Back in 2020 I held a Zoom meeting with Dr Tan Cheng Bock (TCB) from PSP. Also on the call was Leong Mun Wai (LMW). Together with me representing Reform Party were Goh Meng Seng from Peoples Power Party and Tan Jee Say (TJS) from Singapore First, which is now defunct after TJS moved to SDP. On the call LMW forcefully made the point that an alliance between our parties was out of the question because according to him PSP was PAP. First he said they were PAP, then he corrected himself to say they were PAP 2.0.. This earned a sharp rebuke from TCB who told LMW for the benefit of the audience that PSP were NOT PAP.

But his disdain for Reform Party and wish not to be associated with us apparently doesn’t extend to our manifesto or my blog which has called for greater transparency on our reserves and in particular why more of the reserves cannot be spent on investing in Singaporeans now rather than continuing to accumulate without any clear rationale. I have done this since at least 2010.

This is LMW’s recent Facebook post:

As far back as 2011 our manifesto called for giving Singaporeans a stake in Temasek and GIC so they would share directly in the growth of the reserves.

In a 2013 article on my blog in which I set out the case for giving Singaporeans shares in our Sovereign Wealth Funds I said:

“The assets of our SWFs represent forgone consumption by present and past generations of Singaporeans. There were no resources that were used up to earn those assets only sacrifice and austerity by Singaporeans past and present.  In other words, the sweat of your grandfather’s brow,…”

LMW uses almost the same words when he says “the reserves are accumulated from the blood and sweat of Singaporeans.”

In our 2020 manifesto we said “If our true reserves are at least $1.5 trillion, as my investigations over 10 years have led me to believe, then we can afford to spend perhaps 4% of that every year. The Norwegians do that with just the assets in their Pension Fund. That would mean an additional $60 billion of spending every year”.

However I have set out in other articles my deduction that the reserves must be at least $3 trillion and possibly much more. Even without assigning a value to the land the Government owns (at least 80-90 of the land in Singapore and surely worth a multiple of the financial reserves), we could surely afford to spend an extra $90 billion a year without impacting the level of reserves even after allowing for inflation. This should be enough to pay for comprehensive health (which should on my calculations be possible already with the current MOH Budget where I have highlighted mysterious black holes that the Government prefer to POFMA rather than explain the discrepancies), an old age pension, child benefit and free university education for those serving NS, which would be voluntary for women.

I provide below a list of llinks that readers may find interesting. There are many more if anyone is interested. Just use the search function on my blog.

LMW’s adoption of our language and policies illustrates how, since I started blogging about the reserves and the Government’s failure to explain black holes in the Budget, the Opposition, despite egos, have grown increasingly similar in policies and platforms. What was an outlier ten or more years ago has now become accepted wisdom. There is no reason why the Opposition cannot fight the next election on a common platform or, in time, take over the Government . Until there is a change of government, Singapore cannot be called a democracy. More importantly until we know the truth about the reserves and the many other mysteries that the PAP refuse to shed light on, we cannot possibly be free.

Links

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