MM Lee recently said that having a social divide is inevitable in a globalised world. I beg to differ. It is inevitable not because we live in a globalised world, but because the economic policies of this country favour the rich over the poor.

Just consider the following:

Foreign workers depress wages for the low income groups but helps cut cost for the rich who own the businesses.

Our education system is designed to divide students at an early age into three separate classes, one to rule the country, one to run the economy, and the other to be run and ruled by the economy.

GST hikes from 3% to 5% to 7% raise the cost of living with the hardest hit being the low income groups. As for the rich, they enjoy one of the lowest corporate and income tax rates in the world.

Blistering economic growth and a government policy of attracting wealthy expatriates have created a new class of super-rich, while a string of price increases for everything from bread to bus fares have made life harder for the poor. (Reuters)

To quote Bob Herbert, a columnist on The NY Times,

We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid — which is what we have been doing for the past three decades or so — while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.

That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.

And here’s another nice analogy by one of the readers,

Trickle down implies that money flows like water. It doesn’t. It rises like the bubbles in your beer. Inject it at the bottom, it rises steadily to the top, and may do some good on the way. Inject it at the top, and it just stays there.

Indeed, the next time you drink beer, think of the income inequality that persists in Singapore.

Now for to sum it all up with a cartoon. (Credits: Nicholson Cartoons)