A decade of failed public housing policies

With only a couple of weeks in office, Koh Boon Wan has virtually overturned many of the old housing policies of his predecessor and frantically trying to make up for lost time to make good what had went wrong drastically. Would the changes in housing policies be good enough evidence of the mismanagement of public housing or just a change of policies and nothing more? The decade of under building of public flats and the influx of foreigners have caught many first time buyers of HDB flats sleeping. Many did not really understand what was happening and were caught napping through no fault of theirs. As a consequence, many ended up buying excessively priced flats or missed the boat altogether. Many too have to put off plans for marriage, for starting a family, while some were forced to buy resale flats at higher prices or private properties at even higher prices. The net result is that many young people have to pay overpriced properties and cleaning up their savings. Those that missed the boat are just as bad as the little savings they stinged to save can never make up for the runaway prices. Could the victims of the decade of misguided public housing policies find recourse or reprieve in some way with new policies that will recognize their plight? Many have been forced out of the market for not being able to buy a HDB flat when their incomes were within the HDB ceiling. Is it their fault? Would there be an amnesty of sort to let these victims of past policies back into the public housing system? Or would it be a case of just too bad, caught by wrong policies at the wrong time? Or would some wise guy quip, ‘It happened, let’s move on? How flexible and people centric will the new regime be to the victims of flawed policies?

An unbelievable world record!

Other being a PAP MP, he(Yeo Guat Kwang holds) has an amazing 64 other positions !!! http://www.parliament.gov.sg/mp/yeo-guat-kwang?viewcv=Yeo%20Guat%20Kwang 1) Member, Government Parliamentary Committee on Manpower 2) Member, Government Parliamentary Committee on Community Development, Youth & Sports 3) Member, GPC for Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts 4) Vice Chairman, Aljunied Town Council 5) Alignment Director, NTUC Quality Worklife & All Nationalities 6) Acting Advisor to Taxi Operators’ Association 7) President of Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) Vice-Chairman, North East Community Development Council 9) Member, Board of Directors of PUB Board 10) Advisor to the Singapore Table Tennis Association 11) Advisor to the Singapore WeiQi Association 12) Advisor to the Ren Ci Hospital 13) Advisor to the Bright Vision Hospital 14) Advisor to Artistes & Performers’ Association 15) Advisor to Restaurants Association of Singapore 16) Executive Secretary, Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Unions 17) Director, Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (FIDReC) 1 Advisor, Federation of Merchants’ Associations, Singapore 19) Executive Secretary, Amalgamated Union of Statutory Board Employees 20) Member, Workplace Health and Safety Council 21) Co-Chairman, National Tripartite Committee on Workplace Health 22) Co-Chairman, Customer Centric Initiatives 23) Co-Chairman, NTUC-SNEF Migrant Workers’ Forum 24) Member, Aids Business Alliance 25) Member, Mental Health Alliance 26) Member, Centre for Service Excellence and Leadership Governing Council 27) Member, SPRING Standards Council 2 Patron to Pets Enterprises & Traders Association (PETAS) 29) PAP Community Foundation HQ Executive Committee 30) Member, Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning (CPCLL) 31) Member, Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) 32) Member, AVA Human Resource Committee 33) Member, WSH Council Finance Committee 34) Member, Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers 35) Member, Tripartite Committee on Portable Medical Benefits 36) Member, Tripartite Committee on Flexible Work Arrangement 37) Member, Quality Service Advisory Council 3 Member, Institute for Service Excellence @ SMU (ISES) Governing Council 39) Member, Motor Industry Disputes Resolution Centre Pte Ltd Board of Governors 40) Member, Retail Price Watch Group 41) Member,Tobacco Licensing Consultative Panel 42) Member, Ngee Ann Kongsi Council 43) Advisor, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore Staff Union (IRASSU) 44) Advisor & Trustee, NatSteel Employees Union (NEU) 45) Business Advisor, NTUC LearningHub Pte Ltd 46) Advisor, Yeo Clan General Association 47) Advisor, Singapore Taoist Federation 4 Advisor, Fo Guang Shan (Singapore) 49) Advisor, Mun San Fook Tuck Chee 50) Advisor, Society of Sheng Hong Welfare Services 51) Advisor, Sian Chay Medical Institution 52) Advisor, Society of Tourist Guides (Singapore) 53) Advisor, Singapore Furniture Association 54) Advisor, Eggs’ Import/Export Trading Association (Singapore) 55) Advisor, Federation of Merchants’ Singapore 56) Advisor, JCI Senators Club of Singapore 57) Advisory Board Member, Singapore-China Association for Advancement of Science & Technology 5 Patron. Buddist Fellowship 59) Independent Director, Grandwork Interior Pte Ltd 60) Independent Director, Japan Foods Holding Ltd 61) Independent Director, Koyo International Ltd 62) Independent Director, United Envirotech Ltd 63) Independent Director, Asia Water Technology Ltd 64) Independent Director, HLH Group Ltd The above is copied from Thoughts of a Singapore Statistician. This is the kind of overworked super talents that Singaporeans can be very proud of. As an average individual, I would forget at least 80 per cent of the names of the organizations in the above list. It is a marvel to even remember them, let alone trying to perform all the duties associated with them. But I am just an average bean. The uncomfortable or unfair part is that for a miserable $15k per month, this super talent is made to shoulder such an unenviable number of important positions and responsibilities. I really feel sorry for him. I doubt he even has time to eat or sleep if he is to do his duties, just to attend meetings alone. But when I look at how well he looks, I think he is coping very well. And he is not alone. I believe all his peers are also shouldering a fuller list of appointments, maybe more. So Singaporeans should not begrudge these great talents and the money paid to them. They deserve every penny they received. In fact they should be paid more. I will die trying to do more than 3 jobs. Singapore is indeed blessed with such super human beans, rightly described as more than mortals.

How long will the Ponzi Scheme last?

Many have commented that the public housing scheme is another Ponzi Scheme or something similar in nature. In all sense, it will die a naturally death by the time the lease expires in 99 years, all 900,000 of them. On that day, all will be worthless. There seems to be a way out though, to extend the game, by SERS, whereby the HDB will buy back the flats before the lease expires, offer the lessee a new flat of the same market value or slightly more. The lessee will be happy to get a new flat for a smaller fee and a new lease. This option of buying back and offering a new flat can go on and on provided certain conditions are present. Without these conditions, the renewal and new life will still come to an end. The first condition is that the flats to be acquired are low lying, and on the same plot of land a doubling of the units of flats can be built. A 10 storey block can easily go to 20, and 20 to 40. After that it must go to 80 or 100 storeys so that the cost of building the new flats can be paid by new lessees. As the cost of building is going to be much higher, and there is inflation to add on to the cost, it is also assumed that the income of the new lessees will go up proportionally to pay for the much more expensive flats. Or else, the aspiration will be for smaller and smaller units or smaller in size like what is happening now. The third condition is that there must be more and more buyers to buy the new flats. As the formula is based on the doubling of the units, if all the flats are to be rebuilt, it will need a doubling of the population, from 5m to 10m. So the floodgate for foreigners cannot be closed. The fourth condition is that the island will not sink with all the Towers of Babel loading on it. And hopefully, the supporting infrastructure to house the kind of population density can cope with the increase. If all the conditions are met, the Ponzi Scheme can go on and on.

The crime of earning $10k

The arbitrary $10k ceiling for the combined income of young couples is looking like a crime. It has been elevated to a sacred status that it is almost untouchable, like a commandment carved in stone. Young couples who have a combined income of $10k are disqualified from public housing. They are deemed too well paid, and able to pay more for private properties. They should go and buy a smaller but more expensive private property, or go for the big owns and take a bigger loan to service. The value of thrift and savings and financial prudence is thrown to the wind. If after taking a big loan and something untoward happens to their income that is their problem. And the private developers and speculators are all rubbing their hands eagerly waiting for these young couples to commit, after being forced out by the system. They have no choice but to take the plunge. What kind of philosophy is this? Forcing young people to go into big debt because they earn a little more than others? What is $10k anyway? Any decently qualified young couple that failed to get hitch within 3 to 5 years will see their income exceeding this arbitrary ceiling pronounced by god. Is it wise or decent to force young couples, just starting to work and with a full list of commitments ahead of them, to plunge in with a half a million or one million dollar loan? I think it is a crazy idea and very irresponsible. The crap about some of these young couples adding to the queue is another hogwash. Just like the spurious building acitivity today, it is all about building to meet the needs and demands of the people. The crime is for not building, not the young people wanting to join the queue. And not many would join the queue as those with lesser commitments would risk taking a bigger loan for private properties. It is no crime or shame to want to buy a cheaper home and save for tomorrow. The principle of thrift and prudence is age old wisdom. Punishing the young people for your own inept, poor planning and farcical beliefs is shameful. No one must be forced to eat sharksfins and force to pay for it. The $10k ceiling is another mean testing that is wicked to the core, like its parallel in healthcare. It only serves to fatten the pockets of speculators and developers at the expense of the young people. Just go and build the flats that the people need, and stop the silly reasoning. Every able young man must be given a chance to buy his first public housing. This is only equitable, just and fair. They also do their bid to serve the country like everyone else.

The housing mess or housing achievement?

25,000 BTO flats will be built this year. And now Boon Wan is saying tens of thousands of rental flats are needed and building of rental flats must also be ramped up. Are these happy problems or manifestation of infested problems in public housing that are surfacing today? With 25,000 being built and the demand is still growing, and a shortfall of tens of thousands of rental flats! What’s happening? Didn’t MND know the problem or they did know the problem but not building because the policy maker decided otherwise? Or is it that the information on supply and demand was misleading that led to the current mess? MND data quoted in today’s ST said that there were 3,700 and 2,300 rental flat applicants for year 2008 and 2009 respectively. If these were the data that MND was working on, not more than 5,000 rental flats need to be built. How could the numbers balloon to tens of thousands of flats needed as mentioned by Boon Wan? Whatever, policy failure or information failure, something is wrong with the housing needs of the people. They can’t say they did not know or did not see it coming. Boon Wan is only in the job for a couple of weeks and he is in a big hurry to clear the mess. The media also reported some views that the ramping up of rental flats would have little impact on the price of private properties. Could this kind of thinking be the main determinant in the supply of public housing, both rental and purchase? There must be many big speculators out there hoarding 10 or 20 units of properties each and fearing that the prices will fall. So are the property developers, all fearing that their profits will fall. It is thus important that the supply of public housing be carefully managed to ensure that the speculators and property developers are happily sitting on huge profits. Yep, must not remove the $8k/$10k ceiling so that these young people have no choice but to support the private property market and help the speculators and developers to make handsome profits. Tell them there are cheap loans, low interest rates, just borrow, half a million, one million, just borrow, no problem. Hope the ramping up of BTO flats will not affect the price of private properties, or else speculators, big investors and developers will be hurt.

Boiling the daft brains

After a long period of gradual abuses, the human beans would have adjusted and adapted to a higher level of pain and absurdity. Subsequently any lowering of suffering would be greeted with relief and gratitude. The high housing price is a living example that the people are getting used to it and paying a little less is cause for celebration. The people are now jubilant over the announcement by Boon Wan of the release of more public housing and a change in policy to build in advance of demand instead of waiting for demand to build up. Great man, compassionate man, with people centric policies, compare to his predecessor. Now this is a caring govt for the people and will look after the needs of the people. They have forgotten how they have ended in the shit hole in the first place. The history of lack of housing in the founding years need not be retold. The story of govt building public housing for the people, where people can go and choose their flats like choosing to buy a car or private properties must be repeated to remind the beans that it should be that way. But after getting used to waiting for 4 or 5 years, the beans are so happy if they can get it in 3. Now they will go down on their knees if they can get it in 2 years. Even the expectation for 5 rm, executive or private properties is forgotten. They no longer aspire for them and are contented with a 4 rm public flats for young professionals. Boiling daft brains are not much different from boiling frogs. The daft Singaporeans deserved to be treated that way, easily conned, easily appeased, easily contented, in their unthinking way. They will take it lying down when told to plan their marriages 4 or 5 years in advance or they will have to suffer the brilliant BTO housing policy. It is their fault for not planning ahead. Dumbos.

Michael - King of Pops

This is what Master Nature painted of Michael. And Master Nature says, beneath the cosmetics, he is Afro American. More pics at Art of RAR Gallery at top right.

The irrelevance of KPIs

Amid the hoohaas for change and the thrills of a Ministers’ Salary Review Committee, many well meaning experts have offered their views and suggestions on how to assess the performance of ministers and the appropriate rewards due to them. KPIs have been booted around as the panacea of all the ills that have surfaced. KPIs are widely used as a HR tool and also seen as a better and more objective tool for performance appraisal. It also has many drawbacks and easily misused by management to serve the wrong objectives with very adverse consequences for the organisation. The recent political developments have provided many interesting aspects on the misuse or misinterpretation of KPIs as a management tool. Kan Seng was promoted to Coordinating Minister earlier, Mah Bow Tan openly announced how great and successful were his housing policies and programmes. He would probably write a memoir on his great contributions to public housing and expecting the people to thank him profusely. These incidents were evidence that they were doing well, or their superior must be telling them so, for a job well done. How well they have done, in the eyes of their superior, using whatever KPIs, can easily be deduced by the amount of performance bonuses and growth bonuses they received over the years. Check it out. From their confidence and the high positions they held in cabinet, there were no doubts that their performances were rated very highly. What about the people’s assessment of their performances? Though the people did not have access to their KPIs, from the reactions and feedback in the media, it is quite clear that both must be ranked at the bottom of the people’s assessment. Here lies the first fault, what their superior think is good may not be good to the people. Both the ministers and their superior could be congratulating themselves for achieving all the goals in their KPIs. But to the people these are not the goals that are good for the people. So we have conflicting expectations and KPIs to start with. How then could KPIs be used to be both relevant to the superior of the ministers and the expectation of the people, if the KPIs are in conflict? Who then shall set the KPIs, the superior, the ministers or the people? If only the three can agree on the same set of KPIs, perhaps that will be a good reason to use KPIs to appraise ministers for their performance. It is a non starter in the first place.

The perpetual strawman for whacking

‘Only US can balance China’, why not ‘Only China can balance the US?’ Why is it necessary to keep the Americans interested in the Western Pacific to balance the influence of China and not keeping the Chinese interested to balance the influence of America? The inherent biased of a WOG or a western biased viewpoint of international balance of power is obvious. China is the perpetual strawman for whacking. ‘You can take Japan, Korea, Asean, and even include Taiwan and India, but you cannot balance China. It is too big. Only with the US and its superior technology can you balance China.’ Why not, ‘You can take Japan, Korea, Asean, and even include Taiwan and India, but you cannot balance the US. It is too big. Only with China and its superior technology can you balance the US?’ This western view has always placed China as the rogue nation, or the nation that is dangerous and all out to bully the smaller nations. In reality, the rogue nation is always the US. Look at the wars and the bullying of smaller nations across the world map. Who is bullying the smaller countries? But if one eats too many hamburgers and potatoes, one’s is gonna look at China like a potato or a hamburger, or think like a potato or hamburger.

Who shall decide who can be President?

Tan Cheng Bock is thinking of standing for the elected Presidency and has to meet the eligibility criteria of the PEC. The criteria include the following to ensure candidates are people of integrity, good character and reputation: 1. At least 45 years 2. Held key appointments such as minister, chief justice, speaker or permanent secretary for not less than 3 years, or been chairman or chief executive of a statutory board. 3. Or similar or equivalent positions in the private sector. The above criteria mean that one must be some big shot or else not good enough even if one is a person of integrity, good character and reputation. A school teacher, school principal, a GP, an accountant, a lawyer, a successful insurance or housing agent, a good social worker, an academic etc etc, will not be considered as good enough. Why? MP also cannot? Not perm sec also cannot? The criteria are actually PAP’s criteria. Do the people have any say in them? Who should decide the eligibility criteria for an elected President, the people or a political party that is in power?

Political appointments are not employments

There are so many views and suggestions on how the Ministerial Salary Review shall be conducted. From a human resource point of view, I think it is necessary to revisit the fundamentals. What is a minister or an MP? With that understanding, we may then approach the design of its compensation in a way that is appropriate to the nature of the position. A minister is not a job like any job, but a political appointment. Just like MPs, they are all elected representatives of the people but holding a higher office for a duration of 5 years. Period. It does not have an unending tenure of service. The fact that some of our ministers have been serving for decades is a peculiarity that may not happen in the future. Even if it does, each period of appointment is a new term of service, unrelated. Why are people talking about annual appraisal, salary increment, bonuses, pension etc etc that are part and parcel of an employee of an organization? What do these terms have to do with a political appointment with a short mandate from the people? A Prime Minister may want to appraise the performance of his ministers and reshuffle his cabinet as he deems fit. That is his prerogative. Is he also thinking of the annual appraisal of an employee which ends with a salary increment or performance bonus? Who is the employer and who is paying for the increment? If the employer is the ruling party, and the money is from the ruling party, by all means, do whatever they like. The employer of the politicians is the people, who voted them for a fixed term of 5 years. They will then have to seek the people’s mandate for another 5 year term. The people/employer will then decide if they want to give them another 5 years. It is like a contract for service with fixed terms. With this kind of contract, the remuneration for the ministers and all politicians shall be a fixed sum for the duration of the mandate. The issue of annual increment does not come into play. It is a package deal for 5 years. Bonus and pension too have no place in such political appointments. If there is any reward for politicians who have served for an exceptional long period of time, this may be provided as a form of one time gratuity to the deserving politician on a separate basis. The same could also apply to the head of govt or head of state as exceptions to the rule. It shall not be an across the board provision for every political office holder as if they are employees. The other important issue is who shall decide how much to pay the politicians? Obviously it is not right for them to approve their own pay cheque. A neutral Salary Review Commission can be appointed as what is already done. The approval shall come from the people through a referendum, something similar to shareholders approving the remunerations of the Board of Directors in an AGM. At most, this may be held once every 5 years or over a longer period if the economic condition or inflation has not deflated the value to of the compensation package to make it meaningless or unattractive. No political party must get away with the impression that once they are elected, the Treasury is their piggy bank and they can create as many appointments as they like to reward their members. Politicians going into politics, to be elected by the people are there to serve the people. They do not join politics as an employment with a career path and a life long pay package. If the current thinking is to go by, the govt will have to set up a human resource ministry to administer performance appraisal on the politicians, including the Prime Minister. Staff performance will become another job specifications for the Prime Minister and Ministers, and of course a salary scale, including a scale for the MPs, and all the terms of conditions of employment. After so many years of one party rule, the people have been distracted to think that ministerial appointments and political appointments are jobs, a career with career path and salary scale. Every year the incumbents can look forward to promotions, career advancement, annual increments and bonuses and pensions. Grandfather’s company? If the political climate is changed and after every election there is a change of govt, all the suggestions for performance appraisal, salaries, bonuses etc etc will become obsolete, irrelevant even if provided for. Please don’t get confuse. A politician and political appointment is not a job. Let the people decide how much they should be remunerated as a package for a fixed term of appointment. Nothing more, nothing less. If they want more, seek another mandate from the people and approval from the people. The current govt has been entrenched for too long to forget that they are not employees of the state like the civil servants. There is no contract of service and no terms of employment. KPIs are being booted by everyone as if it is the main factor to determine how much must a politician be rewarded. It is superfluous actually. The KPI, if useful, is to let the people judge the performance of the politician and whether to re elect him in the next election. It must not be an instrument to reward him with more bonuses or pay increases. The performance of a politician is not for the PM to tell but the people to decide. I hope the Review Committee will approach its task from the point of a 5 year mandate and not a life long employment. They must erase the current thinking that the package comes with all the perks and terms of an employee.

Alice in Water Wonderland

Alice in Water Wonderland. A masterpiece by Nature using Koi as painting material. More pics at Art of RAR Gallery on top right of page.

Daft Singaporeans are so easy to con

The COE is too expensive at $100k. Please make it cheaper. The seller says ok, I will sell it to you for $20k but for two years only. The daft Singaporeans will be so happy to grab it straight away. Woah so cheap, only $20k instead of $100k. This is the mentality of Singaporeans today. Despite the higher level of education, their ability to think clearly is still missing. What is the difference between buying a HDB that costs $400k with a 99 year lease and a $100k flat with only a 25 year lease? Oh yes, it is cheaper, can pay up the loan in 10 years instead of 30 years. Very affordable! This is the kind of suggestions that one forumer wrote in the ST today to bring down HDB price, to make it more affordable. He forgot about why the HDB price is so high in the first place, and whether it is justifiable. I am going to set up a car showroom to sell cars in pieces. The daft Singaporeans can buy the cars very cheap, but in pieces. They can buy two wheels or four wheels first. When they have more money, they can then buy the doors, the seats, and later the engine. And they will be so happy, running around screaming cheap, cheap, very affordable. Singaporeans are daft and for good reasons. Please, bring in more foreign talents to help these daft people. I feel like crying for Singapore.

Notable quote by Lim Wee Kiat

"If the annual salary of the Minister of Information, Communication and Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discuss policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars because they need not listen to the minister's ideas and proposals, hence a reasonable payout will help to maintain a bit of dignity." - Dr Lim Wee Kiat, PAP MP for Nee Soon GRC, 24 May 2011 in Lianhe Wanbao PS. Lucky has posted an article on this. I just borrow the quote which says a lot about the mindset of our leaders.

Try a different thinking cap

While the Salary Review Committee is thinking, perhaps there should be a rethink on the underlying assumptions for the high ministerial salaries. One key component that was built into the salary is the amount to prevent ministers from being corrupt. The ministers’ salaries thus consist of a normal salary plus a corruption prevention factor that is undefined. Knowing how bad corruption can be at high places, the amount in consideration cannot be small to be effective. There are only 15 ministers plus another few ministers of state and parliamentary secretaries. The total would not be too big a number to monitor for corruption. Maybe we can take a different approach to this corruptibility issue. Remove the corruption prevention component, say X dollars from the pay check. Let those ministers or people in high offices try to be corrupt and let the CPIB go after them and make them pay for their bad behaviors. This approach could put to test how many genuinely good men we have and how many would turn bad. And the amount of savings can be quite substantial if the $X is big. Assuming this is $1m a year per minister, multiply by say 30, to include the other office bearers, and spread it to 50 or 100 years, my god, it is no small change. In practice, I don’t think there will be so many corrupt ministers to pilfer so much money from the system and without being caught. This is a worthwhile experiment to try. From the money to be saved point of view, it definitely makes sense. Another option is to declare the quantum provided to prevent corruption. The ministers may opt to accept this quantum to free them from the temptation. Those ministers who are confident that they will not be tempted even without this sum of compensation can opt out of it. In this way, the more righteous and upright ministers need not be forced to accept this sum of immoral money which they did not want in the first place. There will still be huge savings as many ministers are likely to refuse to accept such compensation and be seen as corruptible. You see, the rationale for this corruption prevention pay is pretty humiliating and self serving as it implies that none of them can stand firmly on the ground and resist the temptation to become corrupt. So the good ones too become tarred by accepting the payout. Time to take a new look at the rationale and a new approach to the tackling the problem of corruption.

Socialising and acclimatising the foreigners

Lately the vigour to welcome the foreigners has been neglected with focus turned to the election. Now that it is over, maybe this exercise to welcome and socialize the foreigners will take off again. I have just one suggestion to the committees organizing such programmes. And this is from the experiences of the past when the sinkehs were arriving in their cargo ships in the last century. When the early sinkehs came to this island, they were taken care of by their clansmen and they helped them to adapt and acclimatize to the local environment. Coming from temperate countries, the tropical heat can be killing. One of the mandatory rituals is to make them take early morning bath. This is to protect them from heatstroke. The side benefits were personal hygiene which actually was not of much concern in those days. Poor labourers were not too perturbed by dirty places and their sweaty and smelly bodies. They slept anywhere, wore clothes for days and bathing and washing to keep clean were furthest in their minds. Today, many new arrivals are still not conscious of their personal hygiene, the students, and the office workers included. From the smell you know that they have not taken their bath for days, or at best, in the morning before leaving for work. Imagine squeezing with them in the packed trains and buses. For goodness sake, all the programme coordinators incharge of foreigners, please do just one thing. Teach them to take bath daily, and the most important one, before leaving for work. It is not only healthy, it not only reduces heat stroke, it keeps them clean and not smelly. The locals cannot or would not want to talk to them or get near to them if the stench is unbearable. And it can become offensive and invite a negative feeling towards them. A clean and not smelling body will make them more pleasant and people will not avoid them. I have no intention to be rude. But I cannot help but to pinch my nose when the body odour from unwashed bodies is too offensive. I hope this message gets through. I want to be nice and polite to them too. I have to say it because many are suffering in silence and cursing behind their backs. PS. Wally should be happy with this.

Why are the people questioning govt policies?

The noise is getting louder. The people, well known to be daft, are questioning govt policies formulated by the top talents of the island. They are openly criticizing the high ministers’ salaries, the high public housing prices, the high influx of foreigners. My advice to the people is not to go over board. These are well though out policies that were good for the country and themselves. Without these policies in place, the island would have long turned into a big slum. It is time that they think deeply, if they can think at all, and say a big thank you for their good fortune. Don’t they want to have jobs? Don’t they want their property prices to keep going up? They need them for their retirement and to pay for world class hospital bills. Say thank you please.

More foreigners snapping up private properties

Is this news? It does not take much to buy up this piece of rock. And if the property market is open to foreigners all over the world, what is there to stop them from throwing their spare cash to wipe up everything? The foreigners in this case are the super rich, and there will always be the super rich. Let’s take a bet when the whole island will be sold to foreigners, I mean the private properties.

Different views on the ministers’ salaries

Even when Hsien Loong appointed a review committee to look at the ministers’ salaries, an indirect admission that something is not right, there are still some quarters willing to accept what it is. A letter in the ST forum talks about provisions of KPIs and measuring performance to justify the loony salaries. Really, if you let the loonies do what they want, they will pay themselves not just a few millions, but tens or hundreds of millions. I called them robbers. They are found mainly in New York where the top executives of the financial industries are exactly doing that. Even the CEO of the stock exchange was grabbing hundreds of millions at one time. There are no jobs, I mean as an employee drawing a salary, that should be paid hundreds of thousands a month except in gambling or maybe in sales. Leave aside the specialized skills, especially those involving life and death, when the practitioner can demand anything under the sky if there is a willing customer to pay for it. How could a CEO whose tasks are mainly administrative and decision making justify a $500k or $1m salary a month? Oh, his decision involves millions and billions. So by saying yes or no to billions, he must be paid a percentage of it? This has been a key justification so far. There will be different views on this. Fair enough, if the decision is right, he gets his percentage cut. What if it is wrong, is he willing to cough out a percentage of the mistake? The other justification is always the market. Let the market forces decide. Shouldn’t that be the case? In the case of political offices, there is an international market that could be used to give a reference point, at least on the upper limits and lower limits. Why is this not used? No matter how exceptional, how unique, no one in his right mind will think it is not loony to pay the head of govt in a little piece of rock more than the head of the US or any major developed country. Our talents are super talents, world best? I have no delusion about that. Our problems are exceptional and demanded extraordinary human feats. I too have no delusion about that. While the two camps are throwing out their views in the media, new media versus old media, we will have to wait for the Review Committee for their recommendations. In the meantime the supporters of loony salaries will get their views heard. The detractors too will know where they can get their views published and heard.

It's over

The lady is walking away, sad that the relationship is over. The guy is in shock. How could it be? How they felt were written all over their faces. This is an image formed by Koi fish. More pics in Art of RAR Gallery at top right.