11/25/2010

Definitely not enough

Loan shark harassment cases dropped 8.4% for the period Jan to Oct over the same period last year. Is this good enough? It dropped from 15,120 cases to 13,848 cases, or more than 1000 cases monthly, or 33 cases daily. Did I get the numbers wrong? 33 cases daily is a very intolerable number. In 2007 there were 9,400 cases, 2008 there were 11,400 cases and 2009 there were 17,900 cases. Numbers quoted from the media. My goodness, we have been living with so many harassment cases without knowing. With the publicity given to tougher police actions and more arrests, the number does not seem to be making any significant progress. Or the loan sharks are still ruling their turfs and their activities are as per normal. When will the harassment stop? Oh, never mind, there can never be no harassment. Some harassment cases are normal and expected. So, what is an acceptable number?

11 comments:

Wally Buffet said...

The acceptable number is zero.

This scourge together with triads and youth gangs is a loathsome abhorrence and an affront to an orderly society.

Mobilize all resources to stamp it out. Do not justify it's existence with feel good numbers because even one case of harassment is too many.

Apply the Criminal Law Temporary Provisions Act on these sharks and the numbers could very well plummet to zero.

Getting rid of the loan sharks may also be helping addicted gamblers because their money supply is curbed and without money, one can't go to the casinos right?

Hehe.

Anonymous said...

"In 2007 there were 9,400 cases, 2008 there were 11,400 cases and 2009 there were 17,900 cases". Unquote.
If it was allowed to increase from 9,400 cases in 2007 to 17,900 in 2009, an increase of nearly 50% in 2 years, how to hope for zero case ? Some Singaporeans are getting very unrealistically idealistic !
The Rulers are using the casinos to grow Singapore economically and everyone knows that vices are contributing significantly to the national income and yet puritans are calling on people not to gamble. Without Singapore Pools, lots of poor people will not get charities.
Without Geylang, many Singaporeans will be raped. Without the talented leaders, Singaporeans will still be fishermen, farmers, maids and whores.

Anonymous said...

is there a link between youth gangs/gangsters and loan sharks? logically there is. these gang members provide the musle for the loan sharks in carrying out the dastard acts of harassment and other threats on debtors. an example is the teen gangster who was invovled in the murder at Downtown East. He is now also been charged for several acts of loan shark harassment. Loan sharks are a scourge to society and all out efforts must be expended to wipe them out. Look around at our heartland, there seems to be blocks after blocks that bear the scar of their dastardly acts. give our police the maximum power possible to weed out these spineless bastards

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean and the rest of you:

> the number does not seem to be making any significant progress. <

Of course not. And it probably won't. If it does, it won't stick.

ALL MARKETS are demand driven. You can introduce penalties and laws, and you might have some effect, but as long as there is demand (willing customers) someone will produce the "goods" to answer the call of the market.

So if you think pouring more resources into "the problem" is going to solve it, good luck to you.

For whatever reasons (survival, gambling, medical bills, children's wedding etc etc), there is a critical mass of people who need money and cannot get it from "traditional" sources. Obviously they need more money than they can earn (i.e. they are terrible at financial management or too emotional), voila hey presto, capitalism in action, the "magic" of spontaneous orders: Suppliers/ Producers appear.

The authorities and most people have it around backward: loansharks are NOT the problem. The lack of money is the root of the problem

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

P.S. and all "problems" are either market or arbitrage opportunities.

Wally Buffet said...

The lack of money is not the problem.

Bad or non existent money management, uncontrollable vices, self inflicted "bad luck", laziness are.

Live simply, live within your means.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Dude, that's human nature.

You can only protect yourself from its "bad effects". However you cannot control others exercise of their own human nature. Sure you can send the cops to wipe out few now and then, but nothing more can be done.

As long as there are human emotions, there'll always be people enslaved by them. No one is immune, not even you or me.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you cannot "wipe out" markets (although you can be wiped out by the market :-) ) because they are demand-driven.

You can however wipe out products by introducing competing products -- however the demand for something is still there

Wally Buffet said...

In the distant future, there will be a country called Utopia.

No loan sharks, no bungling incompetents, no Mas Selamat, no gambling, no vice, no triads, no teen gangs, no diseases, no poverty, no aging, etc. etc.

Welcome, you just arrived at HEAVEN!!!!

Hehe.

Anonymous said...

So long there's human, there will be crimes.
The creator of human beings must be a very lousy manufacturer.

Anonymous said...

Funny that the tougher the action to counter the harassment, the more cases come up.

Must be like fighting those mosquitoes carrying the dengue fever viruses. They developed a resistance to insecticide the more we sprayed on them.

My recommendation is that they should use the Gurkhas. In a short time, all the sharks will end up in Changi Prison.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Utopia, like heaven is boring lah.

I'm pleased that neither exist.

This is why socialism and religion fail : they try to make everything "perfect", because "imperfections" upset them. They even try to make human beings (a species of primates, like monkeys) "perfect" on the individual level by first trying to make everyone that they are "equally evil" in the case of religion, or "equally endowed" in the case of socialism.

And so both doctrines fuck up really spectacularly increasing the comedy-value for the rest of us who are quite happy being "imperfect" -- because it provides us an excuse for giving into temptation, and becoming the loving, forgiving "nice guys" we really are. (you get more pussy that way)