Do you remember when you were little, Robin Hood was always portrayed as this righteous super hero that goes around stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? Well, it just occurred to me that Robin Hood’s character is a folk tale manifestation of what essentially is socialist or communist (I’d lean more towards communist). One would argue that Robin Hood is a hero-class character and it shouldn’t be associated with dirty political terms such as “socialism” and “communism”, but isn’t that what redistribution of wealth is – taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

Now it’s no secret that our government denies that Singapore is a socialist state, I assume because of all the stigma that comes with the word “socialist” and imagery of Karl Marx and WWII naturally pops into mind, but perhaps they should just come out of the closet! After all, America’s President elect Barack Obama believes in a more socialist America with his push for Universal health care, so why shouldn’t Singapore (oh, but we already are)? Or perhaps both Obama and Singapore wants to be that hooded Robin Hood like in the above picture, where his face is fully covered and you’re not sure who Robin Hood really is…

Let’s see if Singapore really fits the bill of the Robin Hood role in the recent financial crisis:

1. Singapore pumping $600million for upgrading skills and provide retrenched employees paid courses during this period.

Skills Programme for Upgrading & Resilience, also known as SPUR, will hopefully prevent local companies from sacking too many people. Singapore government pay these otherwise fired employees up to $6.80 per hour to study! Imagine Robin Hood, after stealing from the rich and the not-so-rich, then starts throwing money at random unemployed people spur of the moment. Hooray! [read article here]

2. Singapore pumping in $2.6billion in loans to businesses to tide over this difficult time.

Wait a minute… isn’t this whole loan thing the reason why we’re in this mess? My brain’s too small to understand how this loan thing really works…..

The Bridging Loan Programme allows all local enterprises with more than 10 employees to access credit of up to S$500,000. The default risk is shared equally by the government and the financial institutions.

Small businesses with no more than 10 employees will have access to SPRING’s Micro Loan Programme. The limit of this loan has been doubled to S$100,000, and the government will increase its portion of risk to 80 per cent to encourage lending to businesses.

To encourage start-ups, the government will be raising investment capital from S$300,000 to S$1 million under the SPRING’s Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme.

Its Business Angel Scheme will also be raised to S$1.5 million as a permanent feature.

The government will also temporarily increase its co-match ratio, which means that start-ups will receive S$2 from the government for every dollar an investor puts into the firm.

[read article here]

So I guess the Government is trying to give investors greater confidence in local businesses. I believe it is very important that our start-up companies don’t collapse overnight due to lack of funding, but are there sufficient checks on these companies to make sure we’re not loaning to companies that will bankrupt overnight? With the government taking up more risks, wouldn’t it mean that the banks would be less stringent about approving loans? I understand that that IS the whole point, but isn’t that also dangerous? Yeah, I’m being too skeptical and putting too little faith in our local businesses, but Lehman Brothers and many other big brand companies did collapse overnight, so why can’t they?

Of course, I have full confidence in our hooded government. He’s our hero and I’m sure his judgments are correct. But I’m just saying…. government’s money is our money too… =\

3. Robin Hood and his Merry Men are getting less bread and wine to bring home (as well as less holidays, cars, and condominiums).

Ministers and civil servants will be getting a pay cut of up to 19% ! If you’re currently bringing home a $3million, I’m sorry to inform you that your income next year might drop to SG$2.43million dollars! Oh dear, should we be fearful now that our ministers might become corrupted? I think it’s best we leave their salaries alone, can a minister really survive a half a million dollars pay cut without receiving bribery?? Except for Wong Can’t Sing, I think he should have a pay cut. But not my decision to make, Robin Hood will make the best choices after all. [read article here]

But wait a minute, where am I in this whole big picture of things?

I am neither 1. getting retrenched 2. being sent for skills upgrading 3. not getting subsidized school fees 4. not snobbishly rich 5. not pitifully poor 6. part of a dying start-up company 7. not a civil servant.

I’m basically ignored!

While millions and billions of dollars are spent to boost our economy, I won’t be the one losing or gaining anything. Robin Hood, I want my hand out too! *sticks hand out*

Some reading this might feel that I’m being selfish, he’s just trying his best to prevent the poor and unemployed people from becoming poorer and bankrupt. A Singapore not in crisis is a Singapore good for you and me. Although he doesn’t personally come to my door step and throw bags of gold at me (like he usually does on TV or story books), he’s magnanimous enough not to raise my taxes for 2009. We should be more than thankful for that.

Robin Hood redistributes wealth. Can we say that he is not a socialist or a communist? It also begs the question, is socialism the new democracy?

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