I agree with the views expressed by this writer
http://www.todayonline.com/Commentary/EDC120424-0000011/Social-model-is-Europes-solution,-not-its-problem
I will give my reasons separately.
http://www.todayonline.com/Commentary/EDC120424-0000011/Social-model-is-Europes-solution,-not-its-problem
I will give my reasons separately.
4 comments:
The writer claimed that " Germany has grown at the expense of its partners.", which presumably refers to other EU countries.
This is to justify why the richer EU countries should bail out the poorer ones ("Wealth that is generated by the creation of a continent-wide market should benefit the citizens of the EU together.").
There is no basis for such a claim - German's exports are very different from the exports of the EU countries which are facing problems.
I doubt the solution is to compete against China's lower wages.
His diagnosis - "What handicaps European businesses today is the lack of quality and innovation." - is only partly true, and in fact, applicable to most countries around the world, including Singapore, and hardly just EU countries.
His solution - "More of the wealth that companies produce should be used to increase salaries (with social-security payments), and to pay for training as well as research and development. Doing so would help companies to innovate and strengthen their position in the market." sounds workable in theory but has not been proven in practice.
Even the Singapore government which did not need to tax wealthy companies heavily to fund R&D and training, is not seeing any significant returns in these spendings.
What incentive is there for workers and managers for the less successful companies to become better if they know they will be bailed out by profits from the more successful companies?
Taking the extreme of privatising everything is not a solution either - the writer is correct to note that in purer market economy, workers tend to be at the mercy of the profit-maximising capitalists.
What would motivate staff best is not assurance of income or welfare but personal stake in the company they work in.
I like to have some of the work in the community done by public servants - law enforcement, teaching, basic health care, public services.
The working conditions set by the government should be based on what is a sustainable wage, and should serve as a benchmark for the private sector.
The government should not be thinking of how to reduce wage as much as possible.
Some countries had a public sector that is too large, and that is bad for the economy. But, a reasonable size public sector should be a good approach. I consider that the public sector can take 20 to 30% of the workforce.
This is just a guess - as I have not studied what is a good benchmark based on the experience of successful countries.
I also like to have some social welfare funded by the state, as the weaker members of our society need to be protected from the exploitation of the market and of the employers who stronger bargaining power.
I do not wish to go to the extreme, where people are lazy and supported by social welfare. So, we need to make the right judgement on what is necessary and desirable. We should not just "leave things to the market" to sort out.
We need people to take leadership, to take responsibility, to make the judgement. This is a weakness in Singapore (i.e. avoid responsibility) that should be addressed.
@ "We should not just "leave things to the market" to sort out.".
I agree with this statement. Singapore had relied too mcuh on the market forces to solve problems, which crudely put is relying on "money" to solve problems.
While we were a 3rd World country and developing, it might be good. The people probably also prosper along the way with development.
But once developed, it does more harm than good. E.g. the HDB Resale market, COE prices, MRT, Healthcare, etc. You can coin nice terms for schemes such as "asset enhacement" for HDB etc, but the "packaging" is not effective anymore...primarily when "money" is the tool for implementation and control.
And PAP's approach to solve problems is to create solutions to make the problems look platable, what Mr Tan called "convoluted" schemes or what in the "Army" we crudely called "cover-ups"...perhaps cosmetic is the right word.
Alot of them are temporary measures to buy time ... and the root causes are not acknowledged or solutions do not solve problems at the "root". So as the Chinese saying goes, when the "Spring wind blows, it grows again".
I have another example...during past economic downturns...CPF was used as a tool across the board to lower "wages"...they called it "wage restructuring"...and now we have "wage stagnation" and the NTUC Chief said, "You must push up productivity first"...and it was said in Parliament "you all must improve productivity by 2~3% annually for the next 10 years in order to have wages up by 30% in a decade's time".
The rhetorics seemed right, but the implementation ... "chicken-and-egg" issues ... and sometime even "bird-brain" arguments ... and even take years to argue and implement temporary measures.
The common people will lose faith ...
@"We need people to take leadership, to take responsibility, to make the judgement. This is a weakness in Singapore (i.e. avoid responsibility) that should be addressed."
I think for too long...the Public Service and also Singaporeans generally had been leaving "the top GOVT servants / Minsters" and also "top CEOs" of corporations only to make decisions and say things "right". Then we hope to see the "whole system collapse" like a pile of stacked cards" LOL.
This assumption actually works out in reality...the results are just like these MRT failures.
Many thinks and fears what they say would be "WRONG". LOL.
There are some common sense decisions which can be done at the bottom and middle ranks. LOL. Not all things must refer up, I don't think even a Communist country like China works this way.
There is a thin line between "CAREFREE" and "IRRESPONSIBLE".
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