Why the PAP govt does this is obvious. This group of retirees or elderly workers faces rising cost of living as their earning power decline. If they are retired, they retirement money is badly eroded by inflation.
Sweeteners are typically given out before election to ease the pain so that people continue to vote for the PAP despite what they have done during their time in office.
To tell Singaporeans not to be swayed by such short term incentives and think about what affects them in the long run is often futile. The Majulah generation either retired or preparing to retire needs cost of living to be low to have a good quality of life. The PAP acts against this as their policies such as importing foreigners to overpopulate Singapore drives up cost of living. GST. hikes drive up cost of living. Everything is inflating at a rate that hurts the interest of Singaporeans.
One example is the medical cost inflation which is 13% a year due to increase demand resulting from overpopulation policies of the PAP the system just cannot cope.The $2000 given to medisave won't help much offset hospital and outpatient bills which have escalated.
Over the past year I asked people which major aspect of life has improved in the last 15yrs. You will be hard pressed to come up with anything. Maybe the public transport breaks down less often than 10yrs ago and the MRT has more stations. Everything else cost of housing, cars, medical, hawker food, water, electricity have risen faster than people's income. Job security has declined and it's harder to find a good job. Major social problems like low fertility, mental illness, stress, violent crime, scams etc have all gone up.
The PAP uses various tools like POFMA to control what people discuss by going after critics and opposition so they become afraid to speak. But if you look back at what these critics have warned about what the PAP will do to us a lot of it came true and will come true. For example 11years ago, Singapore citizens protested against the PAP policies and express concerns about over population through importing people. The PAP denied that 6.9 million was the target. Our population was 5.4million in 2014 today it is 6million. We are the most densely populated nation in the world now. Where are the main critics who spoke out against the PAP population policies some were sued and silenced.
Progress won't come from voting for the same group of people that have caused such decline in your quality of life over the last 15yrs. They will just carry on with the same old broken policies that have taken us here. They will use sweeteners to distract you so you forget your plight and vote for another 5yr instalment of those policies.
What we need is clarity in our thinking to overcome the distraction they wave at us during election periods. Are you better off than you were before? Is your job secure? Is housing more affordable? Can you afford a better life?
A strategic rethink cannot come from the PAP. For them it's business as usual. Why not if they can just pass the pain to the people while the circle of privileged elites enjoy disproportionate benefits from the system. Several months ago 2 ministers were caught in a controversy surrounding black and white homes..While we don't begrudge ministers for living more luxurious lives than ourselves. But mansions of that kind of size undermines the moral authority of those in power to tell us to make do with smaller and smaller.homes as housing prices soar. It does not help that one of those ministers sold off his home for a whopping $88M to unknown buyers.
If you look at the history of nations the biggest mistakes are made when past success persuade people to continue without making significant timely changes. We keep hearing replays of the Singapore 3rd world to 1st story. The PAP version of it. They want to spend $300M on a Founder's Memorial to keep reminding us of PAP version of the story. Ultimately how is success measured? It is how much the lives of the people have in improved. It is not about keep a system going for the sake of it.
Last year I came across a study that showed that Singaporeans are having more and more difficulty sleeping at night. If your life is improving and you feel secure, you would sleep well. 1 in 3 of our youth have mental issues.
The system we have today is not improving our lives year after year but forcing us to participate in a race to the bottom.
If we continue to let the PAP run the system without major change the damage be it in the form of stress or decline in the quality of life will just deepen.
We need a govt that step up efforts to solve problems not make things worse for Singaporeans.
We need real solutions for healthcare, housing, job security, fertility rates etc. The PAP has not offered any and have only made things worse for Singaporeans..
I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.