mollly meed make sense

The problems highlighted above are real and valid worries, but they hardly touch the heart of the matter. The average Singaporean—and obviously our policymakers are not average Singaporeans given that that our ministers earn enough in one year to afford a decent retirement whereas I can only pray that I would be able to slog away in resigned bitter despair till the day I die—only has his labor to protect him from total helplessness. And it is also what makes him helpless. The same Singaporean who is disadvantaged in terms of employment prospects because of National Service liabilities, who is no match for those who can survive on the lowest wages imaginable, who is not protected by a minimum wage in a country that has third world wage structures is also the Singaporean who faces ever-rising costs of living (which the government sometimes market as ever-improving standards of living) and is ordered to be cheaper, better, faster while clocking the most number of working hours in the world. This is same Singaporean who is also supposed to be kind and nationalistic, speak good English, and vote the PAP into power election after election (which they, disappointingly, will). The average Singaporean is supposed to make merry in misery and be grateful for being able to stay alive by suffering.

Singapore wants me to always be an abject beggar-slave chimera. I have to be a pathetic monster that begs for exploitation because being exploited is my only means of survival. Given that we want to compare with the Finns, perhaps this characterizes the Finns too. Or perhaps we are really much better off.

Finland is not a model that the PAP government of Singapore looks up to as it seems rather fond of the idea of welfare, which is an abomination to the rational PAP. Perhaps we ought to take a look at Finland’s social security system and see how much better off Singaporeans are compared to the Finns.

If Singaporeans want to retire, they should first retire a particular group of expired politicians who are exceptionally talented in marketing asphyxiation to the masses. But we know Singaporeans are good, diligent people like Orwell’s Boxer and we should not expect a Boxer’s Rebellion.

Retirement is not part of the lexicon of Standard English and we should stop using the word.

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Molly Meek