, the threat is not war or tsunami or cyclone. It is its own imploding birth rate. In finances, Singapore is at the top of the league table; in fertility, it is at the bottom. With a birth rate of 0.78 it has been ranked by theCIA World Factbook at 222 out of 222. To compensate for the falling number of babies, Singapore imports people. About 35 percent of Singapore's workers areforeign-born and about 23 percent of all residents.
In short, like the great man himself, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore is slowly dying. The government is trying desperately to boost the birth rate with generous benefits, dating services and louche advertisements. And still the birth rate falls.
Lee is watching this tragedy with tears. Speaking at a National Day celebration dinner on Saturday, he sounded desolate: "If we go on like that, this place will fold up, because there'll be no original citizens left to form the majority, and we cannot have new citizens, new PRs to settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms. So my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult but the problems, if we don't find the answers, are enormous�
"Our educated men and women must decide whether to replace themselves in the next generation. At the moment, 31 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men are opting out. Not leaving a next generation.
"So, just ponder over it and you will know the solution is not simple. But we've got to persuade people to understand that getting married is important, having children is important. Do we want to replace ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants and work permit holders? That's the simple question."
Perhaps it's rude to ask this of a man mourning the mortal illness of a child whom he conceived, dandled on his knees and coached through adolescence, but who is responsible for this disaster?
The answer is Lee Kuan Yew. Great men make great mistakes. In the 1960s and 70s he worried about the Population Bomb and enacted stern population control policies. He encouraged sterilisation, urged Singaporeans to "Stop At Two", and imposed harsh financial penalties for those who didn't. By the late 80s, the government had panicked and changed its tune to "Have Three or More (if you can afford it)". A future prime minister was already warning Singaporeans that "passively watch[ing] ourselves going extinct" threatened national survival.
It was too late. Singaporeans had acquired a taste for shopping and small families. Now their country's future belongs to immigrants and workers from nearby China, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore has to face the possibility of cashing in its chips.
Singapore's woes may be of its own making but there is a lesson here for the rest of us. In a small nation, the impact of an ageing population is felt more keenly and more swiftly than in larger countries. Singapore has to face the possibility of cashing in its chips. But demographic trends are inexorable everywhere. When birthrates fall below replacement level, as they have throughout the developed world, migrants with very different cultural values replace the native-born.
Going extinct is no fun at all. Just ask Lee Kuan Yew.
Related articles on Singapore’s Problems…..
THE LAST OF NATIVE SINGAPOREANS
Singapore with its highly publicized world rankings in having the best education, best healthcare, best welfare, best law and order, best country for business, the third richest country in the world, etc. etc., is the latest magnet for the rich and famous - the good, the bad and the ugly, - looking for low tax havens to park their money.
The two casinos in Singapore combined rank second in revenue after Macau and outperforming Las Vegas. Yet, few people wonder why two casinos in Singapore could out perform the combined revenues of 42 casinos in Las Vegas Strip especially when most of these casinos have the same or more gambling tables than Singapore’s two casinos. In other words, it means that two char kuey teow stalls do more business than 42 char kuey teow stalls combined. It is a remarkable feat that with less than 10% of Las Vegas Strip casinos workforce, Singapore’s two casinos have managed to do better. Macau needed 33 casinos to outperform Las Vegas. There is something questionable in the poll or fishy in the business.
Singapore was listed in Feb 2012 by Forbes magazine as the third richest country in the world with GDP (PPP) per capita of nearly US$56,700 (SG$71,200). Again, this ranking is questionable when the majority of the workforce in Singapore are getting less than S$2,000 a month. Perhaps the reason is that the billions of dollars brought in by the super rich to park in Singapore has raised the per capital income to a ridiculous and deceiving figure. The middle class is a dying breed in Singapore, you are either the super rich like the ministers who are paid obscenely by the millions or the poor working class who are paid peanuts.
When I visited Singapore last month, I was shocked by the large number of PRC FTs in the City. They seem to be everywhere, pushing, shouting plus exhibiting all the bad habits from China. I have lived and worked in China for more than ten years and have known lots of intelligent, well mannered and polite Chinese. Somehow, these Chinese FTs in Singapore are taken from the very bottom of the barrel. It looks as if China has deliberately released their undesirable people to Singapore to relieve it of its social burden. Very, very few FTs can speak English, Singlish or the basic Chinese dialects of Singapore. They speak their own Mandarin with heavy countryside accents. From my experience, these are the rough and tough Chinese I have seen in China who cannot be easily intimidated by police as they have nothing to lose. It would be a nightmare for Singapore police if these FTs decide to go on riots because of lack of jobs. The police cannot assume that it would be as easy as dealing with kiasi native Singaporeans. For example, I was physically attacked by a Chinese FT in Chinatown just for telling him not to ride his bicycle in the pedestrian path. These people have no qualm beating up an old man or anybody.
Native Singaporeans are losing out in every sector of the economy - jobs, housing, education, etc. to this huge influx of new immigrants. They take over most of the jobs in the service industries, i.e. hotels, food courts, retail centres, hawker centres, etc. and now native Singaporeans have to speak their language in order to get any service or anything done. Most local food are no longer authentic but blended with Mainland Chinese cooking flavor. Native Singaporeans are losing their identities, culture, local cuisine and very soon their Singlish and future.
Are these Chinese FTs, LKY said are smarter and more hardworking than Singaporeans?
In Chinatown, there were PRC women in their forties flirting with local old retirees. The Singapore consulate in China must be blind and daft to grant PR status to these women. What economic values can these middle age women bring to Singapore except to con those dirty old men of their retirement fund and hopefully cast a vote in favor of PAP? The government should check it out in Chinatown. If they bring in another million FTs as planned, the City is going to explode with overloaded infrastructures.
Instead of assimilating into the Singapore culture, the new immigrants from China are demanding that curry and sambal cannot be cooked in HDB estates because they stinks and they cannot stand the smell. They insult native Singaporeans by calling them "dogs", "pigs" and lately "chimpanzees". Just imagine if these Chinese FTs start to call Australians dogs, pigs and kangaroos in Australia. They would be packed and sent home. In Singapore, native Singaporeans were told by their leaders to reflect on themselves???
Former foreign minister, George Yeo once bragged that membership fee to be a Singapore citizen was $500,000. Now they are giving away citizenship free and in some cases even gave money and begged them to come. Singapore will go down in history as the only country in the world that surrender their country to foreigners without a fight. All the sacrifices and hard work by native Singaporeans over decades are going to be handed over to unappreciative foreigners.
What are the chances of the native Singaporeans having a decent and respectable living for future generations. From the looks of things, it is not good.
First, you have the vision extraordinaire senior Statesman, LKY, calling his own citizens daft and needed to repent despite bragging about having the best education in the world. He further insult his own citizens by saying that PRC immigrants are smarter and more hardworking than native Singapore despite bragging that Singapore has the best workforce in the world? Few ministers or new immigrants have any respect, sympathy or concern about the plight and welfare of native Singaporeans. Social problems like transportation, floods, housing, are dismissed as “unavoidable” or “once in fifty years”. or housing are “affordable”.
The plight of native Singaporeans would be left unheard as no one in power would plead their case. Former foreign minister, George Yeo once warned, “know your place in society before you engage in political debate”. If you think, it is bad now, it would be worse in the future.
The descendants of ministers with obscene multi-million salaries and those kiasi citizens who were in the 60% that voted for PAP would not be spared as new Chinese, Pinoys and Indian immigrants do not depend on their votes to win elections. It is a damn disgrace to give away the sovereignty of your country and become second class citizens in your own country. If this irreversible immigration policy was done by the opposition, the entire opposition would likely be put in jail for treason. With the present 1.5 million FTs and more coming, you do not need to be a genius to calculate that within two generations, Chinese FTs, Pinoys and Indians will outnumber native Singaporeans and they will govern Singapore. Sadly that will be the extinction of the once happy, hardworking and peaceful race - the last of native Singaporeans and like the Indian tribe, the Mohigans, they will be lost in history. Paradise gone for the native Singaporeans, betrayed and abandoned by their own MIW leaders who promised them Swiss standard of living.
Ironically, it would be left to the once despised diaspora ex-Singaporeans called the Quitters to tell this sad story.
