Behavioural Psychology Proves that Greed-Driven PAP Ministers' Compensation System is Fundamentally Flawed!!!

The following short video is an animation of Dan Pink's talk on motivation and what drives people. It is based on the discoveries of Behavioural Economists and is key to this post so please take a moment to watch it. It is fantastic to say the least.



The key discovery by the Behavioural Economists is that:

1. As long as a task involves only mechanical skill, monetary incentives correlate with performance i.e. higher the pay the better the performance.
2. Once a task involves even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward leads to poorer performance !!!

Measures that PM Lee SHOULD Have Announced, But Didn't

There's a huge hulabaloo on the internet about PM Lee's national day rally speech and the measures he has announced and why they are crappy and inadequate. I agree generally that it was quite a crappy speech and some of the measures announced were silly and reveal that even right now with all the clanging on the internet and the growing resentment on the ground, the PAP still has no clue.

But instead of criticising PM Lee and joining in the chorus of why the PAP is fucked up, I shall instead propose SOLUTIONS to the problems facing our society today.

$387m Budget Understates Cost of YOG to Singapore Society

It has been widely reported that the original $104m budget for the YOG ballooned to a massive $387m. These are the direct financial costs of the YOG. However, the following are a few hidden costs of the YOG that, if we were to estimate and put a monetary value on them, could significantly blow up the total cost of the YOG to Singapore Society as a whole.

Firstly, if we were to calculate and add the monetary value of the thousands of man-hours of unpaid forced labour that Secondary, JC and Polytechnic students, as well as their teachers, have to contribute to the YOG, that would add a significant sum to the YOG black hole.

Secondly, consider the opportunity cost of the time spent by these students in the YOG, which they could have spent studying or other productive activity. Some students' grades will definitely suffer because of the time they have to spend on this event. This cost of the YOG has obviously not been factored in.

SMRT Cares About the YOG, But Not About You

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this news report on Channelnewsasia:

SMRT to add over 300 more train trips for YOG opening, closing ceremonies
Posted: 12 August 2010 1315 hrs

SINGAPORE: SMRT says it will add over 300 more train trips on August 14 and 26 - the opening and closing ceremonies of the Youth Olympic Games - to bring spectators and participants home after the events.

For the Opening Ceremony on Saturday, close to 200 train trips will be added along the North-South, East-West and Circle Lines after 10pm to shorten waiting time.

Train services will also be extended that day, with the last northbound, eastbound and westbound trains leaving City Hall MRT Station at 1.30am.

The last trains towards Dhoby Ghaut and Marymount on the Circle Line will be adjusted accordingly, to allow commuters to make their transfers at Bishan interchange station.

Likewise, the last Bukit Panjang LRT trains will be adjusted to allow commuters to make their transfers from Choa Chu Kang MRT Station.

For the Closing Ceremony on August 26, more than 100 train trips will be added on the North-South, East-West and Circle Lines after 9.30pm.

- CNA/jm

Why is it that SMRT can bend over backwards to add 300 additional train trips during the Youth Olympic Games, and yet during normal off-peak periods the train stations are over crowded and over packed? (see for example this report on Jurong East, where the trains were coming about every 5-7 minutes - or 12 trains per hour)

Does Singapore YOG Violate ILO Forced Labour Convention?

The following news story was in the Straits Times earlier this year:

Jun 15, 2010
S'pore to ratify ILO Convention
By Lee Jia Xin

SINGAPORE will ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Tripartite Consultation.

This announcement was made by Minister for Manpower Gan Kim Yong at the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Convention 144 aims to establish national tripartite consultations in ILO member states to promote the implementation of international labour standards. It requires ratifying ILO members to undertake effective consultations on matters pertaining to ILO activities between representatives of the government, employers and workers.

With the ratification of Convention 144, Singapore has ratified seven ILO Core and Priority Conventions. One of the core conventions is the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29).

The International Labor Organisation, in C29 Forced Labour Convention, 1930, defines forced labour as follows:

Article 2

1. For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.

Let's break down this definition and apply it to what is happening to secondary, JC and polytechnic students during this Youth Olympic Games

Maybe Pole Dancing Isn't So Bad After All...!!

When the news first broke that a stripper from Sydney would be choreographing the opening pole dancing act of the Youth Olympic Games, there was a major uproar from the online community. Some slammed the inappropriateness of pole dancing for a global youth sporting event, because of its association with sleazy strip clubs. Meanwhile, more open-minded commentators noted that pole dancing was a competitive sport in and of itself and did not necessarily have to be associated with the sex industry.

The recent economic crisis emerging from the United States, however, could put the skill of pole-dancing in a positive light for young girls in Singapore. Consider the following news article:

Stripper Finds Degree Profitable for Goldman Wasn't Worth It
By John Hechinger - Aug 6, 2010

Carrianne Howard dreamed of designing video games, so she enrolled in a program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, a for-profit college part-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered.

These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma: by stripping at the Lido Cabaret, a topless club in Cocoa Beach, Florida. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ve got a worthless degree. It’s like I didn’t attend school at all.”

Does PAP Government Work for Singaporeans or Foreigners?

I decided to delve into an analysis of some of Singapore's Economic statistics today. I did a bit of sleuthing around and some analysis of our GDP data, and what follows below is the results of my analysis. All the data below is publicly available from Singstat. (all charts clickable for full version)

The chart above shows the nominal GDP breakdown from 1999-2009. From the chart we can see that GDP has been steadily on the rise, apart from the recent dip following the financial crisis. The chart also breaks down the GDP into the Foreign Resident share and the indigenous share of GDP.

This chart performs a statistical analysis on the first chart above. As can be seen, the % share of GDP that went to Foreign Residents increased consistently from 37.85% in 1999 to 42.58% in 2009. In other words, a progressively larger proportion of our economy belongs to foreigners. Correspondingly, the indigenous share of GDP has declined from 62.15% to 57.42% from 1999-2009.