Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Aftermath

Was reading articles randomly online regarding the Punggol by-election, some interesting, some totally irrational or anti-PAP - I am against opposing for the sake of opposing. Interestingly, it came to me, from one or a sum of the articles, the multitude consequences of influx of cheap foreign labour. Of course, short-term wise, it may serve as the back-bone for a sudden economic bloom. But the long-term impacts are shattering. Firstly, companies lost the motivation for higher productivity, being over-reliant on cheap labour over time. This is almost irreversible, unless the government imposes minimum wages, which I am also against, and no, direct incentives (e.g. tax incentive) given to companies to improve productivity remain unattractive, hence ineffectual, given the very critical and natural drive of businesses for maximum profit (i.e. higher sale volume, or lowest cost), and simply, labour as a cost to business, has a bigger, immediate impact. Next, it has worsened the income gap between the rich and poor Singaporeans, as the rich gets richer faster, while the populace's average earning simply can't keep up. Naturally, the rich will drive up the cost of living (come now, the shops have eyes to see that the rich can pay more, hence are most willing to increase their price of goods and profit margin.), leaving the rest struggling. 

Suddenly, perhaps only to a layman like myself, imposing minimum wages doesn't seem such a bad idea in these extreme circumstances.

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