Re: S’pore can be a role model as a sustainable city: Balakrishnan
Re: S’Pore can be a role model as a sustainable city: Balakrishnan (Channel News Asia)
Precisely, so stop thinking that either we stuff our country with almost 50% immigrants or our economy will fail.
I have no issue with immigrants. I have issue with too much, too fast, and I believe I speak for most Singaporeans when I say that. It’s as you said – it’s time to exercise the imagination to come up with a better solution.
Stop feeding the addiction to cheap labour. Stop the population ponzi.
We have worked to hard to switch our economy from one that’s labour intensive to one that’s based on technology and intellectual properties, working to create a high value output per capita economy and yet here we are, shooting ourselves in both our feet.
The issue with the white paper is not the infrastructure. We all want the improvement in infrastructure. In fact, most of us are thinking: DUH! So, you were expecting those that formed the last population explosion to only walk and stay in the streets?
Doesn’t take a scholar to realise that more people = more capacity needed yes?
The issue is what the infrastructure is for. Best part of this is, once the plan for 2030 has been realised, you’ll be back at square one: Now we have (approx) 6.9 million people with low birth rates….so we’ll need to being in even more people to support a larger ageing population. Then maybe the next white paper will be for 2050….then the birth rates stays low while the ageing population base grows.
See. Again. Doesn’t take a scholar to see the problem with the current plan.
And btw, the term ‘population ponzi’ was not coined by me. It’s by journalists other than those from Singapore (because the local ones need their rice bowl protected yes?), reflecting the outside view of Singapore, negating your (possible) claim that we can be role models for a sustainable city.
Right now, we are a role model for a unsustainable population model, almost communist like controlled media (minus the worshipping, thank goodness) and inequality amongst its population.