Campaign Trail 8 Aug 2015 - Vote For Your Future

Campaign Trail 8 Aug 2015

Met a man in his forties, most probably about the same age as me. Apparently, he is middle ground voter who has leaning towards PAP. But the good thing was, he was willing to raise questions and listen to my point of views while standing there for more than half an hour. He was accompanied by his young son.

He raised the point that Gan Kim Yong is a good minister and how PAP has done good. I told him that Mr Gan Kim Yong may be Mr Nice Guy and low profile, but that doesn't mean that he is a good minister. He was a bit taken back when I told him that.

I spent quite some time to show him how Gan has not addressed a lot of pressing issues while he was the Minister of Manpower. The resident did not realize that MOM didn't act as the gatekeeper to keep out "Foreign Talents" who made it to Singapore with fake degrees and qualifications. He thought that this was done by MOM!

I told him how PAP government has sold off our Singaporeans' jobs to cheap Third World countries by signing FTAs, particularly the CECA with India, in order to get access to their various markets for GIC, Temasek Holdings and GLCs! I told him that while these entities could earn good profits by gaining access to these markets, but these profits are irrelevant to us because our CPF interest rates are still fixed at 2.5% or at most 4%! Only those running these entities will get fat million dollar salaries and bonuses from such profits! It has absolutely nothing to do with us but our jobs are sacrificed and out for competition to a country which has 1 Billion population as compared to Singapore's 3.5 million!

There will always be CHEAPER foreign labour to displace our Singaporeans. I have shown him examples of how these were happening and why our wages were not growing as fast as it should.

I told him that Gan did absolutely nothing to stop the huge madness influx of foreign labour, especially those with doubtful qualifications. During Gan's time, control of Foreign labour was extremely lax and MNCs have unfair advantage in employing hordes of foreign labour to displace Singaporeans through the loop hole of "Internal Transfers" while Singapore SMEs are forced to follow the strict quota.

His job will be threaten by foreign influx and if he loses his job at the age of 40 plus, he will have a hard time to find similar job with similar pay again! (That's why many PMETs become Taxi Drivers!)

I told him that he is lucky his parents are lucky that they didn't face the problem of being asked to wait for 36 hours for a bed and ended up sleeping along corridors of the ward! And the problem of shortage of beds is not so simple. There is a great shortage of healthcare professionals in Singapore and we have to import foreign nurses and doctors who hardly know local lingo or Singlish or dialects.

He said that this is because locals don't want to do nurse job. I told him that in Hong Kong, nurses are more well paid than Singapore! It is about the paying enough to get locals to work as nurses, instead of trying to use third world wages to get locals to work as nurses. And how about doctors? If foreign doctors cannot communicate effective with patients, how can they carry out their diagnosis effectively?

I also told him the flaws of Medishield Life which has no coverage of foreigners working in Singapore. The aim of having such a huge foreign workers force in Singapore because we need them to help our ageing population. But if these young working foreigners are not made to pay Medishield coverage, how could they contribute to the pool of premiums which could help to cover the expenses of our elderly Singaporeans? I told him that this argument was brought up by WP LTK in parliament but PAP has given an absurd answer that if we made these YOUNGER foreigners to be covered by Medishield, we will be "cross subsidizing" their medical bills! How can that be?

And the problem of Medishield is that the payout rate if FAR too low than industry standards! i.e. compared to private medical insurance, Medishiled is earning MORE money every year in percentage!

I brought up the HDB prices and how MBT has restrained on building BTOs when population was increasing with tremendous rate. Such act only pushed up property prices and who benefited? Those rich people who invested in properties, not HDB heartlanders who cannot just sell off their HDB flats and end up without a roof over their heads!

While some people like him may enjoy "making money" from the sales of their HDB flat and such, but this is really not "real profits" because the burden of high property price will fall on his son. This is just basically a "inter-generation transferred of burden". i.e. he is basically earning "profits" at the expense of his son's future!

And if this went on, his son may never be able to afford even a HDB in future! Even if they could "afford" to buy any HDB flat, they may end up with a 30 year mortgage or more! And they have to make sure that within this 30 years, they will not lose their jobs! This is impossible when they will be facing endless influx of cheap foreign labour because our PAP government has signed all those FTAs with those huge third world countries!

I told him that our father's generation had given up their land at dirt cheap price to the government knowing that this is only good for the development of this nation by providing PUBLIC GOODs like cheap HDB housing, schools and such. They didn't expect that after they had given their land but ended up their grandchildren or great grandchildren will be reaped off by this government!

And the fact that PAP government has put up "cost-recovering" and market pricing of land for even schools, polytechnics and universities at 30 years lease, it means that his son and future generations will have to face higher and higher education fees!

In short:

Has Minister Gan been a good minister who can address those problems related to his ministries, past and present?

Has PAP done well so far?

For his parents' sake, he has to Vote For Change, Vote Them Out.

For his son's and future generation's sake, he has to Vote For Change, Vote Them Out.

For his Own's sake, he has to Vote For Change and Vote Them Out!

After this lengthy discussion, I can see that his confidence and support for PAP has been shaken tremendously. I told him to google search my name and get to my Facebook or blog Singapore Alternatives. Make the decisive decision for his parents, his son and his own future.

Goh Meng Seng

#VFC #VTO