Elites' boneheaded understanding of 'competition'

Singapore's elite class has a narrow one-track understanding of competition. They divide themselves arbitrarily into two or three groups, and compete to see who comes out on top. Unfortunately, they don't think of the nation or the people they're supposed to serve. This selfish, narrow competition produces only one result: a race to the bottom as one bunch of scholars competes against another to score points. The end game is about getting promotion and earning big bonuses, and yes, screw the people.

This week, we saw some excellent examples of the stupidity of Singapore's elite class competing against each other in the mistaken notion that it will prove their 'merit'.

1. Sheng Shiong has moved to raise rental of stalls at five wet markets by 30% which they recently bought from the govt for $25million. As various people had warned, it was only a matter of time before the supermarket group would turn the screws on stallholders and, yes, consumers, by raising rents. The government was completely deaf when the people protested the sale, and are are now acting dumb because they pretend not to know and do not want to answer any questions.
2. No World Cup, thanks to the incompetence of SingTel, Starhub and the idiots at the MDA. They succeeded in putting Singapore in a position for FIFA to demand a high fee for telecasts of live matches.
3. The EPL made record profits, thanks to Singtel's willingess to overpay for overseas TV rights for 2010-13. Singapore viewers eneded up paying a huge sum to coninue watching EPL matches. Singtel tried to cast doubts on the accuracy of the reports, but let's face it, who do you trust? Singtel or your rising bills for the right to watch live games?

These are three recent examples of an elite that no longer understands the meaning of service. They live in their own dream world, away from regular people as they're completely sheltered by their high pay and trappings of power. A society goes into decline when its elite becomes increasingly self-serving. We're seeing more and more of this in Singapore's case.