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Tag: middle class

  • PM Najib Razak Courts Middle-Class Muslim Votes With Welcome From “Controversial” Preacher, Mufti Menk

    PM Najib Razak Courts Middle-Class Muslim Votes With Welcome From “Controversial” Preacher, Mufti Menk

    KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia has rolled out the red carpet for controversial Islamic scholar Ismail Musa Menk, a move that analysts have suggested could be part of efforts by Prime Minister Najib Razak to burnish his Islamic credentials to appeal to middle-class Muslim voters ahead of the general election.

    “(Mufti) Menk is popular among middle-class Malaysian Muslims … and if this is to be read as a political motive, then this … will boost Najib’s popularity with that group,” Dr Norshahril Saat, a Fellow at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute told TODAY.

    The Zimbabwe-born Mufti Menk has more than 2.3 million Facebook fans and 1.3 million Twitter followers who regularly share his positive quotes on life.

    However, the cleric has flirted with controversy: His strong stance against homosexuality led universities in Britain to cancel his speaking tours in 2013 and he had allegedly advised Muslims against wishing others Merry Christmas.

    He was due to give a talk at a religious conference in Singapore in 2015 but his segment was cancelled for “reasons the authorities did not disclose”, according to the organiser.

    Still, Mufti Menk was in Malaysia over the weekend for an Islamic conference where he was one of the keynote speakers.

    Mr Najib hosted a religious talk attended by the preacher at his official residence on Monday night after meeting the latter on Friday, an encounter that the Prime Minister wrote about in his blog. Photos of them were uploaded on both Mr Najib and Mufti Menk’s social media accounts.

    “Victory only comes to those who are most patient,” Mr Najib quoted the preacher in his blog, noting that those were the words that “struck me the most” in their meeting to discuss about Islam, extremism, as well as the plight and welfare of Muslims around the world.

    The Prime Minister referenced the trials and tribulations faced by Prophet Muhammad and said: “This is one of the reasons why that quote by Mufti Menk struck a chord with me. That has been the way of Rasulullah SAW, and must continue to be the way forward for us Muslims.”

    Malaysia’s national polls are not due until next year but Mr Najib is expected to call for snap polls this year after battling issues surrounding state firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad and overcoming efforts by former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to remove him.

    Throughout last year, Mr Najib’s ruling party, United Malays National Organisation (Umno), increasingly played up the racial and religious cards in a bid to retain the support from the Malays and Bumiputras — a key voting bloc for his party.

    Mr Asrul Hadi Abdullah, a director with political risk consultancy BowerGroupAsia, told TODAY that Mr Najib’s association with Mufti Menk is in line with Umno’s political Islam narrative to capture the Malay community’s votes, as the scholar is popular with the Malay electorate.

    Mr Asrul’s views were echoed by Mr Adib Zalkapli, a political analyst at political risk advisory firm Vriens & Partners, who noted that any association with Mufti Menk is “definitely a vote winner”.

    “Najib is not the first politician to employ this strategy and he won’t be the last. (Former opposition leader) Anwar Ibrahim used the same strategy by getting support from Yusuf Qaradawi when he was on trial for sodomy in 2014,” he said in reference to the renowned Islamic scholar and the head of the Qatar-based International Union for Muslim Scholars.

    Anwar was convicted and jailed for sodomising a former aide, a charge he describes as a politically-motivated attempt to end his career.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • PAP Engineering A Subservient Middle Class

    PAP Engineering A Subservient Middle Class

    Every stable well developed first world country will have one common characteristic, a large and strong middle class. A strong middle class is the basic building block of a mature and developed economy and society. A strong middle class provides the consumption as well as the inputs needed to drive and sustain a country’s economy.

    I offer an alternative perspective to the author’s rendition of needs and wants.

    Needs are defined as a necessity for survival for every living creature. It is however not unique to the middle class or any class. Healthcare, safety, law and order, housing, education.. are universal requirements.

    Wants are the source of inspiration and motivation for a better quality of life for ones family. This is the basic DNA of humanity that drives its ability to create, innovate and progress a nation forward. Without wants, a state of mediocrity will exist.

    What the reporter Rachel advocates is that for the Singaporean middle class to accept mediocrity, and become the subservient workforce to support the PAP elitist policy of providing for themselves, super rich and rich. Such policies like the freeze on medical student intake remaining the same since the beginning of times, the removal of the recognition of law degree programs from overseas universities, the PAP propaganda to discourage our youth from pursuing higher education, the prejudice of university scholarships against our Singaporean youth. By denying the opportunities for advancement for our youth, the PAP government is once again engineering themselves to dominate over Singaporeans and to rule forever.

    Therefore as the subservient workforce forever doomed to a life of submission, the middle class should have no ambition for improving their quality of life, and therefore not harbour any desires for wants. Needs is enough for the middle class and for all Singaporeans, except the PAP and the rich.

    The PAP is saying to all Singaporeans to accept the life of mediocrity and serve the rich and elites.

    PAP has no credibility

    * Comment appeared in TRE article: ST reporter says middle-class can’t tell ‘needs’ from ‘wants’

     

    Source: www.tremeritus.com

  • Budget Should Look To Future, Help Middle Class

    Budget Should Look To Future, Help Middle Class

    Sandwiched between raising a family and caring for their ageing parents as the costs of living rise, the middle class could receive more attention in the Budget this year, which will be delivered by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam this afternoon.

    And while there have been predictions from some quarters of an election Budget with goodies in the offing, some observers have cautioned against focusing too much on the short term, saying the Budget should be assessed on whether it delivers a convincing long-term plan for the Republic.

    Employment and income insecurity, wage stagnation and inflation, as well as anxiety about their own and their children’s financial future are some of the chief concerns of middle-income earners — who are the largest stakeholders in the country, said Institute of Policy Studies sociologist Tan Ern Ser. “If Singapore aspires to be a middle-class society … then there are good reasons to address (the middle-income group’s) concerns,” he added.

    Subsidies to help people look after their elderly parents or for childcare and their children’s education would go a long way for middle-income earners, because these are their heaviest burdens, said Mr Vishnu Varathan, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Bank. He added that more rebates could also be expected for middle-income households, with income earners taking on skills training or further education.

    Earlier this month, Mr Tharman, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, indicated that this year’s Budget would focus on building Singapore’s future in terms of addressing retirement adequacy and helping Singaporeans, both those still in school and mid-career, have good careers.

    Mr Tharman chairs the 25-member SkillsFuture Council, a national panel set up last September to develop a system of education, training and progression for Singaporeans. He also said the Government was putting the final touches to the Silver Support Scheme, along with other measures to help the low-income elderly.

    The needs of the “sandwiched” class must be addressed as they do not qualify for schemes that help the poor, nor do they have the financial capability of upper-income earners, said Associate Professor Eugene Tan from the Singapore Management University School of Law.

    “If you talk about trying to ensure Singapore is ready for the future, it becomes critical to ensure this group is well equipped and has confidence in the future of the country. If the Budget can lift this broad middle class … who occupy the heartlands of Singapore … then the future of Singapore will become secure as well,” he said.

    Associate Professor Bilveer Singh from NUS’ Department of Political Science said public expectations for this year’s Budget are high, given that it is Singapore’s Golden Jubilee and that there is talk of the elections looming. The next General Election must be held by January 2017.

    “Partly, the Government created these expectations for itself … People will say, ‘Okay, what is there for me after 50 years?’” he said. “Budget is when people will see the political will from the Government — can this Government really deliver? Is the Government really caring?”

    In a research note published last week, Barclays economists Leong Wai Ho and Bill Diviney pointed to previous incentives that had preceded elections, such as the S$3.2 billion Grow and Share package in 2011.

    Dr Tan Ern Ser noted that, increasingly, Singaporeans expect the Government to provide support not only in weathering economic storms, but also in buffering them against risks of inflation, employment and income insecurity as well as wage stagnation. “In short, harping on self-reliance and focusing on job creation and skills training alone are not sufficient,” he said.

    Assoc Prof Tan said the Government would have to show that the Budget would not be about short-term measures. “I hope we measure the worth of the Budget by looking at what it actually does to strengthen our capabilities and capacity to do even more and to do well in the years ahead,” he said.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Household Incomes In Singapore Rise But Income Gap Remains Largely Unchanged

    Household Incomes In Singapore Rise But Income Gap Remains Largely Unchanged

    The earnings of households across income levels grew last year, even after accounting for inflation, while the income gap between the rich and the poor remained largely unchanged from 2013.

    Numbers released yesterday by the Department of Statistics (SingStat) on key household income trends last year showed that the median monthly household income from work grew to S$8,290, up 4.1 per cent after accounting for inflation. This was the highest real increase since 2011, which saw a 5.6 per cent growth from 2010.

    Factoring in the household sizes, the median monthly household income from work per household member also rose by 4.7 per cent last year, after accounting for inflation.

    Meanwhile, the Gini coefficient — a measure of income inequality — was 0.464 last year, compared with 0.463 in 2013. After adjusting for Government transfers, it was 0.412 last year, slightly higher than 0.409 in 2013.

    SingStat said this was because the amount of Government transfers and taxes was lower last year compared with 2013, when there were more one-off payments such as one-off Medisave top-ups and special payments on top of the permanent GST voucher payments. “In the past two years, the Gini, after accounting for Government transfers and taxes, had been at its lowest level in a decade,” added SingStat.

    Experts whom TODAY spoke to attributed the growth in real household income to a tighter labour market, where there could have been wage increments, given the need to retain labour.

    While the experts felt the Government would be able to continue with the transfers and taxes for the lower income, given that it had been careful with such payments so far, they said it would need to look at increasing productivity levels and upgrading employers’ skills in the longer term.

    OCBC economist Selena Ling felt it was encouraging to see the Gini coefficient stabilising at a relatively lower level, but said the Government would need to continue to balance the short-term wants of people with the longer-term issue of fiscal sustainability. Nonetheless, she noted that the Government had been “fairly prudent”. “Even last year’s budget, the fact that it can fund, completely upfront, S$8 billion (for the) Pioneer Generation Package tells you something about the health of the fiscal position for Singapore,” she said.

    CIMB economist Song Seng Wun felt that raising household income through Government transfers was “not a sustainable model”, and said the focus would continue to be on the drive to increase productivity. “What we want to do is to (look) at income as a whole, how it can be lifted through a more broad-based rise in wages,” he added.

    On the other hand, pointing to the cumulative growth in average income per household member over the past five years, UOB economist Alvin Liew noted that the lowest-income group at the 1st to 10th percentile saw a lower income growth of 17.2 per cent, compared with those at the 11th to 40th percentile.

    Noting that there could be “something chronic” within that group preventing them from being able to raise their incomes at a faster pace, Mr Liew said this group needed more help.

    He added that those in the middle-income groups also saw lower income growth of less than 5 per cent last year. The 41st to 50th percentile recorded a 4.8 per cent growth in income, while the 51st to 80th percentile saw an income growth of 4.6 per cent.

    While this could be too broad a group to be classified as a sandwiched class, Mr Liew said these were the people who do not qualify for Government transfers and taxes, though their income levels are not growing as fast.

    “The question is, how do you help these people who are probably not getting the transfers, but their incomes are not growing as fast … while you have other things that are moving against them, like elevated property prices and the growing cost of living in Singapore,” he added.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com