During election, both the ruling party and the opposition parties brought out quite a number of issues such as ability of the oppostition party, means testing for patients, upgrading of lifts in HDB flats etc. Well, just a penny for my thoughts with some of the things the candidates said...
1. Oil prices.
In the PAP CBD rally held a few days ago, Minister of Manpower Dr Ng asked if the opposition party can bring the oil price down. I personally feel that it is a ridiculous question. Those with a bit of economics knowledge will know that the price of any good is determined by the intereaction of the demand and supply curve of the good. The price is the result of equlibrim point where demand = supply. Henceforth, in a free market no one, i repeat, absolutely no one can change the market price of the good. I do not wish to go into a explanation as it will be too econs.
All I can say is even for the oil-producing countries, they can influence the direction of the oil price by varying the supply of oil but they cannot foresee the final market price of oil as it is also dependent on the demand side as well. And vice versa. Knowing this, even for the ruling party who has more resources and ability is a price taker and is helpless at this aspect.
However, the government can either choose to subsidise to reduce the burden borne by Singaporeans or appreciate the Singapore currency. But the two measures have its cons as well.
With regard to subsidy, it is very costly to the government. This means that in order to implement the subsidy, the government may need to resort to cut down the budget on other aspects such as education. This in turn leads to what economists termed "a misallocation of resources" as the money is not going to where is yields the highest benefit/ returms.
As for the appreciation of the currency, it can render Singapore exports uncompetitive in the international market. As Singapore is highly dependent on exports to spur economic growth, it can have undesirable reprecussions to the Singapore economy. Hence in a way, doing nothing might be better although the rise in oil prices has negative impacts too.
What surprises me is that a minister, who is one of the elites, actually asked this question. I may read too much into it, but it did seem to me that he implicitly implies that the ruling party is able to do that (bringing down the oil price) when it is actully mission-impossible. I wonder what is his purpose?? Although it can just be a causal remark to question the ability of the opposition party, but I thought the candidates would know better than to play with this issue. By doing so, he is only making a fool of himself. As far as I know, I dont see the opposition parties criticising the ruling party for doing nothing with respect to the oil price cos I believe that most of them, by now, dont oppose for the sake of opposing.
2. Outsourcing
Dr Ng also asked if the opposition party can stop the factories from closing down and relocating to other countries. Well, I think the ruling party themselves also know that they are not 100% successful in doing so so why shoot the opposition parties this question??
Due to increasing globalisation where now more countries deregulate their foreign captial restrictions which leads to increasing capital mobility, firms will relocate, regardless of any emotional ties, to other countries so long as their bottomline can be boasted. It is a sad but true fact. Even for Singapore companies such as Yeo Hup Seng, they relocate their factories/ plants to neighbouring countries such as Malaysia due to significantly higher operating costs.
To me, it is not a matter of outsourcing as it is happening everywhere and it is here to stay. And the pace is more likely than not to increase as emerging economies such as China and India further open up their domestic markets It is how the government react to this trend. Perhaps a better question to 'throw' to the opposition parties will be "Can the opposition parties do better than the ruling party when it comes to the outsourcing problem?"
In this way, the opposition parties cannot really find fault with the ruling party as it has done a pretty good job. The number of job openings reach a new high last year despite the ongoing outsourcing trend. Furthermore, the unemployment rate is falling.
I feel that paraphasing is very important. In both cases, I feel that a better choice of words can make a great difference. One may not realise but most people choose to remember what they want to remember. It is these minor words or minute details that create positive or negative impression in people's mind.To me, I cant remember the rest of Dr Ng speech but these 2 questions just stuck in my mind cos they simply irks me to some extent. To think that the candidates of ruling party made what I call it a careless mistake when one knows that politics is almost always a word game.
3. Education.
According to TODAY report on thurs, Minister of Education Mr Tharman said that 80% of the students who lived in 1 to 3 rooms flats went on to pursue post-secondary education in 2005 as compared to just 50% ten years ago. Of which 15% make it into the university. I must say it is quite a impressive figure if one just look at it solely.
However, one must always look at the big picture. On the national level, 94% of the cohort went on to post-secondary institutions. I got this figure from a speech PM made which he said 6% is too high a number when it comes to the % of students who went out to work after 'O' level. Hence if one will to do a simple comparsion, students who lived in 1 to 3 rms flats are actually under-represented in post-secondary institutions.
To make a simple analogy, it is like you used to score 20 marks in a Maths test. In a later test, you scored 45 which is a more than 100% improvememt. Nevertheless you still fail becos the passing mark is 50.
Therefore, things are not as rosy as painted by Mr Tharman. From this under-reperesentation, I wonder if the education has become more of the rich people's game and if education is really a social leveller that helps children from poorer families to climb up the social ladder. Did not have any local statistics to clear my doubts. But in the USA, a research study has shown that 70% of the children remians in the same social-econo class as their parents and the proportion of poor students in univerisities is lower than the proportion of the poor in the country. This means that social mobility is relatively fixed. I chance upon this info when I was doing a project last sem but cant remember the source as it has been more than 6 months ago.
Food for thought: Is this trend happening in Singapore now?? If yes, any proposal to commbat the trend?? If not, will this be of a problem in Singapore in the future??
That's all for now. Wow, cant believe I actually typed so much. Hmm, good preparation for my ISM or thesis in my last year of study. lol.. Okay, time for me to watch the news for the polling results....
