May Day, May Day

"What, no parachute? Too bad."

Today the Straits Times has three separate articles about SIA and the airline industry. If you use your head and put two and two together, it's quite easy to predict what's coming soon for SIA staff.

The first article tells us that MM Lee thinks that SIA pilots are overpaid and we need some new clever ways to slash their pay without appearing to slash their pay:

MM MEETS SIA MANAGEMENT, UNIONS
Pilots 'must be flexible with pay'

PILOTS are a 'special' breed, but like the rest of Singapore Airlines (SIA) employees, they must also keep up with changing times and be flexible when it comes to deciding their pay package, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew advised the pilots' union yesterday.

This will ensure that the airline survives in the face of intense competition, he said at a dialogue yesterday with SIA management and representatives from five unions, including the Airline Pilots Association Singapore (Alpa-S).

In general, he said, SIA would pay competitive wages, but wages must be more flexible.

'Salary increments should not be locked into basic pay and make costs inflexible when in downturns. Instead, more payments should be in allowances varying with profits,' he said.

In the second article, MM Lee talks about "hiving off" some SIA units. Which basically means "restructuring". Which in turn basically means "downsizing" and "retrenching".

MM's verdict: Airline labour-management relations have improved
SIA urged to hive off some units

MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is persuaded that once-rocky relations between the five unions and management of Singapore Airlines (SIA) have improved, but he wants them to keep at it.

More adjustments will be needed to meet growing competition and one key step will be to hive off some parts of the business, he said.

He singled out SIA's catering and engineering subsidiaries as requiring hiving off 'sooner rather than later'.

Singapore Airport Terminal Services (Sats) and Singapore Airlines Engineering Company (Siaec) must become separate companies and compete with other players entering these two sectors, he said.

In the 3rd article, we learn that Mr Koh Boon Hwee, SIA Chairman, is stepping down and getting replaced by Mr Stephen Lee. MM Lee says some very nice things about Stephen Lee, which gives you an idea of why Stephen Lee has been chosen to be the new SIA Chairman. Basically Stephen has a proven track record (from his work at PSA International). He is very effective at managing unhappy, retrenched employees.

MM MEETS SIA MANAGEMENT, UNIONS
New chairman has special touch: MM Lee

MR STEPHEN Lee's journey from ports to planes received a vote of confidence yesterday from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who praised the former PSA International chairman for having a 'special touch'.

....

Under Mr Stephen Lee, 58, PSA successfully restructured its labour-management relations despite having to retrench staff and restructure operations amid intense competition. It was an achievement MM Lee had noted in November last year.

Now, he wants SIA to take the PSA route. 'SIA is going to go through a similar process, like PSA,' he said. 'It was not painless. But morale must not go down. So we mustn't go back and say the case is lost, we're finished. We're not finished, just as PSA was not finished.'

The key is for the troops to rally around their new general, he said, as he urged SIA employees to support Mr Stephen Lee whom, he added, was chosen because of his 'touch' at PSA.

Draw your own conclusions. Mr Wang is glad that he is not working for SIA.

Cute Little Ducklings

ST Dec 16, 2005
China's new rich flaunt their brood
One-child policy is no deterrent to those who can pay the hefty fine

BEIJING - CHINA'S 'nouveaux riches' are not just competing with each other to buy grandiose mansions, private jets and fast, expensive cars - their latest status symbol is a brood of children.

The rich are finding a number of ways to get around the one-child policy adopted in 1979 to curb a huge population explosion in the world's most populous country.

Many business tycoons and celebrities are increasingly flouting the policy simply paying 'social maintenance fee', which can be as high as 150,000 yuan (S$31,000) per extra child for urban dwellers or as low as 7,000 yuan for rural residents.

Some wealthy people are even emigrating abroad for the sole purpose of having a second or third child whom they bring back to raise in China.

Singapore's position is opposite from China's - here the government keeps trying (and failing) to encourage more Singaporeans to have children. Nevertheless Mr Wang notes an interesting parallel.

Mr Wang has no official figures, but from personal observation, he notes that in Singapore, the people who choose to have three or more children are increasingly the richer folks. That's because they can afford it. In contrast, the "middles" tend to avoid having children, and even the poor, who used to have more children than they could afford, now seem to know better.

So the parallel between Singapore and China is that in both countries, the rich are the ones who end up having the most children.

More on Marriage, Money and the Quality of Life

See my previous post on marriage. It turns out that on 12 December, the Straits Times had a third article on marriage, also by a young person. This young person is Christopher Choo, himself a blogger. Chris considered the topic of marriage from a financial perspective.

Dec 12, 2005
Marriage? Not if it lowers quality of life
By Christopher Choo

GETTING married here costs an arm and a leg. Doing so without adequate financial planning is foolish, in my view.

Take this for example: An HDB flat today is likely to keep a couple in debt for more than 10 years. An extravagant wedding dinner and an exotic honeymoon will sink them further in the red.

The situation deteriorates when children come into the picture.

There is the notion that children complete a family: Complete? Yes, complete chaos.

Usually, the family income is insufficient to allow one parent to stay at home.

So when the do-it-yourself method is not economically viable, Singaporeans choose the second-best course of action - outsourcing. And so Junior goes to childcare and families employ maids. And a car becomes an attractive option.

The couple remains in debt for the next decade because their assets are locked in what they own. This is why marriage is a roller-coaster ride that goes beyond glitter and romance, down into the dungeons of financial distress.

Whether couples can navigate the financial labyrinth and emerge stronger is questionable, and the proportion of divorces attributed to financial problems is evidence of this difficulty. Why lead a married life fraught with financial worries if it means giving up the carefree life of a bachelor?

Until this problem is addressed, many would rightfully defer marriage because it risks lowering their quality of life.

There are many things that Mr Wang would disagree with in the above article. Where should Mr Wang start?

Firstly, the high cost of housing in Singapore is precisely that - it is the cost of housing. It is not the cost of getting married. Everyone, married or single, needs a roof over his head, unless he or she wants to live out in the streets.

In Singapore, many adult single persons continue to stay with their parents even when the single person has started work and draws a stable income. Lest you be mistaken, the cost of housing still remains high. It is just that you make your parents pay for it. Naturally, it also means that you get less space. Physically, and mentally.

Single persons may also want to purchase their own apartment. For many years in Singapore, this wasn't much of an option due to HDB rules. Now those rules are being relaxed, to the great happiness of many singles. However, this simply means that flat-buying singles will now also similarly have to pay for the high cost of housing. It's just that unlike married couples, the single person will not have a spouse to help him or her meet the mortgage payments.

Christopher's next point is about children. This is somewhat a non-point for me because marriage does not necessarily mean children. In fact there are many married couples who do not want to have children. Leave it sufficiently late, and they wouldn't be able anyway, even if they wanted to. Infertility rates in Singapore are extremely high.

Nevertheless, let's consider the young married couple with children and a mortgage and a maid and childcare and a car and _______ and ______. Certainly, some married people handle their finances rather badly. However, the perspective I offer you is that some single people handle their finances just as badly. Many single persons go bankrupt, for example, because of their credit card addictions. In the end, Mr Wang thinks that your financial stability or otherwise depends much more on your attitude towards money, than on your marital status.

Marriage, in fact, can offer a kind of financial stability which singlehood cannot. Suppose for instance, that Mr Wang is suddenly retrenched - he can depend on Mrs Wang to support him. Now if Mr Wang were a bachelor, it is unlikely that he would obtain such support. Unless he was an extremely charming Romeo with many rich girlfriends.

At a more philosophical level, Mr Wang suspects that he thinks quite differently from Chris, on several fundamental points. Firstly, Mr Wang sees money as a tool, as a means to your ends, whatever your ends may be, rather than an end in itself. Money is to be used to achieve what you want. Thus, to Mr Wang, it is sensible to say, "I intend to save $500 a month, to fund my children's future education." It is not sensible to say, "I shall not have children, so that I need not save $500 a month to fund their future education."

To put it another way, if you choose not to raise a family because you do not wish to spend money raising a family, then you are being silly - unless you know very well what other purpose you want to spend your money on, or save it for. Singles who spend their money on frivolous things and unnecessary luxuries and then say, "I cannot afford to get married" sound rather strange to Mr Wang.

Mr Wang is also a little startled when he reads these words by Chris Choo:

... many would rightfully defer marriage because it risks lowering their quality of life.

This makes Mr Wang feel a little dumbfounded. Personally, however, marriage does not put Mr Wang's quality of life at risk - marriage CONTRIBUTES, and greatly, to Mr Wang's quality of life. And I believe that this applies generally to the human race. Here are the studies to back me up:

Better Financial Picture

The old saying "Two can live as cheaply as one" isn't exactly true. Two do appear to be able to live as cheaply as one and a half persons, though. That means sharing furniture, food, insurance benefits, a car, etc.... And, when one person becomes ill, loses his or her job, or needs emotional support due to stressors, the spouse is there to help. This is cheaper too, as in home nurses, credit card debt, and therapists cost more.

Married men are more successful in work as well, getting promoted more often and receiving higher performance appraisals. They also miss work or arrive late less often (Kostiuk and Follman, 1989, and Shaw, 1987). As for women, white married women (without children) earn 4% more and black married women earn 10% more than their single peers (Waite, 1995). While some point out that house work for married women (37 hours per week) is greater than that of single women (25 hours), half of that is due to having children (South and Spitze, 1994).

Longer Life

Married people live longer as well. Single men have mortality rates that are 250% higher than married men. Single women have mortality rates that are 50% higher than married women (Ross et all, 1990). Having a spouse can decrease your risk for dying from cancer as much as knocking ten years off your life. Single people spend longer in the hospital, and have a greater risk of dying after surgery (Goodwin et al, 1987).

Married women are 30% more likely to rate their health as excellent or very good compared to single women, and 40% less likely to rate their health as only fair or poor compared to single women. Based on life expectancies, nine of ten married men and women alive at age 48 are alive at 65, while only six of ten single men and eight of ten single women make it to 65. Married men may have better immune systems as well, either from support or from nagging to monitor blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, etc... and may be at less risk to catch colds (Cohen et al, 1997)

Better Mental Health

Married men are half as likely to commit suicide as single men, and one third as likely as divorced men. Widowed men under 45 are nine times more likely to commit suicide as married men (Smith, Mercy, and Conn, 1988). Married people report lower levels of depression and distress, and 40% say they are very happy with their lives, compared to about 25% in single people. Married people were half as likely to say they were unhappy with their lives.

Single men drink twice as much as married men, and one out of four says his drinking causes problems for him. Only one of seven married men says the same. One out of six single men abstains from alcohol, but one in four married men do (Miller-Tutzauer et al, 1991).

Better Sex

About 40% of married people have sex twice a week, compared to 20-25% of single and cohabitating men and women. Over 40% of married women said their sex life was emotionally and physically satisfying, compared to about 30% of single women. For men, it's 50% of married men are physically and emotionally content versus 38% of cohabitating men."

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, marriage.

On Marriage

"Honey, we're still underaged."
The Straits Times has a number of articles today where young people write about why they would rather not get married. Interesting, interesting. Let's take a look, first, at the article by one Goh Wen Zhong:

If my immediate future is not secure, the thought of marriage, or even emotional attachment, does not cross my mind. It is not born out of a selfish desire of self-advancement, but for practical reasons.

The funny thing about practical problems is that if you look hard enough, you can usually find practical solutions. And Mr Wang is such a practical guy. So let's take a look at Wen Zhong's practical problems.

I want to be able to afford a wedding ceremony befitting the significance of the occasion.

This is dumb. A wedding ceremony is a one-day event. A marriage is a lifetime project. Now if you and your partner really want to undertake a lifetime project, you should never let a one-day event stand in the way. It would be as absurd as saying, "I really want to go to university, but it's just too difficult to get the application form and fill up so many blanks."

Dear Wen Zhong, if the wedding ceremony is really such a big problem for you, I suggest you just skip it. Seriously. If you have a limited budget, spend on a nice honeymoon in an exotic place, rather than on a 75-table wedding dinner where half the guests are there only because they feel socially obliged to be there. I can't even remember half the things that happened on my wedding ceremony day. But the honeymoon, heheheh, I remember. Next problem, please:

I want my wife to have the freedom to choose whether to work or be a homemaker.

Mr Wang says: that's not an immediate problem. When you've just gotten married, you don't have kids (hopefully). When you don't have kids, your wife will be bored stiff staying at home playing homemaker. So she should go to work. What do you want her to do - stay at home and mop the floor all day? As for kids, you can defer them until you and your wife feel willing or able.

I want my marriage to be a genuine joy to my parents, and not a burden.

Frankly I think it's none of their business, but if you ask me, most parents are happy to see their kids get married, and most parents are even happier to become grandparents. And why should your marriage be a burden to your parents?

I want to be the best husband and father I can be.

That's nice. That's also impossible as long as you stay single. The first step to becoming the best husband and father around is, of course, to become a husband and father. Funny, this Wen Zhong fella. His aspiration sabotages itself.

The peripheral thoughts are mind-boggling: Financial stability is a must.

Good point. So save your money. Set some financial goals. Educate yourself on financial planning. Which you should do anyway, Wen Zhong, regardless of whether you get married or not. Contrary to what you seem to be thinking, Wen Zhong, singlehood doesn't make you rich. And actually, Wen Zhong, marrying a rich lady could be your fastest way to get rich (not that Mr Wang advocates marrying rich ladies for no other reason than their being rich).

The next writer is Chen Wei Li, a recent graduate from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He wrote:

On a more pragmatic note, I simply want to spend more time doing things without the obligation of answering to a family.

I would love to go backpacking in Europe or run a business or throw all my money on a new car.

So the argument goes like this: "I don't want to get married because I want to do other things first like ... A, B, C." The questions are then (a) what are your ABCs; (b) do you really want to do them; (c) are you taking positive steps or making some definite plans for your ABCs, (d) are they just idle daydreams that will last even when you're 60 years old and still single; (e) does marriage really stand in the way of these ABCs; (f) if the right person comes along, will your ABCs still be overwhelmingly important.

I know many people who would say, "I don't want to get married now because I want to focus on my career and succeed in my job." Now I can respect this kind of argument very much - if the person is indeed passionate about his job; works very hard at excelling in it and so on.

Question these people further, and you find, more often than not, that they don't particularly love their job (they may even hate it), they aren't facing any particularly exciting work challenges, and they are approximately as lackadaisical as the average other employee (married or not) in their organisation.

If you look at Wei Li's ABCs, you may begin to see some likely false dilemmas. For example, if you want to go backpacking in Europe, just go. It's only one month, maybe two months of your life. How does it stop you from getting married? Heck, get married and go backpacking with your spouse in Europe.

Wei Li's second ABC - running a business. Curiously, if you stop to think about it, most of the SME-type of businessmen you know are probably married. Furthermore, their wives probably play a big role in helping to run the business.

Wei Li's 3rd ABC is ... a bit sad, in my view, but to each his own. If the romantic interest in your life is someone to whom you're willing to say, "I won't marry you because I prefer to own a car instead", well, chances are, she's not someone you genuinely love anyway.

More thoughts later ...

Mr Wang Speaks

An interesting development - Mr Wang has received an invitation to be a guest panelist and speaker at a students' event. To be held in the first quarter of 2006, the students' event focuses on current affairs and national issues in Singapore. Mr Wang has been asked to speak on the topic of youth, society and politics. 200 students from various educational institutions in Singapore are expected to attend. This will be rather unusual, because Mr Wang will probably be the first person ever to speak at such an event while using a pseudonym like "Mr Wang Says So".

Still thinking about it, but am likely to go.