Some "radical" ideas for Singapore's future

Singapore's government claim that they need to import new citizens to ensure population growth and sustain economic growth.

Woah now.

I know that's accepted as some form of truism, and even commentators commented Japan must revise its immigration policy or suffer.

But hey, the first thought that comes to my mind is that - isn't the world getting overpopulated?

Are the growing numbers of human beings consuming too much and too fast the natural resources of the world, be it in the developed countries or less developed countries?

Advances made in the last century has seen a diploma holder being able to do what used to require a university degree.

Can we not look into alternative ways to maintain our standard of living without resorting to the same old method of providing it?

Look at many modern corporations today. Gone are the pools of typists and clerks.
The modern jet passenger aircraft has for decades done away with the flight navigators.
Buses no longer employ conductors selling tickets.

Yes, many jobs still require people, but are we making the best use of the people we already have?

When I see increasing number of foreigners among service staff in stores, supermarkets and F&B outlets, I wonder where are the young Singaporeans working today?

Lo and behold, I see many of them working in the ubiquitous retail shops in just about every neighbourhood and shopping centre ... selling what ... mobile phones with flashing accessories? electronic games?

How many shops selling mobile phones does Singapore really need anyway?
How many times does a person really need to change his handset anyway?

It is a culture of waste, and many of the young Singaporeans are engaged in "economic activities" whose real economic productivity is zero, or even negative.

I am not in favour of a command economy, I just want to highlight that Singapore is doing a lot of wasteful activities, and all these cost money.



On the subject of income-ceiling for HDB flats and high COV - the government can tackle several issues at once by revising the rule so that they consider the income ceiling only for the highest income earner of the household rather than the whole family.

First, it makes more couples eligible to get cheaper flats directly from HDB, cooling the resale market and bring it to saner level.

Second, without heavy mortgage, couples will hopefully be ready to have a family, and one parent to be more ready to stay home longer to take care of the children until they are older. Not only will this help towards better upbringing (hopefully) of the children and less social problem in the future, it will also hopefully reduce demand for foreign labour - less need for domestic maids, less need for infant/childcare centres (which also employ foreigners), maybe less need to eat out.


Will a contracting economy be bad for Singapore? Not necessarily.
It all depends on which part of the economy contracts, and if the population of Singapore contracts even more.

So what if we have a smaller economy if it means Singapore becomes more enjoyable and Singaporeans actually get to enjoy life more?

We have the hi-tech and advancements, they just need to be put into the right place.