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View Full Version : Chris K on PK Lee's "trade-off" arguments


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03-08-2015, 10:20 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Chris Kuan:
August 3, 2015 at 3:42 pm (Quote)
@ A concerned Singaporean

Hey mate, this is where the saying goes
“A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing”

If you feel the need to butter up the PAP wonderful management of the trade-offs, you should at least try to understand those trade-offs beyond the issue of GDP growth.

The essential trade-offs is not between the 6.5% average GDP growth of the last 15 years and zero but between that 6.5% average and 2-4% GDP growth.

6.5% fundamentally means pushing GDP growth beyond the constraints of land, labour and capital. 2 to 4% is growing within those constraints backed by traditional immigration patterns seen up to the mid 1990s.

The trade-offs is not simply between the two sets of GDP numbers but that in the attempt to lift GDP growth beyond the long run growth potential of 2-4% implied by those constraints means the economy went on steroids. Those extra growth has to come from somewhere. That means FW influx and suppressed long term savings rates.

In economic terms this means inflation, runaway property prices and infrastructure stress. The socio-economic outcomes are increased wealth disparity, stagnant wages and inadequate healthcare and retirement.

If GDP growth is aimed at the long run potential of 2-4%, then there are far less negative socio-economic outcomes, wages would not be so stagnant, better outcomes in healthcare and retirement. In this scenario we must also accept another trade-off: economic creative destruction to weed out those inefficient business which are overly reliant on cheap labour and low taxes. It would not only lowered inflation and real estate prices but increase productivity, the problem that LH* and his father had been unable to solve.

Ever wondered why, despite those fabulous GDO growth, people are so stressed and unhappy? That is the outcome of those trade-offs.

Before you dismiss any of what I have written, listen to DPM Tharman, the finance minister whose fiscal policies underpins the economy. He said the new normal is 2-4%, i.e. growing within those constraints I have mentioned. The only wonder is that it took him so long to realize the errors or probably had to toe the line with the PM.

http://www.tremeritus.com/2015/08/03...f-on-ft-issue/ (http://www.tremeritus.com/2015/08/03/pm-lees-already-explained-its-a-trade-off-on-ft-issue/)


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?211863-Chris-K-on-PK-Lee-s-quot-trade-off-quot-arguments&goto=newpost).