I agree. And I actually admire the way Singapore is economically honest in this way. By hiring migrant workers to, eg, build the new MRTs, it gets them done much cheaper - and provides thousands of workers with much better jobs than they could have got at home. That money goes straight back to their home countries, raising the wealth of both.

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!

I am also an Aussie, but I have a sister who is a permanent resident in Singapore, and owns a house and a business there. I have spent plenty of time there, and have met lots of western ex-pats who have found success there.

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.

Ah, you were talking about maids. Yes, I agree there needs to be far stricter enforcement there, and a cultural shift to go with it. I haven't witnessed any abuse personally but have also heard stories.

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.

That is interesting; I've been to Australia once in my life, year before last. I went from Brisbane to Roma, and by the time I got to Roma the only non-Caucasian faces I saw were serving me food. I was told (but have no other information, so this could of course be completely wrong) that their contracts and immigration status effectively tied them to their service job, hundreds of miles inland where the only other people like them were in a similar subservient situation, and that the people owning their contracts very much had that kind of power over them.

This is pure anecdote, of course.

I think there is a fair bit of truth in this. There is barely a week that goes by here without a news story about some company or another grossly underpaying and/or mistreating immigrant workers in Australia.

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...

> so infrastructure costs 5x as much and

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%.

> Does it really? I would love to see some like for like figures.

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).

Doesn't 2/3 of Singapore live in public housing? That's a pretty subsidized way of life.

No, that is completely wrong, but admittedly it's a fairly uncommon situation so the confusion is understandable. Singapore is quite unique in that it's such a tiny city, the government has very tight control over land use, and as such has historically acted as a gigantic real estate developer. It has seen its mission as providing cost-effective and yes, sometimes subsidized, housing for its population, and the program to manage this is known as the HDB.

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.

Last time I looked you could get a bto for ~$400k compared to $1.7-$2million for a comparable condo in the same area.

The condo in that case is going to be far superior in every imaginable way. A $400k BTO is going to be very basic.

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 resale HDB is 20-30%.

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.

Yes I know. You sound like you're agreeing with me. I was arguing against some long-ago comments that insinuated the subsidies were "massive", "incredible", etc, and that being born in singapore was some kind of golden ticket to a life of endless government gravy. This is not at all the case.

I don't know where people thing the SG government would get these "incredible" subsidies from anyway. It's not the UAE!

It's not just MRT's. It's any and all construction. On any construction site (even regular homes), you'll see barracks style housing for the migrant labor. They are de facto second class citizens.

Well, they're not citizens at all, hence the phrase "migrant labour".