The CPF embarrassment

How best to look after the ageing population with their CPF money should be done by a neutral party that is free from all the encumbrances of existing interests and mindsets. Only an independent mind, with a simple objective of maximising the money in the CPF, can come out with a reasonable way to help the ageing population. And there is no need for a $3 million mind or even a $1 million mind. It is ridiculous to be embarrassed by superficial solutions that have been on the table all these years and push out as new and creative solutions. Any undergraduate doing his term paper would be able to come up with more exciting and innovative solutions. Empty the cup if we want to fill it with new tea. Or as they said, please don't teach old dogs new tricks. It is a waste of effort.

En bloc musing

The Horizon Towers sellers stood to sell their flats for $2.5 million each before it was aborted because of some technicality or reasons. And the buyer is going to sue. Now the issue is how much to claim. How about claiming that the plan to rebuild the place could generate profits in the hundreds or thousands of millions, like 100 storey high? This will probably mean a potential big loss in profits. Now the claim should be $5 million each from the sellers for breaching the agreement. Maybe claim $10 mil from each of them by submitting a plan that each new unit will be so well furnished and appointed that they can be sold at $10 million per unit. Those poor Horizon Towers owners must be having a nightmare now. It is now up to the buyer to decide how much they want to claim.

CPF Money

Boon Heng has come out with his second recommendation after his Japan trip. His first was to work longer and delay withdrawal. As one ages, withdrawal is not even an issue. Nothing to put in. His second recommendation is buying annuity plans, probably compulsory. How come I don't have this deja vu feeling that great things are happening? I was expecting a $3 million solution that will be more flexible and discriminating. I was expecting recommendations on how to deal with multi millionaires who need $20 mil but have $200 mil savings and those who need $20k but have only $2k and those who have half a million worth of properties or assets. And in my recent post I already mentioned that people who can work till they die need lesser or no CPF savings at all. Definitely they do not need to save more to stuff into their coffins.

Raping the Asian Minds

For a few centuries, Afro and Asian countries were colonised by the west and robbed of everything, including pride and ability to think rationally. The physical robbing of resources and wealth may be over, but mentally they are still being raped daily, with the assistance of the media, including their national media. Today, the Afro Asians hardly remember or talk about the ravages of being colonised, and even forgot who colonised them and subdued them in their own country. For these are not the agenda in the western media. They don't talk or write about them. Better to let people forget about them. And to keep the Afro Asian's mind occupied, they created a bogeyman for them to hate. In the past it was Communism. Now it is China. Everyday the West will be bashing China for one thing or another. Expansionist, aggressor ambition, human rights, destroying the environment, pollution, poor quality food and goods, about to collapse, about to conquer the world, boycott the Beijing Olympic etc etc etc. As the message keeps on repeating daily in all the media, the subconsciousness of the Afro Asian minds gradually see this huge demon in China. And they all hate China and Chinese. Compare the Afro Asian's anti Chinese feelings to those of the Koreans. The Koreans, especially the North, knew who colonised and raped them. It was not the Chinese. Their enemy number One is the Japanese. For the Koreans were the least affected by the daily raping of the western media. Many don't read or can't read English. In the rest of Afro Asia, where English is widely used and English media is widely read and followed, their enemy number One is China. They forgot and cannot remember who colonised them and raped them. The Afro Asians deserved to be raped, mentally. For they lacked the ability to think and set their own agenda. The agenda is set for them. The thinking was done for them. Pathetic.

Sultan of Selangor said

Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of Selangor said, 'This country belongs to all Malaysians regardless of their race, and everyone has a right to feel as Malaysians.' The Sultan and some other royalties are showing concern about the worsening racial tension in the country stirred up by opportunist politicians in UMNO. The Sultan also said that politicians should not try to become popular by stirring up racial issues. If Malaysia and Malaysians were to allow the politicians to keep on stirring up hatred and animosities, Malaysia will go down the slippery road of self destruction. Instead of building consensus and building the economy, the politicians could only think of gaining fame and self interest at the risk of driving the country into racial turmoil. Has any of these opportunists come up with good developmental ideas to improve the life of the Malaysians? Zero. All they know is to stir shit and politicise everything. How could irresponsible politicians be allowed to continue to break up the country for their private agenda?

Quote by Khairy Jamaluddin

'How can we be racist, when we are defending equality.' And he wanted to increase affirmative action quota for Malays if the Chinese were not happy with the 30% set aside for Malays. In reality, especially in university places, it is more than 30%. And the Malay control of the economy too is more than 30%. While employment in govt service is probably 70% to 90%, depending on the ministry.

3 bubbles to destroy China

William Pesek wrote another article in the Today paper, one of those that prayed that China will collapse tomorrow. Nothing worth reading as the doomsayer's mindsets are predictable. I would like to write an article about the 6 bubbles that will destroy America. 1. The huge trade deficit that they cannot afford to repay. The greenback will soon become green banana money. 2. The huge expenditure on war and the defence budget. 3. The high consumption of Americans. They drink more petrol and eat beef that is 5 times bigger than the Asians. Mother earth just cannot afford to keep feeding them without going bust. 4. The high wage expectation. They think they are the chosen people that can always command a higher pay than other aliens. This privilege is only reserved for citizens of Paradise Island. All their industries will move out in a matter of time. They are simply uncompetitive. 5. They have made themselves the enemy of the Arab/Muslim world. 6. They think they can continue to fight wars everywhere with impunity. I could have added more. But these 6 bubbles, each alone, could cripple the American economy.

Nobel laureate out of sync in Paradise Island

Professor Muhammed Yunus was invited to Paradise Island to share his idea of a poor man's bank with Singaporeans. There were also talks of setting up an equivalent bank to help poor Singaporeans. I almost got choked when hearing this. This is probably the biggest contradiction to start with. In the first place there are no poor in Paradise Island. Or at least the poor are given more monetary aid than what the poor man's bank is giving out as loans, a miserable $50. Our govt is giving $300 a month to the poor as handouts! That must be a princely sum to go by. It is thus a non starter as a concept. The talks of Singaporean banks starting a poor man's bank is also another non starter. We used to have a poor man's bank. But since it started to charge a fee for the poor men to keep their miserable few dollars in our world class banks, I don't think any of our banks will bite at the possibility of giving out petty loans of $50 in the first place. It does not justify the high administrative cost. And how could we expect our banks to give loans without collaterals? Unthinkable. The talk by the Nobel laureate is as good as an academic exercise in futility to honour a great man.

Myth 158

The New Chosen People Singapore is so blessed, and so are Singaporeans. Singaporeans are the New Chosen People of God. We are blessed with all the supertalents that the world can have. Our people, including the workers, should all be paid salaries more than any other people in the world. This is to enable them to pay for all the world class goods and services at world class prices. Our properties will soon be the most expensive in the world, like our cars. Our office rentals deserve to be the most expensive as we are the paradise on earth. And our shopping paradise will price all their goods at a price where the rich and famous can afford, including Singaporeans. It is our right to price ourselves, including our salaries of workers, to be among the highest in the world. Because we are so good, we need not fear competition. For we are the chosen people. People of the world must come to this paradise to support our high standard of living. And we will continue to prosper and pay our way for all the good things in life. It is our never ending story to prosperity.

IDR and tinted glass

When the two govts are trying so hard to get things going in the IDR, two agencies from opposite side are doing or not doing things to facilitate the movement of vehicles through the causeway. Both sides have different specifications for tinted car windscreens which technically makes travelling by cars a pain to the travellers. What is acceptable and not acceptable is going to irritate all the drivers. Can't the two agencies sit down and talk over kopi and decide on a common specs for the benefits of travellers/drivers? Or should such a minor issue become another sore point to the two agencies and to travellers?

5 man SAF team returned from Afghanistan

It was reported in the media that a 5 man SAF dental team has returned from a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. And another engineering team is still there till Oct 31. It only reminds me of the 23 Korean hostages incident. What if? Hope we don't have to plead and bargain for their lives.

Umno Youth threatening bloggers

Hishamuddin had spoken again, threatening bloggers with sedition. "Umno Youth warns that freedom has its limits and we will not tolerate those who touch on issues of national stability, harmony, cultural values and the personality of national leaders," he said. Actually who are the greatest culprits in raising sensitive issues and threatening violence in the country? Luckily he did not draw his kris this time round.

Sin of Waste

Singapore will pay for its sin of waste one day. We are getting more like the Americans, wasting precious resources without a care as to how resources could be used more efficiently. We discard our cars after 10 years, some even less. Now we are tearing down buildings that are in good conditions, millions to build and millions added on by their owners. Tearing down some low rise houses for highrise is a necessity. But tearing down highrise to add on a few more floors and to charge the buyers more, all for more profits, well, it is a different ballgame. It is greed and waste with total disregard to the destruction of mother earth. More bricks and mortars, iron and steel, aluminium and plastics and mother earth will be used in the process. The immediate impact is to drive property prices up. And more people will end up having to pay more. The people who benefitted from en bloc sales will use the new cash to pay more by downgrading. This will in turn push up prices in the sector that they downgraded to. When property prices keep going up and income does not keep pace, many will end up chasing a fleeting dream. And when the bubble bursts, often it does, many will end up with valueless properties either people do not want or cannot afford to buy. The American subprime loan crisis is a good reminder of what could happened or had happened here before. When property prices were driven to ridiculous levels and the developers and all their cheer leaders and pom pom girls keep cheering that it is a good thing, prices will go higher. Now a HDB flat cost more than half a million, back to the pre crash prices of $600k and $700k. These are ridiculous prices, excessive for their real values. It will come tumbling down again. There will be no buyers to pay for them except the few who made easy gains from en bloc sales. The normal buyers, people who earned their money the proper ways, the hard ways, cannot afford to waste on such extravagant prices. Keep cheering and be irresponsible. The crash will come again. We will have our own subprime loan in over lending to the property market one more time. Non performing loan crisis. Our economy and income level cannot sustain an ever rising property prices.

Educating on the Inevitable

The old must die. That is a certainty that no one can escape. When the body ages, all the systems must fail, and all the regenerative and defensive systems must break down. That is life. We need to educate the people on the inevitable. We must educate the people that the road to the beyond is not something to fear or to delay at all cost. The people, especially the less educated and enlightened masses, must be assured that there is nothing in dying. It is a natural path to take. It is good to live as long as one is healthy and able, and with the finances to keep life going in a comfortable way. But if health does not permit, or finances are drying up, and when age and sicknesses catch up, there is a time to let go. When the people have been taught to expect the inevitable, there is lesser fear of death by old age. There will also be lesser worry about saving not enough for old age and the expensive hospital bills. There is no need for expensive hospital bills. Why should a lonely, homeless, penniless person, with all the body systems breaking down, insist on staying alive and paying a ransom to the medical profession and institutions to remain in that pathetic and useless condition? Would it be better, if he still have some savings in his CPF or Medisave, to use it to make his life more comfortable, enjoy his few remaining years with the food that he misses or the wine he wants to taste and live life to the fullest instead of stinging to keep all the money to be given away for the medical care givers to splurge on themselves? We must educate the people to save for their own comfort and enjoyment and not to feed the medical bills. Up to a point, there is no need to throw more money away to pay medical bills when the effort is futile.

Japan, the military demon awakening

Despite all its claims of being a peaceful nation, the Japanese have been quietly and steadily reviving their militarism and are eager to tell the world that the old Japan, military supremacy, is back on its feet. The Japanese military build up is anything but small. Its armed forces are probably bigger than the Chinese in financial terms or at least not too far off. It could even take on the two Koreans combined if necessary, and China, with the Americans behind them. That is how powerful the so called Japanese Self Defence Force is. And like Taiwan, they are slowly changing all the names from a Self Defence Force that cannot be deployed to conduct wars outside Japan, to a normal, and a military machine to wage wars against other nations. Its constitutions too have been amended. And the regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and the drumming up of military sentiments and past glories, including rewriting history books, revealed the real intention of the Japanese. Iraq was a stepping stone to test the water. And with the Americans controlling the agenda, the world kept quiet and allowed Japanese troops to be deployed outside Japan. Now that the taboo is over, the next and more aggressive posturing will be Afghanistan. The Americans are goading the Japanese to go along as a warring partner after Europe have given up on them. Now it is left only for one war mongering nation to join hands with another war mongering nation to prove how capable they are in the conduct of war. Afghanistan is the new battle ground for imperialist forces to quell the resistance. Afghanistan will be the new burial site for young Americans and Japanese soldiers. Japan will see their first war casualties after the Second World War in Afghanistan. Two eager beavers who see military supremacy as the absolute goals for their nation, and for the egos of their political leaders. When the rest of Europe and Asia were devoting their resources and energy in the peaceful pursuit of trade and industry, America and Japan are making plans for more wars. Rice and the Japanese Sushi are in serious discussion on how many Japanese troops should be deployed in Afghanistan. Did the world see another Hitler and Hirohito in the making?

Myth 157 - The American Financial Myth

What goes round will come around. The Asian financial crisis that battered Asian economies and made them look like little boys in the world of high finance, and making the West looked like school masters having a thing or two to teach the unsophisticated Asian govt, was a humiliating experience to say the least. And IMF came around, with the Americans in charge, dragged the little Asian boys by the collar and cane on the other hand, and reprimanding, these are the things that Asian govt must do. No buts. Asian govts were told to open up their books, revealed all the bad debts, more transparency, more regulations and controls, no more subsidies, closed down badly managed financial institutions, basically, to get their straw houses in order with strict financial control, thrift and prudent govt expenditure. The Asian economies were badly managed, or Asians just could not manage them and needed the expertise of the West to clean up their acts. It is time Asian govts pop over to Washington and see what Asians can do to help the Americans. They have badly mismanaged their financial institutions and are literally broke. Not only the sub prime loans but also huge trade deficits and wild and unrestrained spending. How about Mahathir going there, representing Asian financial institutions, carrying a bag of goodies and a cane and telling Bush to pull up his socks? Imagining Mahathir telling Bush to rein in all the bad debts, closed the loss making institutions down, tighten belts, no more deficit spending, no more money for wars, and more regulatory controls and transparency? And if all these still fails to bring back the American economy to health, Mahathir can teach them to stop the greenbacks from trading and fluctuating freely. Fix the exchange rate for the greenbacks, institute currency control and stop speculations. That would be the American nightmare. What happens to all the world class financial gurus? How could America's financial institutions be so badly mismanaged and allowed to go on for so long? Did they know what the hell was going on or do they know the fundamentals of economics? Cheap loans, high credit risks, deficit budget, are all the ingredients to a major economic crisis. The next thing that will come around are the diseases on livestocks and natural disasters that the Asians are experiencing. You cannot run. It will come around.

Preventing a meltdown

Across the world, all the central banks are pumping money into the economy and stock markets to avert a meltdown, except for those who have delinked themselves from the American capitalist system, eg the muslim states and Myanmar. What an irony. They are saved from a world system that is built on greed, exploitation and mismanagement by the Americans. And the Americans are pouring good money to chase after bad money, US$38 billion in the last few days to buy up bad sub prime mortages. When the fundamentals are wrong, it will go badly wrong. Spending and living on credit without thinking of repaying, or extending credit to unworthy customers, like our Ah Long, are awaiting a disaster of unimaginable proportion. The Ah Longs will find all ways to recover their loans. The Americans think that there is no need to recover these loans and will keep refinancing them over time, just like their trade deficits. Can it last? While the Americans were deceiving themselves into the sub prime mortgage industry, the bad thing is that they are exporting these poor credit risks to the rest of the world. Many unsuspecting countries and funds were lured into investing in such mortgages. And Murphy's Law was waiting to prove itself right anytime. Dow was down about 200 pts last night but managed to crawl back to lose only 31 pts. What a close call.

Myth 156 - Saving not enough

Singaporeans, at least 80% of them, are having a nightmare that they have insufficient savings for old age and retirement. Why is there so much hype and obsession about savings? Insufficient savings have been an issue as old as prostitution. The people of the world have insufficient savings to retire like kings and queens. But many will still live and survive even with little or no savings. The present assumption is that everyone must retire with a huge nest egg, scrimping from their daily needs, so that when they retired, they will be richer and have more money to spend than when they were healthy, young and working. And there is also this assumption that the cost of inflation will outrun all their savings and they will never have enough. Another part of the equation is to take away all family support and the asset esp the HDB flat that will also become quite a bundle with inflation. And of course when all these oldies are old and feeble, they need to spend more to live like healthy young things with a growing appetite to spend and party. And now people are encouraged to work for as long as they are alive. Actually as long as one is able to find a job that one can work till one drops dead, there is no need for savings. The longer one works, the shorter one has to live on one's savings. So the lesser savings is needed. If only more jobs can be created for the oldies. Who needs all the pretty young salesgirls or salesboys when these jobs can be done by granddads and grandmas, and at lower cost? Singaporeans are over saving, and for what? Oh to feed the ever increasing hospital bills and other cost of living.

Price Survey

With so many incidents of price hikes and profiteering, the Dept of Statistics should conduct a survey on the prices of food sold in all hawker centres and food courts, plus shops. The survey form shall list out all the items on sale, what is the latest price, when was it changed and what were the last three prices. Make this a compulsory survey like the household surveys and not completing them honestly will be heavily fined. Once the hawkers and stall holders have submitted their guilt in black and white, then go after them one by one, at your own time.

Singaporean Dictionary v1.1

With a few new additions The Singaporean Dictionary of famous phrases, in jest. (To be added on as more gems are discovered) Affordability: It means affordable according to the income of the person saying it. Brutal Truth: Utter only by the super rich and super talents. Equality: Some have more rights than others. Or as in Animal Farm. Foreign talents aka Fallen Trash: Not very bright foreigners but can replace Singaporeans on cheaper pay. Foreign workers: To compete with local workers to keep wages low. GST: Tax to benefit the poor and lower income citizens High Pay: Free of corruption Honest Mistake: Free from accountability. A learning process for taking risks. IR: Another term for Casinos Let's move on: Enough. We have decided and no one should say anything more about it. Case closed. Local talents: Only in demand overseas Majority: If 1 million did not vote and 3 voted, 2 is a majority. Means Testing: An opportunity to strip a citizen down to bare all his poverty. Mee Siam Mai Hum: Uniquely Singapore National security: My security, or the security of whoever saying it. NKF: Every Singaporean knows what it means. Pah Si Buay Chow: Stay on as long as the pay is good. Peanuts: As it is, good for monkeys only. Political talents: The best of all the country's talents. Privatisation: This is a process to make public service organisations more efficient. Once they are privatised, the have to operate to make profits. Inevitably all become more efficient. Quitters: Applicable to Singaporeans who can't make it here. Redbeanforum = online rantings in futility? ;P Retirement age: Not applicable in politics Shareholders' interest: This is used to justify profit at all cost. The shareholders' interest is supreme to the interest of the general public or the country. Straight As: Above average students. Anything below is average or below average. Straits Times: Tongue in cheek views of professional journalists for nation building. Subsidies: Govt subsidises, the people pay. Super talents: Measures by income . Tooth: Tooth that Singaporeans believe in. A variation of truth. Transparent: For me to know, for you to find out. Unemployed: Refers to lazy and choosy individuals. World class: This has many definitions depending on the context. World class govt: Highest paid govt. This is unchallenged. Will appear in Guinness Book of Records soon. World class public transport: Sardine packed public transport. World class universities: Based on the criteria of assessments and number of foreign students and lecturers tweaked to fit to the expected model.