With Obama and Congress pushing for limits on the salaries of CEOs in companies the US Government has had to bail out, there has been an uproar in the private sector that this would lead to an outflow of talent from the US. Given that the cap on salaries is US$500K, this would effectively mean that CEOs of companies whose turnovers are larger than the GDPs of some countries, will be paid less than even some heads of states.
With our Singapore Government salaries being the highest in the world, wouldn’t it make sense to bring some of these exceptional talents into our own upper echelons? Wouldn’t a Jamie Dimon make a better Finance Minister than anyone we could produce? Or a Jeffrey Immelt as Minister of Trade and Industry? What a coup it could be for Singapore! With the salaries our Ministers are paid, compensating these ultimate foreign talents above what they could get in the US will be easy! Heck, most of our Ministers are paid at least double what Obama’s cap is on executive salaries!
Tong Hsien-Hui
Some Meowsings...... 