Jam packed MRT

Whichever idiot ever suggests that it is a good idea, a bearable idea, to be jam packed inside a MRT train should first be put through the process and experience what it is like to be sandwiched between two smelly commuters. If he can stand the smell for 3 minutes, he is qualified as a super pig. For only pigs will be accustomed to such smell from a pig sty. Who is lauding the great Tokyo squeeze as something that we must get use to? What kind of world class standard is that?

Doing the opposite

We encourage entrepreneurialship. We want our people to take risk. High risk high returns. We must teach our people to be entrepreneurs. Hahaha. The real thing is that we are just doing the opposite. We reward employees and make the job as an employee so comfortable and rewarding that everyone is looking for a job. Singaporeans are looking for a job in Singapore and around the world. We are grooming the best employees for the world market. And the last hope for Singaporeans to take a little risk, to manage their lives and find their dreams is also dashed. We are keeping your money and we are going to manage it so that you will get $600 a month for the rest of your life. So safe, so secure, so predictable, no chances, no errors. Singaporeans will live a comfortable life as an employee with a monthly pay check from his employers and then a monthly pay check from his own savings. No need to take risk. The entrepreneurial dream is just a dream.

A little reflection

Chinese New Year or any new year is a time for reflection. Today paper wrote a frontpage article about the lonely people living alone and their need for the warmth of kins and young people. But it also said, 'A festive season that is all about kin and friends can be an especially depressing time for...the bedridden, the estranged, the abandoned, the lonely...' Many caring organisations and welfare groups are helping out to make these few days less lonely and less sad. 'At a dinner held last Friday, Madam Chew Ah Yim, 68, who lives alone and is childless, told Today: "It's like having grand children to talk to."' Because of the good work of all these organisations and the kind people that help to make these people happier, less lonely, life is worth living. The good thing is that all these people will have the chance to live beyond 85 years and have many such happy hours to look forward to. The unfortunate thing is that these happy hours come once a year. thanks or no thanks to the advances in medical science that these people can live to 100 years. Is it joy or is it suffering?

Halal canteen in a Singapore school!

This is shocking. We have been telling everyone everyday that we must respect other people's religion, culture etc and way of life, but not to impose our own way of life on others. How could this happen to Boon Lay Garden Primary School? I read it in the Straits Times but not in Today. What is more shocking is that it was implemented for more than a week! And School Discipline Master and Security Guards were checking the food the children brought to school to make sure that they were halal. Shouldn't they be spending time checking for terrorists? For such things to happen, there must be several meetings among the teachers and principals before it is being implemented and letters sent to parents. The sheeples as usual just like to keep quiet and be led around. If people are thinking, if teachers are thinking, the whole mess should not have taken off. It would have been stopped in the meeting room and not allowed to progress so far. This is the price we are paying for an unthinking populace, an unquestioning people that fears authority. Just take orders. Keep quiet, don't get into trouble by arguing with authority. What is happening?

Furious with Khaw Boon Wan

Forumer Seah Leong Khai was furious with the affordable $10 pm increase in MediShield premium introduced by Boon Wan. He used to pay $160 each for himself and his wife. Now each will have to pay $280 a year. This is almost double what he used to pay. But if you look at it from a monthly basis, it is very affordable. Only $10 mah! What irks Seah is that after collecting $297m, the CPF paid out only $119m in claims and expenses. 'It had a surplus of $178m in 2006. It now has more than $925 m in net assets in the MediShield Fund.' Seah asked why couldn't some of these be used for the higher payouts. Now, how to explain to Seah that the surplus must be kept for rainy day and that $10 a month is affordable?

Natural selector in govt hospitals

I was rather amused by what Salma Khalik wrote about natural selector in govt hospitals. And I was also not too amused by the kind of thinking behind the concept. What Salma said is that C wards were deliberately designed to make it uncomfortable or inconvenient, eg locating the toilets outside the wards, so that those who do not want to live with the condition will have to opt for better wards, and pay more. Really we have decision makers thinking this way? Like dat also got ah? Salma's recommendation is that hospitals should provide the necessary, some improvement will be appreciated without being extravagant, to subsidised wards. These hardup people know that they cannot demand for luxury or extraordinary creature comfort. But to make things difficult deliberately...hmmmm, what shall I say? Better don't say anything. Can we provide these subsidised wards with a decent environment without the intent to make them uncomfortable? Hopefully we have matured, more graceful, and not being small minded like our predecessors.

The vanishing conscience

We have many learned men but something is missing. A civic consciousness, a conscience to say and do what is right for the ignorant masses. This quality seems very lacking as we see how our lives are being managed by the state. The state is now managing our lives and our money as if they belong to them. And not a whimper is heard. Where on earth can you find elected people's representatives arrogantly going about planning the people's lives and planning with the people's money as if the money belongs to them? And the people accepted that, that it is ok for the state to decide how much to set aside their savings, what they should spend on, what they cannot spend on, and when they can get it back. This principle of individual right and ownership is being threatened and challenged everyday. When your money is no longer your money. Oh, oh, maybe I am wrong. Everyone agrees that this is the norm, the right thing to do. That may explain the silence. Shit, sorry, I am wrong.

No need for 4G leaders

If we believe what we say, what we claim, 1 in 2 Singaporeans who is alive at age 65 will live past 85, maybe 100 years. That is what the Lifelong Insurance Scheme is all about. LKY and Chok Tong will live past 85 to 100 years at least, given the quality of life, food and medical care. Hsien Loong too will be in the same boat. What do these mean? It means that in the next 30 years we will have 3 living PMs in charge. All tested and predictable leaders. We can't have 3 mentor ministers and more senior ministers to go with without bursting our budget. With the three around, there is no need for a fourth generation leader for the next 30 years. So no need to worry so early lah. Unless we don't believe in the assumption that all those who reach 65 will live past 85 to 100 years.

Choking the toilet

There was this solitary toilet next to a big restaurant. You can imagine what it was like when the customers are all full, belly like 48 gallon drums. All will head to the toilet at the same time. Sure jam. Big queue, long queue. The the jamban jaga got smart. In order to reduce the number of people queuing up, he raised the entry fee to the jamban. He solved the long queue problem. But there were no jamban around. Not his problem. These overfed people must find another jamban or go to the backlanes.

The queer things we do

We buy cars but not to use them, only to park in the car parks. We build roads but limit cars using it. We build expressways but do not allow cars to travel faster. Then we complain that the expressways are too slow. We save money but cannot touch or use them. We raise taxes and said it is to help the people. We pay very high salaries and claim that it will prevent corruption. We boast about our world class education system but claim that we have no talents, or need foreign talents to help them. We claim that we have a lot of talents, just pay them if you want them, but not enough to form two political parties. We keep raising prices and claim that we can't do anything about high cost of living. We legislate laws to make the people save money but insist that they must spend them in expensive hospital bills and buying lifelong insurance. We insist on people saving for to live to 100 years when 50% or more will die before 65. We continue to whine and whine about the govt but keep on electing the same govt.

Trust the govt with your money

Trust the govt with your money This is what Eng Heng was saying when he talked about the modified Lifelong Income Scheme. Do I want to trust anyone with my money? When I started to contribute to the CPF scheme, the contractual agreement, not just a principle, was that I would get to withdraw all my money at age 55. Did I get to get all my money back? My second disappointment was when it was announced that $30k of my money must be kept in the Medisave, only to be used on hospitalisation or serious illnesses. So $30k taken from me and I may not see it or touch it in my life. My third disappointment, when it was legislated that a huge sum of money, more than $100k, will have to be helded back as minimum sum. This too was not in the original scheme of the CPF. Now it is proposed that I have to buy Longevity Insurance to give me money after 85 which my god said I don't need it. Ok, maybe it would not affect me now with the Longlife Insurance as this will only affect those under 50 today. How could there be trust when I don't even have any right or say to my money. If I have a choice, I will take out every cent in the CPF immediately. For I do not know what schemes will appear tomorrow that will keep my money away from me.

The great planners

The thing that Singapore excelled and did very well is estate planning, infrastructure development and driving the economy, and many other things that planning can do. We have planned everything, and anything that can be planned, we have thought of it and planned ahead. But one area we have failed miserably, that is transportation. We have let the problem grow for too long, and not because we cannot afford to solve them. And this is weird. Of all things, transportion, the roads, vehicles, and population are all numbers that can be crunched easily. Dealing with numbers and being able to manipulate the numbers to a high level accuracy is our forte, what we do best. Can I say that these problems are predictable and could have been forseen and solved progressively instead of the gridlock we are talking of today. Luckily now we have Raymond Lim to look at it closely and to do something about it, quick and fast.

Myth 171 - Who is more talented

Today, talents are measured by the salary or income they get. So we have a $10m talent, $1m talent, a $100k so so talent and a $10k not so talent. It is very easy to spot a talent, just by the things that he can afford, his home, his cars, his accessories and his ability to afford holidays, fine dinings and the theatres. When monetary reward is the accepted means of comparing talents, our local talents will have difficulty matching up to those in the developed and rich west. How could we pay someone in our GLCs the equivalent of Citibank, Microsoft, Shell, Yahoo, or the Stock Exchange of New York? What we can afford to pay is simply peanuts to them. So they are more talented than all our talents. Even a small MNCs will be able to pay much more than our best GLCs. Or a senior executive, not even a CEO, will be paid more than our top talents, more than our ministers. So what else can we do to tell people our top talents are as good as these western talents of large international corporations? Shall we pay our top talents as high as them so that we can also be recognised as billion dollar talents? Or shall we hire billion dollar talents to boost up our pool of average million dollar talents? A top talent in public service in China will probably be earning 10% of our average talent in civil service. So our average talent must be more talented. In this way we can tell the world that our talents are the best in the whole of Asia, in monetary terms. But our best will be third or fourth best in the west. For that is likely the amount they are paying to their third or fourth rate talents. The suggested road for Singaporean talents is to go west, get a reasonably high paying jobs and come back to be better than our local talents as they will command a higher pay package. Otherwise don't come back.

Celebrating the unsung heroes

It is easy to notice the great achievers and share their successes. The fame of entrepreneurs, statesmen, professionals etc are well documented, acknowledged and published in the media. These people are generally those who have acquired fame and wealth. We spoke in awe at the doctor or lawyer who earned several hundred thousands for each case executed. The higher the fees, the more respectable they become. He is good and that is why he can charge more. Looking at another corner, there are great people who have done great things for the people by making their lives liveable at very low cost. They do not pursue high profit margin for themselves. They produce goods and services at the cheapest possible price and at reasonable quality to benefit the masses. The first name that came to my mind is the instant noodle manufacturers. At a few cents, they pack a decent meal for those who cannot afford to be lavished. Millions in the world are living on instant noodles daily, 3 or 4 meals a day, 365 days a year, and for several years. Not only the lonely and the unemployed or retirees are doing it, many students from not too well off families are doing eat, eating instant noodles to get by, saving every cent they could to get their education. For the good that these manufacturers have done and served humankind, their contributions are mostly taken for granted. Then there are the hawkers in some hawker stalls that are selling quality and excellent meals at $2 in this expensive city called Singapore. And they are continuing to do it, happily serving their grateful customers, not raising prices despite all other costs being up. How could they do it? Or why are they so stupid to continue to do it and not ripping off their customers by claiming that costs are up and they need to raise their prices? Or would people be looking down at them for not earning the millions they should be and to claim that they are also talents in their own fields? The answer, i think, is that these people are happy with what they are doing, and they are happy seeing their customers happy. They are happy with the profits they are getting and do not seek to maximise profits at all costs. Basically they are not greedy people. But we should not be too happy about this state of affair. Soon the greedy people will come into the picture to force them out of business, raise their rentals and whatever costs. Then they will have no choice but to raise prices or go out of business. Then people will all claim to be innocent and blame somebody else for the high cost of living. The BSE disease is a very good excuse to fall back on.

Cash prizes to improve govt efficiency

'Give the Govt an innovative, impactful idea to cut red tape for businesses and win $1000.' This is a new drive by the Pro Enterprise Panel(PEP), an agency to help cut unnecessary bureaucracy in regulations, to create a more pro business environment. My first suggestion, and I want to claim my $1000 prize, is to remove this agency and this award. You do not need an award like this to solicit suggestions from the ignorant and no talent public to improve govt efficiency. If the public can do that, then they should be running the govt agencies. And we are having the top talents, paying top salaries running these agencies. Why are they incapable of looking into the problem, cutting red tapes and improve their proceduces and efficiency? Who create the red tapes and inefficiency? What is happening? Million dollar talents asking the peasants to teach them to suck eggs? Let me rethink over the issue again. We pay top talents millions of dollars, in turn they are asking the no talents to teach them how to improve and willing to pay the no talents a miserable $1000 for it....

Money everywhere

With ERPs as another great source of revenue, there is money everywhere. And motorists are also 'encouraged' to use public transports, the bus companies and SMRT are going to laugh all the way to the banks. They may be crying, that they can't cope with the volume of people traffic. They would not cry because of the revenue they are collecting. Now, where are these money from the ERPs and the commuters taking public transport going to? The shareholders of transport companies must be the great beneficiaries with the govt helping to promote their services. Shouldn't some of these profits be ploughed back to the people in some ways? The increase revenue is due to govt effort and policies, not because of the effort of the transport companies. What kind of private business can get this kind of booster from the govt? Is it too much to ask for some kickbacks to benefit the commuters in reducing fares? Or are we expecting fares to go higher because of increasing demand?

Two pet projects

The two hottest pet projects today, no guessing, must be Mean Testing and Longevity Insurance. I do not know how they came about or who were the great thinkers behind them, they sure come across as two pet projects that must die die be implemented at all cost. And despite the obvious, that both are no gos, the tenacity and furiousity to get them accepted are unbelieveable. With so much effort and resources put into them, no matter, an inadequate idea is still an inadequate idea. Yes I am harping, I am belabouring my point. Take mean testing for instance. What does it hope to achieve? Peanuts. And what are the costs? Financial, manpower and political costs are high, very high. Worst, it is all about a little principle that people are whinning about? We need bigger hearts to overlook the little idiosyncracies of man, of those who choose to live frugally and save every cent they can. These are not sinful or criminal ways and need not be hit so hard with the full machinery of a state. Then the longevity scheme. It is a good scheme like any insurance scheme. But how useful is it? How many will need it that the whole population will now have to bear the cost of someone's pet idea? Which god is so sure that 50% of the people will live past 85 years? And how many of these will need monetary help? You mean all these people who live till these ages could not think for themselves to make some kinds of provision for their old age? The joke is that many of those who can afford to live past that age are people who can afford to live on and on, even hooking on to expensive machines. Those who cannot are happier to let nature takes its course. There is no reason to prolong life in misery when the people cannot afford to even feed or house themselves. Once we accept that everyone must die, the natural way, let it be and the problem will solve itself. There is very little need to have longevity insurance. But for those who want it and can afford it, by all means. The little remnants that survive to those ages and could not feed themselves do not cost a bomb to the govt unless the govt wants to treat them like little Suhartos, hooked to machines and attended by an army of medical professionals. The scheme is but a red herring at best. LKY has publicly said that the 6.5m population, another pet idea, may not be what he is comfortable with. I am sure the planners will be scrambling for cover now. Do we need LKY to raise some doubts about these two pet projects before they are abandoned? Maybe it is too late. The rice isw almost cooked. Maybe LKY also agrees to it.

Smelling problems

One of the fine secrets of our success is smelling for problems or predicting problems. In management term it is called proactive. Every time when a problem is found and anticipated, you can smell money. We are being proactive in the ageing problems. Ha, money everywhere. We are anticipating water shortage and higher prices, more to collect money! We are planning to reduce jams on our roads, more money again. Increase our population, even more money. Lack of talent in govt, more money also. Medical care, housing shortage, ahhh, money akan datang. Every problem is actually a happy problem as more money will be in play.

Longevity Insurance - So what's new?

It was called National Longevity Insurance Scheme. Now it is called National Lifelong Income Scheme. A high power team has done its work and the scheme has been revised, repackaged and ready for the ears. The scheme met with a lot of unhappiness when first announced. Presumably everyone will be celebrating and very happy when the revised scheme is heard. Heard that instead of withdrawing at 85, now can withdraw at 80. Great, fantastic! And money need not go to someone else but back to the families. Another great improvement. And there are options. Great ideas. Never heard of options before. So, is it still compulsory? Have they addressed the issue that many do not need such insurance as they are well covered or have made plans for themselves? What ever, if 50% as believed will live past 85, maybe to 86 or 120 years, the other 50% will not reach this age. The error is 50%. I woke up this morning and a saw a bright light. And I realised that everyone must die. I challenge anyone to dispute this truth with me. I am 100% right! Not 50%. So I am going to recommend that life insurance be made compulsory for everyone since all must die. Brilliant isn't it?

Near full employment

Unemployment rate at 2.1% is as good as full employment. And according to a UOB economist Ho Wei Chean, '...most locals who want a job are able to do so. There is competition but it is not creating a lot of unemployment among locals.' This is good news and as good as tooth, I mean truth. I only hope that our university graduates and professionals are happy driving their taxis. Ok, their income has risen with the taxi fare hike and they should not be complaining. 236,000 jobs were created last year and 61% or 144,000 went to foreigners. 39% went to locals or a new group called 'indigenious workforce.' I call this term ingenious for it does not tell whether they are citizens or non citizens. Anyway full employment is better than unemployment. Parents should still spend hundreds of thousands to send their children to university and they can be assured that if all else fails, their children can still drive taxis and enjoy a mobile office.