I saw these comments on Twitter. I do not know what to make of them. As far as I am concerned, she basically just aped the government gahmen line without giving a much serious thought of the issue. Such pro-gahmen comments in general shows a lack of deeper understanding of the matter and lack of empathy towards the plight of fellow Singaporeans. I even detect a faint trace of selfishness there.

Let me explain the reason for my strong reaction… and just like my favourite character Lai Wuji [賴戊己] used to say in the Taiwanese drama series ‘Love’ [愛], “You listen to me carefully.” (你給我聽清楚了。)

First of all, the Aussie comment that was mentioned. I was told several years ago that if you are a plumber, it is not difficult for you to migrate to Australia because you are the kind of skilled labour that it lacked. However, while the Singapore gahmen tells us that we need more foreign fallen talents, I for one am ignorant of what in specific are the skilled labour that our education system has failed to provide either in part or completely. Even though the rational middle voters and most understanding Singaporeans know for a fact that investors will pass us by if we can’t provide enough workers to fill the jobs (as the gahmen claims), there are often murmurs on the ground that certain foreigners are taken in because they accept a lower pay. Yet, in spite of all these, our lapdog main stream media took matters even further by suggesting that we Singaporeans would probably all starve if we don’t hire foreign workers! (see screen shot attached below).

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It wasn’t long before some of us believe that certain companies deliberately discriminate against locals by hiring foreigners, and not even a younger and better educated Singaporean who are generally offered a lower starting pay. If wages for Singaporeans are too high and making us uncompetitive, to what are we making that comparison? Now, this is not arguing that we Singaporeans ‘deserved’ a job, but one of the roles of the gahmen is to create jobs and what is the purpose of creating jobs for foreigners when it is the job of the gahmen of their native countries to do so? What evidence is there that hiring foreign workers lower cost of operation or even our cost of living when prices go up all the same? Perhaps we should all just fool ourselves saying that the cost isn’t going up faster than it already is.

This perception is made worse if we know of a friend who remained unemployed for long periods while a foreigner took the job he is capable of doing. Very little is done to help the Singaporean. Instead he is admonished for being demanding or being complacent and lazy. Thus, this self defeating foreign worker policy continued to run its course while wages continue to be depressed for local workers allowing the cost of living out paced it. It is no surprise that the cries for minimum wages are getting acceptance in some quarters, even when I don’t believe a minimum wage is necessary across every sector or for all jobs.

That brings me to address the next point – declining birth rate. It maybe true that we require immigrants to keep up with our population decline. However, the real issue behind our population decline – i.e. the high cost of living – has never been addressed. While wages are depressed and the pricing of our so-called ‘affordable public housing’ pegged to that of private property, how the Tali-PAP gahmen continue to call it affordable is unimaginable. For e.g. A 3-room in Tanglin Halt costs $9,000 in 1971 (the year I was born) and a worker who earns $500 a month could pay it off in 10 years. The cost to wages ratio is 18:1. Today, a brand new HDB cost $300,000. Assuming that a graduates starting pay in $2,500, the cost to wages ratio is *gasp* a staggering 120:1!! (Even if they get $4000, it is 75:1 and many of them have study loans to pay off.) For many of us, to pay off my housing loan in 10 years is almost next to impossible. We can however console ourselves that the cost of a home in Beijing or Shanghai is no better, and is perhaps worse when we consider the wages there.

The gahmen may argue that quality of the flats is now better, but in most cases they are also smaller. It now requires a couple to both work for almost the entirety of their useful life to just pay for the roof over their heads. I don’t even want to talk about how the gahmen hoodwinked us into believing that their discount is a subsidy. Is it a surprise that couples don’t intend to have kids because it probably costs at least another quarter of a million dollars to raise a child from infancy to university graduate? Or that kids end up wielding parangs and chopping up people because their parents are never around to mentor and discipline them?

Let’s not forget, even though the gahmen insists that there the skyrocketing property prices aren’t caused by foreigners, we had to question **who** is offering obscene amount of Cash Over Value [COV] to obtain local properties. It almost sound contradicting that Singaporeans accused foreigners of depressing wages while we also accused them of pushing our property sky-high. But remember that it only require one high-flying foreigner to complete a deal to bring up the prices, even though he isn’t a part of the horde of FTTFs [Foreign True Talent False] which are pushing wages down. Some might say we should be smart and walk away from sellers demanding high COV, but where to? Into the blue sea around us? When there is scant evidence that foreigners are doing us any good, it is a no brainer why Singaporeans reject foreign immigrants! After all, the general perception is that they played a big part in screwing up our lives!

Even if property prices and depressed wages are not the most compelling reason for Singaporeans not to have babies, don’t forget that commercial property prices will also go up in tandem with that of residential ones. Certainly there won’t be one price for land sold for residential properties and another for commercial ones, right? As a result, rentals increase for shops and hawkers, and that translates into higher costs for daily necessities and food. It is not uncommon that a simple meal can cost $6.50 or even $10 at certain food courts while the poor hawker at the hawker center would lose business when he raised prices by a mere 50cents, or when he cut the portion of his servings. It is no wonder why I noticed an increasing number of empty stalls in hawker centers of ageing estates, and the traditional provision shop is almost extinct replaced by mini-mart chain stores? No wonder even McDonald’s restaurants are packed during lunch! After all, McDonald’s value meals at discounted prices during lunch is at times even cheaper than food sold in the food court!

The writer who wrote the comment asked, “If we don’t want an influx of foreigners, are we going to pay for higher taxes for our ageing population as a result of our declining birthrate?” The fact is, I am already paying more here and now to just survive with an influx of foreigners. So just what the #@%$& are you talking about? And last I checked Singapore is not a welfare state so is there even an allocation in the budget for the aged? *sigh*

That brings me to the remaining comment – “without immigrants we are a piece of wasteland”. Perhaps that would be true in 1819. But by the time we were expelled from Malaysia in 1965, few of us could claim to be immigrants. Many of our parents are either born here or in Malaya, which is hardly consider ‘foreign’ back then. In fact, Lao Lee himself admitted that he was convinced that Singapore only had a future within the Federation before Dr. Goh Keng Swee negotiated the separation. Not to mention that 4 years after the separation, racial tensions in the Federation spilled over to Singapore after May 13, 1969.

I must ask, in the first 20 years of our nations existence, did our fair country ‘spread her legs’ freely to foreigners? Why haven’t we perished and turned into a waste land then?

I would be surprised if the high cost of living and property prices that enslaved us all hasn’t act like some kind of anti-Viagra / anti-Cialis that kept the Singaporean male (except the mini$ter$ and the high paying civil serpents servants) from getting an erection and making babies. It is certainly cheaper to just get a pack of condoms. ‘Phiak phiak raw and shoot inside’ is a no-no not just with prostitutes.

In short, the best way to raise the fertility rate is to give us real affordable housing and bring down the cost of living. All of this will require some hard work and far reaching policies that will take time to be effective. Unfortunately for us, this gahmen has so far taken the easy way out with our population issues by simply accepting more foreigners (just like how it has resorted to cheap foreign labour to attract investments instead of raising productivity). So much for these so-called top talents paid millions a year! If this policy is allowed to continue, the problem will only worsen with no end in sight.

Fortunately, other than the old man still being ‘tee kee’ [Hokkien for ‘iron teeth’, which means ‘stubborn in words’], it would appear to me that even the ruling party has realised that the current immigration policy is a untenable position in the upcoming election. I would love the old man to just repeat the famous ‘If native Singaporeans are falling behind because “the spurs are not stuck into the hide”, that is their problem” statement. The middle voters definitely need a little shove to cross the line.

Anyway, I do hope that the current property cooling measures and the reduction in number of permanent residency [PR] issued to foreigners are going to be long term policies and not just an election gimmick. Or else there will be no light at the end of the tunnel for the true-blue Singaporean.

Before I end, it was no surprise to me that a recent poll showed that our youths have no sense of belonging and would prefer to leave and work elsewhere if conditions permit. Food for thought?

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