Oo la la, Good Year Ang Pow

$1.8b of GYAP coming our way. Where on earth can one find an ATM that gives this kind of money to the people? It would be unreasonable for anyone to find fault with the budget. It is too good to be true. Money pouring into everyone's pocket. But criticism there will be, on the details perhaps. There will sure be some reasons for people to nickpick. Let me start with one. In the last debate, it was a good one too, but after some criticisms and afterthoughts, several MPs stood up to defend their mothers and grandmothers. They felt that the housewives who stayed at home to look after the children and spare the working mothers and fathers from having a demonic maid at home, deserve something more. They are playing a very vital role in supporting the family and growing the children. Well, Tharman has forgotten his mother and the housewives again. Not a word was mentioned. Let's see if the MPs remember and kick up a scene in Parliament. Nothing will be done after that anyway. But a little wayang will be good if they want the votes of the housewives. Or at least it gives them something to throw at Tharman. The other point that people tend to miss out when there is a goodies galore is how the goodies were made possible. There is a budget surplus of more than $6b. And this is the result of a policy of taxing and getting as much money from the people in all ways. Then after emptying the people's pocket, just give a few handouts in return. And as usual, the sheeples will respond in a most predictable manner. Very happy and grateful for the goodies. They have forgotten about the GST, ERP, the fees and fare hikes, the causes of the high inflation. The latter were blamed as the result of external factors beyond our control. If policies were to tax a little lesser, there may be lesser need to give handouts. Or there will be lesser to give. Wonder which is better. Collect like hell to give a little more, or collect less to give less?

We are not short of talents

How can we be short of talents when we can easily create more? Ah Meng could be a great talent if we pay her more than peanuts and bananas. As such, Ah Meng would probably be remembered as a peanut and banana talent. Imagine if Ah Meng is paid $1m! He will instantly be a million dollar talent. Creating talent in paradise is so easier. Just pour money onto the person.

NUS Law fees up 20%

I nearly missed out on this. 20% hike for NUS Law students. But that is fair given the amount of money they can make on graduation. After all all the parents interviewed believed in quality and don't mind paying for them. So with the message that the higher the fees, the better the quality, I think all the parents would soon be demanding that the fees be raised higher. Then they can go around telling people how much they paid for quality education.

Prepare people to die

I believe it is kinder to prepare people to die or to accept death once they have past 70 years than to prepare them to live forever. The later could be more pain and suffering, loneliness and a life of physical deprivation. Only the very rich, with all the filial children around them could enjoy life forever. Death is a certainty. Once 70 is reached, biologically we are gone. All the parts needs to be changed or we will look worst than scrap cars in the junk yard. Face it, old people will be a problem to themselves, their families and society unless they are physically able to live life on their own. We should prepare and educate people to accept that the time will come to depart. The fantasy of living past 80 and forever is not a good thing to many. It can be very tragic even with $600 pm. What for? Live a glorious life. Let the end be fast and swift, with little pain.

What we need is respect for the citizens

We need to respect our humble citizens. We need to respect their rights as individuals, their pride, their rights to be masters of their own money. We cannot keep telling our citizens that they are inept, irresponsible, cannot be trusted to look after themselves and their money, dictate to them how to live their lives, how much money to take from them, how to spend their money, when they can get back their money. We cannot tell them that for their standard and quality of life, they should be contented with being squeezed like sardines in trains and buses. We cannot tell them elementary logics that even Ah Long can think of. We cannot keep treating them like mindless and unthinking masses and on the other hand telling them that they are products of world class education system.

Quality of tertiary education going up in 2008

The quality of tertiary education will go up between 4-10% in 2008. To be more specific, NUS and NTU's quality will be up by 4% and SMU up by 10%. This is if you are convinced that quality can be measured by money. The more money the better the quality. At the rate we are going, we will soon be world best, better than Harvard and Stanford. All we need to do is to buy over all their top professors. And if we put Ah Meng's children in expensive universities with expensive professors, they will turn out more talented than cheaper universities. Our graduates should rightly be paid a premium and be in hot demand around the world. We will have solved our lack of talent problems forever.

People exempted from TALIS

1. Those with less than $40k in Retirement Accounts at 55. 2. Those with serious medical conditions. 3. Those on pensions. 4. Those with private annuities. What about those millionaires or half a millionaires? What about those with properties worth half a million or more? PS: TALIS is short for The Amazing Lifelong Insurance Scheme

Why my coke is 80c?

Ah Pek was seen arguing with the mama shop why his can of coke is now 80c and not 60c. Ah Pek said he read in the paper that the prices of common household goods increased only by 4.3%. Now his coke of 60c increased by 20c or 33%! How can? Profiteering huh!

The Amazing Lifelong Insurance Scheme(TALIS)

It's so amazing. Simply brilliant. Foreign workers used to return to their villages to tell stories about paradise, where people can walk to a machine in the wall to take money when they need money. Now the citizens of paradise will have a $600 payout for life. No govt in the world can promise their citizens such a scheme. If we sell this scheme to the world, we can have 20 million people queueing to be citizens. Just a few questions. Who is paying who? A life time payout, or forever? How many more years can one live after 80, 85, or 90? One good thing coming from the review is that it is now not compulsory. The people will have 12 flexible schemes to choose from. For those who are going to live forever, this is like paradise. I am going there to prepare mansions for all of you who believe in me.

Long Life Insurance

Same assumptions and reasoning. People will live longer, no money, go to meet the people session to ask for help. How many of these people really need help at the end of the day? Why don't we have another set of assumptions. Some people will live longer. They will make provisions for themselves personally or through their families. They don't need govt's charity. Is this group more than those in the former group? Assuming that 70% live till 65. So 70% will may need the Long Life Insurance. Assuming 50% of those reaching 65 will live till 85. So half of the 70% or 35% may need the insurance. Take this at the half way mark this will give 17.5% who would need the insurance. The assuming that half of this 17.5% have been responsible and have savings, then only 8.75% will need the insurance. And assuming that half of this have families to take care of them, the final figure will be 4.375% that really need the insurance. For the sake of 4.375% who for some reasons cannot look after themselves in old age, 100% of the population will have to be forced to buy Long Life Insurance. Actually this figure is a bit inflated as many who cannot afford to live that long would have die naturally. Those who can afford to live to the ripe old age would have some means to do so. What the Govt can do is to issue a Certificate of Proof of voluntary rejection of the Long Life Insurance and allow people to opt out of the scheme. And at the end of the day, if these people come for handouts, just give them the $290 pm and nothing more. The COP will make them ineligible for more govt handouts. I think this will be fair. The people will take responsibility for their own actions and life. And the govt would not be blamed if they mess up their lives. And given the benevolent Long Life Insurance Scheme in place, not many will be left in the lurch. Is it really so hard to let people have the option to opt out? Why so adamant about making it compulsory? Let people be responsible for their own actions. Trust the people. If the govt cannot trust the people, why should the people trust the govt?

What makes a great PM

I was reading P N Balji's comment on the barriers of age, gender and race. And he mentioned that LKY was a PM at 35, Chok Tong at 49 and Hsien Loong at 52. For this, he suggested that the future PM could be older, maybe in the 60s. This is natural as our population, including the supertalents will live to 100. And if they are not fruitfully employed after 60s, then they will be rotting somewhere and will be a waste of their talents. But it would be better if we can find younger PM, say below 35. From the above statistics it is proven that the younger the PM, the better will be his contribution and achievements. And this is only logical. For if a young man in his 30s can shine and be seen as good enough to be a PM, then he is truly an exceptional talent. And he will grow in his job. An older PM will just slow down with time and age. So, an older PM is not the best choice.

It would be more palatable

If only public policies were made not with the people's saving but with public funds from taxes or revenue. It would be better if the urge to provide world class services comes with a public announcement that it will cost so much from the users' pockets. It would be better to provide world class services but at the same time offer those who cannot afford it an alternative service to pay for a cheaper service, and without mean testing of course.

Notable quotes - Lionel De Souza

'The relevant authorities should take the necessary action to criminalise anti competitive practices before they become prevalent.' Lionel De Souza. Before they become prevalent? I support Lionel's call, but wake up, it is prevalent and blatantly practised in many industries by supposely professional and respectable top management staff. They are rightfully called criminals and need to be punished for not only the crime but immoral and unethical practices. It is a poor reflection of the high moral standards that these individuals eschewed and blared out loudly in public speeches. It is hypocrisy in the highest level of corporate management.

New NKF - Spartan but safe

This is the headline in Today on the new NKF. The new CEO, Eunice Tay, has gone in for about a year and has changed the image from a lavish setup of a business and profit oriented organisation to one that looks more like a charity organisation, emphasing on the well being of its patients and on thrift. She cut, reduce, reuse and recycle, and even manages to remove more than 10 vehicles and freeing 5 floors of its HQ office space for rentals! How could so much space and vehicles be made available or not made available by the previous regime? The surprising result is that patients that were unmotivated, depressed and suicidal are now happier. And so were staff morale and a lower turnover. All the little empires and bickering of office politics were gone, including the lavish office of the CEO and the golden tap. I think the new NKF will gradually regain the confidence and trust of its donors, supporters and patients. Other public service organisations could learn a thing or two from the concept of 'Spartan but safe' and discard the golden tap philosophy to benefit the customers they are serving. No need to have first class or world class dreams if the customers cannot afford them.

Myth 172

Saving that is not Technically Singaporeans are among the greatest savers, saving at least 38% of their income directly into the CPF and more for those who can afford to in their private personal accounts. But Singaporeans will never have enough for their old age. How so? Because the saving is not savings. The savings will be spent along the way and by the time they retire, they will be shock to know that there is hardly anything left. Savings of Singaporeans is a myth. Where would all these big savings go to? Housing will take a huge proportion over 30 or 40 years. This is perhaps the biggest item to be taken out from the saving. Then there is the Medisave that will be spent in world class hospitals charging world class rates. And if this is not spent, it will be kept out of reach of the Singaporean till he passes away. Then there will be the fees for education, the premiums to be paid for medical insurance and life long insurance. And Singaporeans can count on more schemes in the future to help them spend their savings in the CPF, and probably even compulsory spending. So whatever the Singaporeans saved in the CPF, they will spent it, in one way or another, in advance.

Indigenous population growth

We are getting 37,000 new births last year, slightly better than the year before but still not good enough. It is still not enough to replace the attrition rate. We need more babies. Go forth and multiply. It is easier said than done. How much does it take to bring up a child to adulthood? $250k, $500k? We have many pro family policies to encourage parents to have more children. The question is that how many can afford to bring up children to go through our expensive web of life? Everything costs money and the cost is going up very quickly. It will not come down. Having more children is easy. But how many will be able to reach a level of comfort, by paying through the education system and quality of living, to say that life is worth living? How many will end up struggling for an existence, a life not worth living? Come to think of it, it is better to bring in the richer foreigners to supplement our population target than to encourage the indigenous hardlanders to produce more babies and to end up living in drudgery.

Lasik surgery getting cheaper

This piece of news sounds odd. Very odd indeed when it was accompanied by news that Lasik surgery will now be done using an improved and expensive equipment with enhanced technology. The result is higher accuracy and safer, and of all things, cheaper. Can this be true? How could better medical services be cheaper? This is against the conventional wisdom of paradise land. In paradise, everything, or anything that is better must be paid with more money. The delivery of a child in a hospital, private or govt owned private hospitals, now cost thousands of dollars. Has the delivery of a baby been different today than those done yesterday? Why is delivery of a baby costing so much? Several of my siblings were delivered by mother, free of charge. She did it herself. Are the women of today constructed differently? Or are the women of paradise built different that delivering a baby is now high technology and requires modern science to assist? The way a child is delivered today, other than a complicate case, cannot be different from a child delivered a few hundred years ago. A midwife could do it, a mother could do it. It is a natural process, a motherly instinct. That's how the human race populated itself. The additional cost today is contributed by all the comfort and fineries, all the pampering and the assurance of professional help. Minus all these, delivering a child can be made very much cheaper. The increasing cost must be a choice by those who want to splurge on them. For the ordinary soul who just want to deliver a child the old way should not have to pay a bomb to do it.

A lesson from Thailand

The military junta led by Sonthi and his generals are wetting their pants. There is fear of reprisals, fear of vengeance, fear of Thaksin's return. Why should there be fear? They have been upholding justice and truth and did everything they did, for Thailand and the Thai people. Or what they did were something else? In third world political systems, the obsession of power, the unwillingness to share political power, the unforgiving and vicious exercise of power against political opponents, depriving the people of their elected representatives by the abuse of power, will inevitably lead to fear and tension. Fear and tension in the victors as well as the losers. When Sonthi led the military coup, he made use of the whole state machinery to go after Thaksin, his family, relations and friends, and his party. All kinds of charges were drummed up, from treason, disrespect to the king and corruption. With all the civil servants under his control, he could go throw all the files, all the documents, to dig out every little things that Thaksin and his allies did, and frame any charges he wanted. That was justice, the justice of power, the truth of a third world political system. Compares that with what we are seeing in the US. The losers are as gracious and the winners as forgiving. And they accept each other in good spirit and with goodwill. They are willing to share political power with whoever the people chose. They accept the will of the people. They accept a system and play by it. There is no inkling of a coup or grabbing the machinery of the state to serve private and personal political interest. The winners and losers continue their lives as if nothing had happened. After the last election Al Gore continues his life lecturing and trying to save the world. We can see Romney, Hucklebee, McCain, perhaps Obama or Hillary continue what they were doing after the Presidential election. There will be no fear of vengeance or oppression or law suits. Thailand will take a long time to be free from fear. The military junta was ruthless in the persecution of Thaksin and his friends. Now they fear the same ruthlessness befallen on themselves. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. No exception. Third world political systems are vicious and shortlived, and will end in upheavels when there is a regime changed.

On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days. And on the 3rd day, still full of new year cheers and good wishes, saying all the good things is a must, you would not want to be greeted with any bad or unsavoury news. No one would be happy to be greeted with news of someone passing away. But that is exactly what greets everyone on the front page of The Straits Times. Is it an ominous sign, a sign of things to come for the year? It is a great objective and unfeeling piece of news to be flashed on the front cover of the main paper, to greet everyone first thing in the morning when he/she picks up the paper. Thanks but no thanks.

High rental good

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Current.com.au, the Harvey Norman co-founder and executive chairman rent rises of up to 50 per cent in one year, coupled with leases restricted to three years, meant all major electrical retailers there were under pressure. "The rents are just horrendous, and trying to figure out how you can do business is a really difficult thing, because you think 'Well, how do you do this?'" He said all three major players in the Singapore electrical retail market – Courts, Harvey Norman and Best Denki – had the same issues. "We all have the same problem, and probably sooner or later one of the three of us will disappear, and there'll be two of us. Then there's a good chance there'll be one of us." I copied the above extract from a post in Sammyboyforum. The rent hike is getting crazier by the days. A small foodstall in a refurbished aircon foodcourt will cost more than $13k a month in the new towns. Can't imagine what it will cost in town or big shopping centres. And how many bowls of noodles would the stallholder need to sell before he breaks even? But we should encourage the property owners to raise rent faster. Then the effect will be more dramatic. It is like blowing a balloon.