At his extraordinary pre-election broadcast moderated by civil servant Chan Heng Chee Lee Hsien Loong admitted what I have been saying now for years: the PAP have no economic plan beyond the simple one they have been using for fifty years. That is just adding more labour inputs to create more output.  They certainly have no idea of how to raise productivity and Singaporeans’ living standards.

LHL made the startling admission that the Republic has “maxed out” the easy ways to drive economic growth. First the Government built factories and created jobs for men. Then when this pool of surplus labour was absorbed, the Government looked to bring women into the workforce (the PM let slip here his antiquated and sexist thinking which relegates women to a secondary role behind men).

When it was no longer easy to get women workers (in other words wages would have had to rise though LHL is careful not to say that) the Government opened the doors and flooded Singapore with foreign workers.

All LHL has done is to describe the basic model of economic growth that every economics student learns. In the textbook model of economic development: once surplus labour is exhausted, wages rise spurring higher productivity growth and a move up-market to higher value-added and knowledge-intensive industries.

This did not happen in Singapore. Instead the PAP Government found it easier and more profitable to allow a flood of cheap foreign labour, which boosted the profits of those Government-linked companies and MNCs, and indirectly boosted the salaries of those running GLCs like Mrs LHL.

However this policy hurt ordinary working Singaporeans, first at the bottom of the wage structure but increasingly at the middle levels where Singaporeans have to compete with foreign PMETs from much cheaper labour countries. Frequently they are offered scholarships by the PAP to come here without doing NS and they walk into Singaporeans’ jobs.

In the interview LHL talks about productivity growth being the only way forward. Well done LHL for stating the obvious!  I have been saying this since 2009.

However it is his Government which has stuck Singapore in a low-productivity rut and has no idea how to wean itself off its reliance on cheap foreign labour. He has no idea how to boost productivity and admits as much. Over the last three years productivity growth has been negative and we are still below the level we reached in 2007.

What is particularly sickening is the way LHL talks about his obligation to Singaporeans. He has broken that trust by making Singapore a worldwide magnet as an easy place to come and work and enjoy a much better standard of living than you can in your homeland. He has filled our country with second-class PMETs who would not be able to get jobs at home but who come here to benefit from the low taxes and the condo lifestyle. Meanwhile Singaporeans have to do NS, which is a tax, to defend them and find they can only afford a cramped HDB. No wonder so many Singaporeans want to emigrate.

LHL then has the cheek to claim credit for reducing the inflow. The only reason the inflow has slowed to a trickle is that global economic growth has stalled resulting in little demand for Singaporean exports and a slowdown in tourism. When and if this revives expect the trickle to suddenly become a flood again. Don’t expect the Government to stop at 6.9 million when growing the population is such an easy way to grow GDP. The PAP are already planning for underground cities where most of our grandchildren will likely end up living if present policies continue unchecked. Our population could soar past 10 million!

The PAP have practised a cheap confidence trick on Singaporeans that would put most fraudsters to shame. As I wrote here, boosting economic growth by simply letting anyone in is an insane policy for any country. And LHL and his wife, Ministers, relations and cronies have grown rich doing so, paying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars because of your gullibility.

Let GE 2015 be a wake-up call! Let’s put a stop to this immoral gravy train at our expense!

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam