Tuesday, 31 May 2016
Why is the EU referendum so divisive?
Hi guys, in my latest vlog post, I am talking about why the EU referendum (coming up on the 23rd June 2016) is so very divisive. I only talked about two issues: the job market and the housing market. But those are the two key issues that concern so many British people as we all want a good job and we all need a roof over our heads (preferably a nice one). There are parallels with the situation in Singapore, as you guys have a large number of migrant workers as well in your midst. There are winners and losers in this equation - what I am saying in here may be stating the obvious and yes there's a part of me that just wants to insult the people who are voting to leave the EU. I am not sure if my Singaporean viewers/readers will get this, but wearing the grey hoodie is the ultimate sign of being a poor, working class chav (ie. an English 'Ah Beng'). Anyway, I hope you will find this vlog interesting and many thanks for watching.
Firstly i think all transitions are corrupted. Not sure if it is a software bug or its just me.
ReplyDeleteAnyway whether or not Brexit happens the lower social classes will always suffer since there is no escaping globalisation (as Singaporeans have found out the hard way).
Assuming UK leaves the EU, that means that lots of existing trade agreements would be nullified and have to be renegotiated.
Then there is the issues of foreign investments. Many investors are only investing in UK as they consider it a gateway to EU. If it leaves EU i think investments might flow to another EU country, most likely Germany (they have a highly educated workforce who speak English).
Even immigration is not so clear cut. There could be a short term cut in unskilled labour as the ex-EU workers who didn't have indefinitely leave to remain might have to go back home. How would this affect the small businesses then? So what is rentals drop but businesses close down and there are lesser jobs available?
At the end of the days corporations have lots of resources and can up and leave. People in the lower social classes can't leave and are stuck in whatever situation their country is left with post-Brexit.
Unfortunately, (like Singapore) most people are single issue voters and wouldn't consider all these things. So they would vote for self-interest or be hoodwinked by politicians to vote against their self-interests.
Now there is something i am curious to know, how you would vote. I kind of know the answer but i just want to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Yeah I can see which special effect has gone awry - but at least the audio doesn't break down when the visuals get distorted. I shall not use that effect again.
DeleteAs for the issues you have identified - believe you me, I had to edit this video down to the minimum and it is already v long at 11 minutes 24 secs. Sure I can talk more about these issues but really, the video was just a less than subtle way for me to say that those who vote to leave are "uneducated, unskilled, poor, working class, monolingual and old" whilst those who vote to remain are "highly educated, highly skilled, rich, upper/middle class, multilingual and younger". Now which one of the two do I clearly identify with?
Now Choaniki: I may be 40, but am I an illiterate, uneducated, unskilled poor working class, monolingual idiot? Or am I an extremely highly educated, extremely highly skilled, wealthy multi-millionaire who speaks 10 languages? Surely if I put it that way, it is clear enough to you which way I will be voting. Why can't you infer it by that token then? It is not as if you don't know me in person.
I didn't say which way I would vote as my point of the video is that there's no point in telling people how they should vote as their choice would be swayed by self-interest rather than whatever the big picture may be about the economy, FDI, security or government policies.
Care to offer an opinion on the Swiss referendum for basic income?
ReplyDeleteSorry I've been away Raymond. Not really. I thought it was a waste of time and money to even have a referendum on that in the first place and the results didn't surprise me at all.
DeleteHi LIFT, I know this is irrelevant to the topic at hand but what do you think about this? https://www.facebook.com/charlotte.yong.39/posts/10157011157485608?hc_location=ufi Actually, I can already predict your response to this ("it is not your degree that matters but the university and your soft skills"), but what do you think about what her interviewer said? About requiring a degree in Banking and Finance to become a CFO?
ReplyDeleteThank you!
HI Delia, sorry it has taken me so long to come round to replying - I was away in Lithuania then I was rushing to get the Alice Fong story out.
DeleteThe interviewer is talking bullshit lah. Aiyoh. At the end of the day, if you want your foot in the door for banking in the first place, you just need an impressive degree from a very good university. SIT is not in that pedigree and NUS might suffice for jobs in Singapore, but if you're competing against graduates from Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Cambridge, Sorbonne and other more well-known top universities around the world, then NUS is not enough.
You get your foot in the door for your first job at entry level, then you work your way to the top slowly, over a period of 20-30 years before you can think about applying for a position at CFO level.
During which time, what you have learnt becomes woefully obsolete - the world of banking would have evolved so much in 20-30 years that whatever you learnt at university is ancient history, totally useless out of date information no longer applicable at all. What would be relevant however, is the way you have proven yourself in the work place, what kind of projects you have managed, what kind of new business you have managed to bring to your company, what kind of relationships with important clients you have maintained, how you are respected by your peers in the company, how you have solved difficult problems the company faced etc.
All those experiences matter far, far more than what degree you did 20-30 years ago. So that interviewer is spouting utter total BULLSHIT.
But IMHO, if this Charlotte Yong really wants a career in banking, she's barking up the wrong tree with SIT. Heck, she barked up the wrong tree when she went to a poly in the first place. She should have done the A level route and then aspired to go to somewhere like Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge etc. So whilst the interviewer was wrong, I have no magic solution to offer Charlotte as she has already made a critical mistake in going to a poly already.
No worries :) Even though I agree with you, I feel quite worried for Charlotte. She seems unable to handle rejection well, choosing to believe she was rejected due to elitist discrimination instead of her skill set or poor choices in courses. What her interviewer said didn't help either.
DeleteHi Delia, I actually read Charlotte's post in full and was so disturbed by what I read I decided to write a full blog post reply to it. I am busy with work today and will upload it in about 24 hours once I've had the chance to edit it. In short, they're both wrong - she had bad advice but her response is wrong as well.
DeleteHi Delia: https://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/bad-advice-degrees-and-career-in-banking.html
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