Population is a touchy subject these days in SG. Last week when the government released their projection of close to 7million people on our island by 2030, the country exploded in fury. I have mentioned my opinion in earlier posts that I think using population growth to sustain economic growth is not a long run solution and that there will come a point where the system will collapse onto itself like a stack of cards. It seems now though that before the system fails itself, before the island cannot support so much life, the people have broken first. It is of my opinion that the government has indeed been pushing its luck with its people for a long time now, so much so that they have failed to account for this variable fully in their calculations.
The PAP has been snubbed in the recent election for perhaps being too presumptuous in their actions over the years. I suppose people these days want to be informed and consulted more so than previous generations have. Is that a good thing? I’m not sure if people are being over-demanding with a government that has done a fairly good job so far. Such is human nature you see, to ask and demand for more and more and criticizing the failure to attain perfection when that doesn’t exist. Is it being fair? I get comments that I’m exceedingly sympathetic towards PAP. You know, I don’t exactly have a political leaning. I simply imagine myself as PM and facing these issues asking what would, what could I do? The empathy arrives then. Our PM is a man like any other except that he faces impossibly heavy decisions sometimes that honestly cannot satisfy everyone. In politics, everything ends up being a judgement call; who needs help most, who cannot wait, which fire to save with limited water.. How could I criticize a man already stretched so thin and pulled in so many directions?
In any case, I have digressed really far from what I set out to write today. I have been absent from the blogosphere recently because my life has taken a major turn towards marriage now. I have been spending time trying to come to terms with everything and it has naturally brought me to the question of having children amongst other issues. Our government is exceedingly and in my opinion, disturbingly enthusiastic about us procreating. As an economist, I understand, and understand that the government understands too that at this point, we are so far gone that even if we start churning out babies double time henceforth, we are facing an entire lost generation that is the gap in our population pyramid. People in their 20s and 30s right now will bear the full brunt of its effects no doubt. Of course I am talking about having to pay more taxes to support the growing aging population that will only swell in the next few decades. We have doomed ourselves to this when we chose not to make babies to lighten that tax and labour burden. Indeed nobody should actually think of it in that way when raising children should be a sacred thing. But please do bear with this economist who sometimes sees children as statistics rather than the cherubs that parents think they are. In simple math and logic, you should be able to see why there is a solution in growing the Foreign Talent pool. Whilst this policy no doubt makes locals curse and yell, do you honestly see another option?
I’ll be crude and say, unless our parents and grandparents start dying at 70, unless we suddenly become so productive that we generate twice the profit for our companies than we are right now, unless we rob and plunder other countries of their riches.. This is our reality. As to my 3rd scenario actually, are we not already in a way plundering other countries by using these FTs to generate GDP for us and also contributing to our tax revenue? Is it really such a bad deal for us?
We’re upset about the little things like it being way too crowded on the trains, and also the bigger problems like trains breaking down totally because they are just too overworked. This is what is the punishment of the lack of foresight and the trade-off for the quick-fix solution of FTs. Like there is no overnight way to fill that gap on our population, there is also no overnight upgrade of our transport systems. I admit that infrastructure should have been a consideration from the start when we contrived FTs as our solution, but it is too late for looking back now. Greed was surely a factor. When we saw how much extra GDP and tax revenue FTs contributed, we got too exuberant and pushed that line further and further into the territory of being entirely unmanageable. Reversing out of a mess like this is like turning around the Titantic. Worse still is that this Titantic has already hit the iceberg in the sense that the people are pissed and there’s so little room to maneuver now because everyone is watching. But is the infrastructure problem fixable? Yes, and to a large extent it’s honestly easier to achieve than to have Singaporeans produce heirs.
Patience is what we sorely lack as a nation. The mistakes have been made, the blame and accusations suffered and we should stop and move on to repairing things. Do we feel like there’s a need to punish someone for the mistakes and therefore still feel angry? Sure we are angry because we’re late for work and the transit is uncomfortable these days.. But do we reasonably expect these problems to be solved in the short term? Some people tell me they’re angry because they’re suffering for the mistakes they had no part in. You know, that is not exactly true. If we had kept up with birthing the next generation, if we had upped our productivity, if we had been willing to pay a tax hike that is necessary to support our old folks.. You see, we refuse to pay more or do more for nothing that directly benefits ourselves when the nation clearly needs us to. Our tax rate is absurdly low, our productivity level even more ridiculously so, our birth rate dismal. Sustaining a nation is a collaborative effort of the government and its people. Can we say we have done enough and given enough as Singaporeans for this relationship to work out and thrive?
