Flagellate that dead horse

Refer to this post on the Young PAP blog.

Refer to K Shanmugam's speech in Parliament during the ministerial pay hike debate (link above). Yes I know this is coming late, but it's better than never.

I take issue with point 21 and 22. My comments are as follows.

Yeah true, US politicians are well sought-after after they leave the public service, but are our own scholars not well-taken care of after they leave public service?

The way I see it, it's like these academically elite have their WHOLE future mapped out for them already, right from the day they got confirmation of the scholarship award.

I can even spell it out for you.

Study hard in university -> get first class honours (this is probably the hardest part - but they are academically bright, so is it really THAT hard?) -> get inducted into the organization they are bonded to -> rise up very very quickly -> "retire" from their organization, get seconded to another organization to "get more experience" -> join PAP become a minister/minister of state/perm sec after sufficient rounds of exposure.

After "graduating" from public service serving more than 8 years to ensure they get a lifelong pension, they go on to serve in a GLC, often serving in positions like executive vice-president, or CEO or the like. This goes even for non-scholars who join the public service mid-career. Show me a ex-minister that is sitting in a kampung, fishing for a living (or doing something along those lines) and I will close down my blog for good.

And someone was drawing a parallel between US politicians and Singaporean ministers?

My toes are tickled, thank you very much.