My Thoughts on GE2011

On my 21st birthday this 8th of May, I may very wake up to quite a different Singapore. Born a year too late, perhaps it is for the best that I am still too young to vote. This general election has been surprisingly refreshing, full of opinions from many people, clearly and freely published on Facebook and other blogs. Yet I am also torn about whom I would vote for, if given the chance.

It is my hope, then, to pen my thought processes with regards to this year’s elections. I shall hope to be as clear and comprehensive as possible. And perhaps at the end of this exercise, I will have arrived at an answer, or perhaps the vast number of voices on the internet would have helped me arrived at one.

The Economist: Go East, Young Bureaucrat

The following article was published in the 19 March issue of The Economist. I do not own this article (obviously), and I can only hope that my publishing it here can be considered fair use. This article was mentioned by PM Lee and I think it is a great article on government in Singapore. I am reposting this because I’m not sure if you require a subscription account to view the online version.

 

Go East, young bureaucrat

Emerging Asia can teach the West a lot about government

WHEN people talk about Singapore’s education miracle, they normally think of rows of clever young mathematicians. The hair-design and beauty-therapy training centres at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) are rather different. The walls are covered with pouting models, L’Oréal adverts and television screens. There is a fully fitted-out spa and a hairdressing salon. It all seems rather more “Sex and the City” than Asian values, though the manicurists, pedicurists, cosmetologists and hairdressers toil diligently.

Asked whether he wants to go to university, the holy grail of most Asian families, a young barber called Noel replies that he would rather open a hairdressing salon. Mei Lien wants to set up her own beauty salon; Shuner would like to work in hotels abroad.

Until recently ITE—dubbed “It’s The End” by ambitious middle-class parents—was the dark side of Singaporean education. The city state streams pupils rigorously and is unashamedly elitist: one school claims to send more students to Ivy League universities than any other secondary school in the world. But such a system also produces losers—and many of the bottom third who do not make it to university come to ITE.

Letter to TODAY: Conscription is a Tax

Okay, I swear, I will start writing normal blog posts that are not letters to the press. I have  a couple of posts in mind, some even halfway written.

However, this letter was quite fun to write. It borrowed from the essay I wrote last year, and it was fun trying to tie things down to show one point concisely. Also, I was starting to get a bit annoyed with all the facebook comments about that maid carrying the NSF’s bag, even though some spoofs and photoshopped pics were really quite funny.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I refer to the phenomenon of Full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) who prefer to “take cover”, and Mr Clement Puah’s question “Are NSFs getting soft?”. (31 Mar)

To answer that question, we should bear in mind an important observation made by Mr Thomas Gates, former US Secretary of Defence. He observed that conscription is a tax: a conscript who would volunteer for military service for $2000 a month but is conscripted at $800 a month is making a tax payment of $1200 a month, in the form of a service.

When the government raised the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2007, a significant number of people were unhappy with the tax. A healthy debate ensued. Yet even those who supported the tax did not call those who disagreed “soft”.

To ask the question “Are NSFs getting soft?” is to imply that it is wrong to be unwilling to pay a maximum amount of effort to the state. However, just as we sympathize with those reluctant to pay 7% GST, it is entirely understandable for people to be unhappy about being taxed.

Yours Sincerely,
Daryl Yong

 

 

Letter to TODAY: Equally Irrevocable

While I seldom respond to responses to my letters just to clarify my point, I decided to respond to this because I had a new point to make. It is quite an important one, because I feel that there is a fallacy here that several intelligent people (like Faith, as seen in her previous comments) might make.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I wholeheartedly agree with Ms Ong that “what is good for future generations is up for debate”. (“Road building: Are other relevant authorities involved in decision?”, 7 Mar) Indeed, it is crucial for conservationists to explain how society benefits from retaining a piece of wilderness, rather than just making assumptions about the preferences of future Singaporeans.

In her attempt to show such benefits, Ms Ong argues that building a road would be irrevocable because “a sanctuary cannot be replaced once it is removed”. However, Ms Ong overlooks the fact that the decision not to build a road is equally irrevocable. The additional hours that commuters have to spend traveling as a result of the road not being built are hours they will never get back. The economic benefits that society forgoes by not having the road is continuously and irrevocably sacrificed as long as the road remains unbuilt.

Instead of relying on false distinctions between revocable and irrevocable choices, or making assumptions about the preferences of future generations, conservationists should explain the concrete benefits society can expect when good land is left undeveloped. To date, they have yet to do so.

Yours Sincerely,
Daryl Yong

Personally, I regard this response as a sign of my letter’s success for two reasons. One, she acknowledged that “what is good for future generations is up for debate”, effectively agreeing that conservationists cannot just assume preferences and have to prove that benefits do exist. Two, she qualified her letter as expressing a “personal preference”. This is great because it recognizes that the issue is one of competing preferences, hence removing the veneer of moral righteousness that conservationists tend to project. (Refer to Captain Planet: Regrettably one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.)

So far, most of my encounters with environmentalists and conservationists have largely convinced me that a piece of writing which I read years ago (back in JC) has got many characterizations of the environmentalist movement nailed down. The case for conservation seems astonishingly thin, which is why I continue to press Singaporean conservationists to provide a more reasonable case for their cause.

Letter to TODAY: Choosing the Better Deal

I’m on a roll. Just slightly above where my letter was published on today’s issue of TODAY, someone wrote something that really ticked me off. While I was too lazy to pen a response when I saw it in the morning, reading it again in the evening drove me to action.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I read with interest the suggestion by Mr Jeffery Law for a hotline in order to curb the “unscrupulous profiteering” of hawkers who raised the price of their chicken rice from $3.00 to $4.00. Even assuming that such a price increase is not cost driven, does that mean it is a form of “unfair pricing”? (“A hotline to report profiteering?”, 28 Feb)

Mr Law only has to consider this scenario: Suppose he receives an offer by Company A to do a job for $3000 a month, and he receives a competing offer by Company B to do the exact same job for $4000 a month. Would Mr Law not be entirely within his rights to choose the better, more profitable deal?

Similarly, a chicken rice stall owner has competing offers for his products from two groups of people: Those who are willing to pay $4.00 per plate of chicken rice, and those who are not. Just as we do not expect Mr Law to choose the worse deal for himself, so should Mr Law not demand hawkers choose the worse deals for themselves.

Yours Sincerely,
Daryl Yong 

Letter to TODAY: Speak for Yourself

I really should blog about things more than the letters that I send to the press when I get annoyed by something I read. Honestly, I’ve been trying to get a couple of posts up, but I’ve been a little too lethargic to get them written. As of now, they’re still in my draft folder.

In the meantime, enjoy this letter I just sent in to TODAY.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I read with interest Mr Chow’s letter criticizing the LTA’s decision to build a road in Clementi. (“Bird sanctuary under threat”, 24 Feb). In his letter, Mr Chow, like many conservationists, believed that he was speaking up not only for his beliefs, but also “for the sake of our future generations”.

However, it is anybody’s guess what future generations would prefer. It is at least conceivable that future Singaporeans would prefer the convenience of an additional road to the preservation of natural habitat.

Mr Chow is well within his rights to speak up for his own opinions and personal preferences. However, he and other conservationists should refrain from claiming to speak for unborn persons when they cannot possibly do so.

Regards,
Daryl Yong

Update 28/2: The letter was published in today’s issue of TODAY. The funny thing is that apparently Mr Chow is a Ms. That’s the thing with Chinese names: I can never be sure of the sex of the person. =/

Letter to TODAY: Xenophobia in Disguise

So, post-ORD life has not been what it was cracked up to be. It has been 10 times better. Life’s been great, so much so that I have begun to neglect my dear blog with all the other stuff that I’ve been doing (ie, lazing around and gaming). However, I could not ignore that one letter in the papers that annoyed me, so I sent one in reply.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I sympathise with Mr Lim’s two worries of a) the “massive influx of foreigners” in Singapore and b) our failure to “arrest the decline in our fertility rate”. (“Works there, why not here?”, Jan 4)

However, that Mr Lim chose to express these two worries in the same letter is revealing. A low fertility rate is only a concern for those who have a problem with the higher level of immigration such fertility rates will necessitate. For those of us who are at home with the idea of immigration, a low fertility rate is hardly a concern at all. After all, our population growth rates remain healthy, and could be further increased should we choose to open our doors wider.

Hence, the concern for low fertility rates among Singaporeans is just another way of expressing anti-immigration sentiments. This begs the question: why should taxpayers’ dollars be spent on fertility policies in order to placate the xenophobia of those who are prejudiced?

Yours Sincerely,
Daryl Yong