The new way forward

The headline in the ST today, Surgeons cleared but hospital was negligent. This was about a case where the kidney donor died of internal bleeding after the operation. The judge found that 'the hospital had been "negligent and had breached it's duty" when it failed to monitor the patient during those 90 minutes after her operation. It was reported that during an autopsy it was discovered that 'clips had apparently slipped from her cut renal artery' and she died from internal bleeding. Who is the hospital by the way? So it is the failure of the hospital to do its job thoroughly. And the hospital is found guilty and has to pay damages and costs. This is very similar to the minibond fiasco when the parties found responsible and punished were organisations. No human beans were involved or responsible. This is a good way to go forward. No need to be personal, just blame the organisation and punish the organisation.

New citizenship – strike lottery!

Becoming a new citizen here is as good as striking lottery. The first thing they are going to receive is the GST rebates and maybe new Singapore shares when they are given out. Next, a bigger bonus will come from HDB. First time buyers will be entitled to a $40k grant. Tiok beh pio ah!!! And more govt subsidies in hospitalization and medical bills. Wow, bee tang! Membership has its privileges. What have new citizens contributed to the nation to be entitled to the full benefits of citizenship? Below is a petition to Obama that is circulating for signatures. SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGES It does not matter if you personally like or dislike Obama. You need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If the government gives benefits to 'illegal' aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave those of us who have paid into Social Security all our working lives? As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow 'illegal' aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility to that social service. PETITION for President Obama: Dear Mr. President: We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted on recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security. We demand that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a pre-requisite for20social services in the United State s.

Silly thoughts and silly excuses

The departure of Chip Goodyear from Temasek has spawned a series of silly talks and excuses in all the gossip corners. There were things like globalisation needs a foreigner to front the unit. Now I know why we employed so many foreign talents. Or we need a foreigner to be more transparent. For this I will suggest just wearing a see through plastic sheet will be better. And, yes, if we want to invest in America, we need a foreigner, or better still, an American to show our sincerity. Shit, who would want to put more money into a country with an economy that can go bust any time or with a dollar that may turn into banana money. Now what else were reported? Oh, fine for attending meeting late. That must be a super talented idea. Saving money for the organisation. I will wait to hear more funny stories. But mind you, all these funny episodes do not come cheap.

That deadly deficit hangover

Tharman was talking about economic principles and the need for exit strategies and direct, targeted help. On govt spending and fiscal policies he warned that govts need an exit strategies for over spending or else the bubble will burst. This tickles my thought about exit strategies for the high property prices and the payback of our CPF money. What kind of exit strategies are there to prevent the bubble bursting, or to prevent the poor 99 lease holders from seeing their multi million dollar properties turning to 0 value when the leases expire? And the huge CPF debt owed to the CPF contributors, how and when would they be returned? Delaying payout, shifting the goal posts, more schemings, would only delay the problems but would not solve it. In fact the problem will only snowball unless there is a workable exit strategy to pay back when the money is due. The two nightmares that Singaporeans are facing are, one, when their properties, worth millions of dollars, become nothing. The second nightmare is when they realise that the CPF money is only a dream, to feel good, to be happy reading the numbers on a piece of paper and feel very rich. And yes, Tharman still thinks that it is a bad idea not to tax on basic necessities. It is better to tax on them and then targetted the money collected to those who need the money. An excellent strategy which I still don't agree. Just like the strategy of escalating property prices.

Don't compel if you can't guarantee

The govt is making CPF Life compulsory for CPF contributors by 2013. And it claims that the payout will be for life. But it also has a provision to say that if the fund is insolvent, it can stop paying to the CPF members who have paid money into the scheme. Halimah Yaacob has correctly pointed out that “the relationship between the CPF Board and the CPF members, however, is not just a legal contract (but) a social contract as the board has a social responsibility to manage CPF funds prudently in order to help Singaporeans meet their retirement needs.” Straits Times. Did the CPF members ask to be in the annuity scheme? NO. It is the govt that is compelling the CPF members to put their money into the scheme. If that is so, the govt better guarantees that the money is there and will be paid to the contributors as promised. Otherwise don't make it compulsory. The provision not to pay is unacceptable.

'they assumed everything is ok'

RMIT said it complained about Brookes Business School in 2007 to the MOE. MOE issued a warning letter and subsequently did not hear from RMIT. So 'they assumed everything is ok.' But everything is far from ok and many students were cheated in the last two years. And the matter was raised in parliament. 'Halimah wondered if more could have been done to "save a lot of people from heartache".' Hello, hello, anyone in? On vacation?

No more good years

Once we heard loud noises about more good years. But when good years were turning into lean years, one good year was brought in to break the bad trend. Unfortunately it didn't help much. Probably they should get an expensive good year instead of a cheap one. Now, brace up and prepare to have more of the same. Actually when the mandate of heaven is with a person, anything the person touched will turn to gold. Otherwise everything touched will turn to dust. But when the mandate is with a person, even a fool, everything touched will turn to gold. Would the mandate of heaven still be with the chosen?

Not a bad idea for rise in HDB resale prices

'HDB flat prices should be a reflection of Singaporean's wealth and it is "not a bad idea" for prices to increase steadily, especially for those holding onto negative assets bought in the previous market peak in the mid 1990s.' Grace Fu What about those first time buyers who have yet to buy a flat and chasing the escalating prices?

Hello, anyone in?

Is there anyone responsible for anything anymore? Is there anyone able enough to do anything right or everyone has done his best and this is what we are getting? What, what, sorry wrong number. If anyone is asking me what am I talking, I also don't know. These words just keep ringing in my ears.

What a beautiful sound

On the front page of 'my paper' are these sweet words that are music to my ears - S'poreans to get monthly CPF Life payouts. Then on page 2, CPF Life are for life. And sweeter still, the first paragraph, 'Singaporeans will receive monthly payouts form the CPF Life annuity scheme for the rest of their lives although the law does not provide for it, assured Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong. The sweetness ends there. As I read on, the money is not coming from the govt, it is coming from your own savings. Fat hope, where got govt so good one. And I think it is compulsory after 2013. The point is that it is your own money.

In celebration of longevity

I am 95 and still going strong. I decide to go a cruise around the world and tell my personal assistant to get 5 tickets. One for me of course. The second ticket is for my personal assistant as I need him to be with me all the time, telling me how my stocks are performing and how is my $50m doing. And I also need him to tell me how beautiful is the sunset. The third ticket is for my personal nurse. She needs to check that all my systems are functioning and to feed me with a battery of pills, drugs and supplements. How else can I keep on being alive at 95. Another ticket for a maid to push me around and to massage my near to lifeless body, to make it supple and to prevent blood clot, muscle atrophy, or to simply let me feel the goodness of being touched. And the 5th ticket is for another maid whose job is to feed me, queue for the food at the buffet spread and do my errants. While I will be enjoying my world cruise, my thought will go out to my good friend in his rental flat. His life is very well taken care of by the CPFLife that he had invested. Everytime I visited him, I am very contented just watching his calm and serene face, all at peace, staring at the ceiling. He is attached to some machine and being fed by social workers. He once told me he had two wishes. One is to be disconnected from the machine. His next big wish is to crawl around the estate, with the help of the beautiful handrails that have been erected for his needs. They were extremely useful. But he has not been able to touch them for more than 10 years. Life is great. Long life is greater. PS. Now you know when I need to have $100m for my retirement!

Racial Harmony Day

Vivian is talking about racial harmony and the need to be mindful, conscious and sensitive to this delicate balance in our multi racial society. We have been talking a bit about such issues and the perception and bitterness of the minority that they are discriminated and disadvantaged. I wish such issues can be resolved once and for all and everyone can live happily thereafter. The reality is that discrimination will be there in all countries and societies, racial discrimination, religious discrimination, social and economic discrimination, even in our case, local born or foreign born, new or old citizens. Human beans are born with a little sainthood in everyone and a little devil as well. How much sainthood and devil in a person varies, genetic, biological, social, wealth, education etc, will all affect a person's mindset. At times it is circumstances, environmental. But this does not mean that we shall live with discrimination. What we can hope for is that discrimination is not permitted by law and practice. The individual part is more difficult to deal with as any incident can be changed from a disagreement between two losers into a racial thing. Let me quote an incident when two guys were having kopi in East Coast Park Hawker Centre. They sat in a table next to a couple. The man told off one of the guys for wearing shorts as it violated his wife who was there. The two guys could have stood up and told the man off which could end up in a fight. If they were of the same race, it would be just a quarrel and a fight. If different races were involved, it could be flamed as a racial dispute. If we keep on wearing the colour lenses and look at things in our chosen colour, we will continue to live in a world of colours. We can also remove our colour lenses and try to make the best out of the system. America has the most laws to protect its people from human rights and racial discrimination. It is also the country that flouted these laws the most, and racial discrimination is not only history but existing daily and in very bad forms and dosages. We have done very well in our minority majority relationship and a live and let live ethos. Everyone, minority or majority, will be treated as fairly and equally under our laws. There will be the odds and difficult situations and occurrences. But generally, we are doing ok and will keep improving as we move forward. What we must be wary of is for small groups of agitators that will want to flame every incident and turn it into a big issue. We can handle issues or problems as human beans or as colour beans. It is all in our mindset.

Making a statement

A political secretary to a Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was found dead after being interrogated by the MACC, Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission, on his boss. He was not the target of the investigation. 30 year old Teoh Beng Hock, due to get married next week, was found dead 9 floors below the MACC office in the wee hours of the morning. Did he commit suicide after a fierce marathon interrogation session? Or there was foul play? Selangor police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the police had not rule out foul play. And if there were foul play, who would be in the MACC office in those hours were obvious. Or would it be some thieves who entered the building and saw Teoh and decided to bungle him over the window? An ordinary citizen being called up for interrogation inside a govt office ended up dead from falling over the window. How could people die so easily inside a govt office? Is someone trying to make a statement or a kind of warning? What is the statement that is being made and to who? Would it be better to pronounce him insane and lock him up in a mental hospital, or file a sodomy charge against him instead of simply bungling him over the window? The statement is a statement of fear, of who is the boss.

Blind to our own destruction

The green movement is gathering steam to warn the human specie that they will destroy themselves in their folly to exploit mother earth to its fullest. By employing technology and the cunning of the human mind, they harvest the land, farm the sea and eat up everything beyond their replacement rate. We burn and consume so much natural resources and fossil fuel that the temperature will become too high to sustain many life forms. But this road to our self destruction will have many more years to go. The fastest and shortest road is to destroy the world economic and financial system. We have been warned. It is so easy when we are blind to our greed. When everyone is singing, Greed is Good, and believing in it, and participating in the ripoff, the very people who are there to manage this insatiable appetite, become part of the marauding party, we are doomed. We will not learn as long as the benefits to the few cheats and swinders are shared among the leaders. All will party at the expense of the small guys, the losers, so they called them. It is pointless for the small guys to kpkb, useless, no one will listen to such foolishness in the wilderness. Let me bring in the big guns. I was reading Paul Krugman's article in the ST this morning, The only good news is at Goldman Sachs, he said. The writing is on the wall. Yes we will commit the same sins again and again. And the regulators will join in and say good, go ahead. Goldman Sachs is making a lot of money again and is going to shower its employees, especially the top manager, with tons of money, just like yesterday. They will pat their backs again and said how clever. But that is not the problem. The problem is how they make the money, in Krugman's words, 'financial firms...directed vast quantitites of capital into the construction of unsaleable houses and empty shopping malls. They increased risk rather than reducing it, and concentrated risk rather than spreading it. In effect, the industry was selling dangerous patent medicine to gullible consumers.... While other banks invested heavily in...toxic waste...selling to the public at large...Goldman ... made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages - then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed... All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers. And Wall Streeters have every incentive to keep playing that kind of game.' This modus operandi is not confined to just selling toxic products. The stock markets are operated under very similar principles. The big funds, with the help of technology, managing information, will sell down stocks and force out the small and weak investors before buying back at rock bottom prices, at any opportunity or negative news, real or imagery. Then they will buy back frantically and unload at much higher levels to the same suckers. And all this time the fundamentals of the stocks remain unchanged. The process is repeated every other day. And the regulators of stock exchanges knew what was going on, all perfectly legal. And they have vested interest to keep playing the game or let the game go on.' The excuse is caveat emptor as long as there is no blood on the streets. As long as there is no mass protest like the toxic bonds, the game will be legal. When greed rules the head, greed is good. Selling snake oil is fine as long as the few will amass a fortune from it and the suckers continue to pay willingly. There is no qualms and no need for moral responsibility. The chase for rapid economic growth, the high property prices and the property game, all falls into the same modus operandi. Create demand to drive up prices when there is no need to, but for the greed of profits or economic numbers.

The relative truth

What is truth is all relative and depends on a person's background and what he/she wants to believe in. Some once exclaimed that $600k is peanuts. Temasek and GIC lost several tens of billions, near to $100 billion, but no one really bats an eyelid and no one say that it was a huge sum. Today we heard MAS lost $9.2 billion and the phrase used is this - 'So heavy were its losses that they wiped out about 80 per cent of MAS' combined gains of $11.29 billion in the preceding two profitable years...' Why was this loss described as so heavy when several tens of billions were simply another loss? If I were to put it, I will say $9.2b loss is peanuts. The truth, the real truth, depends on the person saying it, and the people listening to it also have their own truths and interpretations of the truths. When Chiam See Tong asked for some money from the reserves to be used to help the citizens, the response was that it would kill the golden goose. And I think he was not even thinking of a billion bucks. After losing several tens of billions, the golden goose is still healthy and swaggling around, still can afford to loose a few billions.

HDB flats are heavily subsidised

'New HDB flats are heavily subsidised and the board's priority is to help those who need such housing the most, such as those who are buying a flat for the first time and families who cannot afford private housing.' This is from a reply by Chan-Wong Jee Choo Lily, Dep dirctor, HDB. I am wondering whether old flats were heavily subsidised? I am also wondering how heavily subsidised were the flats at Duxton Pinnacles when they were sold at about $200k more the than the first launch at market prices?

Immoral morality

How could these two words be lumped together? It is either moral or immoral and not inclusive. In life, the moral and immoral parts are obvious, but the immoral morality part is kept under a veil. Sometimes what is obviously immoral is not so immoral and what is obviously moral is more immoral than anything else. Prostitution is an industry that easily fits into the immoral realm. So is the casino and gambling industry. But the prostitutes are trading their services for a fair price, wiling buyer willing seller. And the customers normally go away satisfied, provided the service does not include hidden diseases. The casino is what it is and because of that it is so well regulated that the risks are all upfront. The hidden cameras, loaded dices and electronic controls are not allowed to be introduced to cheat the customers, though some still do illegally. Actually I should call these industries moral immorality as distinct from immoral morality. Now what is immoral morality? The banking institutions, the financial industry are reputable industries, administered and regulated by man of principles and high morals. Today, their moral standard go as far as this statement, and no further. We have experienced and been hurt by the toxic products, frauds, misrepresentation, flawed systems, exploitation of technology against small investors, regulations and systems favouring the big funds without the small investors having any clue to it and thinking that the odds are fair. The casinos are fairer. At least the gamblers know the odds and know that they got to be careful with the casino operators. In the case of the finance industry, the trust is a given, but misplaced. Oh there are exceptions to the rule. Some are highly principled and moral, integrity beyond dispute. Now, did I give a good explanation of immoral morality? All their accomplices are meant to be people of high morals and will uphold fair play and walk around with a hat saying moral responsibilty is their name.

Would Singapore become another Mexico?

Brookes Business School was ordered to close by the MOE for issuing fake degrees. Now its subsidiary, Stamford Global Learning is also ordered to close. The former had 400 students while Stamford Global has 40. How would this affect Singapore's reputation as a world class education centre? Would Singapore be avoided like Mexico from the H1N1 flu, in this case, fake degree flu? To quote an affected China student, 'If people in China hear about this, fewer of them will come to Singapore.' This is not the first time such things happened. Is it so difficult to avoid such a mess? Just a few phone calls to the universities concerned will do the trick. Maybe it is too troublesome, too big a job. Maybe it is nobody's responsibility. Oh, free market, self regulations, caveat emptor. Now I am wondering how serious is this fake degree flu and how far it is going to spread. Totally irresponsible.

Potong Pasir and Hougang getting upgrading

The sun rising from the West? The two opposition wards are not only going to get the upgradings, they are queue jumping, as their turns are not due yet. Unbelieveable, how can opposition wards cut queues and get rewarded ahead of govt controlled wards? This must surely be signs of maturity, magnanimity and generosity. This is what an all inclusive society is all about. No one will be left behind.

AG office unhappy with govt depts

Lax procedures and inefficiency have resulted in money not collected or contracts awarded not at lowest cost or for convenience. This is intriguing given the quality and number of supertalents hired and paid so well. It is basic to buy services or products at the lowest cost unless the provider or product is substandard. The AG Report highlighted that the MOE could save between $1m to $15m if the cleaning services were awarded to contractors who quoted lower than market rate. Fair comment. But why are the words HDB, market pricing and water conservation tax keep popping up in my mind? The govt should be run as efficiently and profitably as possible. The business principles of buying cheap, below market prices, and selling high, at market prices or better, must be adopted by all ministries. Run it as a profitable business. Make as much money as the market can pay from the consumers. Who are the consumers?