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Parliament debate 2020/2021


Yewheng
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There are loads of highly intelligent peeps in the admin service tasked with research and analysis at the Policy making division. It is raw data crunching, looking at trends, studying what other countries do and then coming up with proposals for the government of the day to decide which to SELL to the nation. In the past the decision was always easy. Most beneficial to the majority. End of. Some will be left out but the majority always get to be better off. 

The situation is different since LHL took over. Minor group interests and party interest now comes in the picture. It is a democracy progression once started cannot and will not stop. 

The same details and data presented to the government by Policy making peeps are available to the opposition too. They have to request for it. Then study and see whether in the end what they wanna opt and stand for.

Dun be naive that solutions A B C D will be different cos WP is suddenly the govt. The only difference is which one they wanna politicise and stand for.

The incumbent government know the available solutions. They just need to do a better job of selling the solution that they chose but at the end they gotto mind the backlash of voters who think the government dont know enough or dun care enough to choose the solution that they feel they want or deserve. 

We have already gone the route of  choosing the solution that may not entails the best economic outcome. There is no right or wrong solution. Just what the people wants but we all know what you want may not be what is best for you or others.... the link is just too complex.

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I hate to see people sad, I hate to see people crying, people with no satisfaction in their life, no joy, no happiness. 

Everybody deserves to be happy and everyone wants to be happy but we don't know how to. 

Some people think money and power will make you happy but some of the richest and most powerful people are the unhappiest.

So what is the secret to happiness? 

I won't tell you. 

:D

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So end of the day no need study so hard to PhD la. See even PhD also kanna shoot down and got cracks. 

 

Think it is what individual want in life that matters, not so much of I must study till PhD or what. So what got PhD and not happy about life? 

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6 minutes ago, Yewheng said:

So end of the day no need study so hard to PhD la. See even PhD also kanna shoot down and got cracks. 

Think it is what individual want in life that matters, not so much of I must study till PhD or what. So what got PhD and not happy about life? 

Study till PhD is to do academic work.

To differentiate from the masses NOW, Master is required.

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1 hour ago, Jamesc said:

I hate to see people sad, I hate to see people crying, people with no satisfaction in their life, no joy, no happiness. 

Everybody deserves to be happy and everyone wants to be happy but we don't know how to. 

Some people think money and power will make you happy but some of the richest and most powerful people are the unhappiest.

So what is the secret to happiness? 

I won't tell you. 

:D

Got to promote your services to MOM.... Maybe would stop crying.

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1 hour ago, Piyopico said:

There are loads of highly intelligent peeps in the admin service tasked with research and analysis at the Policy making division. It is raw data crunching, looking at trends, studying what other countries do and then coming up with proposals for the government of the day to decide which to SELL to the nation. In the past the decision was always easy. Most beneficial to the majority. End of. Some will be left out but the majority always get to be better off. 

The situation is different since LHL took over. Minor group interests and party interest now comes in the picture. It is a democracy progression once started cannot and will not stop. 

The same details and data presented to the government by Policy making peeps are available to the opposition too. They have to request for it. Then study and see whether in the end what they wanna opt and stand for.

Dun be naive that solutions A B C D will be different cos WP is suddenly the govt. The only difference is which one they wanna politicise and stand for.

The incumbent government know the available solutions. They just need to do a better job of selling the solution that they chose but at the end they gotto mind the backlash of voters who think the government dont know enough or dun care enough to choose the solution that they feel they want or deserve. 

We have already gone the route of  choosing the solution that may not entails the best economic outcome. There is no right or wrong solution. Just what the people wants but we all know what you want may not be what is best for you or others.... the link is just too complex.

Ya lor end of the day politicians also need to consider what voters want and go that approach even though it might not be the best outcome. 

Perhaps that is also why Lhl is very worried about free rider.. As that will undermine of what voters truly want. Like maybe voters prefer pap policy style approach but vote of wp instead even though they don't really like wp policy style of approach. 

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1 hour ago, Jamesc said:

I hate to see people sad, I hate to see people crying, people with no satisfaction in their life, no joy, no happiness. 

Everybody deserves to be happy and everyone wants to be happy but we don't know how to. 

Some people think money and power will make you happy but some of the richest and most powerful people are the unhappiest.

So what is the secret to happiness? 

I won't tell you. 

:D

definition here for sharing


Happiness is wanting what you have.
Success is getting what you want

Edited by Sdf4786k
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I am just kidding cos I will share the secret of happiness. 

@Carbon82gave us a clue to the secret of happiness but not many people understood. 

When 50 people were killed in her country she went and help comfort the surviving relatives. 

When her country face Covid she did not hesitate and knew the best way to help and put her plan into action immediately. 

Happiness is helpfulness. 

If you want to be happy be helpful. 

If you want to be very happy be very helpful. 

If you want to be a little happy then just be a little helpful. 

:D

This is the hard truths of life. 

 

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18 hours ago, Yewheng said:

Oh so that is the meaning of free rider. So got history one hor.. 

Bro, this is the guy who said he’s the most handsome man in Singapore or something.

Read this better:

 

A free ride: Singapore’s prime minister in a muddle

Often when Singaporean politicians stray from the script, they produce gems, phrases for the ages, words destined for internet meme stardom.

Yesterday I was on my way home from town when four buddies messaged me on separate chats: “Did you hear what he just said?”; “Did you see the exchange?”; “Free riders? Hmm.” 

Like the fan who is late to the game and has missed the opening goal, I scoured YouTube as soon as I got home. 

I watched Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, describing a segment of opposition voters as “free riders”, in a parliamentary exchange with Pritam Singh, the leader of the opposition.

Mr Lee was specifically referring to Singaporean voters who voted for the opposition even though they expected the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to win the election.

“But if you say, vote for for me, somebody else will vote for the PAP, and therefore the PAP will be the government, that, the economists will call a free rider. It means that you’re taking advantage of somebody else who’s doing their duty of electing a government for the nation.”(Video at the bottom.)

This is an awful thing for a country’s leader to say about its voters. Here are five reasons why.

1. Economics 101 FAIL.

Lee has used the concept of “free rider” wrongly.

Before explaining why, definitions. Part of me is glad he mentioned “free riders” because it points to an area of micro-economics that I find quite interesting, dealing with private vs public goods, those one can expect markets to produce, or indeed fail to produce.

The free rider problem generally exists when dealing with public goods such as air and street lighting. Those are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous”. You can’t exclude somebody from the benefits of public goods like street lighting (i.e. non-excludable). And one person’s use and benefit from it does not rival somebody else’s (i.e. non-rivalrous). 

Private goods, by contrast, are excludable and rivalrous. When I eat my plate of steamed cockles, I can exclude you (excludable); and when I finish the plate, you cannot eat it (rivalrous). The hum is gone. 

Largely because it is difficult to charge “free riders”, the free market is unlikely to provide public goods like street lighting. Hence the government usually has to.*

Back to Lee and politics, there is really only one scenario when economists use the concept of “free riders” in the context of voting behaviour: when describing people who choose not to vote in democracies where voting is optional, such as the US.

Those who vote are spending their time and energy—imagine travelling for hours from rural areas to voting booths—in order to perform their civic duty and deliver a government to office.

Those who stay at home—perhaps reasoning that their single vote will make little difference to the outcome—are effectively banking on the effort and goodwill of voters to keep the democratic country going. 

The non-voters are apparently “free riding” on the voters. Excessive free riding (non-voting) can lead to a collective action problem where the “market”, i.e. the electoral process, fails. What if nobody turns up?

This is not the case in Singapore, where voting is mandatory. (And thus not voting has costs.) Lee is the first politician I’ve heard use the term “free rider” on people who actually show up to vote.

When people actually go to vote, of course they have unique voter preferences and expectations. Some might want the PAP in power with a lower majority. That is perfectly reasonable. Nobody is free riding off anybody else. If the PAP loses the election, that is not a “market failure” of any sort.

In other words, Lee’s description of what “the economists will call a free rider” is just plain wrong. I have never heard an economist use free rider in that way. 

Aside: read Sendhil Mullainathan, professor at the University of Chicago, describing the free rider problem in voting. Do note that not all economists view staying home on polling day as “free-riding”, i.e. to not vote may itself be a legitimate rational choice.

Note: should be obvious from my phrasing above, but I am just a writer who occasionally reads about economics. Not learned on the subject in any way. For my writing, I rely on the economists I interview, including the one person for this piece.

2. Why do Singaporeans vote for the opposition?

Voting theory, voting behaviour, electoral preferences: these are areas of rich study in political science, constantly evolving, partly because humans have complex motivations.

A few things to consider.

A survey conducted by Quad Research in early April found that 33% of Singaporeans had decided to vote for the PAP; and 14% for the Opposition. Some 53% were still undecided. 

Among other interesting nuggets: Singaporeans are increasingly of the belief that the state (rather than the individual) has a responsibility to provide “decent housing, healthcare, education and enough to live on.” 

The proportion of Singaporeans who believe this rose from 66% in 2015 to 73% in 2020.  Breaking that down, some 79% of opposition voters thought so; compared to 70% of PAP voters.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted during the campaign by Blackbox Research found that 47% of Singaporeans agreed with the opposition messaging (e.g. about diversity of voices in parliament) while 53% agreed more with the PAP’s economy-driven message.

Put another way, even though 47% of Singaporeans agreed more with the opposition’s message, only about 39% voted for it.

In parliament yesterday, Lee relied on an anecdote about a voter speaking to Teo Chee Hean, deputy prime minister: “Mr Teo, is it true? My friends tell me it’s ok to vote for the opposition. Because the government will still be in charge…and the PAP will work even harder for you.”

From a PAP leader, the obvious retort should have been: “Don’t you think we work hard enough? What have we not been doing well?”

Instead of trying to understand why Singaporean voters are drifting towards the opposition, Lee seems eager to label these people as “free riders”.

This, in my opinion, is at best ignorant and at worst insulting. 

Indeed most Singaporeans are, from my conversations, quite sophisticated in how they think about their vote.

3. By that logic, are PAP voters free riders too?

The day after the elections, a couple of long-time PAP loyalist friends told me something to the effect of: “Almost all Singaporeans will be happy with this result.”

Strange. The PAP garnered only 61% of the vote which, by its own admission, was disappointing. So what did my friends actually mean?

Well, there are many PAP supporters who do not want the party to control the entire parliament. Though Singaporeans expect the PAP to compete for every seat—a legacy of its close association with the country—many of its supporters do not want it to win every one. 

They think a monopoly is not good for this country. 

(There is nothing unusual about this. I have BJP-supporting friends in India who think the party’s current dominance there is unhealthy.)

So, allow me to replicate Lee’s inelegant co-option of an economic concept, and let’s go along with his logic. If indeed there are opposition “free riders”, aren’t there also PAP free riders? 

By Lee’s logic, aren’t PAP voters who want an opposition presence in parliament actually free riding on the voters of Aljunied, Hougang and Sengkang?

4. You are not a free rider if you believe you may be penalised.

Perhaps the simplest argument against Lee’s notion of free riding is that historically the government is believed to have penalised voters in opposition wards.

Public funds contributed by all taxpayers have seemingly been allocated preferentially towards PAP wards for estate upgrading.

You can’t be a “free rider” if you believe that you will be penalised for free riding.

(Other relevant sources: “Why so many Singaporeans voted for the opposition”, The Economist, July 12th 2020; “Lift upgrading no longer a hot-button issue”, Straits Times, Oct 2nd 2016)

5. Are immigrants and others also free riders in terms of national defence?

Lee Hsien Loong has unintentionally, and perhaps unknowingly, focussed attention on the people who are, in many Singaporeans’ views, free riding in this country. This comes at a politically inopportune time, of heightened interrogations into the benefits of high immigration to Singapore. (Alongside a bit of ugly xenophobia.)

National defence is one of the public goods most often cited in economic textbooks vis-a-vis free riders. In the absence of the state, the free market will likely not produce a national defence force for any given polity, defence being non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

Singapore has a much higher foreign population than other democracies with conscript armies. Hence in Singapore, a small minority of people in this country (most male citizens and some male PRs) are responsible for serving National Service for two years at very low wages.

While the overall defence expenditure is collectively funded through taxes, that two-year burden falls disproportionately on a small group. Should male conscripts be compensated even more by the other “free riders”?

There is no easy answer to this conundrum. It is unfortunate that this has become a rallying cry for xenophobes. My sense is that National Service needs to be reformed so that those who perform it do not feel like the others are “free riding”. 

The apparent national defence “free riders” include all females, though unsurprisingly Singaporeans, like people anywhere, are more likely to glare at migrants than their mums.

https://sudhirtv.com/2020/09/03/a-free-ride-singapores-prime-minister-in-a-muddle/

Edited by Fcw75
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39 minutes ago, Yewheng said:

So end of the day no need study so hard to PhD la. See even PhD also kanna shoot down and got cracks. 

 

Think it is what individual want in life that matters, not so much of I must study till PhD or what. So what got PhD and not happy about life? 

 

41 minutes ago, Yewheng said:

So end of the day no need study so hard to PhD la. See even PhD also kanna shoot down and got cracks. 

 

Think it is what individual want in life that matters, not so much of I must study till PhD or what. So what got PhD and not happy about life? 

Education does not equal wisdom. 

To be happy you need to be wise. 

:D

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6 minutes ago, Jamesc said:

I am just kidding cos I will share the secret of happiness. 

@Carbon82gave us a clue to the secret of happiness but not many people understood. 

When 50 people were killed in her country she went and help comfort the surviving relatives. 

When her country face Covid she did not hesitate and knew the best way to help and put her plan into action immediately. 

Happiness is helpfulness. 

If you want to be happy be helpful. 

If you want to be very happy be very helpful. 

If you want to be a little happy then just be a little helpful. 

:D

This is the hard truths of life. 

 

And sometimes when we look at some of the investment losses in India telecom 

we will say ...

help me please .. by not helping me 

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6 minutes ago, Sdf4786k said:

definition here for sharing


Happiness is wanting what you have.
Success is getting what you want

I want to be happy with a better MIL. 

I want to be successful in swapping her. 

Anyone want to exchange with me? 

:D

Her hearing not so good except when you talk about her and then suddenly far away also she can hear you.

Leg also not so good except when shopping and buffet then can walk all day. 

Jaw working perfectly she never gets tired complaining. 

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4 minutes ago, Sdf4786k said:

And sometimes when we look at some of the investment losses in India telecom 

we will say ...

help me please .. by not helping me 

Losing hard earned money

is not being helpful at all. 

:D

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Think the more I read different people explaining what is free riders, the more I get confused. Do you guys also feel the same way too? 

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12 minutes ago, Jamesc said:

Losing hard earned money

is not being helpful at all. 

:D

More like using the people’s money need to be more careful instead of gamble away a chunked of money..,

probably been risk averse will not make any more money.. case in point is the pathetic interest rate in the bank. 
 

and I understand all that. But “investing” it like how it’s been done recently seems a tad risky.

SIA is dead Low in prices now. But you don’t see people chasing it ... 

but the debt ratio don’t give confidence.. 

so the people that gets the millions should be thinking about it is all I am saying 

Edited by Sdf4786k
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4 minutes ago, Sdf4786k said:

More like using the people’s money need to be more careful instead of gamble away a chunked of money..,

Erm.. Think it is reverse.. It is because of using people money that one will be less careful. Coz its not their money anyway, if use own money, one will be more careful as what if loses money and now would have less money to purchase stuff the person want? 

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On 9/2/2020 at 11:22 PM, Fcw75 said:

Already mentioned before, they won’t change unless 1/3 of parliament are opposition. So prepared to be F again this coming few years.

Soul searching my arse.

That is why this magic fraction is very important! So the magic number should be 32>/

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