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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 09:03 - Mar 28 with 788 views | emigrant |
Very pleased to see you are happy with your lot and long may it continue.
However your living and living in places like Europe can not be compared like for like. Your post indicates a world without poor, something we would love here. Is your situation a case of rich and lesser rich sharing the same space????
If poor do exist, where are they???? Hidden away just like an eyesore???
What do the poor do if they become ill?? Die??
What are the medical facilities for the poor???????????
If you are involved in an accident and you are poor, what are your medical facilities?????
Their is a fine line between attempting to live in a civilised society and actually being uncivilised.
After WW11 we developed a caring society as a result of shared hardships. Rich and poor shared the misery of a war. To care for your neighbour became the norm. However political decisions led to the break up of communities and a loss of that shared experiance. That is not to say that consideration of your fellow man is not worth defending. I suspect, but do not know this is something which ,may be missing where you live. | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 09:13 - Mar 28 with 782 views | Elvis_pompey |
u live in petersfield doncha moosh? | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 09:32 - Mar 28 with 774 views | solent_toffee |
Where do you live? Australia, New Zealand? | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 09:49 - Mar 28 with 766 views | SaintNick |
In the style of Jackanory
"We all know a Banker who got paid big bonus's dont we children" | |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 10:21 - Mar 28 with 745 views | StChristophe |
Is it the UAE - land of the free? | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 11:22 - Mar 28 with 719 views | vectis |
The country is Singapore.
Many people feel it is a dictatorship but I can assure you it's not so much these days...tho sometimes it feels like it.
It is in fact exactly as advertised...a meritocracy. And as such the country is run like a corporation. Pragmatic, un-sentimental, obsessive about efficiency and with a focus on country before community, community before self. What is best for the company? do that. dont mind who it pisses off. And it rewards hard work and enterprise and business sense although doesn't see much of a point in arts and hobbies and creative pursuits. And yet just released a further $67mil into the national arts fund...so i may be being unfair here.
There is a poster in every primary school - "Singapore owes nobody a living!" Says it all really.
Tho of course, that's the country not the people, who are by and large horribly materialistic and yet honest and friendly.
But it is not as heartless as I make out I suppose. Every month you pay 20% of your salary into a fund called CPF and your employer pays 17% (On top of you salary). You can't touch this money until you retire...so as long as you keep working you can have quite a huge sum paid back to you in the end. Tho u can take the money early to help you by property.
A % of that CPF goes into something called medishield...with which you can pay for much of you medical bills...not outpatient usually but hospitalisation for eg. But all companies are required to cover outpatient work up to about $200.
Many poor live 6 or more to a 3 room flat. There are a number of government charities that help the truly poor but it can be harsh on the old folks sometimes.
Tho as usual in Asian societies the old folks tend to live with their eldest child once they can no longer live by themselves. Often much before that point.
That's not to say there aren't homeless poor but there are certainly far fewer here than I see in London for eg.
I have a love-hate relationship with the place. Sometimes it is baffling and frustrating and claustrophobic...but I have been here 19 years and I guess I like it here. It has been good to me. Mostly. And it works. It really does.
Anyway, geography class is over. Just hope saints get 3 pts against Chelsea...but worried about reading now! [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 11:30 - Mar 28 with 704 views | kingkenny |
This post somewhat contradicts your opening one, given that you have listed all the ways the government does in fact help the people.
There is something not right about a country being run like a "corporation". We have corporations who can act like corporations, we don't need government to do the same. Any governments job is to look after its population and ensure success and happiness for all. Now, that's never going to happen 100%, but the goal should be to allow as many people as possible to be successful and happy, rather than a minority.
I think the CPF fund seems like a sensible idea, though if people are working until their 70s it does mean they will have a load of dosh and not much time or energy to spend it! | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 11:38 - Mar 28 with 696 views | vectis |
Well I was being a bit flippant in my original post it's true.
The CPF is a good idea yes. Yet many complain about it...for much the same reason as you suggest. What's te good of all that money when you're 70?! But like I say you can use it to buy property...which is phenomenally expensive.
But I was right...CPF is not a government pot of money paid from taxes...it is a lump sum taken from your salary every month like it or not. Compulsory savings. But it is your money, not the states. So they don provide for you - they force you to provide for yourself. | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 12:02 - Mar 28 with 676 views | kingkenny |
I believe Australia introduced something similar a couple of years ago, which didn't go down well - basically because they, like Britain, have an ageing population and pension problem. But to say that this isn't the government looking after you is wrong. This is the Singapore government doing what it thinks is in the best interest of the people, helping them live more comfortable lives as they get older. I think it's a good idea, but then I save and plan for my old age. Far too many don't, and if they need to be forced to do so, then sobeit. The other potential problem is that if you're already on a low wage, then losing 20% for the future is no help today and people may struggle. But the government contribution of 17% is great. | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 13:21 - Mar 28 with 646 views | redblooded |
Freedom=anarchy. Only in a truly anarchic situation is everyone free, all else is a restriction on freedom to varying degrees. Democracy is a front for the wealthy and powerful to control the masses, where state religion had started to lose control. Communism is a total loss of freedom on the basis of common good, except it is a front for the wealthy and powerful to control of the masses.
Do you want to be a bird in a gilded cage or free to fly? If The latter the only choice is anarchy!
Otherwise shut up and accept whatever cage surrounds you, bend over get shafted and don't forget to say thank you! | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 13:42 - Mar 28 with 634 views | GasGiant |
Like I said on the other thread - where is the benefit in the freedom to die of a variety of new and interesting diseases? You can't eat freedom, it doesn't keep your loved ones warm, and it doesn't protect you when someone else decides that they want some of your freedom to help them be even more "free". All this cobblers about "freedom" as some state of nirvana is about as simplistic and hypocritical as the west coast hippies in 1967 giving out flowers then starting up dot com companies 20 years later.
"The masses" have already got the freedom to act and talk like David Icke - wear a turquoise shell suit...... nobody is stopping them, so they can go and become anarchists in a wood in Wales away from the capitalist lizards. If you earn no capitalist wealth capitialism won't bother you.
THe state on the other hand will never leave you alone. So who is really the enemy of "freedom" here?
But talking like an romantic idealist and behaving like an cynical pragmatist is what most people opt for, it's perfectly sensible, and it helps you sleep at night. | | | |
| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 14:50 - Mar 28 with 618 views | redblooded |
You are right, we all need to accept the boundaries of the system we find ourselves living in, I merely wanted to strip away the dross to the fundamental choices we all have, in theory!
But this acceptance and realisation comes at a cost. Are you happy for the state to seize your savings, land, in fact wherever they want? That is the era we are falling toward, along with this will come the loss of the benefits we now hold dear, unless you can personally afford it. There comes a time when what we get from the state doesn't balance the loss we incur, then we have rebellion and revolution. It has happened before it will happen again, we are currently living in a false nirvana, that is already showing it cannot support its own ideals. Where next? | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 16:15 - Mar 28 with 600 views | Elvis_pompey |
i dont know what the fook u lot are going on about nippers | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 16:19 - Mar 28 with 591 views | Skooba |
you never heard of the dot com boom of 1987?
tsk | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 16:22 - Mar 28 with 589 views | redblooded |
Let me elucidate for you.
"You big stupid, but not bigger stupid that not know when big man take him for the biggest stupid?" | |
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| I enjoyed the foreign debt thread. Until it started to get personal. on 16:23 - Mar 28 with 588 views | Elvis_pompey |
fook off u guys | |
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