Kind of in a grey
mood. I've only gotten to 2nd stage for 2 openings - and it looks like I'm not
getting into one of them, as they said they would get back to me "in one
or two weeks" and tomorrow marks the end of said second week.
I would console myself
that at least I can take up a shitty job serving fries at McDonald's…but I
can't even do that either, because they sure ain't hiring in COVID-19.
I follow a guy on
Twitter who is a 'senior analyst' in a small consulting firm. He basically got
his job out of college by running a blog that reports on video game statistics
in Asia (primarily China): sales numbers, reviews, etc. (I should also probably
note this man is about the same age as me, give or take a year.) Thing is, in
the 6-ish months I've been following him, I've discovered he doesn't seem to
have an outstanding grasp on the financial forces behind his numbers. So he's
not really an 'analyst' per se, but more of a financial reporter that
specializes in the video game industry in China and greater Asia - that is, his
greater skill lies in sourcing for numbers rather than crunching them.
Yet this is the man
who has a job, while my hobbies, despite being closely related to his, are not
only non-beneficial in my job search, but also burn a somewhat deep hole in my
wallet. Talk about bad life decisions.
I could (and should)
probably begin writing a lot more about the video games market, not just video
games from a design point. While I don't have access to obscure sources like
this man does, I believe I have a somewhat cohesive knowledge of the video games
market in South-East Asia, and of the economy in general. (Wish I had actually
finished an econ minor in college to back this up with paper, but oh well.) I'm
thinking I'll do a bit of writing about Singapore politics as well - my
political opinions tie in heavily with economics, so it fits the overall theme.
In fact, in lieu of
the Singapore 2020 general elections in like 5 days, I thought I'd briefly
discuss my vote.
The Big Populist Blunder: Debunking
False Information in the PSP's Manifesto
So the two parties
contesting my GRC are the PAP and the PSP. Everyone in Singapore is very
familiar with the PAP's policies by now, as they are the policies of the
existing government, and they've outlined where
they're going in rather clear terms. I'm not going to describe them in
detail because they are both complex and complicated. Instead, I've decided to
look at the PSP.
ChannelNewsAsia
did a good piece summarizing the slogans and primary campaign policies of the
PSP. It seems their main platform hinge is going to be the economy. The PSP's
talking points are mainly about how the "economy must serve Singaporeans,
rather than the other way around" and that bringing in foreign labor
results in a "trade-off" where there is increased GDP but 'a
depression in real wage growth'.
I fact-checked this.
The World Bank did a study on
immigration and emigration across many countries in 2010 (when immigration
into Singapore was around its highest). I quote: "The effect of net
migration (combining immigrants and emigrants) on average wages is clearly
positive for Canada, Australia and Singapore." (pp. 13) Knowing that
Singapore had very few emigrants and a large influx of immigrants at the time
(confirmed in said report on pp. 11), it is clear to me that increases in
immigration into Singapore actually increases
average real wages - the exact opposite of what the PSP is claiming.
So the PSP is wrong.
But what actually is going on here? Clearly, if more immigrants are coming in,
they're taking jobs that you would otherwise have, and that's going to be bad
for your wages. Common sense, right? So what are these ivory towers babbling
about?
Not so fast. Basic
economics dictates that when something is wanted (people want jobs, for
example) there are two forces at play: supply and demand. Indeed, the common
sense is actually correct in that immigrants that enter will saturate the job
market, shifting the supply curve of employment to the right. But when
immigrants enter a country, they also demand goods and services: they consume
food, live in houses, so on and so forth, and those things are provided by
local workers. So while the work of immigrants drives wages down, the goods and
services that these immigrants demand actually drives wages up. So immigration
drives wages down and up at the same
time - which, of course, can't actually happen in real life. What really does
happen is one force overcomes the other: if demand > supply, wages go up and
immigrants are good for everyone. If supply > demand, the opposite is true
and immigrants are bad.
From here, it's pretty
obvious the answer is actually indeterminate.
You can't conclusively say "immigration drives wages down" or
"immigration drives wages up" - you can only say that it depends on
the relative strength of supply and demand. But what you can do is survey
real-life economic data, come up with a proper study for specific countries and
then draw your conclusions from there. That's exactly what the World Bank did,
and lo and behold, they discovered that immigrants benefit all Singaporeans and
Singapore residents from a real wage standpoint.
Now, that isn't to say
immigrants don't have other consequences for the country. Purely economically
speaking, wealthy immigrants do, first of all, push up the Gini; but more than
that, there is a softer element that doesn't have well-studied measures. A
foreign CEO that bosses others around, shows off their wealth, and hires
executives from their hometown while tens of local subordinates remain stagnant
in middle management or lower-end jobs is going to have psychological
implications on potentially hundreds of employees; and when these employees
then take that mental burden to their families and onto the streets, the effect
multiplies. The PAP has only started realizing the issue in the past 5-ish
years or so (after over a decade of arguing otherwise), and to this day only
somewhat addresses it - for example, with heavy
economic equity measures outlined in the 2020 budget and with tightening
of employment rules last March. It's something, but one might consider that
these might be "wayang" policies aimed at garnering election votes;
and more concretely, that these current efforts fail to adequately solve or
mitigate the problems at hand.
If the PSP were to
argue like I just did, I might strongly consider voting for them. But they did
not: instead, they chose to base a significant part of their manifesto on an
entirely moot point, easily debunked with a combination of Google and any Macro
102 syllabus written post-1980. I will not support a political party that lacks
a single prominent member capable of grasping enough economics to say,
"Hey, this one-third of our manifesto is honestly a load of BS, so let's
rethink this." On the other end, while it is undoubtedly true the PAP's
policies possess flaws, they clearly understand the situation on a much higher
level (ie: at least past the first-year of a business bachelor's degree) and
also have demonstrated some capacity to learn from past mistakes - slowly,
reluctantly, but with progress nonetheless. To conclude, my vote this year will
be with the PAP.
