Economist Chang Ha Joon raised an interesting point that a country's per capita income is less accurate as an indicator of standard of living if there is high income inequality.
Instead of comparing to lesser countries which the supporters of the hybrid regime likes to do, let's compare to other 1st world developed countries. We'll use the GDP (PPP) which is Purchasing Power Parity as the indicator measuring standard of living which economist Chang said is a better indicator than GDP per capita itself.
GDP (PPP) converts incomes of different countries into a common measure of living standards. All figures are in US$ extracted from wikipedia's GDP (PPP) 2012 by International Monetary Fund.
Comparing with Nordic countries
Gosh! Look at their (PPP) incomes dropping so much & yet Sillypore can go up. What's going on?
Reason for Sillypore going UP is because:
- Sillypore depends a lot on cheap foreign labor such as maids, waitress, bus drivers, technicians etc
- With those cheap services, citizens have more buying power.
- Yet Sinkies are most unhappiest in the world.
As economist Chang pointed out about high income inequality though he didn't cite S'pore, here in SG much of populace suffer depressed salaries which means only a small portion enjoy greater purchasing power at the misery/poverty of the masses. Hence it is a contributory factor as to why sinkies are unhappiest in the world according to an independent survey by Gallup.
Reasons for Nordic countries DOWN a lot is because:
- Expensive service workers such as waitress, bus drivers, technicians etc
- With expensive services, scandinavians have much reduced buying power.
- Yet scandinavians rank high up in happiness.
With no depressed salaries & tight limits on cheaper foreign labor, the GDP (PPP) is a lot more reliable for the general populace.
Comparing with Swiss standard of living & other countries sinkies would migrate to
Gosh! Again we see reduced purchasing power & the strange thing is these are the countries sinkies would migrate to.
Why down for the other countries? Same reason as nordic countries - expensive service workers & tight limits on cheaper foreign labor.
I've included Switzerland as the peasants were promised a Swiss standard of living by the hybrid regime. But according to GDP (PPP), we have already way exceeded the goal. However as i explained above - SG's dangerous income inequality screws the whole thing up.
USA's 2012 figures are a bit of an anormaly which i've included. Economist Chang cited an UP disparity for 2007 figures in his book resembling like SG & USA suffers from very high income inequality which he explains. His explanation is what i've learnt to explain SG's UP anomaly here.
Maids
Look at the comparisons with other rich developed economies again & you'll realise that the citizens living in those countries hardly if ever rely on maids. It is only Sillypore with abundant maids.
Service workers are expensive in those 1st world economies & they don't have a liberal policy of letting in cheap maids to let their middle class citizens live like kings & queens. Again the anomaly of sinkies migrating to countries where maids are expensive & hard to hire!
Middle class sinkies get to live like kings & queens with cheap maids/servants from 3rd world nations at their beck & call. Never did they realise that the hybrid regime would turn against them by flooding in cheaper foreign workers from 3rd world nations to replace the jobs of the middle class citizens. Karma.
Slogging Long Hours for High Standard of Living
The long working hours are omitted from the gdp figures that the hybrid regime loves to tout. By allowing in plentiful numbers of maids to do housework, the hybrid regime figured they can get the peasants to slave away longer at work. Less time for leisurely pursuits, exercise & family/friends is not something i would consider high standard of living.
High income inequality effectively shuts down GDP (PPP) of US$60,799 (S$75,336) as a measurement of standard of living in SG. There are other non-income factors to consider in measuring the well-being of a society.
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Related:
Another pathetic outcome when compared to Nordic countries -
Sinkies: 19% Thriving, 75% Struggling, 6% Suffering
The way maids are treated in Sg is like slavery, with extremely low wages and long working hours for most. Most of them don't even have rest days since most employers would rather pay them in exchange for the rest day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. The lowly paid maids slaving away & so many of them is what i suspect is the beginning of the massive cheap foreign labor that has brought woes to SG.
DeleteFrom cheap maids, the hybrid regime then brought in foreign people 'higher up the ladder' to replace the local citizenry jobs.
Yes most employers would rather pay the maids to work instead of give a rest day cause many of them slave long hours at work. Thus they rather 'recover from work' by paying the low-paid maid to do the housework.