nkf reducing dialysis by $4

gerard ee announces that dialysis fee will now go down by $4 and another $8 later. total reduction over the last few months came to an overall reduction of 25%! what does this mean? the patients were paying so much more unnecessarily due to nkf's inefficiency or what? the monthly expenditure for a patient is $2,730. this will be reduced eventually to $2045. but still a huge sum for any poor bugger or even not so poor buggers. and to qualify for partial subsidy, the cut off household income is $3,500. without going into details of how much is partial subsidy proportional to income less than $3,500, lets look at those whose household income is above this magical number. and assuming that this is nett and not before cpf reduction. technically, a patient with $3,600 will be disqualify from subsidy and has to pay the full amount of $2,730. what is left of the $3,600? $870!!! even with a household income of $4,000, the disposal income left is only $1,270. almost 3/4 of the household income for dialysis. that is what people think a kidney patient deserves to live on, or his family deserves to live on. is that mean? and they have mean testing to ensure that this is so.

general election : preliminary round

the pap is still throwing their punches on the wp's manifesto. boon wan has come into the ring and hit at the same points. what is the wp doing? are they going to parry blow by blow? or are they taking the side step to evade the blow and taking aim at what they think will be better openings that can knock out the pap? not standing to take blows and trade blows is one tactic to adopt. but looks like wp is doing the cowboy way. stand and take the blows. and i would presume they will throw their punches while absorbing the pain. this could be the wp's strategy, knowing that pap will hit at their weaknesses, they might just take a few punches but attack the pap with more of pap's weaknesses. and at the end let the judges count who score more hits. now lets see where the wp will hit and how many punches it will throw.

general election : my manifesto version 1.01

1. we will turn singapore into a global city of the future with standards of living better than the swiss. 2. housing. our motto is to strive for talents and we reward talents. our talents will live in landed properties or posh condos. those not talents will live in 2 and 3 room design and build flats. 3. quality living for the talents. the most talented can look forward to a lifestyle of the rich and famous, with all kinds of resorts and entertainments and the world class theatres to watch phua chu kang. 4. we will not forget the poor. we will provide them with budget facilities including budget transport system and budget foodcourts. 5. medical facilities will be the best. and we will make sure that every citizen will have enough in their medisave to pay for it and no one will be deprived of treatment. 6. education. we will have the best fuzzy education system designed specially to fit every student. they can take a 10 year course or a 20 year course at their own time as long as they can afford the fees which will be affordable. 7. high income for the talents. talents can expect incomes in the millions. no talents will also be looked after by the govt's generous billion dollar welfare schemes.

horie's pursuit of profit goal

"The sense of ethics is crumbling to a crisis level," Eda said. "The government must take these cases seriously.".... PURSUIT OF PROFITS Prosecutors say Horie and three other executives who were also arrested had sought to boost share prices by spreading false information, issuing new shares to "acquire" firms already under its control and then selling them for a profit to pad its books.... Horie said in his Web diary on Sunday he had no recollection of doing anything illegal... The Livedoor case has prompted calls to beef up Japan's securities watchdog, as well as laments about the unabashed pursuit of wealth for which Horie was well known.... "The Livedoor shock has poured cold water not only on stock prices, but on Mr. Horie's often-emphasized view that money is everything," said an editorial in the Mainichi newspaper. "We should not pursue fleeting profit. We should take Mr Horie's arrest as an opportunity to think about this."... Horie has many fans, especially among a younger generation who admired his innovative tactics and flashy lifestyle, and some saw his arrest as a reprisal from the "Old Japan" establishment which he had snubbed. A dropout from the prestigious University of Tokyo, Horie set up Livedoor's predecessor, Livin' On the Edge, a decade ago with just $50,000 in capital. By adopting an aggressive acquisition strategy and promoting himself as a brand symbol, he turned that into market capital of more than $6 billion just before last week's raid. the above are extracts from reuters business news about the japanese wonder kid who rose to fame and fortune and now is under police custody. many of the facts and things said are very familiar. i believe he will have many admirers here.

general election : fight on 4 issues

the wp comes out with a 52 page manifesto. the pap chooses 4 as time bombs and cornered the wp to fight on these 4 issues. for the moment the pap is taking the initiative to launch an assault at wp, especially at the two leaders low thia khiang and sylvia lim. would the wp be cornered and let the pap set the agenda for the fight? eng hen challenged the wp, lets fight on these 4 issues. very neat. surely the wp is not going to confine itself with just 4 issues. there are hundreds of issues to be debated. how wide will the battlefield be? given the resources of the pap and so many ministers still in the background, waves of attack can be expected to follow suit. there will be increasing pressure with more coordinated atacks as the election approaches. the campaign trail has started, sooner than the announcement of an election. is it a good thing to start the fight so early? would the issues be talked to death and people be bored by the time the election actually started? sometimes harping on issues too early and too often may lose its novelty and impact. would it be better to throw them out hot in the midst of the election instead of discussing now when the election could even be delayed to god knows when. the date has yet to be fixed. lets hope the contestants will fight fairly and not hit under the belt. lets hope the issue will boil and be properly fried during the actual election campaign.