A comment on Kenneth Jeyaretnam's call to privatize TH and GIC

How to Create A True Property Owning Democracy through The Privatization of Temasek and GIC

"Both Temasek and GIC give their shareholder as the Government of Singapore. But the shareholders should be the people of Singapore and the managers should be accountable to the people. This is the rationale for my plan to privatize Temasek and GIC and distribute shares to Singapore citizens."

"To distribute shares equally to all Singapore citizens would also be a powerful boost to wealth equality without having to resort to redistributive policies on taxation."

This excellent idea of distributing common wealth to citizens is not new. Alaska has been doing it for more than 30 years.

For the distribution mechanism, I tend to prefer the Alaska Permanent Fund Model. Therefore, I would suggest that each Singaporean gets 1 non-transferable share. And there are no other shares. Dividend per share will be distributed for every share. In this way, future Singaporeans, our children and grandchildren, will be granted 1 share each. When a Singaporean dies, his share also expires.

The share is not transferable because this is a right of a citizen. You cannot sell your citizen right away.
It would be nice to have voting rights for each share.

Alaska modified their Constitution to make this "permanent". There were politicians who tried to raid the fund, but the Constitution required a vote. They were voted off by Alaskans.