"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers

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Fighting recession is like playing football

Someone: i almost fell off my chair seeing that headline!

In the article:

"Ministers and unionists have said fighting the recession is like playing a football match against a stronger team.

Speaking at the Singapore Tripartite Forum on Sunday, they said Singaporeans will have to go on the offensive and play to win.

Labour chief Lim Swee Say said Singapore should aim to be cheaper and better than its competitors with the help of the SPUR programme and other measures from the resilience package."


I don't understand why we have to keep using competitive metaphors.

The whole world is "fighting" the recession, yet from the way they put it, we are fighting our competitors in a race to the bottom (in wages). The logic of internationalization is that everyone wins, yet we always adopt a beggar-thy-neighbor philosophy.

Yes, that tired canard is thrown out yet again. Our instinctive reaction is to cut wages.

It has been suggested that keeping wages low keeps the proletariat's minds on something other than Revolution. Perhaps there is some truth to that.