US business: Will SG continue to be cheap?

Not a problem for these business leaders who sat with PM Lee to read the real message coming out of Singapore today: we can no longer sell ourselves cheap. What do investors care? The cheaper we could offer ourselves the better. We have been selling ourselves for a song for too long. The marginal ones will have to leave but  we don't know who and how many. If the numbers are too large, there would be many job losses. This is a government that frightens very easily but have to bite the bullet or get voted out, the greater evil at least from their point of view.

Another asset we might be over paying for is our sterling reputation. It is a huge plus when the path we are on is the right one. If we have to change course, we cannot do so without putting our reputation at risk. Do we have the courage to do that? It is clear that we do not. The government thinking within their concrete box cannot imagine anything beyond. They would love to grow their box but of course they only do that by cutting prices and on harsh terms that displace locals in favor of foreigners. To them as long as the GDP grows it doesn't matter how the slices are distributed among the people. In their poverty of values they fail to recognize that in life it is better to have a smaller but more equal pie slices than a very large and unequally sliced one. We end up with large segment of the population having to make do with less than a living wage. The welfare rolls swelled as people could not find adequate jobs. They lose their self respect and in aggregate social tension and problems are amplified. If this isn't the result of growth at all costs, what is?

To be fair the government is trying to ameliorate the manpower situation throttling foreign workers and executives coming in, but being wedded to this old paradigm how much can they restrain the growth of these foreigners? We are still drinking the nasty old wine and there is no future in that. We need new wine. The first task is all political parties must commit to is to put nation before party interest, which the PAP is completely wanting. That is why we are in a fix today.