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Free Lunch Vs. Paid Dinner - a battle of hearts

2015 PAP Strategy 战略 15 -- strategy of free lunch

The PAP is throwing away free lunches like nobody money in election time.  They not only provide free lunches. In addition, they also give more financial incentives, for example, HDB grants of $20,000, or even up to $80,000 if residents are qualified. For young children, they also increase the baby bonuses.
This is one of the free lunch events where you see potential PAP candidates serving lunch to residents.  
yahoo.sg
The PAP wants to talk about minds and hearts in this election. They strongly think free lunches and goodies can catch the minds and hearts of voters. They have been doing it non-stop in the past 50 years. However, with the maturity of voters, the strategy of free lunch faces a dilemma that generates diminishing return. The more the PAP invests in free lunch activities, the less return they receive. As a result, minds and hearts are no more with the PAP.
In the opposite side, the PAP is wondering why people are willing to pay money to attend Workers’ Party SG50 celebration dinner.  The Straits Times reported one hawker was paying $45 to attend the dinner. Use your ‘minds and hearts’ to think about this. A not so well to do hawker is willing to spend money for a dinner with WP and not a free lunch with the PAP.  What does this imply?


This is the paid dinner organised by WP last Sunday.
yahoo.sg
Free lunch vs. paid dinner. And people choose to pay for the dinner and receive a proper dignity and respect. This is very unusual for a ‘money no enough’ Singapore. But people are awakening and demand more respect.


This especially true for pragmatic Singaporeans.  The PAP always stresses that there is no free lunch. Everyone has to work, work until drop down on the floor. The government talk about economic growth, productivity and efficiency. It runs Singapore like a corporation. It is so similar like Amazon as reported in the New York Times:  
[ workers “were pushed harder and harder to work faster and faster until they were terminated, they quit or they got injured.”]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/opinion/joe-nocera-jeff-bezos-and-the-amazon-way.html
Amazon.png

Look at the right hand side of the above picture, the explosive growth of Amazon is what the PAP aims for. Now, we can better understand why low-income workers have no wage increase and the PMETs could not find a good job.


Do you still remember Lim Swee Say’s famous phrase of  

Be “faster, better, cheaper”


The PAP is treating Singaporeans like Amazon treats their workers. The government is only interested to make money, to be faster, better and cheaper.


This explains why the minds and hearts are not at their side. And the PAP still wonders why a paid dinner has a higher value than a free lunch.  

 To put in a simple analogy, it is the difference between action and talk. 

  


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