Need to do some critical thinking

The topic for today is - Ministerial Pay.

I googled and did a short research on the salary of some world leaders.

British PM: £127,334 + £60,277 as a Member of Parliament
US President: US$400 000
French President: 6 594 € per month ~ 80 000 € per year
Singaporean PM: $1.2M or there about

Anyway, I happened to find an explanation to this by the ministry of finance as well. Not very convincing in my opinion.

The formula currently pegs the salary of our ministers to the median of the top 8 earners from 6 professions. (FYI, the engineers are the worst paid group of the 6) As PM Lee recently pointed our, the ministerial salary should be $2.2M should the formula be applied stringently.

Honestly, I have no doubts about the capabilities of our leaders. We have to acknowledge that these men and women are able to command a salary in that range should they have decided to go into the private sector. The purpose of this salary peg is then to retain talent for the civil service to chart Singapore's growth.

Sounds pretty logical, except that the civil service is perhaps driven by different set of motivations. If money is the motivation, why be a politician? A top-rung insurance agent can also earn that amount of money, and I am pretty convinced that our ministers got great persuasive powers.

The civil service has an altruistic dimension, in improving the lives of people, in making this place a better home for all of us. All these are invaluable and can never carry a tangible price tag. Nobody would disagree about the importance of their excellent work, yet when a price has to be put on that, people shudders at the thought of top of the scale renumerations.

This is because the civil service is a not-for-profit organization. The performance of a politician cannot be measured solely on economic terms. Maybe a distant example, but the pay package of TT Durai should serve as a reminder of how people change their perception of renumeration for non-profit organisations' leaders.

Now, pegging the salary of the ministers against the top earners in the private sector is dangerous. Already, people question about the "ironness" of a civil servant's rice bowl. If this iron rice bowl is now gold-plated with the riches of the private world, would we be attracting the wrong kind of people into politics?

The earning potential in the private sector is probably unlimited, and their salaries can only get expectedly bigger. But the Government's budget is limited, and the general rate of salary increase of the taxpayers cannot surpass this elite group. Simply we will have a population which enjoys moderate income growth paying for the supersonic increase in ministerial pay. In this light, this formula is doomed to fail, and is made for creating stirs the day it was approved.

Strange enough, the notion of civil service pay increase seems focused on the top brass until now. It is as if that the work of the top hierarchy is all that matters! As the largest employer in Singapore, it is too easy to demean the work of all the other rank and file civil servants. If the leaders produce stellar results year in year out, doesn't that mean that he has a capable team under him. Then, shouldn't we peg their salaries to the top 48 earners in their domain too? Yet it is an open secret that civil servants' overall pay package tapers off and lags significantly behind their private counter parts.

I think the rhetoric is clear. If the entire structure of civil servants has to suffer from lower renumeration, why should it be any different for the ministerial leaders? In fact, anyone of a good calibre who works for the civil service can possibly get a better-paid and similar position out there in the private sector. The civil service is effective and efficient as a WHOLE, so stop differentiating the ministers as if they were superhuman beings!

Been a long time...

I was typing lotsa long paragraphs everyday, but not for this blog, instead itz for my fyp report. Things are coming finally to an end soon, though prof lee just msned me that my report need to cut quite a bit, but neva elaborate. Shrugz.

Been so busy, hardly having time for myself. Couldn't join shihui and the rest at Wala yst night; haven't went to macritchie to run in quite a while, I think Derrick will struggle again the next time we meet up; no time to play mahjong and catch up with my jc mates.

Really can't wait for this sem to finish. With so little modules left, I actually feel quite comfortable and confident of doing fine. Little worried over my fyp grade though. Felt like I gave my best efforts actually. Am happy working with all the guys and girls, but it appears that some of them are nursing differences now. Hmm hope all's well in the end, been a good yr working with and knowing all of them, though things got too gossipy for my liking recently.

Okie just a casual entry to tell you im still alive and kicking! Bis dann!

Market Correction, Poorer, and More Determined to be CFA

There is a global stock market correction correction, triggered by falls in the Chinese market. From what I gather so far, it is regarded as a healthy correction for overbought markets for the last yr or so, with fundamentals still solid.

Another reason for the massive selling is the increase in interest rates by 0.25% by BOJ. With many hedge funds borrowing yen to buy, they are now selling their stocks to repay the yen loans. It is term "unwinding" of yen trade.

BUT, I am just regurgitating what I read elsewhere. I was a few hundred bucks richer last two weeks, but this healthy correction wiped out my small little profits from my single UT. But I am not losing sleep over it.

Seriously, this market correction makes me realize how ignorant I am, and I still dared to put money into UTs. It has strengthened my desire to pick up more financial skills and to earn the chartered financial analyst (CFA).

The CFA should serve as a useful qualification should i decide to switch career after my bond, and at the very least I will be able to make my money work harder for me.

My lunar birthday, and the end of term break...

Yup today is 元宵节, and it is my lunar birthday. Haha actually only my mother celebrate my Chinese birthday with me, and we had chilli crap and zi char at the kopitiam near my place. Simple fare and lotsa calories! :p

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The term break is over in a wink. Not an especially productive semester break considering that most other people are busy writing their FYP reports.

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Went to the career fair at Suntec over the wkend just to have a look around. Talk to some stat boards and companies and they all told me last yr's bonuses were good, between 4 - 7 months. Wow, so much more than the 2.2 months that the civil servants received!

The only consolation was that it was headline news on ST saturday edition that ministerial and civil servants' pay will rise this year. Looking forward to an increase in starting pay, coupled with a increase in CPF rates to 14.5%, I think it is not too bad a year to start working. =)

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Been entertaining myself watching youtube and crunchyroll lately. Trying to make use of my increased bandwidth with Maxonline subscription. Haha. In the process of watching this Korean drama called "Wedding" starring Jang Nara. Not bad, simple and touching romance with lotsa twists. Been catching Hana Kimi too on youtube before it started airing on Ch U recently.