Banking analysts urge government to remove citizens from the island
Singapore¡¯s citizens are the biggest threat to national growth, said analysts at Goldman Sachs at an annual wealth conference yesterday, held in Marina Bay Sands.
Speaking at a panel discussion about emerging markets in Asia, the analysts agreed that the increasingly vocal citizenry in the once-orderly island has disrupted economic growth for 2013 and will continue to be a drag on the economy for years to come.
¡°Let¡¯s be honest here. Does Singapore need Singaporeans? No. The children are taken care off by foreign domestic helpers, the hawkers are Malaysian, the buildings are constructed by Bangladeshis. All Singaporeans are good for are populating the army, which has never gone to war!¡± said emerging markets specialist, Thomas Money.
Money pointed out that Singapore¡¯s only comparative advantages against its competitors were location, and immigrants. He proposed slowly phasing out Singaporeans so they would be unable to interfere with pro-growth government policies.
¡°I love the country, but I really can¡¯t stand the people and their disgraceful sense of entitlement. The weather¡¯s great, the gastronomy scene is livening up in Marina Bay Sands, and the women are gorgeous. But the xenophobia on the island is extremely troubling. Without foreigners like myself who bring in capital without paying taxes, Singapore would not be where it is today. And no Singaporean ever thanks us for gracing their backwater island with our presence and cash.¡±
¡°If things don¡¯t improve, I might just pack up and leave.¡±
Other analysts on the panel also noted that as Singapore grew at an astronomical pace under a soft-authoritarian regime, the only way to preserve the country¡¯s economy, is to regress democratically.
¡°I¡¯m quite ashamed of Singaporeans too,¡± said commodities specialist Chao Hee Lang who is a local and a weekend volunteer at a migrant workers NGO. ¡°All this xenophobia and hatred¡ No wonder Lee Kuan Yew once said that only educated people should be able to vote. People like myself, who can see that freedom is not always a good thing.¡±
¡°God bless the foreign workers. Without them working at ridiculously low wages, we would never get anything done. And yet, no one is grateful to them for doing us a favour!¡±
The panel discussion was chaired by Acting Ministry for Economic Affairs, Mr Jin Jue Lui who reassured the audience that the government was already working on a plan to reduce the proportion of native citizens in the population to about 50% by 2030.
