From irrational exuberance to irrational despair

The downgrading of local banks by Moody’s has elicited a strong rebuttal from MAS. MAS disagrees with the conclusion and offers a list of reasons to support its position. Our banks are financially sound with good asset backings and strong capital reserves. We also have strong regulations that are above what others are doing. The banks are regularly put under stress tests to ensure that they can hold their grounds when a financial crisis struck. So far the stress tests are showing good results.

As for the exposure to the high property prices and debt ratio, the Govt has implemented 8 measures to prevent a bubble forming. So there is no fear of a bubble bursting as there is no bubble at all. This part everyone must believe. All in, our banking and financial systems are rock solid. Would a huge pull out of funds affect our financial market? The answer is likely to be no even though the whole financial market is linked up to the whole world and when one market is affected the dominoe effect will bring the rest along.

I believe the arguments of the MAS are very sound and the people need not fear about what is going to happen to the world financial system and the contagion effect. But there is one possibility that we should not over look. A false and vicious domestic rumour may create a climate of irrational fear and lead to panic selling of assets. If that happens, it could be like a run on the banks and the result can be equally disastrous. The interconnectivity of today’s world has changed the dynamics of the financial markets. And the big funds and hedge funds will be there to do the damage and to profit from the stampede. We have seen how a single piece of news anywhere in the world can be used to push up the stock market or to crash a market.

Beware of the compounded effect of irrational fear, panic and the bull dozing of big funds to wreck the financial system irrespective of how solid it appears to be, or truly solid as a rock. Remember, we are just a little red dot in a stormy sea.

Vivian’s air tight case on honesty and integrity

The hawker centre cleaning issue just refuses to go away. It is quite bizarre that a small administrative misunderstanding could end up as an issue of honesty and integrity in Parliament. With all the information now on the table, I believe the issue is now pretty clear to even the Ah Peks and Ah Mahs in the market place. Let me try to summarise the case and where it is at the moment.

5 parties were involved, the NEA, Town Council and the non existent Hawker’s Association. I hope I got it right that there was no hawker association in the first place or just an informal one. Correct me if I am wrong. The hawkers in the market are not new. They have been operating there for many years and know exactly whether they should or should not pay for the scaffolding. The Town Council may be a bit new and could be expected to be raw or unfamiliar with some of the administrative stuff. But they are expected to know what they can make the hawkers pay and what they cannot. They would not dare to ask the hawkers for payment if they are not supposed to do so. This is a public matter and not something that can be hidden away. They can’t cheat the hawkers. The hawkers and the staff in the Town Council know what is happening. If they are asking for payment, it is likely be an honest mistake. There are things called honest mistakes right? The WP is denying that they did.

As for the NEA, lagi simple. They are the authority and administrator of market maintenance and Town Council matters. They must be very clear as to what the Town Council can collect and what cannot. A young executive from NEA could tell the parties in disagreement clearly who should pay for what. NEA could easily nip this misunderstanding in the bud.

It is strange and highly unsatisfactory that this little administrative misunderstanding could end up in Parliament and becomes an issue of honesty and integrity. And I believe Vivian Balakrishnan must have been convinced that he had an air tight case to prove that the WP MPs had to answer on issues of honesty and integrity. In the Parliamentary debate you could see how confident and assured he was in lecturing the WP MPs and in patronizing Low Thia Khiang to investigate his party members. And for Hsien Loong to openly state that he and his cabinet supported Vivian’s stand, it must mean that he and his cabinet too were convinced that it was a good and unquestionable case to push in Parliament. In a way Hsien Loong is putting his credibility behind Vivian’s charge.

The latest development is the revelation that two key personnel in the dispute are PAP members. This disclosure would create some doubts as to whether this is strictly an issue involving the hawkers and the Town Council or between the WP and PAP. The lawyers will use this to cast doubts into the case.

The next unfortunate things are the notes of the NEA officer and the dossier of Vivian. Apparently the NEA notes were referring to Spring cleaning and Vivian’s dossier was referring to Annual cleaning. Low Thia Khiang’s final statement in Parliament was about a misunderstanding between these two events. The Town Council thinks that it was Spring cleaning and the hawkers would have to pay for the additional scaffolding. They will not charge for Annual cleaning which they have planned for the year end.

Now, is the NEA officer clear that this is an issue of Spring cleaning? If so, why is the dossier of Vivian saying that it is Annual Cleaning? How did the word ‘Annual’ gets into Vivian’s dossier but not in NEA’s notes?

Would Low Thia Khiang stick to his position and regard this little discrepancy also as a misunderstanding and say move on, let the people be the judge? Or would he now go to Parliament with another air tight case that Vivian now has a case to answer on honesty and integrity when the NEA notes and his dossier are concerned? Would Low patronize Vivian and ask him to do an investigation into the matter to clear himself of the same accusation hurled at him?

Whose honesty and integrity are now in question?

Obama saddened by the verdict on Trayvon’s killing

Obama, the President of the USA, has spoken on this tragic killing of a black boy called Martin Trayvon. The unarmed 17 year old boy was shot dead by a burly white man armed with a gun and claiming self defence. Many white supremacists and their sympathetisers did not see anything wrong with that. And a jury of 6 with only one black woman in it gave a verdict that Zimmerman, the killer, should go free.

The black Americans are in shock. Together with the rest of the Americans, including many whites, they are up in protest. More than 100 cities staged protest rallies against this clearly unjust and racist verdict. Obama had no choice but to say his piece.

He related his own personal experience as a black man and how he was also the victims of racial profiling. What is this silly term called racial profiling? The White Americans tried to go around it and avoid saying bluntly that it is racism against the black Americans. Obama said most black Americans had such bad experience. And the boy Martin could be him. Obama could be killed in the same way.

In his Presidential address on the racial discrimination by the White Americans against the coloured people especially black Americans, he minced his words by carefully saying how disgusted he felt politely. He asked the Americans, the white Americans, to go do some soul searching on how they are still discriminating against the blacks in their racist ways.

Many silly Asians are still saying that this is a lie. The white Americans cannot be racist and the black boy deserved to be killed as he is black and according to racial profiling he is dangerous.
Where is JayF?

Singaporeans should stop uttering the phrase foreign talents

For so many years, the Sinkies have been conditioned to look at foreigners as talents and the Sinkies as daft. In reality, the foreigners have also gone through similar education systems in their respective countries as the Sinkies going through our own system. And many of the foreigners actually went through a poorer and less well equipped education system compares to the Sinkie system, which on paper is ranked among the world best. How did Sinkies become non talents when rubbish becomes more talented?

Why is a Sinkie with the same degree or degrees, be it a first degree or post graduate degree be non talent while a foreigner with the same degree/degrees becomes a talent? Why is a Sinkie with the same number of years of working experience be less able than a foreigner with the same number of years of experience? Why is a foreigner with lower qualifications, less distinguished qualifications, lesser number of years of experience be deemed better than a Sinkie and made to be heads of depts and institutions and the Sinkies be left in the cupboard?

Sinkies must take pride in themselves as the real talents. It must be. The Sinkies are schooled in one of the finest education system, one of the most expensive, and have proven their abilities to build a country from the Third World to the First World. In the case of the foreigners, many are schooled in ill equipped education system with poor facilities and inadequate teaching staff, in unranked universities, and came from Third world countries that they failed to turn them into First World, how on earth that they are now better talents than Sinkies, to help Sinkies, to create jobs for Sinkies when they could not help their own countries, could not find jobs in their own countries?

Who are the silly ones who are calling these Third World products as talents and rubbishing Sinkies as not talents, helpless, useless and daft?

All Singaporeans, especially the new media, the netizens, should henceforth refrain from the use of the phrase foreign talents or FTs. There are foreign talents but there are very few and only very exceptional ones. The more Singaporeans keep calling these foreigners as talents, the more Singaporeans unconsciously start to believe that they are when they are not and start to believe themselves as unworthy. Any Singaporean that spouts this phrase should be seen as betraying Singaporeans and deriding Singaporeans and should not deserve to be respected by Singaporeans, be they politicians or otherwise. Only real talents are deserving to be called talents.

Let’s do it together to say the right thing that favours Singaporeans and not the right thing that abuses and belittles Singaporeans. Let’s stop the crap that the lesser number of Singaporeans in the island is to strengthen the Singaporean core. It is a lie. The Singaporean core cannot be strengthened by having more foreigners to take over the rightful place of Singaporeans as citizens and in job opportunities.

Foreigners should just be referred to as foreigners, foreign workers, foreign white collar workers or at most foreign PMETs, ie foreign ‘pampered, mediocre, expensive thrash’.

Where is ownership of omission, negligent or fraud?

When the Subprime crisis and the American financial crisis hit, no one was found guilty of any crime or mistake or fraud. They only one punished was the institutions that were fined. This ultimately means that the main street, the minority shareholders had to pay for the crimes of the management.

When the Lehman bonds and toxic notes hit Singapore, something very similar happened. Only a few out of luck jokers down the line were dismissed to take the blame. The top management that allowed the farce and fraud to do damage to the investors continued to enjoy their big fat bonuses and pay. Whose money ultimately went to pay for the fines of these banks?

The NTUC’s My First Skool was issued with a warning and its licence shortened to 6 months pending probation. No one in management was held responsible. The teacher that committed the abuse was sacked and pending prosecution. If the Skool is closed, who suffers?

Think Mas Selamat and think the HDB fiasco. Think the state of health of the SMRT. Think the Sovereign Wealth Fund. Where is responsibility and where is accountability?

Black and White Matrix seriesAfrica

Africa

Tribal Dance

Party

Three black and white pieces of rar art of the Matrix series.

Beware of anonymous bloggers and websites

This is the main topic of discussion in the ST forum page on Saturday 20 Jul. Do not trust bloggers that post as anonymous, or blogs that are owned by anonymous owners. In other words trust only those you know who is behind the blogs or when the identity of the owner is known. Would this also apply to articles in the main media when the name of the writer is not stated, like from the Editor, from the PMO, from the Ministry of Dounce?  Some may not even say that it is from the editor.

Superficially it may sound true that an article or blog with the owner identified is likely to be more composed and less capricious in what is being posted. Then again, there are many blogs with owners living in no man’s land and letting everything flies, right or wrong, truths or untruths, blasphemy, defamation, scandals, anything goes. And on the other hand there are many very serious bloggers blogging under anonymity and making very good sense. Even using a nick is posting in anonymity if no one knows who is behind that nick.

I used to pose as redbean without identifying myself until I signed up as a writer with Asian Correspondents. I do not see any difference in what I posted then and now. The style and content are still the same. What I am trying to say is that it is the person and his intent and not whether the person is posting in his real self or incognito.

Another forumer in the ST forum by the name of Tan Ying San also warned of websites run by anonymous owners. Then he quoted, “there have been reports of foreign agencies setting up websites to promote certain causes and regularly editing entries in Wikipedia to favour certain viewpoints (CIA, Vatican and Howard’s office ‘edited Wikipedia’”. He went on to say that ‘Many less discerning Singaporeans believe whole articles on such websites simply because parts of them are true and the message resonates with them. They forget the best liars do not lie completely.’

Tan Ying San has an important point here. Many undiscerning readers are unwitting made to believe what they read, sometimes over an article, sometimes over a long period of time reading a certain viewpoint. A very good example is the anger and hatred for countries the Americans have painted as bad or evil, like North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, China, Russia and a whole lot of others. People are just reading the American slanted views from American and western media source, NYT, Washington Post, Guardian or Reuters, AP, Agencies, Fox, CNN etc etc and will eventually think like them without realising it. That is why China and North Korea are so hated by unthinking Sinkies till today. The mentioned of North Korea will send the blood pressure up as if they are enemies of Singapore and are about to launch a nuclear strike on the island. Daft can be acquired or programmed by others with the victim unknowing or did not understand what is happening.

It is thus very important to know the source of the information, who wrote it and what is his agenda and motive. Know the author or owners of blogs and websites helps and is better than not knowing who is behind them. The important thing is to be discriminating and thinking and questioning and don’t be a literate fool, being fooled all your life without knowing it. North Koreans bad, Americans good. North Koreans killer, Americans not killers. North Koreans for war, Americans for peace. You have been programmed and conned.

How many of you trust the main media or information coming from the govts or official sources?

More cases of teachers abusing children exposed

A primary 6 boy was allegedly pinned on a school desk by his neck. This was done by his teacher.The incident happened on Tuesday, July 2 at about 10am in an elite school in the east of Singapore.

He had gone for classes late as he was not feeling well, and his mother was shocked to see his teacher chase him into the classroom. She claims she saw the teacher pinning her son on a desk by his neck.
Tay Weiming's father, 63, and his mother made a police report, complained to the Ministry of Education and also alerted Lianhe Wanbao.

There was another case reported in Stomp I think, of a primary school boy being made to stand in a corner for 3 hours without food, drink or break to go to the toilet and with a paper bag on his head. Punishing a child for bad behaviour is acceptable but it must be reasonable and should not go over the limit especially for primary school children. Forbidding a child to go to the toilet, without food or water is cruel, wicked and inhuman. Unacceptable for adults to dish such punishment to children unless these adults are from some primitive tribes that have yet to be civilised.

Harsh punishment, roughing up children, yelling at young children, and handling them in a threatening manner not only frighten them, they instilled fear in them. What the shit are these adults thinking, that they can harass young children without harming them emotionally and psychologically? My impression is that these are not only insecure adults but likely to be mentally sick or just unfit to take care of children.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, a few cases that were reported after the My First Skool case was exposed. Today another mentally sick teacher abused a 5 year old girl by making her standing naked in front of her classmates in a PAP Community Foundation Centre. She even swung her against the white board. And she was given a 21 probation on the ground that she too was an abused child. What a sick joke! What a sick mitigation excuse!

Is our teaching profession going mad? Or is our society going sick? Don’t the principals or MOE put their ears on the ground to find out what is happening? Oh, the second case mentioned above was dealt by a principal. No wonder Singaporeans are so docile, so authority fearing. They must have been mentally castrated from young in our schools.

The MOE must take a stand on this and get rid of sadistic adults that are unsuitable to take care of children. They will do more harm than good and the earlier they are removed the safer it is for the children. There is an urgent need to do some spring cleaning for the well being and safety of young children. Stop wasting time on cleaning hawker centres.

We need to guard against pyschopaths walking around as teachers. A serious personality and pyschiatric assessment must be conducted on all teachers. Though this may not weed out all of them, at least a big chunk could be taken out early. It is better to be safe than sorry. Subsequently, schools and pre schools, nurseries, kindergartens must have a continuous programme to monitor the teachers to ensure that they are safe for the children. There is an honest and naïve assumption that teachers are all normal people, love children and can be trusted in their entirety with the children in their care. They could be monsters and little devils in disguise.

Wake up and stop being complacent and think that every human bean is ok if he or she calls herself a teacher. Even one in a robe is committing all kinds of crimes behind the robe. Our children need to be protected from their teachers. Our preschools, kindergartens and nurseries must not be turned into frightening places for our children.

The right COE Scheme

Please note that I used the word right and scheme. I could have said the best COE formula or the correct COE system. You see, the right scheme to different people means different things. The right scheme to a super talent is different from the right scheme of a layman or the right scheme of a crook. They are all right schemes to each one of them.

When a designer of a scheme starts from the point of a right scheme you can bet what are his objectives and goals. The current COE Scheme is the right scheme for the govt and for the rich buyers. It is the wrong scheme for the less well off buyers for sure, and for those who cannot do without a car, eg the invalids or handicaps, the families with dependent young and old that have to be ferried to and fro. That is the reason why so many people are so unhappy with the current right COE Scheme as it is not right to them. And that is also the reason why so many people have so many brilliant ideas to offer but will not be accepted or ignored. Cause those ideas are good, excellent but not right.

Anyone who wants to offer any good suggestions to modify the current COE Scheme must take note of who it shall benefit. Otherwise, no matter how good or brilliant the suggestion is, it will simply go into the waste bin, wasted time and effort.

Now did I get my right idea across? It is the goals and objectives of the COE Scheme that determine how it should be designed, what to consider and what not to consider. Get it?

Anyone still wants to offer the best formula, the correct solution or better please think what is the right scheme first?

How to get rich quick?

The whole world is entering a golden era when wealth of money is made so easily, so quickly and in such a sum that our forefathers would never have imagined. Many of the old rich made it after a life time of slogging and business acumen and hoping that all the decisions made were the right ones. In today’s context, the money made by the old ways was just too slow and too little. The internet age has made many very rich overnight, and many are very young. These are the true entrepreneurs that were there at the right time with the right products. They truly deserve every cent they made.

The money did not go to only the mavericks of the internet world. Money is everywhere, overflowing and it is up for everyone to grab in whatever ways they could. Ok, the internet whiz kids are just an exception. And making money the true honest way is still the way forward for many. But there are many that are taking the shortcut to instant wealth. They defy the old wisdom of making money slow and steady in all honesty. Instant wealth does not come easy for many.

In today’s world of high finance, many fortunes were made by many through other than by the honest, slow and steady way. The old ways cannot make people rich overnight. Only the crooked ways, by cheating, by gambling, by conning and deceiving, by robbing, can people make money so easily and so fast other than the few exceptions stated above. When people are making quick money without having to really sweat for it, the answers are all out there. Put one and one together and you will get two, but the instant wealth makers will get three or four. And remember that they are cheating and robbing others and many will be poorer because of them.

An example of how corrupt the financial system is and how the crooks are making tons of money is the trial of an ex Goldman Sachs trader now going on in New York. ‘The trial of former Goldman Sachs bond trader Fabrice Tourre was about "Wall Street greed," a lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…’, reported Nate Raymond in a REUTER article on 15 Jul 13.

The gist of the case is as reported in the same article: ‘The SEC accuses Tourre of misleading investors in a mortgage investment called Abacus 2007-AC1 by not telling them that a hedge fund was involved in selecting the underlying assets and betting against it.

Matthew Martens, a lawyer for the SEC, told the jury the deal Tourre put together was "secretly designed to maximize the potential it would fail" to the benefit of the hedge fund, which made about $1 billion.

"In the end, Wall Street greed drove Mr. Tourre to lie and deceive," Martens said.’

The snake oil seller, Goldman Sachs trader, was selling some toxic product designed to fail and pushing it to his clients while knowing that another party was shorting it and with knowledge of how the CDO was structured, could actually cause it to fail. The result was expected, the clients of Tourre lost more than one billion and the hedge fund of John Paulson made the one billion. How convenient and how easy to make money in Wall Street and how easy to find innocent suckers? The formula is being repeated across the big financial centres of east and west.

Structured products, derivatives, CDOs (Collateral Default Obligations) and CDS (Credit Default Swap) are instruments that the designers had a handle to turn them to their advantage without the victims having a clue of what is going on. That is why they called them ‘sophisticated’ instruments for ‘sophisticated’ clients, with clients thinking that they are sophisticated and clever but in fact the definition means ‘thinking that they know and can afford to lose but cannot claim ignorance.’

And the selling of such snake oils is spreading across the world financial markets with the perpetrators of such products seen as financial geniuses and welcome by greedy govts everywhere. In the meantime the financial time bomb has been set clicking. When will it blow up?

It is just a poll

This latest poll was prompted by a very assertive statement from Hsien Loong arising from the hawker centre cleaning issue debated in Parliament. His statement, ‘Singapore has succeeded because we have honest, upright people in politics: people who can be trusted to uphold the public interest, to speak the truth even when it is inconvenient...’ And the poll is conducted to see whether the people agree or disagree with his statement. What do you think?

93% of the respondents disagree with Hsien Loong’s comment that Singapore has upright people in politics, people that can be trusted, to speak the inconvenient truths when needed. How come like that? Is this frightening, that the people don’t think we have upright and trustworthy people in politics?

The poll is just a poll and it is not conclusive to say that the people are right and we don’t have upright people in politics. We may have a lot of them, we may not. What the poll is saying is that they don’t believe, rightly or wrongly, that there are upright and trustworthy people in politics. This is bad enough. It is like an innocent guy in court while the jury insists he is guilty.

For the people to say so, alright, just the people who responded to the poll, it says something. What has the Govt done to deserve such mistrust from this group of people? Go do some soul searching ok?

The other point is for the Govt to do the right thing so that they can regain the trust and faith of the people, that they are good and upright and can be trusted to speak the truth. I think this is a trying task looking at the emotions today. Can the Govt change this negative perception?

What is bad is that if the perception of the people is true. In that case no medicine can cure this sickness. Habis lah.

Is this poll important to the Govt? It depends. It depends on whether they want to believe in it. It depends on how genuine or how close it is to the perception of the whole population. If this is a true representative of what the people perceived the Govt to be, it is definitely not pretty. The Govt and Hsien Loong can only hope that this poll is not representative, not real or biased, or only the views of a small group of anti PAP cynics.

What do you think?

Hawker centre cleaning, time to move on

As more things are revealed in this issue of great national importance, perhaps it is time to move on as the points in question could boil down to some misunderstanding in what were said and what were written or between annual cleaning and not annual cleaning.

Can we call it a stalemate, both sides never win or never lose, call it a truce and everyone gets back to work? Some overseas blogs are even laughing at us for creating such a hooha with ministers and PMs involved. But I must respect those who think this is indeed a very serious matter of integrity and honesty and needs to pursue until every stone is turned and every straight and honest face turns crooked and red.

Shall everyone say peace? I also feel very embarrass to post about it.

South Korea begging the US to take control of its armed forces

Though the South Koreans have been bragging about how able they are to invade and fight the North Koreans, they are so afraid of losing the backing of their colonial master. This semi American colony is begging the Americans to continue to be their supreme military commander in case a war breaks out with the North. The agreement means that the Americans will have full control of the South Korean armed forces in war. The whole of South Korean military will be under the control of the Americans.

The Americans were supposed to surrender this right to control the South Korean armed forces in 2012 but this was delayed because of the sinking of the Choenan. The handover was then scheduled to be in December 2015 but the South Koreans willingly wanted to submit their armed forces to the control of a foreign power, the USA and is asking for a delay in the handover of power back to the South Koreans. It is unbelieveable that a sovereign state would willingly beg another country to assume command of its military. Where is the pride of the Korean people? Is this not a sign of a semi colony?

And now we know the reason why the Choenan was sunk in October 2010. The real reason, the South Koreans would be assuming control of their own military by December 2012. And there must be a strong reason to frighten the South Koreans to want to continue with the Americans as their military commander and colonial master. Who then has an interest to sink the Choenan to keep this status quo?

The North Koreans, the South Koreans or the Americans? Who sank the Choenan and the reason for its sinking is now clear as day light.

Malaysian University admission standard very high

It is reprinted in My Paper of a report in The Star/Asia News Network of a number of top Malaysian students with perfect scores for the STPM but either failed to get a place in Malaysian Universities or being given a course not of their choice, or courses that are unpopular or of lower economic values.

Chai Yee Lin obtained a perfect 4.0 CGPA score, applied for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and bio medical courses but was given a veterinary science course in Kelatan University. Another student, Chong Yong Sheng, also with perfect score was not even good enough for a place in the universities. And another girl, Deveshini Uthani was devastated as well for not given a place. Her score was poorer, 3.96. She thought it was good enough and that she had done her family proud.

What all these students failed to understand is that there must be many many students with perfect scores, probably 10,000 or 20,000 or more. Thus, their perfect scores were actually average or below average. And the standard for admission must also be very high.

These students should work harder if they want to get admitted to Malaysian universities. On the other hand they may try their luck in Singapore Universities. Here the entry requirements would not be that high and they may even be good enough for an Asean or a Singapore Govt scholarship with food and lodging thrown in. And if they did well on graduation, they may even be given citizenship.

The competition of the local students is not so fierce as the local talents are deemed daft and would not have that kind of scintillating results. It has been proven that many third world students have done much better than the locals and even in employment. Even a youtube porn star was once a scholar in a Singapore university.

I will encourage these top Malaysian students to come down south. Oops, they are not tops in Malaysia but tops in Singapore, I think. They will be received with open arms.

MOM charged 25 FTs for forging certificates

25 fake FTs, 21 from Myanmar, 3 from India and 1 from the Philippines have been charged for forging certificates to get employment passes and very likely all will be jailed as none will be able to pay the $5000 fine. The jail sentence is for 4 weeks while those unable to pay their fines will be jailed for 20 days. The difference in the days for the jail sentence could be due to the cases being different.

These FTs were caught after being employed for less than a year. They are new applicants. Many enraged Sinkies are calling for tougher measures as the sentences were just too insignificant for the risk and reward considerations. It is a good start for the MOM and people are expecting more to come as this is only skimming the surface of a problem of several hundred thousands of FTs here.

To mean business, MOM should go after the employers and the recruiting agencies as well. They have to go for the source of the problem and not the foreigners that are trying their luck. And worse, they are not going to pay the fine and the govt would still have to feed and house them for the duration in jail.

Go for the jugular, and employers and recruiting agencies that failed to do the due diligence or actually in cahoot with the job applicants should be severely punished. And the employers and recruiting agencies are likely to have the finances to pay up and would avoid repeating the act.

Hope this is not just a show and the reaches of the MOM should extend to all the existing EP holders under employed and eventually even to new citizens who have gotten away. It is a long and tedious process and it is best that MOM signals its intention and how far it will go to nab the culprits and the cheats. MOM must issued a stern warning to all employers and recruiting agencies. In that way it could be seen as giving them a chance to get out while they can and for employers to clean their own houses before the net closes in on them.

By placing the responsibilities on the back of the employers and recruiting agencies will shift the burden to them as well. MOM just does not have the manpower and resources to deal with the few hundred thousand FTs here. Leave it to the employers and recruiting agencies to do the vetting and checking. MOM should just take on one company at a time starting from the big ones to send the message across that it means business.

The citizens are demanding that the govt must act thoroughly and seriously on such violations of the employment law and cheating the deserving citizens of their right to employment. Also it will save the embarrassment of being seen as a silly govt that claimed to be intelligent and sophisticated first world talents but got cheated easily by third world half baked non talents and fraudsters.

The Sinkies are not daft and are watching carefully to see how real is the effort of the MOM. There are many fakes hiding deeply in the banks and financial institutions and some may be holding very senior positions for many years here. It is also good that MOM has asked the public to whistle blow, to feed back on suspected cases to their hotlines.

MOM said it will not condone such acts of false declaration, and will take severe actions against offenders.

Members of the public who have information of persons or employers who contravene the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act should report the matter to MOM at Tel: (65) 6438 5122 or email mom_fmmd@mom.gov.sg. All information will be kept strictly confidential.

Foreign visitors to mysingaporenews.blogspot.sg

I just did an analysis of the origins of bloggers visiting mysingaporenews and it is a pleasant surprise that nearly all the English speaking countries are here, from the US, UK, Australia and Asean countries. What is surprising too is that the biggest English speaking country inside the Commonwealth, India, is not one of them. But from previous posts they have been shown to be here before. Perhaps they are using URLs from other Commonwealth countries.

The other notable countries with a big presence here are some non English speaking countries like Russia, Ukraine, France, China and Germany. And France and Ukraine are among the top 5 visitors that include US, UK and Australia.

The US at one time overtook Singapore with the top number of visitors but this has been halved since the verification facility was added. This is a clear indication that the number of spammers coming from the US and trying to mess around is pretty big.

Nice to know that this blog is quite well received internationally.

Redbean

White Robert Zimmerman acquitted of slaying black Trayvon Martin

This case has dragged on for more than a year. Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black boy living in the same neighborhood as the burly 29 year old white man Zimmerman. On a night out to buy some food, he was racially profiled as a bad guy by Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed, Zimmerman armed with a gun. Zimmerman set upon Martin and in the struggle, neighbours heard the voice of the young black boy calling for help. But he was shot dead by Zimmerman claiming self defence. A jury of 5 white females and a black female found Zimmerman not guilty.
 
The blacks and Martin’s family are crying foul. Rioting has started in the district and several American cities in protest against the not guilty verdict.
 
In the past, many blacks were found guilty when innocent and hanged or lynched by white mobs and white courst. In the past, many white murderers and nigger killers were set free even with unquestionable evidence of guilt.
 
Now we are in the 21st Century and such racial and hate crimes against the blacks are still happening, and the white men who did the killing are acquitted. And the black leaders are calling for calm and peaceful demonstration like they used to do in the past when they became victims of such racial injustice.
 
Zimmerman may be free but admitted that he would have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life. Some day, some guy may just pull the trigger on him to settle the score. Of course the guy will surely be found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment or death in some states.
 
How many think that Zimmerman is not guilty? How many believe that Zimmerman killed the boy in self defence? How many think this is not a racial profiling hate crime? How many believe the Martin family had the fair share of the law on their side or was it just another kangaroo court? How many think that racism is a thing of the past in the USA?

Moody downgrades our local banks

‘International credit rating agency Moody’s has downgraded the outlook for three Singapore banks – DBS, OCBC and UOB – to “negative” from “stable” for the next 12-18 months.’ Quoted from TRE.
 
Big, strong and friendly banks with triple A ratings are now rated as negative? What does it mean? How is this equated to the A, B and C rating scale? Are our banks now in the B grade or C grade? Getting a negative rating is no joke for sure.
 
Taking a peep into Moody’s full report on Stand alone Credit Strength, DBS is now rated as B/aa3 and Neg, OCBC is B/aa3, Stable, and UOB has the same rating as OCBC. Bank of Singapore, BOS is rated C-/baa1 and Stable as well. The overall average rating of Singapore banks is B/aa3. The Long Term Bank Deposit ratings for all the local banks are Aa1/Stable except for DBS with a Negative rating.
 
One of the main reasons given by Moody for this downgrading is the banks exposure to housing loans which stands at 77% of household debt. Moody also mentioned that ‘77% of Singapore banks’ non-performing loans (NPLs) were related to loans made by borrowers outside Singapore in 2012, compared to 65% in 2008.
 
With the uncertainties in the world economy and the risk of higher interest rates, the impact of a tightening of monetary policy in the US could trigger big movements in the flow of funds in and out of emerging countries and the local market. A big outflow could have adverse effect liquidity and interest rates and the housing market.
 
How serious would this be is still a grey area. The consequences of the US subprime crisis is still vivid to many and something that no one wants to see here and no one would believe such a scenario will happen. There is American exceptionalism and there is also Singapore exceptionalism. We are exceptional and we will not be in the same plight as the Americans and no subprime crisis will be allowed to happen here. Our situation is well under controlled by the most expensive talents available managing it. No worry, the Moody downgrade is just a paper downgrade and nothing untowards will happen and there is no need for fear mongering.
 
There will be no housing crisis here and those who think that people will be jumping from the flats are just talking nonsense. Our property prices will continue to go up as usual.

Scrap university education

What is education for? Is education for the sake of education? Or is education about equipping the student to participate fully in life, in the economy, simply about getting a job to earn some money to provide for himself and his family should he decide to have one? For the elite and the gentry class, the royalties and aristocracies, education is just for education, to learn to read and write. The need to get a job or the need for an education to equip the student to be gainfully employed is not necessary in the lives of such privilege classes of people. Contrast this to those who need to work for a living, an education is seen primarily as a means to a job. Of course one does not need an education to get a job. A fisherman, a butcher, a boxer or a golfer or a tennis player, they don’t need an education to earn a living.
 
Putting aside those that don’t need to work, and those jobs that don’t need an education, education is the acquisition of a piece of certificate, diploma or degree or the acquiring of a passpost to a job. Several of our wise leaders have spoken many times to encourage the young to get a good education and advocating how important education is to a good job and a good life. Education is the leveller for all to compete on equal grounds to material success. And the Govt spent hundreds of millions annually to provide an excellent and world class education system for the population. And the universities and colleges all strived to be the best, to produce the best students for society and the economy.
 
Then out of the blue we heard two ministers in a matter of days said these. Khaw Boon Wan: “You own a degree, but so what? You can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless”. He later went on to encourage people to become crane drivers when there is a great demand for it and the pay is good. Then Heng Swee Keat followed up a few days later by saying that ‘beyond providing students with a good education, he wasn’t sure or neither would he be responsible if these students could not find good jobs after graduating.’
 
Could you believe it, that two ministers in the same breath told the people that our world class education could not guarantee them a good job and maybe they should consider becoming crane drivers or take on other jobs that don’t require a good formal education? What the hell the Govt set up all the good schools, colleges and universities for? The students in these institutions are mostly from the working class that need to work for a living. They are not children of royalties or aristocrats or the super rich when working is an unnecessary chore, and if they choose to work, it is to kill their boredom. Why encourage the parents to send their children through the system, invested time and resources when it can be all for nothing?
 
Does anyone think that this is strange? Would the NTUC, the super advocates of training and the organisation that has been sending hundreds of thousands of workers for training, tell the workers that the training would not guarantee them a job? Then why waste their time and money?
 
The sick part of this conversation is that the country can provide a few hundred thousand jobs to foreigners who came from less prestigious or even doubtful institutions of learning with great jobs and good paying jobs. And we are telling our children that despite the fact that they have gone through one of the best education system, they may not get a good job here.
 
I think this must be the joke of the century. Now who started this joke and set the whole world laughing? Education, and expensive education, stressful education, is not ‘main main’ ya. Who in his right mind would tell the parents that this gonna be the case, that their children with good grades from this expensive and world class education system may not find a good job while the questionable students with questionable grades from questionable education institutions could be in a better position to get good jobs? Is there someone suffering from bipolar sickness but is not detected? Did someone say bird talk?
 
And there is the acting Minister of Manpower, Tan Chuan Jin, scurrying around like a bull arse fly shouting discrimination by employers, both locals and foreigners, against Singaporeans in employment. Now, what is that all about? Maybe have to wait for people to clean the hawker centre first before they have time to explain what is going on.

Internet: WYSIWYG

Calvin Cheng, the ex NMP, wrote to the ST forum today with the title, ‘Seeking clarifications on line a disturbing trend’. This is one of his statement referring to Ravi Philemon’s internet comments on the haze and N95 mask problems, ‘That said, his actions were part of a rather bewildering and disturbing trend: that of questioning the veracity of govt statements during a national crisis, and the belief that it is better to clarify uncertainties over the Internet rather than with govt agencies.’
 
Calvin Cheng’s argument is not about questioning the govt but about using the internet to do so. His assumptions are that the internet is full of nonsense from unqualified and unreliable people. Only the govt and the respective official agencies will have the expertise and to tell the truth. He even asserted, ‘In a crisis, our Govt has never been known to lie. It is ridiculous to think it would start now.’
 
Ahem, I am sure all of you reading the above are raring to say your piece about how ridiculous and flawed his assertions are. All I can say is that the internet is WYSIWYG, minus the biases of the editor and whoever that thinks that the right answer should be what they think is best to be printed. In the internet, everything you see is what the bloggers want to say, minus those with a hidden agenda which can be quite easily to fish out. Many bloggers are genuine and simply expressed what are in their minds, untainted by political considerations and the need to say the right thing.
 
The reasons why people are seeking the internet to express their views speak for themselves, and why they are not going to the main media or the agencies concerned. Other than not having faith in getting a reasonable reply, what they sent in may not see daylight and could end up in the waste bins. The internet is also a very convenient and efficient means for circulation of information, instant and immediate, no need to wait for the sun to rise. And it is the platform for everyone with no one thinking that he is the lord and his views prevails.
 
Step aside main media. You are history, partly of your own doing, partly due to the advancement in technology. The internet is now a platform of choice of the people to air their views and grievances. And there is nothing bewildering or disturbing about this trend.