Santa Claus coming to America

Or shall I say the wise men from the East coming to visit America and bringing gifts for the baby? Hu Jintao is in America on a 4 day visit and a summit with Obama. And he does not come empty handed. In his wagons were loads of gold and silver, all ready to be dispensed to the hungry Americans. Several hundred millions have already been given and more to come, to the tune of billions, if America is willing to be a nice boy. Even before the visit there were threats and threats from the American elite, including Hillary Clinton. And the stupid woman still rabbled about human rights in China and that the Chinese must change their social and political system to suit the Americans. Why should the President of another country go to the US to listen to someone complaining about his domestic affairs and how to run his own house? Maybe China should do more homework and insist on talking to the Americans about compensation to the Red Indians and the descendants of former slaves. Actually, there is no need for China to indulge in the same gossips as a housewife. Go to the White and talk politics, about bread and butter and guns. If the Americans insist on talking about human rights and all that nonsense, just pack up and go home. No need to waste more time on unproductive and destructive distractions. The important issues are economics and how to give the people of both countries a better life. The gangsters and the Al Capones can go on and talk to whoever they want about gangland warfare. China should rise above the occasion and avoid being dragged into gangsterism. Santa Claus does not have to pour out his bag of goodies if the children misbehaved.

Low TFR, foreign talent help needed

Our Total Fertility Rate has sank to a historical low of 1.16 last year. This is way below the replacement level of 2.1. We need help and foreign talents are needed in this area. Yes foreign talents will increase our population to sustain our economic growth and also improve our gene pool. What is the problem with our men, or our women? Is it their problem or is it the social cost that is too punitive for them to reproduce? If it is just biological, the problem can be solved much easily. If man is the problem, set up a sperm bank, get the virile men, local and foreign also can, and start inseminating our women. If woman is the problem, maybe a little tweaking in our laws may help. Allowing the men to have more wives would solve a lot of social problems, including single old maids. SDU would not have to work that hard. Allowing men to have more than one wife due to infertility problem has historical and cultural precedents. Our Muslim comrades have understood this problem since time immemorial and the religion has a provision for it. If the problem is social and financial cost, then the problem needs to be addressed at the national level. If young couples find it prohibitive to raise children, whose fault is it? Many young couples are thinking people and know how costly it is to raise kids in this high cost hot house. How about the govt taking over the role of bringing up kids, only the financing part? The last Parliament there were talks of govt taking over the care of children from parents who could not afford to bring them up properly. So why not take this further and make it a national service by the govt? I am very sure productivity will go up so high that the govt will have to put in stops to prevent couples producing too many children. It is all about being able to pay for the upbringing up children, Watson! No need to think too hard. The young couples have thought through the whole process and understood what it cost. And for being thoughtful and responsible, they are punished for not producing. And the thinkers and planners are still lost as to why they don’t produce. On the contrary, the irresponsible and unthinking will keep on reproducing and the govt has fallen into the trap of raising their children for them. Come on, do the simple thing. No need to covet for foreign talents and their bodies. Just provide the finances, and of course all the rulings about how many children will be supported, and the children will come. No need to kpkb everyday that our TFR is going lower. Stare at the problem. Don’t look away, don’t look outside our borders. This is the same attitude as in bringing in foreign talents to replace our healthy, well educated local talents.

It’s a big gamble

Goh Eng Yeow wrote an article about Bold Ambition and Big Gamble in the ST last week. SGX is taking a big gamble to turn itself into a New York or London in the finance industry. It is pulling all the stops, all the strings, putting money where it is to bring in the giants, the big funds and their big machines, high speed computers, to turn SGX into a world class bourse. In his comment he said, ‘The SGX has wagered a lot of time and money with no guarantee it will pay off.’ He concludes by saying that ‘the greatest irony of the SGX approach: For all its initiatives and innovations, the fate of its ambitious strategy now rests with the aussie politicians.’ Another irony that I may add is that the aspiration also rests on the small pool of small investors waiting to be eaten up by the big funds and their mean machines. The question I like to ask is whether Singapore has a big enough base of investors, with the dough, to be a world class stock exchange? Or does a world class stock exchange need a pool of small investors or just the big funds and their machines will do the trick? Another question of moral responsibility. In the madness to be big, are there considerations and systems put in the protect the small investors. Or the small investors are just collateral damages for the goal of being big for the sake of being big?

The Crooks accusing a Whistle Blower

A Swiss whistleblower, Rudolf Elmer, will be charged in the Swiss court for breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws. Rudolf will be turning his compilation of bank data showing money laundering and tax evasion to WikiLeaks. The data is proof of the banks misdeeds and those of its officials and their customers. Rudolf was the COO of Julius Baer bank in the Cayman Islands but was fired for stealing the information. This is what he said. ‘The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know…that money is being secreted away for tax evasion purposes, and other things such as money laundering.’ The bank’s reply is that Rudolf’s aim was ‘to discredit Julies Baer as well as clients’ by spreading “baseless accusations” and passing on “unlawfully acquired” documents to the media and WikiLeaks.’ If Rudolf is speaking the truth, then we have a bunch of criminals suing an innocent man. Accepted technically that he breached the banking laws, but what if the laws were abused by the banks? Would that absolve Rudolf of his crimes? The second part is that the bank has taken the position that Rudolf is lying and falsifying documents. The bank has thus taken a stand and can be hanged for it if it is found to be telling lies instead. The other frightening thing is that states could pass anything as laws, in this case banking secrecy acts, so that they can do criminal and immoral things. And breaking the laws becomes a crime. How neat. It is an open secret that many criminals and robbers parked their money in Switzerland and are protected by these laws. Who should be hanged then? When laws are for wrongful purposes, then the laws are a crime in itself.

Perfect solution to the stock market farce

Asian stock markets are being coerced to cut down their lunch breaks, and better, no lunch breaks to increase their productivity and facilitate cross border trades. The latest victim is Hongkong halving its lunch break from 2 hours to one hours. Tokyo too will have its lunch break cut. Singapore is contemplating of doing away with the lunch break completely, which is likely to happen on 1 March. One of the solid reasons given is to reduce the advantage/disadvantage of differences in trading hours. By doing away with lunch breaks and to extend the trading hours, stock exchanges will now operate with at least similar trading hours or overlapping hours. That will ease off a lot of the disadvantages. To me this is a little foolish. As long as the stock markets across the world are operating at different hours because of the different time zones, no amount of time adjustment or no lunch breaks can be of any great help. The advantage is minimal but the price paid by the stockbrokers is not small. There is a perfect solution to all the farce about different trading hours and trying to bring them as close as possible. Actually there are two answers. One is to operate stock markets on a 24 hour basis. The second is to use Greenwich Time and all stock markets shall operate at the same hours. See, all the farce will go away. Stupid problems need to be solved by stupid solutions. Red herring problems can be solved by applying twisted logics.

We need more cooling measures

The latest bout of cooling measures to curb property prices is touted as a very well thought out plan. The previous three measures thus must be not too well thought out. And if this one does not work out, the next betterer thought out plan will be rolled out. Curbing high property prices is not the only area that needs cooling measures. We need cooling measures for COE prices, university tuition fees and of course medical fees. There were some hints of curbing high legal fees in the private sector. That is also an area that many cannot afford to pay to the top legal eagles. They are so good that they could even demand an arm or a leg from their clients. And affordability is never an issue. So far the only real cooling measure that works is the salary of workers. Real cool man.

NTUC Dental Care

Lee Wei Ling wrote an article in the Sunday Times today complimenting Singapore doctors for not doing unnecessary medical tests and cutting down medical cost. I had an experience last week at NTUC Dental Care when I was coerced in a way to have two Xrays taken or else no treatment. I went just to repair a tooth filling that was chipped off. A simple removal of the existing worn filling and refilling it with new amalgam should do the job. The dental surgeon insisted that two Xrays must be taken as evidence of the state of the tooth and should the hole be too big and necessitate a root canal treatment, then she would be protected in case I complain that it was her fault. I want to say 'f'. This really pissed me off. I was at the verge of sitting up and walk out of the clinic. But I held back as it was a small matter and did not want to waste more time since I had already made the appointment and sitting on the dental chair. The reasoning for the extra two Xrays was unacceptable as it was done for her own protection against complaints by unhappy customers. Here she assumed that I would be an unreasonable customer, that the hole in my tooth could be bigger and required canal treatment, and I would complain against her. So I kenna paid for two Xrays for her protection just in case. At the end, after the treatment, there was no big hole that required canal treatment except a big hole in my pocket that was unnecessary but for her own good. And now, I am complaining for a different reason. I actually did not want to raise this minor issue until Wei Ling's article reminded me of how medical cost can go up for all the wrong reasons. And if my experience is the norm, then many NTUC members or NTUC Dental Care customers must have been made to pay for unnecessary tests. NTUC being an organisation to protect the welfare of workers should rethink this stupid practice and save the workers some money. No, I am not going to complain to Swee Say about this. Too tedious and time consuming. But any NTUC leaders or members reading this may want to take note and bring this up to him. It will save the workers some money and avoid being abused by such arrogant attitude of some practitioners.

Singapore University Education quality up

The tuition fees for Singapore universities and polytechnics will go up in the next academic year. The reason given is that the cost of providing quality education is going up. The fee hikes range from 3% to 6% for universities and 2% to 3% for polytechnics. The increases for NUS and NTU were 4-6% which are higher than SMU’s 3%. At the rate it is going the quality of education in NUS and NTU will improve tremendously over that of SMU. And I can presume that SMU will have to improve its quality next year by higher fee increases just to catch up. Students in NUS and NTU will be celebrating in the increasing quality of their education. Students in polytechnics will have to make do with only 2-3% improvement. If university fees were a guide to the quality of the education provided, then the fee increase must be accelerated. Then it will only be a matter of time when the quality of our university education be betterer than the top universities in the West. And students who can afford to pay more for quality education will be flocking to this education hub for world best university education.

What high COEs will mean

If a taxi cost another $50k, you can bet the taxi will go up accordingly to cover the extra cost. If school bus is also in the scheme, you can bet that bus fees will go up. At $50k more and a 7 year life span for a taxi, it simply means $7k more to write off a year or $600 pm more to charge to the commuters. The school bus will have to apportion the increase to the 20 to 40 kids in a bus. The goods and delivery vehicles will have to be cost in which means ultimately everything will be cost in. Don’t think it will only affect the car owners or ex car owners. The multiplier effect will quite widespread. And anyone buying a $100k car will not park it in the car park for show. It is too costly to waste away. And insurance companies will be laughing to the banks with car values going up. More people changing to public transport means the public transport system will have to take on heavier load. More buses and trains, more sardines, and more cost. Somehow, whichever way, the cost is still up. Why like that? COEs, ERPs, public transports, no matter which button is pressed, commuters got to pay more and bear with bigger inconvenience.

A brilliant American analysis on rift in China leadership

A REUTER report quoting Pentagon official’s comment about the maiden flight of China’s stealth fighter aircraft is simply brilliant. It said that Hu Jintao and other top Chinese leaders did not know about the test flight, implying that they were kept out of the loop. So there is possibility of a rift in the Chinese leadership, between the civilian leaders and the top brass in the military. I am impressed with the quality of the analyst and the value of this report. The readers must now all believes that the Chinese leadership will soon fall apart and a coup is taking place. My simpleton layman observation is that Hu Jintao and his comrades were too busy with their preparation for Gate’s visit and all the briefings they were given were forgotten, or they did not pay any attention to them. Or perhaps the reports were all on their tables but they got no time to read as they were thinking of how to make Gates happy during his visit to China. So no miscommunication. Just a slip of the mind, or too busy. I think my analysis is equally brilliant in a way. But the Americans and the western media can keep on hoping that China will collapse or a leadership struggle will take place and breaking up China like the Soviet Union. PS. This American view is news worthy woah.

What is good leadership in govt?

There are many aspects about govt and leadership to talk about. Let me just say a few things about what good govt and good leadership mean from a micro perspective or from a single factor. A good govt leads by bringing the people with them, through persuasion and education. It educates the people and encourages them to think, to make rational decisions for the good of people and country. A govt that does not educate, talk down on the people and threatens the people with all kinds of negative scenarios, gimmicks and abuses the law is never a good govt. It is more like a dictatorship, a kingship or a totalitarian state. Mature and democratic countries must not only have democratic institutions but also a mature and educated people who are ruled by reasons and persuasion and who participated actively in the politics of the country. A nation of well fed people but unable to think independently, unable to decide what is best for themselves but being dictated and controlled in all ways is nothing but like a fat bird in a cage, feeling very well and comfortable materially but empty in spirit and restrained in freedom. What kind of leadership and society are we living in or do we want to live in?

The most stupid question being asked

With the US crying foul, that China is developing carrier killer missiles and stealth fighters, the most stupid question being asked over and over again is this, ‘What is the intention of China?’ And this question is not being asked by the layman but by military top brass, strategists, professoris and China experts. My answer is very simple. China is manufacturing them for fun. Or maybe China needs them so show to the world that it has come of age. Or the Chinese leadership, like the North Korean leadership, just wanted to fight to prove its manhood. No, not good answers. So what should be a good answer? Maybe asking the Americans why are they spending half of the world’s defence budget would be indicative of what is the real intent of China. Actually the silly question being asked reflects how stupid the questioner is. Then many will quickly jump to the conclusion, China has aggressive intention. China is preparing a war with the US. Another silly thought. Today, war between the super powers is obsolete. Only monsters and maniacs would ever think of a war between the super powers. The destructive powers of their arsenals are unbelieveable and when unleashed could wipe out both countries and the world together. Superiority in arms, whether on the side of the Americans or the Chinese or the Russians, has become meaningless. For any one of them can inflict enough harm to the other party to keep them away. Even the reckless and irresponsible nut called George Bush Jr would not dare to start a war with China when he wanted most. There will be no winners or survivors. This is the stark reality of super power warfare. So what is the intention of China’s military build up? The answer is simple. It is to prevent war, to prevent adventurers from attacking China. The fate of Iraq and other lesser nations are evidence for China to build a strong military to avoid the same fate. North Korea is doing the same and is saved by its nuclear weapons. Would the crazy Americans, South Koreans or Japan dare to strike the North Koreans? The Americans might at this moment, if they believe that the North Koreans are unable to launch an ICBM to American soil and any hit will be at the expense of Japan and South Korea. The latter two would be foolhardy to think of having a war with the North Koreans. As long as China maintains a military force that can wipe out the US should it try to do it to China, China is safe from war and foreign invasion. The thought of China building its military force to start a war with the US is mischievous and childish. For China to do so is courting its own annihilation. So, would anyone still want to ask the silly question of China’s intention? The only reason for asking such a question is to be mischievous, to create fear and to tag China as a war monger. Period.

Straight A1s everywhere or is it inflation?

The recent O level results must have made many parents very happy. The students themselves no need to say, must also be very happy with the fruits of their labour. The teachers and schools too must be proud too that their efforts in educating the students were a scintillating success. And the MOE too can tell the world that our education system is the best in the world. Maybe the students in Raffles, Hwa Chong and the other SAP schools would have a different kind of feeling. They have been robbed of a chance to own a piece of certificate that says, 10 A1s or 9 A1s. If they were to sit in the same exam, they may even get A1 stars. Being the crème ala crème of the cohorts, the MOE perhaps should devise something like an honorary certificate for them. If the students of these top schools were also graded, we could literary throw a stone in a crowd students and hit a 10 A1s. There will be so many 10 A1s to the country proud. It will be another feather in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of 10 A1s and 9 A1s in an O level examination. And every year we can aspire for the record to be broken. And we don’t have enough talents and need more foreign talents to improve our stocks. Aren’t our straight As students in the world’s best education system better than foreign talents from other countries? Maybe not. Many of the top students O level students are from foreign countries too.

Case against minimum wage

This seems to be a hot issue in Parliament yesterday. And it is obvious that there will be one camp against one man. After hearing the reasons given, I am on the side of the camp. One dangerous principle of minimum wage is that an organization may be forced to pay some donkeys sitting there and not wanting to work. The examples brought up were short of hilarious. Workers did not want to work in kitchen because it is too hot. I have heard of cleaners complaining that their jobs were too tough, people find midnight shift intolerable. Basically complaints of all kinds about jobs. May I then offer to aircon the kitchens, make all the jobs soft and cosy, no midnight shifts, or provide restaurant meals and gym membership to the workers to make working a pleasant past time? Look at the other extremes, the politicians. Ask them to wake up at 5am to flag off a marathon, they will say yes. Ask them to go walkabout to shake every stranger’s hand, they will say yes. And they have full time job from 8 to 5. And in the evening they are everywhere, attending wakes and wedding dinners, community events, MPS, board meetings etc etc. By the time they got home they would have put in a 25 hour day work. And they are not complaining. Some work so hard that they did not even have time to attend Parliament or have to force themselves to stay awake if they did attend. And their hairs are prematurely turning white. Poor buggers! They are the best examples of exemplary work attitude. Never say no, never complain. Just work and work. Workers with such good attitude would not need to ask for minimum wage. The organizations will automatically pay them more.

Signs of rising intolerance

A Maureen Foo wrote a letter to Today paper yesterday complaining about noise in the HDB void decks. And her complaints included children cycling and rollerblading in the walkways. These are signs that the intolerance level of overcrowding is beginning to get to the nerves of the people. When space is aplenty and one needs not bang into another so frequently, community living is a joy, or at least bearable. When one starts to bump into one another in every corner, the nerves are likely to flare. When have people become so irritated with the aunties and uncles spending their time at the void decks or children playing in the HDB estates? Such problems will keep on increasing as the population grows. Those crazy people who want a 10m population here need to be sent to the firing squad. Oh, I just say this figuratively hor. Even husband and wife will get onto one another’s nerves when the novelty of marriage life starts to wear. The little irritating habits when repeated or accumulated and prolonged can be unbearable. This paradise will soon be turned into an inhabitable place when neighbours will start to give hostile stares at one another, commuters punch ups in public transports or people fighting in hawker centres or on the streets. The white mice effect is about to erupt if we are still complacent and think it is ok.

I disagree with Temasek Review

I disagree with Temasek Review, or more specifically with an article titled, Buoyant property prices a sign of rising debt as opposed to rising wealth? by a Singaporean. This is what I disagree with and I quote the first paragraph, With property prices escalating into no man’s land, we see paper wealth rise with the proportion of debt. This is brought about by loose housing policies coupled with the loose granting of Permanent Residence to foreigners, this diabolic formula creates a surge in demand, and inflates prices way beyond their actual value and affordability. Ok, I disagree only with the last phrase which I have highlighted in bold. Who says our property prices are way beyond their actual value? Our property prices are exactly what they are, determined by the market of course. And no one can fight or manipulate the market. It is real market price. And secondly, who says they are beyond Singaporeans’ affordah..bility? I read everywhere in the media and in official speeches that Singapore property prices are affordable. And the govt is ensuring that they are affordable. So they must be affordable. Period. Ok, I must agree that high property prices mean high debt. High debt means high risk and can be turned into a nightmare for the debtors. I pray they don’t have to jump off their market value and affordah…ble properties when a crash comes along.

What is bucket shop?

Those trading in stocks and shares or in financial products are quite familiar with the term bucket shop. The term is often not look at kindly and smell of distrust and a con job. They are supposed to trade in commodities like coffee bean, sugar, oil, wheat, pork belly etc etc. The general impression is that new investors often were attracted by the good returns and also tended to make money in the first few trades. Subsequently they will lose their pants, lock, stock and barrel. They have a similar modus operandi. They make sales talks of good returns to their potential customers. And whatever trades they ‘executed’ in the early part of the game often ended in big winnings. Then they will advise the investors to put in more money for bigger wins. Most investors obliged thinking that it was so easy to make money. And they will pump in more money and will receive monthly statements of winnings that will make them smile. The catch is that they cannot withdraw whatever money they put in. Their brokers will try all means to prevent them from withdrawing their money. These could be sweet words of good returns or more schemes to keep their money in. And if they fail to persuade the investors from withdrawing, the investors will be hit with their first shock, losses. All their trades will now be reported as losses and big losses. And any withdrawal will be less than they put in or even nothing left. In worst cases, they even owe money to the bucket shops from big losses. The trick of bucket shops is to keep asking their clients to put in more money and more money and to generate glowing reports of profits in their monthly statements. And the clients will be very happy just looking at the reports. What they did not know or did not ask is whether there is really any money left. Often actually not a single cent is there. The money is all gone except on paper, printed in the monthly reports sent to the clients, to make clients happy and to encourage clients to put in money into a bottomless pit. In short, this is what bucket shop is all about. Put in money and don’t expect to see it anymore.

TOC to be gazetted as a political association

Just read this from the TOC site. They have received an email saying that the PM will be gazetting it as a political association. By this it means that it cannot receive financial and other support from foreigners. My crystal ball says that in the next election TOC may go all out to be a political party and contest the election with its own slate of candidates. And my feeling is that their candidates could be as worthy as any candidates to be field by the rest of the parties. This is an interesting development in the politics of Singapore. Go for it TOC.

More caring MPs

Several hot issues were raised in Parliament yesterday. High COE price was expected to be in discussion. Though the outcome was that measures have already been taken to prevent speculation, the most crucial part that contributed to the high COE price was left untouched. The present system is flawed in the sense that a bidder can bid any astronomical price without having to pay for it and only pays at the lowest successful bid price. If nobody can see that this is a big flaw and should be removed, nothing else needs to be said except to live with this brilliant system. The MOE scholar’s involvement in child pornography was another hot issue. Lee Bee Wah suggested that schools should divulge more information on scholarship applicants for the ministries to make more comprehensive assessments before granting scholarships. This is definitely a good suggestion. I have a better one. Parents must also declare the misdeeds of their wards applying for scholarship. You just don’t know what they did at home or out of school. See, all areas covered. Sure no more errant scholars. Another interesting issue was on parental responsibility in raising children. Parents who are unable to take good care of their children will have their children taken away. Let’s welcome 1984 with open arms. Now we can have another kind of police squad calling on the homes to take away children. And the state should take over the responsibility of raising these children. Sylvia Lim and Halimah Yaacob were against such an idea as it may break up families. And rightly, as they said, who is better to provide parental care other than the parents. Another MP suggested educating the parents on how to bring up children. I got a better idea. No one can get married unless they attended and passed a course in parenthood. A Parenthood Certificate will be the pre requisite to register a marriage. Without proper education, once married and children are born, it will be too late. Rice is cooked. Let’s prepare the rice first before they are cooked. Wow, I am coming up with so many brilliant suggestions for free.

China could win the war with the US without fighting

The stealth fighters, the carrier killer missiles, the anti satellite missiles, have changed the picture of American dominance in the military theatre. They were once untouchable. They were once the only one who could attack any country without being attacked. That was how powerful and formidable the empire was. Now the balance of power is changing. No doubt the Americans are still Number One. But it is so cheap to send 20 carrier killer missiles to sink an aircraft carrier and 7000 crews and a few hundred aircraft plus munition for desserts. How could China win a war with the Americans without fighting? Just read the panic in the American Defence Dept on China’s revelation of a stealth fighter and you will know what I mean. Yes, the Chinese is very far behind in military technology. But there is fear in the Americans that the Chinese are getting closer. And they need to run faster, much faster. They, I mean the Americans. Their military doctrine is all about unmatchable superiority in fire power and technology. They want to keep at a far distance from the rest of the world. What does this mean? They need to spend more to be much further ahead of China or their nearest competitor. And all China needs to do is to keep on the chase. For every dollar the Chinese spent, the Americans will be spending ten thousand times more. At this rate, the American economy will simply break down. They don’t have the dough and cannot afford it. Keeping up will mean bankrupting the Treasury faster. The Americans will revolt when they become the new pauper of the 21st Century. They will not believe that they cannot afford to buy cheap Chinese made toys for Christmas. When that day comes, which is very soon, they will break up into several independent states. China should just keep pushing the Americans to bankrupt themselves. That’s the way to do it.