Town Council Report was not political!

Low Thia Khiang should not politicise the Town Council Report. It is not political. Period. Let's move on. I make this comment after reading a headling in Today, 'WP's Low pursuing political objectives: Grace Fu.' The Report is an objective an unbiased account of the performance of the Town Councils. Low's position that Town Councils getting more funding is beside the point. More funds or less fund, they should perform equally well. Ok, Ok, you can all disagree with me on this point. I think with the Town Council Report becoming such an objective and impartial tool for measuring performance, we could see more relevant factors being included in the near future. And to be fair to all parties, to avoid being look at sceptically by doubters, to avoid being sneered at, there will be more transparency coming out, I believe. After all transparency is a great virtue that we believe in and is the corner stone of good governance. The govt has been preaching it all the time. Low And Chiam should be patient and wait for Grace Fu to lay out all the regulations and criteria on the fundings and qualifications for upgrading of estates. We shall all look forward to that. Amen.

Mahathir continues to insult Malays

After leading Malaysia down the racist road for more than 20 years, he finally revealed what he really is. Mahathir spoke at a Melayu Bangkit rally in Kuala Trengganu. As reported in Malaysiakini, he warned the Malays that they would suffer the fate of their cousins in Singapore, becoming a minority and unprotected by the Govt. He was partially right but mostly wrong. The minority status of the Singapore Malay came about by chance, or a legacy of the British Empire. The majority Chinese did not consciously planned it that way. Two, the status of the Malays here is like they are being deprived and in a sorry state, according to Mahathir. Is that so? Many of the Malays here are better educated and trained professionally than the elite that he created with half baked degrees and education. He should be envious of the state of professional development of the Malays in Singapore vis a vis those in Malaysia. Three, with all the Malay Rights enshrined in the Malaysian Constitution, with Malays in the majority, with Malays in absolute control of political power, with the non Malays conceding the status of Malay Rights in the Constitution, there is not an ounce of a chance that the Malays will lose their prime status in Malaysia. And there are no colonial masters to put a gun at their foreheads, no colonial District Officers to manage the Sultans. The Malaysian Malays are highly politicized and know their rights and no one can take that away from them. So what is Mahathir fanning? He is still deriding the Malays as an incapable race, a genetically flawed race that cannot compete with other races on merits. Unfortunately many Malays believe in his proclamation, that they are an inferior race. Is that the truth? Does Mahathir think that because he is not a pure Malay he can look down on the Malays? Are the Malays going to continue to accept the insults from Mahathir as the truth? The Malays in Singapore have proven many times that they can do it, compete with everyone on equal terms. Many Malays students are among the top students in schools here. Is that enough proof that given the right environment and motivation, they don’t need the crutch. They are fully able to stand on their two feet. But if they are taught and repeatedly told that they are no good, how are they to gain the confidence to have faith in their own abilities? They have to thank Mahathir for the crutch mentality.

Singapore cannot stomach US rubbish!

The self proclaimed god of the world published a report putting Singapore on a watchlst for human trafficking. Singapore has hit back claiming the the US should look at itself as human trafficking is a very serious problem there. The joke is that the US ranked itself as the best in the ranking, right at the top. I think there is no need to scream our lungs out. In the first place we should control our media and avoid reporting rubbish and biased articles from the Americans and helping them to push their agenda. Such stupid reports should never be published in our media. We should exercise more discretion to report on worthy stuff. In fact some of our journalists and reporters are also parroting many of the rubbish coming out from the US and the western world. So why blame them if we are so gullible? The second thing we can do is to put up a proposal to the UN to set up a neutral agency to monitor all countries on such issues, including human rights violation in the US. And of course war crimes against humanity that are committed by the Americans all over the world. The UN should take over the role in this kind of reporting, on condition that the analysts are neutrally picked. It would be pointless to have the same clowns and crooks making the reports. Asian media should cease reporting silly and biased articles immediately.

Choenan mystery

Look at the picture carefully. Look at how the steel plates folded, outwards and upwards. It looks like the explosion was from inside or from below. An internal accidental, hitting a mine below? If it was hit by a torpedo, the steel plates would be folding outwards from one side. You make your conclusion.

Another silly article

Repeated Chinese navy helicopter flights close to Japan's Self-Defense Force ships in the East China Sea and the Western Pacific in April were neither professional nor responsible, says the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Patrick Walsh. Walsh expressed concern about China's increasingly aggressive behavior in the South China Sea. In reaction to China's disturbing behavior in the South China Sea, several littoral states such as Vietnam and Singapore are now purchasing submarines "as a way of protecting sovereign rights," Walsh said.... The above article is by Yoichi Kato from Asahi Shimbun. Is he or the Admiral joking or clowning? Singapore and other littoral states are buying submarines to take on the Chinese? And the Chinese are being irresponsible flying near other ships? What was the American plane that flew over Hainan and brought down by a Chinese fighter doing there? Friendly tourists? What were all U2s doing flying over other nation's territories? What were the American bases doing in South Korea and Japan? And the Japanese PM Hatoyama had to resign because he could not evict the Americans from their territory? How come? Japan an American colony? Why couldn't Hatoyama do it? Was there some unequal treaty that was signed giving away Okinawa to America for 150 years like Hongkong being ceded to Britain during the colonial days?

The Great Town Council Debate

This Great Debate is going to raise temperature a bit higher. The two opposition MPs are understandably unhappy to know that the rankings of their wards are the lowest. But they should not worry too much. Look at the rankings of universities. Some are ranked damn high. But the students and parents just don't believe they are that good and are still sending their children to lower ranked universities. So this kind of ranking is only good to those who want to believe they are good. I believe if Cambridge/Oxford or Harvard are ranked in the hundreds, the students will still flock there because they know what is really good and what is fictitiously good. Now, how shall I add my two cents worth to this Great Debate? Shall I say this one is telling the truth or that one is telling the truth? On the other hand, if I say this one is not telling the truth or that one is not telling the whole truth, then I can be sued for calling this one or that one a liar. I think I better not make my two cents worth in this Debate without any data to back up my arguments. I would like to make a suggestion though. Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang should commission a survey, using volunteers so that they don't waste public money, and use their own set of criterias to meassure what is good and what is bad. They should carefully select criterias that suit their interests or appropriate to their Town Councils. The results can be equally flattering.

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....