The hypocrisy of religious believers

We have not forgotten what Rony Tan said. Now we have a Mark Ng who more or less did the same thing, ridiculing other religious practices. And when what he said was circulated in the net, they quickly took it down because they knew it was against our law. What if the video was not being circulated? Would it go on and on as if nothing happens? The important question to ask is whether your religion is intolerant of other religions, whether the teaching is against other religions. If they are, just simply say so and no need to pretend that you love other religions or can co exist with them. Stare at your religious doctrines hard and be honest, ask yourself what is the truth. No need to lie. No need to by hypocritical. Be confident in what you want to believe in if you think that is the truth. If your religion is intolerant of other religions and cannot co exist with other religion, no need to pretend otherwise, Just go quietly to your little corner and practise faithfully and honestly who you believe in. But just be careful not to trample on other people's religions. Don't badmouth other religions. For here, the law will come after you regardless of whether your god is real or unreal. Spare us the hypocrisy.

The most regrettable thing

While everyone is breathing the World Cup, the most regrettable thing is not being able to cheer for our team in the competition. Some even dreamt or made belief that our team is indeed in the competition and will be playing against this team or that team. We have so much money, why can't we go and buy a good team to represent us and then we can shout ourselves silly. And for those who can afford it, they can all fly to Johannesburg to cheer for our team and plant our flag there. It will be so glorious. Let's not miss out in the next World Cup. We have so many talented talent scouts and we should put them to work to pick our future winners and bring them here to prepare them for the next cup. And we can emulate the South Koreans, erect stages at the padang with big screens and big Singapore flag to be unfurled at the victorious moment. And I am sure Singaporeans would not mind paying $200 to the telcos for airing the game if we are in the running. It will be something worthy to watch on the box. We want the World Cup trophy. Then we can announce to the world we have arrived as a nation.

CPF encouraging people to contribute more to Medisave

We would like to encourage low-income SEPs and informal workers to fulfill their 2009 Medisave liabilities by 31 July 2010 so as to enjoy the maximum chances of winning up to $3,000 in cash at the next MCD in September 2010. Who would want to lock up their money into a scheme that they have no say as to how to use it? And in many cases they may not use it till the last day when they pass away? On the other hand it sounds so good. Save the money to pay big hospital bills when they are hospitalised. And they better save more or else with the bills going to be bigger and bigger, they will not be able to pay. I wonder how much could these people save and whether they can catch up with the rate the hospital bills are rising? Another good thing about this, it comes with a lucky draw. The scheme is already so good and now got chance to win money some more.

It is getting nearer

Everything seems to be progressing smoothly. Now we shall be waiting for the new boundaries and a list of new faces to appear before the big day is announced. Oh, and plenty of good news coming too. I am sure the opposition parties have a long list of agenda to thrash during the election rally. One of my wish list is to revert the CPF schemes to its original terms with the new terms as optional, voluntary. This will allow the people to withdraw their Medisave, minimum sum and also to decide if they want or do not want to sink their money in any insurance schemes. Of course the high HDB prices will be a great issue to boot. And hospitalisation bill that seems to go one way will be good for discussion too. Hope the opposition parties are will prepared this time and goreng the real issues as best they could, and not be disqualified for some silly mistakes. The first salvo has been fired at the Town Councils.

Geithner is blaming China for not floating the Yuan

The world’s financial crisis is due to China’s fault for not allowing the Yuan to float, and for the big funds to speculate on it. The Americans are heavily in debt because of China’s cheap Yuan, and cheap labour too. It has nothing to do with the expensive labour and high living of the Americans. And the Europe financial crisis too must be the Chinese doing. They have nothing to do with it. The Europeans are not to be blamed unlike the Asian crisis when all the Asian govts were blamed for mismanaging their countries. The remedy to save the world financial system is to float the Yuan. As simple as that. When that happens, all the big western investment funds, and Asians too, will collude, scheme and conspire to destroy the Yuan to bankrupt the Chinese Treasury. They are all waiting on the side line for the biggest treasury to open up for them to loot. China must be alert and be extremely careful in this evil call to float the Yuan, to allow it to be attacked. And they have all the reasons to. Low wages, high income gap, too export oriented economy, authoritative central govt, corruption, minority problems, etc etc, all pointing to a system that is waiting to crumble like a house of cards. And when China relent under US pressure, that would be the day of its collapse. South Korea is getting wary of the pack of wolves and is the latest country that is curbing big time currency speculation. It has joined Russia, Brazil, Taiwan and Columbia to restrict currency speculation. More countries will soon join the league if they know how precarious it is with the big funds waiting to pounce on them like a wolf pack.

Some nice portraits

Some new faces that could strike big in the fashion scene.

Paying $36m for bungalow in Sentosa Cove

This is touted as the most expensive purchase of a private property here. It is still not in the region of $500m like the Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley estates. But theirs are not 15,000 or 20,000 sq ft but measured in acres. This Sentosa Cove property is still very expensive as it is on a 99 year lease and not freehold. A Chinese national bought this. And it was reported that 4 members of a Chinese family bought a unit each at prices of $15.9m to $26m. The expression of 'What is $10m?' becomes very real. There are several thousand billionaires in China and many tens of thousands of millionaires with net worth in the hundreds of millions. And if a sizeable number of them think of parking some of their wealth here, they could have bought up everything in Sentosa Cove. And we are not counting the rich Indians, Indonesians, Malaysians and all over the world who just have too much money and need to park them somewhere. How many more luxury properties can we built to sell to the super rich before we run out of space? The question is why are we selling our precious land and space so happily? Who is benefitting from the transactions and where are the money going to? We have great and meticulous planning in public housing. We will house our people in better and better public housing at affordable prices. One thing for sure, public housing will remain public housing and the quality will be as good as the public can afford them. In the private sector, the quality will also be as good as the buyers who can afford them. And with an abundance of super rich where money is not an issue, whatever the developers built there will be takers. Eventually we could be developing foreign enclaves of super rich in some select corners akin to the foreign concessions in China during the colonial days. The difference is that we did it voluntarily while the Chinese were coerced into parting with their prime estates. Is this what we want? Is this the future demography of Singapore? Or would we want to plan for the Singaporeans to occupy the prime estates at an affordable price by tweaking some planning policies? We have restrictions in landed properties, but this ruling is bypass very often with exceptions. And the landed properties in Sentosa is also an exception. When the British were here, the prime lands were mostly in their hands. They were the colonial masters and looking after their own interests. Today we are charting the course of our own future and the places for our future generations. Where are we going in terms of housing and estate planning? Johore or Batam or Bintang for our own citizens?

Step aside Warren Buffett

The game of stock investment is no longer the same game Buffett knew in the past. Then it was just picking stocks on fundamentals, buy and sit on them and in the long run, well managed companies with growth stories will run up the ladder, paying dividends and higher stock prices. The formula was simple and logical. Buy only good companies. Today stock investment is a new ball game. Calling it investment is a misnomer. It is no investment but pure speculation or gambling. The nature of the game has changed completely. Stocks are being substituted with derivatives, options, covered warrants, ETFs etc that interests in the actual stocks have diminished. Money is placed on all the other instruments rather than the stocks. Companies hardly offered the conventional warrants which have died a natural death. And if the trend goes, stocks too will die a natural death when trading is on derivative instruments. Then there are the big money that are used to ramp stocks up and down at the slightest news or excuses. Either way, the big money will make more money. The conventional investors sitting on their golden stocks will see them battered down one day or up the next, sometimes with little correlations to the worthiness of the stocks and their businesses. With high powered and high speed machines and marginal commission to pay, the big money would take full advantage of their unfair advantages to push the market and stocks anyway they want and cleaning the investors of their long term investments. Investing for the long term, being paid dividends, bonus shares, waiting for prices to grow steadily are bad premises that no longer hold water in stock investment. It is hit and run, going with the tide, or the market makers, provided the investors guess it right and hitch a ride. Investing stocks for the long haul is likely to be a big roller coaster ride with many shocking moments, and may not see the stocks appreciating in price over time. It is all about selling and buying papers ie derivatives with some having zero intrinsic values.

We are dead serious for Olympic Gold

A training base for our Olympians will be set up in England, two years before the Olympic Games in 2012. We will be able to train and acclimatise our sportsmen and women to make sure that they stand a good chance to win a medal for our country. I must say that with the effort, resources and seriousness we put into acquiring sporting golds, we are getting nearer to our pot of gold. To be more serious, we need to really scout around the world for gold potentials, bring them home quickly and turn them into citizens to qualify for the Olympics.

China must accept the verdict

US Admiral Mike Mullen rapped China for not falling in line with the US to take tough actions against North Korea for the sinking of Cheonan. The US is fuming mad that the Chinese refused to tow the line after a 'multinational' probe into the sinking which conveniently left out the Chinese, the Russians and the North Koreans. And many already believed in the truth from this 'multinational' investigation team of birds of the same feathers. The impartiality of the team, without the Chinese and the Russians and also the North Koreans, was never in doubt among the international gangsters. And they are demanding that China must accept their cooked verdict. Why should China be made to believe in something which is shrouded with slime and fakery? If the Americans sincerely wanted the Chinese and Russians to play ball with them, they should, from the start, involved the Chinese and Russians in the investigation. A simple question, 'Why were the Chinese and Russians left out of the investigation team?' Bloody gangsters!

$760 million evaporating into thin air

A report by Gabriel Chen today in the ST says that GIC may stand to lose $760m in the gushing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. GIC was noted to have 200.4m shares of BP worth around US$1.68 billion. With the fast crashing price of BP shares, and if the shares have yet been sold down, GIC could lose up to $760 m, and all, if BP go bust under a series of expensive lawsuits coming from the US. We cannot blame GIC for the loss of this investment. Neither can we blame them for many of the losses as the causes were not due to lack of due diligence. They were proper investment decisions made after thorough research before plonking down the money. The exceptions were those decisions made over a few days when white gods descended from heaven to ask for tithes. Act of god or fate, or just plain unlucky can happen to many investors. Sometimes the bad luck comes in a string. Everything touched turns into waste paper. The contrary can also happen when everything touched turns to gold, giving the monkey a chance to claim credits. We can only hope that this is not the beginning of a string of bad luck and bad investments. If it is, nothing can help and no experts and super talents can do anything about it. At times one must believe in fatalism. The worst case can mean a wipe out of the bulk of our foreign investments, if god willing. Better go and pray for more blessing and abundance.

Why sell properties when you can sell papers?

Selling bricks and mortars, and land, is a very lucrative business. Buy the land, build it into something fanciful, and walla, big profits. But our land is limited and the cost of material is increasingly rapidly. There is also a political cost. Why not sell pieces of papers? The most valuable piece of paper to sell from this little red dot is the Red Passport. I am not sure what is the going rate in the black market for a fake or stolen one. But it must be in the thousands. It is like getting a passport to heaven. The Red Passport carries a lot of weight and makes travelling very convenient and quite respectable too. Why not make it official and sell it to the highest bidder like COE? But no, to avoid queer results like $1 a piece, make it $100k a piece. No worry about double citizenship or national service. It is a special passport. And to make it high class, or only for the high net worth people so as not to tarnish its reputation, the buyer must also buy a property here to have an official residential address. In this way, the cheap skates would not be able to get one easily. This does not rule out the mafias and drug lords. Never mind, close one eye. As long as they are rich, they are welcomed. And we can call this the Premier Passport, with no voting rights of course. Just a convenient card to carry around. Good for revenue and good for the property market.

Thank you Oliver, for the wake up call

The Indonesian intelligence told us that Orchard MRT station could be a terrorist target. There were heighten security patrols from the men in blue and the anti terrorist experts must be fully alerted to such a possibility and probably taking more precautionary measures to make it double sure it shall not happen. Then we have two vandals sneaking into a MRT depot, left behind elaborate graffiti that could take hours to complete, sneaked out and went about their lives as if nothing happened. And the graffiti went on its round across the island without anyone knowing anything amiss till a couple of days later when the train was in for maintenance Having nicely painted pictures on MRT trains are unlikely to prompt anyone into thinking that they are not supposed to be there. How would the public to know that they are not advertisements if the MRT staff too did not have any clue? But then what ? It is too late if it was a terrorist attack. The damage would have been done. Finito! While Oliver may be waiting for his backside to be scarred, in a way we should thank him for testing the security system of the MRT and highlighting its glaring inadequacy. If not of this incident, everyone will still think that the system is in good shape. Now we know it was not. And the MRT may not be the only organization that could be caught with the pants down. There should be a thorough review of the security systems of potential soft targets and to make amends when there is still time, when they are not hit yet. The security agencies may want to conduct random tests on possible targets to assess their security worthiness and readiness. Maybe they can hire Oliver and his British partner to be the testers.

IF, a big IF....

Before any impartial investigation team was allowed to verify the findings on the sinking of the Cheonan, many quarters already found the North Koreans guilty and wanted to punish them. From the little girl in the White House to the Govts in Seoul and Tokyo, and the professional journalists here also accepted the evidence provided by the American/South Koreans as the gospel truth, with no need to question. Now it seems that there is another side to the story that sounds even more credible. Even then, I always used the word IF. Never have I jumped into conclusion that my theory is the final truth. I just find in nauseating and silly for people to jump into conclusion without questioning how the evidence was obtained or created. And when I posted the Madsen article, I also advised the readers to be objective and find their own conclusion. Which joker claimed that I have jumped into any conclusion? Until the real truth is out at this point in time it is all politics and polemics. It will be very interesting if eventually the truth points to the Americans being the one that pulled the trigger. If that be the case, would the little girl in the White House cry running to mummy complaining that someone had bluffed her? Would South Korea break off relations with the US? How would the South Koreans react to the sinister plot of killing their own people and pointing at an innocent party? And how would the Empire look like in the eyes of the world. IF...the Americans lie....

Reciprocity in action

We welcome the foreigners to work and live here. We have laws that protect them. We invite them to our homes, organise parties to make them feel welcome. We even waste water which citizens are forbidden to do, to help them celebrate their festivals. And when they are in the lurch, we open our purse to help them. Our govt even went to the extend to convince the people on how important the foreigners are, and how they help and contribute to our economy. In short, we have been very kind to the foreigners. The least we can expect from the foreigners is for them to be decent and law abiding residents. But there will be some black sheep that will not only break our laws but also hurt our citizens in the most cruel ways. These are not the average foreigners working or living here. These are the beasts that would not care a dime if they harm or hack our citizens to death. Shall we be kind to these beasts as well? I always believe that this is our home and the citizens must have that special place in his home. And if foreigners come here to hurt our citizens, we must be very harsh and hard on them. Harsh measures are only targetted at the hard core and vicious criminals and should not be in anyway seen as being anti foreigners. It is anti beasts, anti animals and anti criminals that cause serious injuries to the people. The seven criminals that went out to hack at their victims brutally, do not show mercy on their victims. So they deserve no mercy. By dealing hard on them, we are not only protecting our citizens, but also law abiding foreigners here. We need to keep this place peaceful, orderly and safe.

The Cheonan Incident

Below is an article which was forwarded to me. The readers shall read it objectively and find his own conclusion. I will try to attach the photographs that came with it. If the facts are proven to be true, my God, the South Korean naval personnel were simply sacrificial lambs and Lee Myung Bak being led to run in circles. The article is by Wayne Madsen. Online Journal Contributing Writer. Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report. Copyright © 2010 WayneMadenReport.com Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report Beijing suspects false flag attack on South Korean corvette Carried : Friday, 28-May-2010 http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5930.shtml Navy soldiers stand guard near the wreckage of the naval vessel Cheonan, which was sunk on March 26 near the maritime border with North Korea, at the Second Fleet Command's naval base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, May 19, 2010. South Korea said on May 20 that evidence was overwhelming that a North Korean submarine fired the torpedo that sank the navy ship in March, killing 46 sailors WMR's intelligence sources in Asia suspect that the March attack on the South Korean Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, the Cheonan, was a false flag attack designed to appear as coming from North Korea. One of the main purposes for increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula was to apply pressure on Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to reverse course on moving the U.S. Marine Corps base off Okinawa. Hatoyama has admitted that the tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan played a large part in his decision to allow the U.S. Marines to remain on Okinawa. Hatoyama's decision has resulted in a split in the ruling center-left coalition government, a development welcome in Washington, with Mizuho Fukushima, the Social Democratic Party leader threatening to bolt the coalition over the Okinawa reversal. The Cheonan was sunk near Baengnyeong Island, a westernmost spot that is far from the South Korean coast, but opposite the North Korean coast. The island is heavily militarized and within artillery fire range of North Korean coastal defenses, which lie across a narrow channel. The Cheonan, an ASW corvette, was decked out with state-of-the-art sonar, plus it was operating in waters with extensive hydrophone sonar arrays and acoustic underwater sensors. There is no South Korean sonar or audio evidence of a torpedo, submarine or mini-sub in the area. Since there is next to no shipping in the channel, the sea was silent at the time of the sinking. However, Baengnyeong Island hosts a joint US-South Korea military intelligence base and the US Navy SEALS operate out of the base. In addition, four U.S. Navy ships were in the area, part of the joint U.S-South Korean Exercise Foal Eagle, during the sinking of the Cheonan. An investigation of the suspect torpedo's metallic and chemical fingerprints show it to be of German manufacture. There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks. Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel. The presence of the USNS Salvor, one of the participants in Foal Eagle, so close to Baengnyeong Island during the sinking of the South Korean corvette also raises questions. The Salvor, a civilian Navy salvage ship, which participated in mine laying activities for the Thai Marines in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, was present near the time of the blast with a complement of 12 deep sea divers. Beijing, satisfied with North Korea's Kim Jong Il's claim of innocence after a hurried train trip from Pyongyang to Beijing, suspects the U.S. Navy's role in the Cheonan's sinking, with particular suspicion on the role of the Salvor. The suspicions are as follows: 1. The Salvor engaged in a seabed mine-installation operation, in other words, attaching horizontally fired anti-submarine mines on the sea floor in the channel. 2. The Salvor was doing routine inspection and maintenance on seabed mines, and put them into an electronic active mode (hair trigger release) as part of the inspection program. 3. A SEALS diver attached a magnetic mine to the Cheonan, as part of a covert program aimed at influencing public opinion in South Korea, Japan and China. The Korean peninsula tensions have conveniently overshadowed all other agenda items on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visits to Beijing and Seoul.

More condos in CBD

And more residents will call Shenton Way their home. The developers are all smiling with rental in CBD commanding a high premium as well as the properties commanding high prices. But what is it for the citizens? The residents calling Shenton Way home may all be foreigners, or the majority may be foreigners. And who are the locals buying up these properties, not many HDB upgraders but the rich who have already many properties in their pockets. It is great news for profit generating. How does it fit in to nation building, to the welfare and living standards of the citizens? How many citizens will benefit from such grandeur and high living lifestyle and expensive homes? With no checks and balances, with no links to nation building and the uplifting of the people, who would enjoy all these beautiful condos? Sure, some citizens are laughing all the way to the banks. The CBD will be more vibrant, but for who and for what?

Towards a more equal world

The Third World countries shall rejoice with the rise of China to challenge the US and European dominance of world affairs and unequal relationships. Gone will be the days of Unequal Treaties. The Chinese will stand up to the US and the West for their arrogance and domineering relationship vis a vis the rest of the world. An ugly example of such a relationship was pronounced by Robert Gates himself at the recent Shangri La Dialogue when he claimed that the US has been selling weapons to Taiwan openly all these years. So it must be right. He could not see anything wrong with it. He might as well say that the US had perpetuated a slave trade enslavings millions of Africans for several hundred years. So it must be ok to continue to do so. Or he might as well say that colonisation is acceptable since the Western powers colonised and ruled the rest of the world for several centuries. The Chinese did the right thing by cancelling Robert Gates visit to Beijing to remind him that selling weapons to Taiwan is not right. The Western world would accuse China of being arrogant for standing up to the US and them, for demanding to be treated equally, and all international relationships be on par, not the empire/subject kind. The Third World countries would stand to benefit if China could shift the present unfair relationship to one that is more equal to the smaller and weaker nations. The Americans and the West cannot keep talking down to the rest of the world and dictate what a relationship should be in their favour and according to their terms. If they can build military bases at the doorsteps of other countries, sail navy ships in their seas and fly spy aircraft or satellites over their territories, these are not friendly acts, so can other countries do the same to them. For a better and more equal world, all countries shall be treated equally and have the same rights to determine their own affairs.

More remisiers needed?

SGX wanted to boost the strength of remisiers by another 1000. Several broking houses are in the market looking for another couple of hundred remisiers each. Aren't these going against the conventional wisdom that the stockmarket shall go online and there is no need for remisiers? There was a time when the mantra was that machines could replace the role of remisiers but now we are hearing calls for more remisiers. Wonderful! Does it work to have more remisiers? Looking at the volumes traded in the market, at times as high as 2 billion shares daily, many of the remisiers were waiting for their phones to ring. Long were the days when the phones were ringing non stop once the trading volume hit 1 billion shares. What's happening? And the past few days the volume dwindled to less than a billion, and yesterday was the lowest to date, at 788 million shares. What were the remisiers doing? Swapping mosquitoes? Now, if the volume is going to be so anaemic, what would the addition of another 1000 remisiers do to the market? More volume or the same volume divided by another 1000? I have written in the past that once the retail investors have been sent to the cleaners, the next will be the remisiers. And when the remisiers too are emptied of their pockets, the funds and trading houses will only be trading among themselves. And looks like this day is getting nearer than I anticipated. How did the market get to this pathetic state? What is wrong with the market or the system? Is the system healthy or sick?

Yes we are world champion!

The WTTF victory has generated many discussions in the media and cyberspace, including mysingaporenews. The main argument centres on foreign talents versus local talents. Let me take the issue a little further by asking why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve and for what? Is the glory of being world champion something so important to us that we should devote so much energy and resources to recruit foreign talents to make us feel good? Is it about national pride or is there an economic angle to it? Or would someone say it is about nation building, or a way to motivate our future champions? In Europe, particularly in football, buying foreign talents is a big thing and big money. It is big business, a big industry that generates economic activities and income, jobs etc etc. It is a business that extends beyond national boundaries. We too are spending hundreds of millions to watch football. The bottom line is big profits. I think we are very far from that in table tennis. It is still a national cost, a big hole where money is being poured into it when it could be used better in other areas. Maybe we have too much money and this small sum is insignificant and we can do without. Even in football, when players are bought and sold like assets, when it comes to the World Cup, the players, or most of them, will return home to play for their national teams. Not many national teams would want to field non nationals or newly bought nationals to don their colours to win football glory. It is unthinkable for Brazil, Ivory Coast, India, Japan, Korea or even Malaysia, to flirt with buying foreign footballers to win the championship. Table tennis is exceptional because many countries are doing it, from the US, Europe, across Asia to Oceania, the Chinese are exporting their table tennis players to these countries who are willing to pay for them. To the Chinese, it is an economic activity, and also they have an abundance of talents. Any difference between football and table tennis? In football, it is the commercially run football leagues that are trading talents. In table tennis, what league, representing who? What are we in for? Why are we importing foreign talents in sports for?