Presidential candidates on their pay

Roundtable discussion with the Presidential candidates

www.razor.tv

The four Presidential candidates were in The Straits Times newsroom for a roundtable discussion.Catch this teaser of what to expect before the full discussion goes online at 6am on 17 August 2011.

Tan Jee Say gave a good if idealistic answer. Problem is I doubt we can ever find enough people as willing to serve on these terms. Human society would be very different if such ideas were more lived than preached. We are congenitally inconsistent and hypocritical. We are rarely aware of our condition since we are all equally afflicted. You need contrast to tell.

If leaders are extravagantly paid, they have little or no moral authority. Unavoidable and difficult problems cannot be solved except resorting to the type of politics elsewhere like in America, Europe and may be even Japan. That is not solving the problem but always kicking the can down the road. Everyone does that so for a while it is alright. Only for a while.

Actually leaders of the first world are more highly paid than ours because we do not count their claims to the birds in the bush which they collect after leaving office. Early US Presidents never had such opportunities.

We will need to be luckier than before to do well. I hope the education and resources we now have but woefully absent in the early days will tip the balance to our advantage.

Clearly high pay cannot attract the right men and women to high office. In fact, it makes it harder to identify the right people. For the damage it can do to us tomorrow, look no further than American corporate honchos.

This is an example of luck for us: LKY decided on English as the working language not for economic but social political reasons. The tremendous edge we now enjoy with that policy was never foreseen.