Civil Service Pay Cuts!!!

Never thought I'd see this headline. But here it is!

In all fairness. This is an excellent move by the government. Now I wonder why no one is clamouring for pay increases since they are doing a swell job of (going to) leading us out of this impending time of gloom. I would! Our glorious PAP ministers should be paid much more since they are going all out to help Singaporeans to ensure that 'every child is taken care of!'

[I think if any other political party were to say this it would be slammed as WELFARISM straight out. And the public would support that statement too!]

Back two articles/ravings ago on where the money should be spent we can see again that there is some nonsense and political posturing going on.

Ministerial and high level civil servant pay cuts make the headlines because us ordinary mortals have no way in hell of reaching those levels (or do we?). But what is more catching for me is that the bonusses and the salary (AVC / MVC ... whatever) for the rank and file civil servants will also be slashed.

Perhaps it is impolitic for the government to keep civil servant salaries and bonusses intact but once again, our economic model is premised on consumer spending! There I've spelt it out, don't have to read between the lines anymore. Talk about a party making the hard choices. Really? Not pandering to populist pressures eh?

Cutting a $2M salary to $1M hardly boosts consumer spending by much since all right minded staticians and economists know that the $1M cut is actually more hurting on the ego then on the wallet. But cutting 10% of the pay off about 40% of Singapore's workforce (the civil service hires directly and indirectly about 40% of Singaporeans and PRs - they can't tell the difference) with an average household income of $3,700 (2006 GHSS mumbo numbo) will be far more devastating!

Let's try with the numbers
10% pay cut off 2006 GHSS survey (to be generous about it): $370
Population: 4 million
Number of Working Adults: 25% (assumed number of working adults since the DOS keeps changing the damed target)

Total estimated drain on the economy from this 10% wage cut on ordinary civil servants = $370 x 1M. Only $370M. Do we have 370 ministers from which to cut $1M each? (We could get there - 370 ministers - with the current voting patterns and levels of interest in critical thinking and politics.)

And this $370 M is in the hands of the spending public. The nett trickle down effect could well be over $1B after the money has changed hands a little over two times and if we don't whack the 7% GST on top of it which only serves to slow down economic growth in these harsh times.

Oh, and to the numbers people out there reading this and scrutinising the numbers. Don't even think about pointing out 'errors.' It must be error free since this is the same type of logic applied in Parliament last I checked. If the best and brightest are doing it this way it MUST BE RIGHT for all of us.

Shush!

Let your votes do the talking when the time comes.