Do we need million dollar FTs?

Do we need to employ multimillion dollar FTs to tell us that if we don't take lunch break our productivity will go up by 10%? You pay me half of that and I will raise productivity by 40%... by extending trading hours by 4 more hours. How about that? And all our workers need just add another 2 hours of work and our economy could grow by another 10%. And Swee Say please don't worry about quality of work life. No need to talk about CBF. Just work 24 hours better still, more productivity. What is the problem with the stock market that such a desperate measure is even thinkable? Is the market doing roaring business? Running out of ideas or didn't know the real problems facing the market? Why are so many retail investors losing their pants and losing faith in the market, and no longer in the market? Is the market fair to small traders, a level playing field for all investors? Are there parties that are having extra advantage and wiping out the small investors? Are the hedge funds and big funds operating like trawlers, scoping up everything and destroying the market in the process? I don't believe that none of the supertalents knows what is really wrong with the market. I also believe that some will know that scraping lunch break is a silly idea and would not do any real good to the market if the flaws in the market are not removed. If they don't have any idea, just ask Obama or see what he is trying to do to save the American stock exchanges.

FTs without the local losers

What would this country be without the local losers? One thing for sure, no more soldiers and uniformed personnel. No one will be buying the overpriced HDB flats. And no one will be fighting with the FTs for train and bus seats. And no complaining about govt policies.

Notable quote from Remy Tan

What a country needs is not just talent, but also commitment and loyalty....Remy Tan Remy Tan wrote to the ST commenting on the Wharton and Harvard couple who decided to move to Singapore because Singapore benefits them but then changed their minds because of xenophobic postings in the blogs. I can agree with Remy Tan's comment but with some qualifications. What he said is only true if it is a country. If it is a hotel, then what is needed is more talents and not commitment or loyalty. And this is the exactly what is happening to the MNCs. All the executives are creaming off as much as they can from the organisations knowing very well that at some point in time they will have to leave. There is no need for commitment or loyalty to any organisation or country. It is one's own pocket and interests that matter. Are we building a country or are we turning it into a hotel? A hotel always places the interests and comfort of its guests first. The staff are there only to work and collect pays. If we go the direction of the hotel, then what we need are talents and more talents and more talents. No need commitment nor loyalty. The latter are foolish ideas to con the fools.

What is a little extraordinary rain?

We have overcame many extraordinary challenges to make us what we are today with extraordinary men paid with ordinary salary. Today we have extraordinary men paid with extraordinary salary and we could not solve a little problem caused by a little extraordinary rain. Singaporeans are gasping in disbelief. They would be less demanding and would expect much less if we have ordinary men paid with ordinary salary and trying to overcome extraordinary challenges. Men like Goh Keng Swee and his colleagues would be turning in their graves knowing that we are now stumped by a little extraordinary rain. And more unbelieveable, we have not only extraordinary men but also super foreign talents to tap their expertise from. And we have all the money to pay for it. All we need to do is to throw some money into the air and many great solutions will instantly appear.

Singaporeans queuing up to be maids

After yesterday's report of a maid inheriting $6m from her employer. I am also thinking of becoming a mate, oops, I mean a maid, and hopefully inheriting a couple of millions as well. Being a maid can be quite rewarding at times. My friend's mother gave the maid her diamond ring after a few month's of care giving. The maid was so attentive to her needs, helping to wash and bath her as well. There are wonderful maids and maid employer relationship. There are the other extremes when employers took every advantage of maids, like tying shoe laces in the public when the employer could do it herself. My friend employed a maid with tying shoe laces as a primary duty. He could not tie his own shoe laces for he could not see nor touch anything beneath his waistline. Anyone want to employ a male maid, with a carrot of a few millions at the end of the contract? I know many Singaporeans are already asking to be maids under the same terms. It is not really a bad job or a bad idea you know.

The Americans trying to start World War 3

The intene provocation by the Americans against North Korea should not be taken lightly by the world community. The Americans are fabricating all kinds of charges against countries across to the world and raising tension to precipitate a world war. Any miscalculation at the Korean Peninsula could easily burn down the two Koreas and Japan and could drag in the rest of the world. China and Russia will definitely not be standing by idly while the Americans go on with their rampage and destruction of the two Koreas. The UN should initiate an independent investigation into the American claims of the Choenan sinking, send a team to verify the evidence and settle the issue in the name of world peace and justice. The UN cannot continue to standby on the side line like a lame duck or accomplice of the American evil scheme to burn down North Korea at the expense of turning South Korea as a war collateral. Only the silly South Koreans will go along with the scheme and foolishly ignorant of how adversely would they be affected should war break out. The world community must pressurise the UN into action.

Papa coming out to help

Can any of you remember the days when we were young and needed to hide behind papa? Or can any of you recall how your little boy or girl came to you for help or hid behind your back while the teacher reprimanded them? It is a very powerful tactic to invite papa to stand up for you when you are young and running out of excuses. This is even better if your papa is a big time gangster as in Jack Neo's movie 'I not stupid'. I am waiting for his next movie and I am sure there are plenty of social issues and material for him to work on. He may want to try one with the title, 'Inviting the god' or 'chea shin' in Hokien.

Desperate situation desperate measures

I am quite confused actually because reports and data provided by the media told of a different story. There were glowing reports that everything is getting betterer. So if I called it desperate measure for a desperate situation is probably wrong. The stock market is doing roaring business with trading volume at all time high and derivatives and all kinds of American gimmicks gaining more acceptance by the market. So business must be good and so is income, especially those of remisiers. SGX has just announced that it is planning to scrap the lunch break so that trading can be continuous. The extended training hours, 90 min, would allow more tradings to be done and also capture the swings of other markets. The immediate rewards for cancelling the lunch break is that traders can trade more and remisiers can earn more commissions. Maybe for giving up 90 min of lunch break a remisier may earn another $16. That should take care of breakfast, lunch and dinner plus transport fares. Not bad at all. I think this is the most brilliant idea that I have come across in my entire working life. To extend the logic to other areas, imagine if our ministers and MPs work continuously through lunch, no lunch breaks, our economy could grow by another 10% at least. Some may call this idea idiotic, but this is just a matter of perception. And maybe those who are laughing at this silly idea do not have the talent to appreciate what it means. I won't call this idea brilliant either. I think it is simply ingenious, and the person coming out with such an idea is a genius. And as National Day is around the corner, we shall award this genius with a National Day Award. We can call it the Uniquely Singapore Genius Award. The only betterest idea that can beat this ingenious idea is non stop trading, 24/7. Only an exceptional genius like me can think of it. Then we can ride the highs and lows of all the markets around the world. And if any investor has a dream of a stock running up, they can wake up immediately to call the remisier to place an order. And those insomniacs can call remisiers at 3am in the morning for a chat. This will be the added service that remisiers can provide when trading is 24/7. Great stuff. For the time being, just go with the no lunch break. All the struggling remisiers would fully support it. Then we can give notice to the restaurants and shops in Raffles Place not to open for lunch.

Need to make Singapore Singaporean friendly

We have many calls to make Singapore more friendly to foreigners, to dogs and cats, to the disabled, to little babies in prams, to cyclists. I think Singaporeans may want to scream out loud, to make this island Singaporean friendly. Singaporeans seem to be getting the wrong end of the stick most of the time, and are feeling being left out in the cold. They have been taken for granted, to be left alone to fend for themselves, to be fleeced, to be cheated, to be conned, to be abused, to be threatened, to be told that they are not good enough, to be called losers, to be told to go somewhere else, best, by foreigners. Would there be someone out there kind enough to try to make this island a bit friendlier for Singaporeans?

More Malays in senior appointments in the Military

Teo Chee Hean reassured the public that more able Malays are taking up senior and sensitive appointments in the military and security services. This came about in Parliament after queries were raised concerning a self radicalized Malay, Muhammad Fadil, was arrested by the ISD. The radicalized path of servicemen in the military and police is a serious concern as the danger and consequences could be very damaging to national security. It is also natural to place a linkage on such arrests to opportunities for higher appointments in military and security services. It is also good that Chee Hean put the matter to rest. The Malays should not be unduly worried that an isolated case like Muhammad Fadil would jeopardize their chances in the various govt ministry. The Malay issue has been a difficult problem for the govt and great afford is being made to make sure that able Malays would not lose out in pursuing a career in the military. With more Malays assuming higher appointments, they could only do the Malays proud and prove that they are every inch a Singaporean like everyone else.

Another discovery after the Great Flood

The latest Great Flood has led to a new discovery in the Stamford Canal. It was discovered that the Canal with a capacity to deliver water up to 1 and ½ Olympic size swimming pool per minute is not able to tahan two onslaughts of rain of more than 100mm coming within half an hour of one another. Obviously a new canal with a bigger capacity is needed. Maybe they should consider a canal that can take 4 onslaughts of 200mm rain within an hour. Maybe be even bigger to cater for a population of 8-10 million people. Such possibility is now higher with the weather, being the weather, misbehaving so badly recently. And as the world gets smaller, not only that we will have to face the problems from La Nina and La Nino, we will now have to watch the typhoons in Vietnam and the South China Sea for flooding. In the meantime work has started to review the whole drainage system and the weather pattern of unpredictable world climatic changes.

New laws against xenophobia

I share the concern raised by Radha Basu in the ST today. She pointed to the xenophobic postings in cyberspace and feared that many talented FTs will be turned away from paradise. She quoted two super foreign talents who had intention to settle here but changed their minds when she showed them the anti foreigner blog postings. This is serious and may become a national crisis when the additional 100k foreign talents that Hsien Loong said was needed refuse to come here to work. Our economy will not see the 15% growth and Singaporeans may lose their jobs as well. And for sure, no big bonuses. Xenophobia has no place in this city of the world. Our country is meant for all the supertalents to live here. We need to quickly introduce laws against xenophobic Singaporeans, especially the oldies and those less talented that are most vocal against foreigners. These people must be put behind bars quickly. Or at least they should be made to wear green vests and paraded along Orchard Road or Raffles Place. But the law must also be fair to the less talented and ignorant Singaporeans. Foreign talents that beat Singaporeans, be they 3 year old or 90 year old, or ridiculed Singaporeans must be given a one way ticket back to where they belong. This would at least appease the unhappy Singaporeans for the anti xenophobic laws. How many of you are in favour of such legislations?

HDB flats for collateral! Cannot Mah...

HDB flats will now not be allowed to be used as collateral for loans. This is to protect the owners from losing the roof on their heads. The good thing is that it will join the list of things that Singaporeans can smile and feel happy about aka money in CPF. The high prices of HDB will now make Singaporeans smile and smile. But if they want to go to the Ah Long for a loan, the Ah long will say HDB cannot mah. Never mind lah, it may be a myth of wealth, but many happy Singaporeans with HDB flats worth a million bucks will can be seen smiling and smiling in the kopitiams.

How to prevent more flooding?

People are starting to question the causes of the recent flooding. It is no longer amusing, or something that will go away. It is something that is going to stay and get worst. June and July are our hottest and driest months. Wait till December and January come, then we will know how serious the flooding will be. For the moment blame has been put to the Typhoon in Vietnam, to little twigs and unusually heavy rain. Looks like the rainfall in one month is equivalent to a whole year's rainfall. Going at this rate, rainfall will be up by at least 500% by the year end. Thank God we got the Marina Barrage or the whole island will be under water. While some may think that the Marina Barrage is a cause to the flash floods, I think otherwise. I am going to put to the blame solely on the building of Noah's Ark. We not only have one already standing on top of the Marina Sands Casino, there is another one coming up at Buona Vista, a mega church that looks like an ark. I think we have one too many arks in this little dot. As was told in the bible, once the ark was built, the heavy rain will come, with the flood. So, blame it on the arks! And to stop more flooding, you got the answer now. Or maybe we should ask Paul, the octopussy, for the answer.

My two dangerous hobbies

I thought writing and photography are two of the best hobbies for an oldie to take up. After reading the papers, I am got this feeling that they are extremely dangerous hobbies. I read that a photojournalist was handcuffed while taking photos of the flood and the official reason given was that he was obstructing the rescue work. And the author of a book 'Once a Jolly Hangman', Alan Shadrake, was arrested for defamation. I must be very very careful not to obstruct the law and not to defame anyone. But I would like some MPs to ask questions on when and what kind of acts would necessitate a person to be handcuffed. Many people are shocked by such news.

The politics of flooding

The repetition of several severe floodings over a short span of time is raising goose pimples in Singaporean gossip circles. In cyberspace, practically every forum or blog worth its salt is very unhappy about the incidents. Some even called for the sacking of the Minister of Environment. Flooding is now politics in Singapore. It will become one of the big issues awaiting the General Election, standing shoulder to shoulder with the heavy weights of inflated housing prices, inflation, employment, foreign workers and medical fees. There is no need to think very hard why flooding has become a hot political potato. The root cause of this problem can be traced to the completion of the Marina Barrage which was touted as our solution to flooding. There was kind of an expectation that flooding will now be history with technology, talent and money on our side. And the expectation is not groundless. We have always been trumpeting that we are the best, we have the money to pay for the best, and the best is all we have. Any shortfall in this expectation, any slipshod work, will become intolerable. The people’s expectation has been raised to a very high level. And you can’t fault the people for it. For they believe in what they have been told. They are in good hands and the good hands are paid with good money to do a good job. The only people that should be happy must be the shops in Orchard Road. Whenever there is a flood, they got free advertisements here and around the world. Everyone will be writing or talking about it. Lucky Plaza and Wendy's must be a common household name by now. They shouldn't be complaining, I hope.

A new vibrancy in town

While Tharman was trying hard to water down the heavenly expectation of a 13-15% growth, while he was trying to say that it was an anomaly, he even sounded embarrass for such an economic data, he finally ended to the extent of saying that this was a flash in the pan incident. Nothing to gloat about. So there should be more sanely expectation of our economic growth next year. No more than 5-6% if my reading is right, for that is a reasonable number for a nearly mature economy. We are no longer a developing country when everything is waiting to be developed. Our only growth factors now are property and high inflation fueled by importing more foreign workers. Remove these elements and we could see a recession in our way. Then again, there are new opportunities for growth. While we thought that the construction industry has been full blown and should go to a hibernation stage soon after the two IRs and the slew of HDB flats going to be built, I am seeing a gigantic opportunity that could drive the economy for the next 10 to 20 years. The flooding yesterday was serious. No one would dare to explain that it was caused by some twits or twigs clogging up the drain. They have done that, by fencing up the drains from twig clogging. The damages are huge and will continue to do damages down the road. And the frequency and severity cannot be ignored as a one in 50 year incident. There is a need to appoint a consultancy to study the whole drainage system and maybe to rebuild a network of drainage tunnels around the island. The machinery used my MRT for tunnelling work could still have a life. Then they could even consider new concepts like flotation gear for new buildings or capsules to keep water from flooding the basements. A network of tunnels will brighten up our friends up north. Mammoth projects like this is their cup of tea. They may even quote for the building of a floating city or a floating island. All new buildings should be built on stilts. The experience in Kukup will come in handy. They have built a whole new village on concrete stilts into the sea. In the meantime, the car workshops and mechanics and the insurance people will be busy making more money from the cars turned submarines. Oh god, my car insurance premium is going to go up again. It is my fault, the fault of motorists who own cars and so it is only expected that they should pay for the higher insurance claims.

The biggest lie modern man lives with

The US of America proclaimed to the world that it is the most peace loving country. And all Americans worthy to be called Americans will rise to clap on that. The American leaders know that they were telling a white lie. The country has been engaged in wars, unstoppable since the end of the second world war, and mostly initiated by themselves on trumped up lies and excuses. The enemies were always unscrupulously inhuman and wrong. Righteousness and goodness were on the American side. So is God. And the American public believe so. Not only the American public believe so, the American allies and lackey countries also believe so, at least when they spoke to the media. But deep down, they all know that they were believing in an American lie. They knew that America was the worst warring country since Germany and Japan in modern history. But for their own survival and vested interests, they have to sing the American tune, and tell the world that America is the most peaceful country. And often these 'axis of evil' countries will also send their soldiers to help in the killings of other human beans, under the command of the evil Empire. How long will humankind stand up to this big white lie and call a spade a spade? How many political leaders would be honest enough to say so?

Cost of living up, standard down

'A Wall Street Journal article in January this year wrote that the relentless influx of foreigners has depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living and led to an overall decline in the standards of living.' I lifted the above paragraph from an article in TOC. And I believe that some Singaporeans also feel this way, especially those in cyberspace and the losers. How many of you believe that the above statement is true? I think it all depends on how big is your pay check and whether your annual increment is bigger than the rising cost of living. I have spoken to many people and they said not true leh. They said they didn't feel it at all. Some even asked, 'Oo yiah boh' or 'got shadow or not' in Hokien. But then these are the people who also said, 'What is $10m?' So the above statement is a very subjective one. I am stuck in between. Don't know what is happening. Perhaps I am the lucky few, the ignorant ones. When you don't know what is happening, life goes on quite pleasantly.

Who is in favour of the recent fare hike?

The fare hike is now a fact of life, a fait accompli. All the commuters are paying for it by as much as 40% more. And we heard about the restoring of a 3% subsidy. And everyone is happy. No one is protesting or complaining about it. Minister Lim Hwee Hua said the scheme will benefit the commuters in the long run. In the short run just pay more. Just pay first and wait for the benefits to kick in. Benefits for everyone? What about those that just pay more and no benefits? Yesterday the ST also came out in support of the fare hike. And the same note, pay first and let the scheme works. Works towards what? And is this the reason why no journalist or reporter dare to write an article about the scheme, whether the scheme is good or bad for the commuters, how the oldies/students are coping with it and how much more they have to pay? And is there anyone who thinks that this fare hike is unreasonable? Is there any MP going to ask question in Parliament about this? So far never heard of any MP saying that they disagree with this great fare hike. This must be another great scheme that is good for the people.