Lee Kuan Yew: Foreign talents add to growing “intellectual class” in Singapore
July 29th, 2010 | 
Author: Despite widespread unhappiness among Singaporeans at the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore, PAP strongman and Singapore’s self-proclaimed “forecaster extraordinarie” Lee Kuan Yew continued to insist that foreigners are essential for Singapore.
During a dialogue session yesterday with unionists and government officials, he claimed that “foreign talents come to Singapore because of the opportunities it offers.”
Lee boasted that their numbers will add to a growing “intellectual class”:
“We are going to have an intellectual class, about maybe three times as big as what you have now and that will give us the dynamism, the powerful engine to carry us forward faster,” he was quoted as saying in Channel News Asia.
Due to the PAP’s pro-foreigner and ultra-liberal immigration policies, foreigners now make up 36 percent of Singapore’s population. Of the remaining 64 percent who are citizens, an increasing number are born overseas.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the increasing number of foreign workers has depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living and led to an overall decline in the standards of living.
Most of the immigrants are not exactly top-notch talents and are more of opportunists flocking to Singapore to compete directly with locals for jobs which can otherwise be taken up by them.
In a Gallup poll done last year, the top three immigration destinations for China’s college students are United States, France and South Korea. Singapore did not even feature among the top five.
The state media is full of reports of masseurs, construction workers, beauticians and even prostitutes being given Singapore PRs and citizenships. How these people can add to Singapore’s “intellectual class” is anybody’s guess.
Furthermore, no real intellectuals can survive, let alone thrive under such repressive conditions in Singapore where writing a book on the Singapore judiciary can get one arrested and charged for “criminal defamation”.
Yesterday, the Straits Times carried a report of a 25 year old PRC student studying at a private school in Singapore who offered sexual services to a 78 year old retiree for $70.
Under Lee’s warped “intellectual” definition, she is adding to Singapore’s growing “intellectual class” as well.
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oh god!! everyone run!!! another forecast has just been made!!!
why aren’t they the intellectual class in their own countries?
same product only in different packaging.
Quote: [Lee Kuan Yew: Foreign talents add to growing “intellectual class” in Singapore.]
Hey! old fart what is wrong with your thinkings in the mind nowadays? Your dirty mouth is coming out another dirty rubbish to kill our native Singaporeans.
To 66.6% PAP voters, thank you for voting the old man into high office at the last general election to spur rubbish on 66.6% plus 36.4% of all Singaporeans. I think our country is already started to decay now with no hope for the future.
“We the Citizens of Singapore, the Pariah class of our own country, pledge ourselves as one united salve to serve and protect our foreign dignitaries and PAP the master with our blood, our livelihood, our children and our future.”
6 deers has escape from night safari,first mat selmat now deers what hapenig to singapores security?
Just a cover to let in 100K more foreign workers. This ‘intellectual class’ argument is jsut a rehash of the ‘foreign talent’ justification used previously. Bullocks! The whole PAP cabinet is an embarrassment to Singaporeans living and working overseas. I no longer tell my friends and colleagues where I from.
So are these 100,000 going to replace our Ministers too?
As it is already classified as “Intellectual Class.”
So should be better than current. Cause I am sure, these “Intellectual Class” does need to go through THOROUGH INVESTIGATION to tell the people of Singapore that Flash Flood is due to Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain is water.
“intellectual class” ? Obvious elitism is obvious.
Well this octogenarian is really not connected with the ground anymore. He is too afraid to shake hands with the commoner that he does not understand the way people feel these days.
It is not surprising that his intelligent is declining and it saddens me to see him threading sideways as his brain cell degenerate.
Though what he says do make sense. Nonetheless the side effect of the nation’s antidote is too caustic and its affecting our very own people’s life. If you allow a large inflow of talents into Singapore, what will happen to our own breed of talents. Those coming out of our university has to compete with people of the third world country who are overwhelm with our high remuneration. Our citizens have to bear high cost of living but foreign talents have too many options. They can make money here and spend the bulk back at their own country of birth. They got the best of both worlds while our young has lost opportunities because the better jobs are being robbed.
Without sitting back to make a study of the side effect that is threatening this nation in regards to the foreign talent policy, Singapore is doomed. Shouldn’t we regulate the dosage so that we will not die of overdose?
Do you want to vote PAP in the coming general election? Great just do it.
Just wonder why do we have to have a Minister Mentor and a Senior Minister? Actually both these position is redundant since LHL is old enough to walk on his own. So clever he can bring in foreigners to ouster Singaporean. Yet Singaporean vote for him with their head over their heels. Keep it up Singaporean, you got it right always.
Minister Mental Lee is talking about creating a special breed of intellectual class people being the foreign talents and giving them special opportunities.
We should have our conviction that the future of Singapore development should depend primarily on our own local talents and importing foreign talents only to complement or supplemant our local citzens.
It will be predicted that once the PAP regime still continue to pursue its pro-foreigner and ultra-liberal immigration policies, then it relegates the development of our own local people to a lower priority.
We are at 36% foreigners; add another 100K will make it 38%. If adding foreigners is the magic formula to grow the intellectual class, then how come no other country is following this path? Which developed country has 36-38% population as foreigners?
On one hand say FW/FTs are for jobs Singaporeans shunned from. These are predominantly low-paying jobs. So, are we have too many low-paying jobs for the ‘intellectual class’? Three ‘O’ levels considered IC or not? How many of the additional 100K will have Ph.D?
Is it going to be intellect like Zhang Yuan Yuan’s “outstanding” quality of calibre?
IF people like Lee Con You, Sissy Loong, Ho Jinx, Woody Goh, Wong Can’t Sing, Marlboro Tan, Yakult, Sleepy Teo, Lim Sia Suay, Lim Ah Huay, Lim Ah Heng, Shiny-head Shamu, Scared-of-water Lui, Ganny Yong, the 2nd Shamu et al WERE TO BITE THE DUST NOW, AND BECOME WORM FOOD, SINGAPORE’S INTELLECTUAL QUOTIENT WILL INCREASE BY QUADRUPLE TIMES OVERNIGHT.
HOW’S THAT FOR FORECASTING?
Is this part of the 100,000 more foreigner to bring in on the back of supercharged 2nd Qtr GDP figure proven contradictory of claims of strong performance in tourism and pharmaceutical sectors when actually retail sales were worse than 2009 and manufacturing actually rose only 5% in May over April but collaped by over 24% in June 2010?
So the bottomline is the new migration is poltically-motivated rather than economically- justified by GDP claims of needs for foreign labour as usual?
So are the locals and existing PR foreigners here NOT SUFFICIENTLY “INTELLECTUAL” enough for this country – all needing to be displaced soon?
bullshit singapore has enough intellectual but instead silence by them
It is niave in the extreme to believe the real intellectual quality got no better place to go than this political prison and animal farm of endless recycling to service feudalism.
He keeps barking for the gullible simple minded ones for GE lar! Can still con he is senile meh! But more and more of those gullible say he is. So his pappy should be more “charm liao” lor right!
Indeed he should bring those with not only intellect but wise ones too to replace himself and many more non-intellect ones in PAP! That he has to keep ramming up his this cheaper, betterer, fasterest talk shows that he would do anything to make Singaporeans feel completely inadequate by praising foreigners! He IS the only kind of leader that does this! Make small of citizen by make great of foreigner. But at last TOO LAT, he is saying “add to” WOOH!
Doesn’t even know that his tossing and turning shows up his own NO intellect! REPLACE HIM WITH A GREAT FOREIGN INTELLECT! So that at least we have A Truly Intellectual Leader of a Good MENTOR while adding to our pool of TALENTED Singaporeans! And then with such a Good FT MENTOR he’ll DEFINITELY realize that Singapore AINT short of TALENT that his predecessor had purported leh! Stupid people real don’t know how idiotic they are even. And they are so THICK skinned to as they don’t know any better when severely criticized hor!
We need 100,000 more talented Chinese female table tennis players to ensure singapore win at least one olympic gold medal in the next 50 Olympic Games.
LKY never suffered FOOLS so much so that for a while during his iron grip as PM his National Day Speeches were always peppered with grads marrying grads to produce more grads,grads given more privileges,nongrads families paid twenty thousand,
REPEAT $20,000 not to produce anymore babies through a medical procedure.Ironically today we are in dire need of babies or the lack of it. If not import them from India & China also can.
In simple language a Master Elite Class similar to Hitler’s Master Race was and still is his DREAMS for this island in the sun which the classless society from all walks of life BUILT TO WHAT IT IS TODAY with their SWEAT,BLOOD & TEARS over the last 45 years.
Yeah what, she must be a talent and has intellect.
How else to get a 78 year old man’s dicky up.
She must be smart.
Hahahaha….
oh MM LEE please lah.
I have worked alongside some of them and there are no intellectuals.
do you mean intel-LACK?
come on,some of them even have fake degrees and their intellect lacking behind our graduates from ITEs.
you BIG GUYS IN IVORY TOWERS are just FANTASISING,YOU ALL HAVE A FETISH for foreigners?
How come got class system? i thought all equal.
so those no chance/money to study under stupid class?
so skilled worker under manual labour class?
the rich under rich class and those who seek help from Comcare under no class or unclass?
so are we going towards india with the class system or going towards china?
KNN what this old talking. does he want us to united as only one class singapore citizen or separated under many different levels or classes or whatever category?
His son, PM LHL is very weak…
It will be a big problem for Singapore after MMs passing..
The old fart truly needs to get a farking clue and shut the fark up.
Please just go die and leave Singaporeans to live in peace. Seriously, just go and die and stop bothering us.
How exactly does letting in mainland Chinese PRC folks with absolutely zero command of English and low-education add to the intellectualism in Singapore?
Or, more critically, since when and how exactly has intellectualism been promoted in Singapore? If you are an intellectual in Singapore, chances are you have been repressed by the PAP in your intellectualism, or put in prison by the ISD without trial or chased out of the country by the ISD.
Look, the truth is that the Chinese mainlanders PAP has let in by the millions into Singapore are LOWLY-EDUCATED peasants or PROSTITUTES.
How exactly is that going to add to intellectualism?
The old fart has completely lost the plot and sight of reality in Singapore that it is not even remotely funny.
Before he opens his stupid mouth to spew nonsense at us, he should farking get off his high horses and step outside and take at look at the farking nightmare he has created in Singapore.
Seriously, please farking just die and leave us alone.
Must believe LKY.
He has far sight and good judgement. His physical may deteriorate but his brain still growing.
U can see his head a bit bigger now. Nowadays, he always sitting in office thinking this and that for Sg.
Scolding him here it’s like scolding the wall. He can never heard.
We are the one stupid and have no intellectual.
People who scolding wall are lack of intellectual. That’s what he means.
Everyone around him praising him all the time.
So don’t scold him. Praise him.
“Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
— Abraham Lincoln
i don’t know how intellectual the FTs in singapore are. if they were so good, they would have succeeded in their own country and would not have needed to try their luck here.
we’re just taking in more rejects.
You cant solve the problems faced by Singaporeans. Bring in outsiders, give them a good life and make them happy at our expense. Then claim Singaporeans are happy.
Wow. Like that in our schooldays we could have applied this technique. When exam questions cant be answered, modify or change the question to something that can be answered. Better still write our own questions and ignore those given totally.
I remember in the ’80s when I would look forward to each National Day Rally on television. Lee Kuan Yew was gonna speak and I’d always found him to be a great orator, someone who enthralls me each time. I would be glued to the screen listening to every one of his words, even to the point where if I needed to use the toilet, I would run there and be back as soon as I can, so that I wouldn’t miss a word he says.
What’s the use if you kill off any sort of discussion especially about the failings of the PAP? The defamation suits are clearly meant to stymy any grow in the intellectual community which has to be compliant to survive. Just look at the mousy PAP MPs in Parliament and you know what I mean.
This statement is a joke coming from the PAP.
/add to growing “intellectual class” in Singapore/
it means openess & transparency in the cross-sharing, cross-learning & robust debates of ideas / views / alternatives in the public arena & mainstream media for all to see – not in isolation among a few members or intellectuals behind closed doors. else how are these intellectual points going to benefit the nation at large.
Where does all our favourite (politically-speaking) migrants come from? The high tech “fork-spoon-knife” economies or the low tech “chopsticks” economies or worse still “hand” economies?. I suspect the quality mentioned of target is spelt as “TCELLETNI” (aka the inverse of genius) if one needs to reverse the order of that spelt word to know the distortion of what it represents. Silicon valley exists in USA and we have hot shot foreign talent recruited PHD driving taxi and MBA class intellect from foreign univesity working as security guards in town.
In one word it is ‘BULLSHIT” of academic-imprisoned thoughts of irrationality proven repeatedly failed of eugenics experiments. We been there and done that, haven’t we?
This is exactly what you will get out of a leader who are obsess with the principle of social darwinism. But as a citizen, we do have a say of what we want and this is definitely not one of them.
P.S. A tyrant can only be a tyrant when he lets you believes that he has the power over you. It is what you believes that give him power.
PAP is now my family’s no. 1 ENEMY now!!
It is PERSISTENTLY bringing in foreigner PRs to rob us of our jobs, our home, our school places.
Hence Foreigners’ Action Party (FAP), to us, is worse than any terrorist organisation, worse than M AS Selamat, worse than SARS, worse than the Japanese invasion of Singapore.
btw are the 3rd class citizens who are also in the Singapore armforces, have to defend those ‘intellectuals’? or they form their own ‘intellectual’
defence forces to defend themselves??
Lee fuck you’s forecast = Verbal diarrhoea…
so lets see what kind of shit he will be spewing in the coming mths before the elections.
we already have no spurs,no retirement age,growing intellectual(prostitution)class….maybe next we have the crowning of cancer ass loongy to emperor of shittyland and daft frog day celebrations….
3 million for this kind of shit,i can best him for half the price…anytime anywhere!
Contradictions, Contradictions
MM says that immigrants will help increase our intellectual class. Strange isn’t it? our “WORLD CLASS” Education system is somehow not producing enough intellectuals. Are the real Singapore intellectuals actually running away from their own country? As usual we will never know and we just have to keep guessing.
This is the only 1st World country (MM say Singapore is 1st world, so I agree lah!!) I know where immigrants compete on equal terms with locals over jobs, schools and everything else. It is a strange phenomenom. No wonder Singaporeans feel 2nd class some say even 3rd or 4th class.
SI BEI CHAM AH!
face the reality that our intellectuals are being prevented from being intellectual, a word of disgreement, disconted or criticism may result strange things happening to one’s career, reputation and susah mau cari makan.
If you are a smart China scholar who can choose to settle any where in the world and you choose Spore, then you cannot be that smart.
So the so-called scholars that remain are probably 3rd rate and not accepted anywhere else.
What a waste of taxes educating them.
like dat say,why don’t ask his precious son to step down immedaitely and replace him with a foreign talent right away?
afterall,all the froeigners here will be very happy and tell their other talented friends back home about it and they will all flock here.
other people’s sons can go and die without jobs.
anyhow replace with FTs.
own son,make big mistakes still PM.
Own daughter-in-law boo boo billions still ceo.
what are you saying?
First we have NO Talent, must bring in FT,
Then we are Third Class citizen
Now we are STUPID (No INTELLECT) as well,
Of course if we were so SMART we would have voted OTHERWISE….
Thank you for opening up our EYES……
So is Alan Shadrake a talent ? Just because someone writes on PAP’s skeleton in the closet or is critical about the way singapore is governed, he/she is not a talent. On the other hand, any tom,dick and harry who openly heaped phraises on PAP is a talent, like the frog LIm Swee Say.
I see lots of ang mos and africians in my heartland estate, renting hdb rooms. Now not only Indians, Filipinos and PRCs flood to Singapore, the average and lowly-educated ang mos also flood to Singapore.
Are there enough jobs for everyone here?
One of our prime example of FT Mr Sinha with his golden shakecar gold colour Toyota Picnic : SFS7748J
Please make sure you give way to him before he run you down like a dog!
Is lee kuan you “A Straight talker”? Or is he “s LOUD talker”? Keep asking him this to pressure him as he sure must be reading TR for his forecasting of the coming GE! We don’t wanna to curse as that’s not right hor! But if he can’t take it and goes into like say paralysis with brain still functioning, then he’ll finally either learn his lesson. Or start blaming God again! An atheist don’t even believe in retribution you know. Because they are free thinkers “free” to think “anything” that suits them just fine you see! As the only thing they ever know is their own flesh for power in money!
>> LKY say:
Hey, you DAFT IGNORANT Singkies!
According to ME: FT = Foreign TALENT.
That’s why we must open the floodgates to let them in; bend backwards to welcome them with open arms; and spend S$10 MILLION of taxpayers money to help them integrate.
>> S’pore Taxpayer-Voters say:
This Dinosaur-Age Politician is way past his “expiry date”!!!
WE, Singaporeans, Not DAFT and not easily CONNED.
In many cases, FT = Foreign TRASH. PERIOD!
Much has been written and talked about in forums….as to what happens..when MM goes.
But someone..once close to the heart of the matter..tells it like it is.
I pass it along as a community service announcement and for a wider read.
Here it is in full.
Make of it what you will.
You will not find this in the Straits Times.But no doubt it will be read by many there.
Some even will quietly agree.
===============================
There are some who think things will get worse if MM goes,
and eventually when he is no longer there. Then,
there will be no one to crack the whip.
One can be sure, despite all his Act of God claims, he’s kicking ass over the floods. and
the rising prices of public housing. According to reports, Yaacob
sat behind him looking like a whipped puppy when he made the cryptic
statement that ” not enough had been done” on the flood issue.
One certainly wonders if there will be anyone to come up with the
ambitious ideas that LKY had/has. And if they do, is there anyone serious enough and tough enough
to realise them.
Things like the cleaning up of kallang river, and the
building of marina barrage, whether or not it works, could never be
carried out by a “namby pamby” lot now.
He has caused the problems now and is also part of the problem.
He has stamped out potential leaders, in all areas; insisted on total
obedience and promoted materialism.
If he had retired, he could have been there to really advice those who took charge, instead of
having to go in to bat for them. It’s ridiculous that these guys are hiding
behind him and being so dependent on an 86-yr-old man.
But their poor calibre is the result of his policies.
There is also no one (brave enough) to rein him in, like
his old colleagues would have done in the early days.
They would have shot down this latest mad plan to have an intellectual
class, and talked him out of allowing so many foreigners into the country in such a short time.
He’s had an intellectual class all along. It’s not working. This lot go by the
rules and the numbers, completely forgetting they’ are not dealing with
robots. The social aspects of things are not factored in. And they dont know
what to do when things dont work out. Their minds are not flexible and
he wants still more of such crap?!
One can foresee bigger problems — Indonesia will cut back on gas sales.
There IS going to be a screwup on water. How much does it cost to
produce now next to mahathir’s 40 cents dd? Has anyone even asked?
Were there re-negotiations after mahathir left? One johor contract ends
in 2012. It does not look it will be renewed.
And how do you build homes underground in the future if there is already not
enough space for drains now? And for sure all his little new citizens are not
gonna just accept things like (us) the scared sheep do now….in 10 yrs time.
They’ll be screaming about having more foreigners.
Why is nothing being done about using our many islands — for homes, to grow food? They could
have food factories e.g highrise vegetable, rice growing units, on them.
Basically, some could even say he’s been a damned bad parent. He has not let his child go and
learn on its own, make its own mistakes.
One can sometimes feel quite sorry for him.
MM, that is.
For sure, he’s disappointed with how things are turning out, but no one
dares tell him it’s his fault, and being a stubborn egoist, he’s not going
admit it.
Not even to himself!
For all that he has achieved and done..and to be fair..he has achieved a lot… some might also believe ,despite his years, he still hasn’t learnt……….
What a f**k. It is LKY chicken backside mouth again. Want us to be associated with PRC prostitutes for intellectual pool???? He must be senile liao.
Why can’t more Singaporeans be like this model citizen Silcence is Golden. He says the right stuff but then we have so many dogs barking like mad.
The only way Singapore can progress by importing more talented forgieners like me to replace the lazy singaporeans. Mr Lee Kwan Yew is so right. There are so many educated and talented people in my homeland waiting to come here but first must get rid of the Singaporeans here. They act as if they have been here for hundreds of yrs.
Not to worry, Slience is golden, Singaporeans will vote for the PAP. They have no choice. They only can bark like mad dogs but in the end PAP and Mr Lee Kuan Yew will still remain in power and that is good news to us.
PR Citizen
You are a low cast, rejected nincompooh!!
You smell of shit…….yuks!!…….Ptui!!!!
@PR CITIZEN:
July 31, 2010 at 7:56 pm
You think you’re a talent. Rubbish!! Just wait for your turns to be that stupid, arrogant & idiot dog waiting to be slaughtered in your beautiful motherland.
The government used to say that when they brought in the so-called ‘Foreign Talents’, they are creating more jobs for the native Singaporean. Look at what happens now! Are they a liar? Not only they have deprived us of the employments, they just pushed their policies through without cares & passions for the citizens. Do you think I will be proud of this government when they said rally behind the YOG ! Rubbish!! I will say go to hell!!
Whatever it is, the fact is that this tiny island have too much people living in it. Having more foreigner workers be it talented or just another migrants, does it ever occur to MM (Mau Mati) or whoever that’s looking after the Manpower, that the population is going to explode. It is now about 6,600 people per sq km in S’pore. Imagine 10 years from now. Is this really SMART thinking, is this progressing?
Our children are put in so much stress in school, they have lost their child’s life as children all for sake of grooming them to be a well educated persons. They say S’pore education system are one of the best in the world, so where are the scholars, where are the brilliant S’porean. Why do we need outsiders?
One example, the Indians from India are known for their computing and India’s educational system is non-comparable to S’pore. We the citizens of S’pore should be given the priorty for jobs because we were educated from one of the best educational system in the world and we understand the culture of this country better than foreigners.
Time for a new Party to lead Singapore.