Sure, they still house the huddled (brown) masses in ghettos, but they're making progress with public housing for natives.
But it's still hot as hell all the time all year. No thanks.
Compare this to all of the other nearest cities / capitols in the region (or even further than that), I think you would have to go quite far in any direction to find a place that is as well looked after for all levels of society. (Taiwan?) And whats the other closest city to Singapore that has potable drinking water?
Is this bargain worth it? As an American, there are plenty of things the Singaporean government does that makes me uncomfortable. But who's to say which is better? Compared to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur or similar, where would you have preferred to have been born?
afaik the water from malaysia isn't potable, it's treated in singapore.....
I guess now they do more desalinization and recycle sewage water for drinking.
Compare to Australia, my own home country, where we could never countenance the ideas of "foreigners coming to take our jobs" - so infrastructure costs 5x as much and, more likely, simply never happens. It wouldn't surprise me if Singapore's what is it, 3 new MRT lines right now? costs the same or less as Sydney's 1 new line. And all the people we could have hired from the philippines or whereever are sitting in their slums unemployed. Who's racist again? Which is more ethical? Which is the better outcome?
It boggles my mind how people can be all for foreign labour being used to make things overseas, for example the computer they're typing their comment on, but suddenly against the idea when the labourers have to come here temporarily to make it. It's the same damn thing!
But the immigrant worker thing bugs me.
These workers, mostly women, are treated very poorly from what I have observed. I have heard my sister threaten her nannies with deportation for not complying with her orders, and have seen and heard of other ex-pats behaving even worse towards their immigrant employees. It seemed to me to be so normalized, that my sister and her friends do not recognize their behavior as being in any way abhorrent.
I would hate to see that sort of tiered society in Australia ever. It might work on paper but it also changes the nature of the people they serve in an ugly way.
I think it's because that mostly happens behind closed doors in private property - there's all sorts of scope for that few percentage of natural assholes to abuse the power they wield, plus as you say, it's sort of culturally acceptable. I too would like to see that changed.
That said, would you destroy a whole class of employment just because of a few bad apples? Or even more than a few? I also know that for uneducated girls from villages in Indonesia, working overseas as a maid is like winning the lottery. The alternative is often to become a prostitute. Where's the line?
And FWIW I've had a maid before and I don't think it changed me at all. But you're right - there's a certain type of person for whom having a little bit of power over a person unlocks something dark inside them, and in a domestic setting that can be a recipe for mistreatment. More regulation is needed - Singapore's laissez-faire attitude fails it here.
I was talking more of the construction industry, where stories of abuse are much less common (and there are witnesses and company licenses at stake) - in this context, migrant work is IMO an inarguable good.
This is pure anecdote, of course.
In some cases they are supposed to be students, but are forced to work 40hr weeks in low paying jobs under threat of instant deportation.
This bugs me about my own country too.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-in-five-migrant-workers-o...
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tackling-the-exploitation-of-i...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/international-students...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-15/ombudsman-report-revea...
Does it really? I would love to see some like for like figures.
And they do take the locals jobs. Singaporeans don't mind so much though because they get massive subsidies from the government and the economy is doing pretty well.
If the government didn't provide incredibly subsidised housing the country would fall apart very quickly. Likewise if unemployment came close to 10%.
That was nothing but a guess, but I think it's reasonable. Labor is the largest component of infrastructure costs by a wide margin, and migrant labor would be at least 5x less than local. Even if it's "only" 2x cheaper my point would stand, though, and that seems very conservative indeed. I'd also like to see some figures.
I don't know what "massive subsidies" you could be referring to. The HDB system is the only one I can think of? Calling it "incredibly" subsidized is kind of overstating it - maybe 20%-30%, and you can only play that game twice, with 6 years in between. I think of it as more like a stock option.
The HDB program costs about a billion a year. There's about 3.3 million citizens, so that's $300 a year each. I don't call that "massive", and I don't see why the country would collapse if it was withdrawn (not that there's any reason it would be).
Over 80% of the population live in HDB-provided apartment housing. However, the vast majority of those residents own their own apartments, having purchased them from the government (and yes, certain subsidies can apply - up to perhaps 30% the fair value of the property). It's public housing only insofar as it was developed by the government - certainly not free or nearly-free as the phrase might imply in other countries, so it's quite a misleading term to use.
The rule of thumb is 20-30% discount on fair market value. Not 80%! Yes, it's a pretty sweet scheme if you're eligible, but it's not a total giveaway.
If you really could buy a $400k HDB that was comparable to the $2m condo next door then the $2m condo would never even be built, as there would be no market for it.
HDB vs Condo is a lot more.
There are serious restrictions on resale hdb flats which cause them to be priced a lot lower than condos.
These restrictions are deliberate policy to ensure affordable housing and subsidise Citizens and PR.
The major ones:
- You have to be a citizen or PR of at least a few years. This cuts out 1.5 million people.
- You have to meet racial and PR quotas. This limits demand.
- You can't have other properties. This excludes people with overseas property and excludes wealthier Singaporeans from buying HDBs as investment property.
I don't know where people thing the SG government would get these "incredible" subsidies from anyway. It's not the UAE!
You do realize they throw people in jail for criticizing the government on facebook right?
There is plenty of criticism that goes on against the government both online and in real life. The only people who are charged with libel suits are those who have either - a) put forth blatantly false statements and have achieved a certain level of fame b) made statements against certain races and religions.
Obviously this isn't the same level of freedom of speech that is found in America but it is nowhere near as draconian as the western media would like to portray.
The number of people who fall into the categories above are a handful. For the millions of people who are only superficially engaged politically this simply does not matter to them, and the quality of living they enjoy far outweighs whatever prohibitions on free speech is imposed.
People are much less likely to be politically engaged in Singapore because of the overall concern about how speaking out could affect them negatively. In private, you often hear strong opinions from taxi drivers, for example, who think they are anonymous to you, but rarely will they speak up in public. That is what happens in a society without free speech and when people can be publicly prosecuted for what they say.
Teenager jailed for insulting Lee Kuan Yew http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37505951
Same event, one of the charges is "wounding religious feeling" http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/29/asia/singapore-amos-yee-teen-b...
he is currently a professor at the lee kuan yew school of public policy.
he has not been thrown in jail.
Are you saying that one example proves that they don't do these types of things?
Who is this? I cannot find anything online about a person who was charged for doing so.
The US certainly does not prop the government up, unless you mean propping it up by inaction or non-intervention.
As to the elements of authoritarianism, a lot of people would argue that the material and social benefits of living in an efficient, forward-thinking state outweighs the subtle elements of state control/overreach.