Victims of Savages

Throughout history, the worst savages of racial discrimination, brutality and ethnic cleansing were the Americans and Europeans. They left their marks from North and South America, Africa and across Asia. Hardly any race was spared. The savage killings of the Red Indians, the slavery of the Africans, apartheid in South Africa were historical facts that western journalists and academics chose to shut up and to conveniently forget. In turn, they painted the Americans and Europeans as the beacons of human right champions, the hope to extinguish racial discrimination and the saviour of the world. And a straw man was used to replace the American/Europeans as the number one racist hoard, China and the Chinese. And all the silly Africans and Asians, including Southeast Asians, swallow this line of thinking conveniently. In reality, the Chinese were also the victims of savagery when the West invaded and controlled China, turned it into a semi colony. Then the minority Chinese in Southeast Asia themselves were victims of savages in their adopted countries. The Indonesians were the worst culprits followed by the Malays in Malaysia. Ethnic cleansing were quite a frequent affair, cultural and social oppression were written into laws and govt policies. The only place where the Chinese were not persecuted is Singapore. The only place that the minorities were not persecuted is Singapore. The only country where the minorities were treated fairly and enjoy as equal a right as the majority is Singapore. The Malay minority here is still angry with appointments in the military. But to be fair to the govt, the condition then was such that it was a matter of national security and survival. It was not racial to begin with. They may want to understand the situation then and ask themselves whether the govt could have done otherwise to keep the country peaceful and stable when our neighbours were out to do us in with possible military intervention.

Malaysia backtracking on teaching in English

Muhyiddin announced that Malaysia is scrapping the teaching of Science and Maths in English and the reason given is that it will undermine the students ability to learn Bahasa Melayu. The teaching of these subjects in English is also tough on the students as their grasp of the language is poor. I think the real reason is that there are not many competent teachers who are able to teach in English. The 40 years of abandoning the teaching of English has taken its toll. Many of the teachers educated under the new policy would not have much knowledge of English and will be incompetent to use the language as a medium of instruction. If the teachers are struggling, how could the students learn anything? Education policies or many national policies cannot be scrapped simply at someone's fancy as the consequences and impact are long term and long lasting. To unwind and start again is going to be very painful. The easy way is not to do it and continue with their current policy of using Malay as the medium of instruction. It is not easy to transform a nation of Malay speakers into an English speaking community overnight.

Crowds in property launches

Crowds are thronging new property launches and grabbing up properties like hot cakes. And property developers are cashing in on the affluence of Singaporeans and launching more projects for sale. The Singaporeans are really rich, buying properties costing at least a million like buying durians off the streets. Where is the recession? Where are the poor? It is all a myth. All the talks about poor Singaporeans living from hands to mouth or waiting for handouts are mere exaggerations. Singaporeans are rich like hell.

Myth 207 - Monkeys scattered when the big tree falls

Many have quoted this phrase as a truism, that all the monkeys in a big tree will scamper and scatter once the tree has fallen. No more branches to hang on to. Better to look for another big tree. Better still, be their own big tree. In such a scenario there will be many big trees contending for more monkeys to hang on to their branches. Will this be the case all the time? I think it will be, without exceptions. Big tree falls, means big tree no more. A replacement tree growing beneath may become another big tree, but will take some time to grow in stature. Another possibility is instant Angsana tree being used to replace the old tree. But instant trees have short roots and may not stand the gust of strong winds or a heavy downpour. And Angsanas are never know to be strong, like the old oak tree or the tembusu. Would this saying be as true as it was or would it just be a myth?

Free water in restaurants?

There are people demanding free drinking water from posh restaurants. How audacious! If they want to drink free water, go to the tap. Just as one of the posh restaurant owners said, they served great culinary fare. Why would people go to their restaurants to drink tap water? Ridiculous. These must be the cheapskates or people who cannot afford high class restaurants. They should confine themselves to eating at hawker centres. Incidentally, water is not free. Our water comes with a 30% water conservation tax. And that is huge in any terms. This outrageous tax has been in practice and the dumb people have been paying for, I think, more than 10 years or 20 years without complaining. Recently some little noises have been heard calling for the abolition of this highhanded tax to be removed. After so many years, the people must have learned to handle our precious water with care and not to waste them. The message must have gone through. Apparently not. It is here to stay no matter how nonsensical is the reasoning. Hit the people in the pocket where it hurts. But this policy is good and efficient. It may be obnoxious and totally arrogant to slam the people with this kind of reasoning and policy, but it is damn effective. Other then curbing some abuses of water, the revenue is handsome and can be used to pay people more handsomely. No matter how much I dislike this policy, its virtue is irresistible. I would like to suggest that the same reasoning and policy be introduced to curb wastage of petrol. Hit the drivers with another 30% petrol conservation tax. This can be extended to food wasting. Too much food are wasted by our unrestrained habit of eating and eating all day long. 30% rice and food conservation tax will ensure that the people save on food consumption and eat lesser. The benefits are tremendous. No need for wasting time in school children with obese problems. No need extra training for obese NSmen. No need to waste foreign exchange to import more food. And the additional revenue can be used to reward those who implement such policies. Anyone still want free water? Or is there free water?

Singapore Night Festival

More pictures in the Singapore Night Festival blog in link provide or http://singnitefest.blogspot.com

Don't be cock, learn from the Americans

We are America's most ardent fans in everything the Americans do. We will eat shit if the Americans say it is good. We have copied and aped practically everything they do in high finance, managing the stock exchange and playing with derivatives under a policy of free wheeling and dealing with minimum supervision. Now the Americans have created this huge mess for the world. But the Americans knew that they have done wrong. They are thinking deeply on where they have gone wrong and are trying to rewind from their mistakes. They are not foolish or stubborn people who refused to admit their mistakes and will continue to do the silly things. Today I read in the paper that Geithner is seeking more curbs on derivative dealers. The days of free wheeling and dealing with minimum supervision and control are over. "'We propose to require all derivatives dealers...to be subject to substantial supervision and regulation, including conservative capital requirements, and strong business conduct standards,' Mr Geithner said, essentially acknowledging there were few limits in the past." In addition, these traders are required to keep records and reporting requirements. The objective is to prevent market manipulation, fraud and other abuses by providing full information to regulators about activity in the OTC derivatives markets. I think this is not enough, especially in a small market like SGX. Market manipulation through huge buying or short selling and programme trading, among other things, were the tools that big funds and house traders employed to exploit the weaknesses of small traders. Small investors have been incurring huge losses over the years without a clue to these unfair advantages and manipulation of big funds. It is time to continue to follow the Americans and rectify the flaws in the financial system instead of adopting the belief that no complaints means that everything is doing well. Stop the bleeding in the stock market where small investors have their pockets emptied by the big players. The new measures to be introduced by Geithner will dampen the high volatility of the stock market. But it is a necessary evil to contain the destructive manipulations and excesses of the big funds. The volatile trading activities must be curbed and some sanity return to the market. The stock market must operate and on its original premises and assumptions and sound principles, not the rules of a casino.

The unsustainable ascent of property prices

Our property prices have skyrocketed over the years and the stratospheric prices of HongKong and Tokyo are within our reach. We will outshine them in a matter of time. Then why is it unsustainable when the prospect of prices going higher is so brilliant? Let me talk about the forces that will push the prices higher and higher. Our limited land is a fact that cannot be changed. Even with reclamation, we can just do that much more. The other reason is that with prices at such a high level, with many people ploughing their life savings into properties, many with high mortgages, allowing prices to fall is going to be catastrophic. So by hook or by crook, property prices must be maintained, if not higher, but not allowed to falter and slip. The solution is simple. Manage supply and demand. Supply is easy to contained. Don't build untill there is a demand. Don't sell land unless the price is high enough for a good return. The demand side, invite more rich foreigners to buy up our properties with attractive incentives, first world infrastructure, transparency, stability, and a value that can only go up. The rich foreigners can go for the high end. The not so rich can buy up HDB properties when they become citizens or PRs. As long as the demand for properties is there, have no fear that the prices will fall. But what about demand from the locals? There will be the upgraders who need a little more to move up. But will there be demand from the new entries, the new generation coming into the market? Can their income feed the high mortgages they will be paying, a stagnating income against an ever rising property market? The divide is going to widen. Many of the locals whose income is not going up will have to downgrade or go for smaller HDB flats. On the other end, the upper and high end market, demand will keep on soaring. And it is, or will be a good thing. They will help to prop up both the private and public housing markets. In the future, Singaporeans will have to beg the foreigners, and more foreigners, to come in to buy up their properties, to keep the property prices high. Without the foreigners and their cash, our property market will crash. Yes, the foreigners will be here to help the locals by buying up their properties so that they can downgrade and live on the profits. Hopefully the profits ill last their life time before they ran out. How many times can one downgrade? Without the foreigners, our high property price is unsustainable.

Authoritarian state and practices

George Bush started by prying into the private lives of people using the excuse of security after the 911 bombing. Now prying into people's privacy is no longer the exclusive practice of authoritarian states. Britain just uncovered journalists tapping into individuals phone lines to listen to their private affairs and to obtain private and confidential information from them. How far can a state violate the privacy of the individual in a non authoritarian state? Nothing to talk about in authoritarian system as that is a way of life. What about private organisations taking the same excuse and pry into the privacy of their employees? There are many ways that this can be done. The CCTV is everywhere and can be turned into a monster in the hands of unprincipled and uncrupulous scums. On the excuse of monitoring the security of the building, they could sit down, have a cup of coffee, and review everything inside the lift, or people accessing the building, watching them in close details in the privacy of their offices. They will watch whether he/she will be adjusting their private parts inside the lifts, pasting whatever they dug out from their noses onto the lift walls or any peculiar traits. Then the tapping of phone lines can also be easily abused. There is no privacy when your phone lines are tapped and people can enjoy listening to your flirtation with whoever is on the other sides. And if the other party happens to be an unsuspecting high govt official, he would not be too happy if one day someone is going to reveal what he/she said over the phone. It is so precarious, so scary, when monsters are lurking around, wearing ties and suits like perfect gentlemen. But they think they have all the right to pry into your lives, listen to your private conversations as their god given rights. And they have no moral conscience to even realise that it is wrong, unethical to do such a thing. It is an abuse of the system and a breach of trust. The authoritarian practices are found abundantly in the democratic world as well, where little unscrupulous warlords run their little henhouses.

HDB, what are you doing?

I totally disagree with the new HDB policies on housing as formulated by Mah Bow Tan. HDB as a public housing scheme, is to provide a roof to all citizens of the country. If it wants to provide housing to PRs, that is a separate issue but should not compromise the needs of the citizens. And the policy of not providing for everyone who needs a flat is not what a govt should do to its citizens. With the clever scheme of BTO, there is this additional need to plan and apply 3 years ahead for a flat which I feel is unfriendly to the citizens who need a flat urgently for one reason or another. Not everyone has the luxury of planning 3 years ahead. A little over supply is not a waste when the interests of the citizens is concerned. HDB is not any commercial property developer. It should aim to provide a roof for all citizens when they need it at as low a price as possible without making a loss. Public housing is for that roof over the head, not for speculation. Govt policies should not encourage people to speculate on the sole property they own. Speculation can lead to big profits and also big losses. Let the rich speculate all they want in the private property market. Don't mix the sheep with the wolves.

Minibond saga - The Missing Conscience

Greed is good. But greed with no tinge of conscience is bad. And this is the message that I would like to see to come out from the minibond saga. But no, it was totally missing. The whole scam was a business and when the product was found unacceptable, it was simply removed. There was no social responsibility or accountability. No human beans involved in the whole process except the poor losers who bought the products. I think all the decisions were made by robots, machines and computers. There must be social responsibility and accountability in business. And this applies to the management of all institutions, public or private, finance or the casinos. The next problematical institutions is the stock market. Why is it that hedge funds were not operating in the casinos? They have huge resources to fall back on to their advantage. In the stock markets across the world, the hedge funds bully and exploit the small investors by their unfair advantage of huge financial resources, technology and unfair practices. No matter how big they are, inside a casino, the advantage of hedge funds and small gamblers are the same. At least the casino has the conscience to ensure a level playing field. We have seen how the minibond saga exploded, only when the pain was too big. We have yet to see or hear small investors crying foul in the stock markets across the world. Are the operating systems and procedures in the stock markets fair to small investors? Or is it a case of caveat emptor? There must be the conscience and social responsibility to protect the interest of small investors, to provide a level playing field. An organisation or country that has no conscience to protect the small people and the disadvantaged is a lost cause.

Mechanical Appointees

I have a solution that will help organisations to cut cost. Organisations that think that they are paying too much for their Chairmans can head to ToysRUs and grab a mechanical toy. Bring it back, pin a name tag on it with the word 'Chairman' and plant it on the Chairman's office. By so doing they can save all the cost of paying for a Chairman. They don't come cheap today. And the best part of it is that they can happily fire the Chairman to appease the unhappy employees or shareholders should the oganisation fail to perform or make losses. And they can walk back to ToysRUs to get a newer model, version 1.1 to replace the ineffective one. I don't think such toys will cost very much. The same concept can be applied to Directors of companies. Any busy director who is unable to attend board meetings can send a mechanical toy as his representative in the board meetings. At least when he collects his director fee his attendance record is perfect. I claim intellectual property rights to this idea and anyone practising it only needs to pay me 10% of his first year income. ToysRUs can also pay me a small commission for higher sales of mechanical toys.

Perfect ending to a perfect storm

After 7 months of thorough investigations the MAS has come out with its findings and punishments for the minibond fiasco. The investigation was done very objectively and the three objects that were found to be the cause of the financial storm were financial institutions, training and toxic products. And the punishment was to ban the toxic products and the financial institutions from selling them. No human is at fault and no one will be made a scapegoat. Thank god.

A little bit history

Many of you may not remember the days when the majority in this island was discriminated. Yes it happened. It was an anomaly of history which escaped the notice of many, and many today took it for granted that the majority in power is a norm and will be here to stay, forever. During the colonial days, the masters called the tune. The ruling class and its coterie of officers monopolized all the govt offices, including big western corporations and banks. Key appointments were held by the British and the English speaking elite comprising mainly the Eurasians and those imported from the East India Company. Forget about the Chinamen, they could not speak English and looked funny with their slant eyes. Or maybe it was the British form of meritocracy and the Chinamen were not meritorious enough. When self govt was returned to the locals, all the high offices were naturally taken over by those from Her Majesty Services, filling the positions vacated by the British. The majority Chinese were in the peripheral of the govt. They were either in commerce for the richer ones, semi skilled craftsmen or small time hawkers, and the rest odd job labourers. They were thus grossly under represented in high govt offices. When the PAP govt took over, this state of affair continued for several years with key govt appointments continued to be dominated by the minorities. It took several decades to moderate this historical discrimination and a more representative govt service based on the population profile. But in so doing, many of the Eurasians who were favoured by the colonial govt left for Australia. That was how things were then. Would the majority be discriminated against one day? Given the twist and turn of history, anything is possible.

Planning a City for Crawlies

I watched the news last night and was very impressed with what SBS is trying to do to help the wheelchaired commuters. They have a special point with a button to press and the bus will come to the entrance of that point to pick up wheelchaired commuters. It was so convenient and so pleasant for these commuters. Along HDB estates, new hand railings have sprung up all over the walkways for the oldies to grab as their crawl along their ways. We can expect 300k or 400k of the 70s to 90s in the next 20 years, crawling all over the place. Some will wheelchair into buses or MRTs to have a swing in Orchard Road, some jogging in the parts on their wheelchairs, and many going to work, to their offices, if they are still employable. Yes, we are going to have crawlies everywhere, not the vibrant young things in their fanciful gears and makeups. We are ageing as a population. I too will be one of the crawlies. Actually there could be a few hundred thousands even now. Surprising thing is that not many are seen crawling around. Are we expecting them to appear suddenly in the next few years to swarm the city? 200 wheelchairs queuing for the buses at the interchange at any one time. How many buses will have to be at the designated pick up points and how long will it take to clear the queue? The parks, shopping malls, HDB void decks, all littered with crawlies? Possible? I think I will be content to sit in front of a terminal banging away and enjoy a cup of kopi. The only thing that will still be active and have some energy to do so will be the little ones, the fingers, and a few grey and dying cells in between the ears. I really cannot believe that the 80s and 90s will be so itchy to be crawling all over the places. They will only pose a safety and security problem to themselves. We haven't seen or heard any mugging of the oldies yet, except by their children. It may happen, daily, if they offer themselves too freely and easily.

A tragic hole

I still remember this little hole in the 60s, the hole that I crawled out before being buried in it. The parents were all illiterate coolies cramming into little cubicles with 10 or more in a family. Life was simple and without any aspiration. It was just living, working and sleeping. Many dropped out of schools in their pre teens and ended as kopi kias or kopitiam helpers. That was their fate if they failed in school. Never mind, just get a job and get on with life. The next phase of life for these ignorant and illiterate boys and girls was to get married and have children. They got married before they were 20, some at 18. It was time for big celebration. The following year would be parenthood time. At those juvenile age, it did not need much imagination as to what they knew was installed for them. The parents were around to help in the mothering of the new borns. And there went another chapter of their lives, cut out to replay the tragedy of their parents once again. Don't expect their children to be much better than these boy/girl father and mother. Fortunately with education and higher literacy, these things of the past are getting lesser today. These people are not helping themselves. But were they happy? I think they didn't know. It was just living, working and making babies and that was it. Surprisingly not all failed. A few ended up as contractors and became successful! I see it as a big gamble with many losers and few isolated winners.

Poverty and underprivilege are not exclusive to any race

Rewind back to the 1950s and 60s, the better off racial group was the Eurasians, partly because of their European heritage and ancestry, and partly because they were the next closest to the colonial masters in language skills and cultural affinity. The Malays, Indians and Chinese were all in the same boat, all ekeing a living as best as they could. In terms of housing, the Malays were living in quite spacious kampong houses while the non Malays were squeezed in cubicles in their respective town enclaves. Many Malays in the East Coast/Eunos areas were land owners if I am not mistaken. Came independence, everyone was literally on the same starting block, and the field was level to all. The English Language was the neutral instrument for all to learn and level up. The Malays enjoyed free schooling while the non Malays must be the poorest of the poor to be granted free schooling. In those years, the Malays received the most assistance from the govt vis a vis the other races. Why, after 45 years of independence, the socio economic divide between the Malays and the rest became a gulf? The other races did not get any special assistance from the govt in schooling or in the English Language. And they are not blaming the govt for not being able to keep up with the other races. Why are the Malays still asking for govt assistance as a necessary condition to be able to keep up, that without govt assistance, they are destined to fall behind, to be disadvantaged? As of today, there are proportionally as many poors among the Chinese and the Indians as the Malays. They soldier on, to compete with whatever they have. Some will make it, some will not. The field was never made uneven to their advantage. Some couldn’t cope with the mother tongue requirement and had emigrated. The mother tongue problem is especially more serious among the Chinese than the other races, as many Chinese could not speak their mother tongue, which incidentally was never Mandarin. Mandarin was a foreign language to many of them. It was not to their advantage to learn Mandarin. It was a very tough obstacle unlike the Malays coping with Bahasa. Assistance from the govt is a great help. But without assistance from the govt, life goes on. How and why are the Malays falling behind?

Not a mindset issue

Ridzwan Dzafir wrote a book encouraging the Malays to change their mindset to climb the educational and socio economic ladder. This is the same advice that the other communities, including the Chinese, have been told by the govt. What the Malay doyen was saying is a conventional wisdom. One needs to help himself to climb the socio ladder. There is no short cut. This elicited a reply from an Abdul Shariff Aboo Kassim in the Saturday paper. It is easier said than done. In our highly competitive educational system, the playing field is not level. The rich, with their resources, can do that much more to help their children. The poorer parents, ‘even with financial assistance, could not match the investment made by richer ones.’ I agree that the poorer families are at a disadvantage. But not all is lost. Personally I too grew up financially very disadvantaged, socially and academically handicapped in a very poor quarter of the society. I crawled all the way back, without any tuition or assistance from anyone, not even my parents or kin. Then came my children. They too did not benefit from any tuition or special conditioning to assist them in their studies. They went through schools as any average family children did. The only thing we did was to be at home, no drug taking, no clubbings, no havoc and heavy drinking or partying and leaving them at home on their own. We were just there as parents, to keep the family functional and intact. We provide the emotional and psychological support. I have witnessed many well off families with plenty of tuitions but not benefiting their children. The only advantage they really had was to pay for their degrees from an overseas university as they were not good enough for a place in the local universities. Poorer families are disadvantaged but not to the point that it is beyond hope, that they need a miracle to do well. I think any above average students with enough parental care and encouragement should be able to climb the academic ladder on their own. A little assistance would be welcomed, but without them is not the reason for their under performance academically. There are enough assistance schemes for those who need them. Poverty and underprivileged are not the exclusive rights of the Malay community.

Properties are up for grabs

Melvin Chua, a businessman, sold his 4rm flat in Jalan Membina for $550K and bought a 5rm for $638K. He only needs to top up $88K for a bigger flat. No sweat for a successful businessman. Sales of HDB flats have surged due to demand from young couples, upgraders, downgraders and PRs. It looks like the prices of properties will continue to rise, fuelled by demands from people who can afford them. The prices must therefore be reasonable. In the facing page of the ST was an article by Fiona Chan asking whether the property rally is sustainable? I can simply answer that with an affirmative yes. The pool of flats built by HDB is stable, no new flats are being built unless they have been booked in advance. This is a new concept compare to the old when flats were built ahead of demand leading to oversupply at times. And if the locals are not there buying, the huge influx of PRs and new citizens will be there to make up for the slack. We need them to shore up the CPF scheme. Anyway, what is $500k or $600k? Jet Li bought a bungalow for $14m or $16m. And in the Life page there is a huge bungalow of 7,500 sq ft sitting on 16,000 sq ft of land or the equivalent of 15 5rm HDB flats. The value could be more than Jet Li's. The PR hedge fund manager owner did not disclose the price but it is a handsome house in the choicest corner of Singapore. The rich are living very well here. And so are the average Singaporeans in their affordable 5rm flats. Those who cannot afford it, the losers, need not fear. The govt will look into their needs and build more affordable 2 and 3 rm flats to suit their pockets. And for the real losers, there will be more rental flat built specially just for them. Actually we should not be wasting our time talking about the losers. They make their lives that way, lazy, stupid, and failed to seize the golden opportunities to make more money to buy bigger and affordable flats or landed properties. Shall we say good riddance?

Not too long ago

I wonder how many of you remember the school days when a bus from the Institute of Health would arrive at the school weekly to fetch students for dental treatment. All the scalings, extractions, fillings and dentures were provided free to the students. And after each treatment, the bus would send the children back to schools, all the time accompanied by a nurse. It must be a very costly operation as there were many schools and many school children needing dental care. Those were the early years of our nationhood when the country was not that rich. But we could afford it. It was govt taking care of the people. Today, we don't even bat an eyelid for losing hundreds of billions. But healthcare is no longer free and no longer cheap. We could not afford it. Or it would lead to abuses, the country will go broke. Strange tale isn't it.