9/05/2010

Chok Tong's words of wisdom

Those who are complaining about not being able to buy that flat or house, not enough car parks, crowded MRTs, are victims of our own success. Think about those who are struggling to make ends meet, can't even afford to take MRTs and put things in perspective. There are people who are in much worst situation than the grouses and complaints in the media. Or think about Africa, then we will know how lucky we are. I would like to look at these problems from another angle, the people who caused all these problems. We cannot just blame the people who are complaining. Sure there are some who are responsible for their own plights. Some were lesser endowed and unable to compete or do the normal things and were left behind. We need to stare hard at those creators of the problems. In many cases, the problem creators are very well paid for their jobs, and should not be creating problems for the people. These are the people that need to think a little about the people who are hurt by their decisions. The fare hike is one issue. Though many can very well afford the few cents increases, there are some who really cannot. Why don't the decision makers take them into consideration? don't they care, or they just want a simple solution that gives them the mostest returns? Insufficient car parks? Who created the problem? Blame it on the people's success? Or do the decision makers think that each family shall only can only own one car? This is the same mentality as those who decided to build HDB flats smaller. They want to own more cars, want to live in big mansions themselves. But when they look at the miserable people, they dictated that they should have the bare minimum and be done with it. So we don't have enough car parks and living in little mickey mouse flats. And why are we having all these housing problems? The problems caused by itself or the people are causing the problems? Nay, it is bad policies one after another. It is bad decisions one after another. The latest case of unhappiness is the NSRA. It was all unnecessary if a little more thought is put into it. But it was a rash and arrogant decision to write off a few hundred thousand ex NS men with total disregard to their feelings. It only needs 5% of them to be unhappy enough to be vocal, we will have a bad problem at hand. So, shall we tell the people to count their blessings and stop complaining when jokers keep creating problems for the people?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps our biggest problem is to give the PAP a blank cheque every elections...

Anonymous said...

Someone has been talking nuclear power for Singapore for the past few months....
"New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer
by Prof. Karl Grossman"
If ONE ever happens here in Singapore, what will happen????
They going to point finger and blame someone else again... Some more words of wisdom.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

If there is a Chernobyl, as long as it does not hit District 9, 10 and 11, any collateral damages should be acceptable.

I am thinking big, like Singapore is a continent, the main island is the mainland and we can build he nuclear station in an island. Safe, very safe.

Anonymous said...

If we are a continent, r we going to increase our population to > 1 billion, as 1000 cities the size of Singapore can hold the whole 6.5 billion people of the whole... ie 701 000 sq kilometers.... plus each with a nuclear plant, very clean energy.... imagine Singapore + Malaysia + some Indonesian Islands can accommodate the entire whole population.... we can leave the rest of the whole to be natural... Then we can all worship the Singapore government, the father, the son and the holy GOH.

Anonymous said...

Hi redbean,

I just want to feedback to you I have some problems when I view your blog's main page. It tends to get stuck and I have to reload quite a few times. When I scroll down all the way there is this super huge chunk of the background with nothing on it, I suspect its due to that. I am using IE btw but I dun have problems with other blogs.

Wally Buffet said...

Anon 11:25

If everyone has the same problem then Mr. Bean has an "ardent admirer". If only you have the problem it's due to your browser settings. Most of us, including me don't have any problems with this blog site.

Use Firefox. IE is dumb.

Mr. Bean, you can be damn sure that all these bad policy decisions are due to the quirky and bookish scholar brains that they recruit by the hundreds each year. Using the same methodology of ancient imperial China to administer the state via annual examination excellence is not only dumb but archaic. What we do need are street smart policy makers, aware of what's happening on the ground and preferably coming from humble backgrounds so that they understand the needs of the masses. You cannot empathise with those who are struggling to make ends meet if you can have anything you wished for with a valet at your beck and call. But having said that, it's quite puzzling how someone who stayed in a three room HDB in impoverished days can implement policies that empty our pockets so gushingly.

Beats me!

Anonymous said...

i too use IE to access this page and have to wait ages -sometimes 2 mins - for the page to load. scrolling down is also slow. it can take as long as 30 seconds to just move a bit.

Anonymous said...

This is a beautiful piece of write up that me truly like.

Keep up the good work, Sir.

patriot

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi anon. IE is explorer, I presume. I bought another laptop last week and it came with explorer. It was soooo slow. I immediately change to Firefox. Please do. It is extremely fasterer than explorer.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

There is this assumption that someone from a deprived background will understand the problems of the poor and can empathise with their lot. Also it is presume that such jokers will want to uplift the lot that is at the bottom like they were before.

In reality, many such scums will forget their days when they were poor and will only think of how much more to loot from the system. The poverty badge of honour is a myth. Like Kruschev, they conveniently betray their class.

There is this excellent pictorial joke circulating in the internet of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs sitting side by side chatting.

Jobs: Do you remember when we were poor?
Gates: Nope.

And both grin.

Jobs: Let's toss a coin.
Gates: What coin?

And both grin.

But Gates has given more than half of his fortune back to charity. Maybe some of these greedy scums would do that when they are as rich as Gates. But they never will.

Anonymous said...

All things must be taken at the correct perspective. There are people who agonise over the 10c or 20c fare hike. The problems that confront them are infinitesimal but real.

There will be people who agonise over the half a million or million dollar pay rise that they think they deserve. And if they did not get it, hell will break lose.

Actually it will not in anyway affect their lifestyle as they have millions stashed away.
To them it is still a very big and serious problem if they did not get their share of the million dollar pay rise.

The people must understand how they feel and empathise with them. Look at the bigger perspective.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Reading from the attacks Chok Tong is getting in TOC and other blogs, it is evident that he has lost it.

Anonymous said...

The least decent thing Goh Chok Tong can and should do is to retire from local politics.

In his entire tenure, he has not create any value add to the betterment of the society. Instead he kept creating controversies and worse even his spouse did similarly, calling $600K peanuts.

Imagine he, a ruler paid multi-millions SINDollars exhorting Singaporeans to understand poorer Singaporeans ! How did such an extravagantly paid ruler with his cabinet just as well paid, manage a city state till a significant lot of citizens need the assistances of other fellow citizens ?

And the Leadership washes its' hands clean from the plights of these poorer citizens after ever increasing their cost of livings that threaten their survivals ?

Did Goh Chok Tong lose anything when $600K is peanuts to his spouse ?

patriot

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

> Those who are complaining about not being able to buy that flat or house, not enough car parks, crowded MRTs, are victims of our own success.

People complain about just about anything and everything.

Big fucking deal.

> Sure there are some who are responsible for their own plights. Some were lesser endowed and unable to compete or do the normal things and were left behind.

How do you distinguish one "some" from the other "some". Again you make no sense.

> And why are we having all these housing problems? <

What rubbish. There is no "problem" with housing. Anyone can buy or rent a home at anytime in S'pore.

If there is a "problem" it is the "problem" of insufficient funds.

"I don't have enough money to buy/ pay for 'X'" So what? The majority of people don't have enough money to satisfy ALL their wants, needs and desires and therefore we make choices.

You still tink that you can bend reality to create "cheap" housing in a place where land is so scarce that the prices are always "high".

Add to that in steady influx of new immigrants...how do you expect the housing to be "cheap"?

Get off your bloody high horse lah. The govt does indeed make bad policies, but the price of land is beyond their control, as is, indirectly, the immigration.

For S'pore to keep going, an open economy is essential -- the local economy is simply not big enough to sustain life -- you need trade. An open economy means open borders -- where goods, services (labour), capital and ideas are allowed to flow freely in and out of the territory.

If you are going to have an open economy, then you are probably going to have immigration -- especially if your country is rich and successful.

What is your alternative redbean? A closed economy leading to a basket-case economic cess-pool of a country where men are thugs, the women hookers and the children street urchins?

Really, there is no choice. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

What utter rubbish! Matilah, if you keep posting this kind of nonsensical garbage you are going to lose credibility. If what you said is true, there is no problem, then what the hell is the govt rushing out with all the half baked measures for? Tell them no need to, no problem mah!

The local economy is not big enough to sustain life? Where did you come from, Jupiter? When we were 200k, the economy was big enough to sustain the 200k pop. You remember right? When we were 2m, the economy was sustainable still right? This you sure remember as you were part of that small economy.

And there are many countries that have lesser pop and doing very well. Who gave you the idea that our local economy cannot sustain life?

And you came out with the biggest myth that makes all the myths I wrote small. The govt cannot control the prices of land, aaa...hahahahah... beyond the govt's control!

I can't stop laughing at this joke, really. You meant it to be a joke right?

And there are no housing problems. Another of your jokes right? Ok, ok, you succeeded in making me laugh.

Thank you.