74 and still desperate to work!

Why would a 74 year old grand dad got so desperate as to punch a member of parliament all for a taxi licence? Shouldn't he be happily retired, living in retirement resorts or marking time in HDB void decks? Didn't he have enough CPF savings to keep him going? The CPF minimum sum scheme should have been introduced earlier and Singaporeans need not be so desperate when they are old. A normal Singaporean should expect to work for about 30 years to earn enough to feed him for another 30 years. And in the mean time he has to pay for his flat and to bring up a family. Simply put, he has 4 things to work and budget for. Flat, family, his own upkeep for 30 + 30 years. Plus one more, inflation. Singaporeans are rich.

myth 44

''If we fail to do so, leadership renewal will falter, the PAP will inevitably decline and Singapore will suffer.' by Lee Hsien Loong I can agree with Hsien Loong, in fact fully agree with him, that if there is no leadership renewal, PAP will and must decline. That is a truism. As for the second part that Singapore will suffer, that is very subjective and is based on the assumption that Singapore's well being is linked to PAP. Without the PAP, even in the future, Singapore will suffer. This is as good as a belief. Without the PAP in the future, why can't there be a better and more professional and dedicated group of people coming forward to serve? And why is it that only the PAP can attract good people and other parties can't? What will happen tomorrow is anybody's guess. Who knows, Singapore might need to be saved by a new party if PAP falls into the wrong hands. Linking Singapore's well being with the PAP is thus a very subjective claim.

myth 45

'There is no press freedom' After the recent brown commotion, more people are saying 'See, See, didn't I tell you! Where got press freedom?' Everyone seems to have found the same conclusion. And maybe that could be the reason why so many bloggers and forumers also quit cyberspace. But I choose to defer. How could there by no press freedom? Remember how freely the local press wrote about the general elections and praising all the candidates? Remember they had a field day writing voluminous reports about the general election practically everyday? Wasn't that press freedom? A better proof is that all our professional journalists have not complained about no press freedom here. So what more proof does one need to say that there is press freedom and our journalists are all very content with the state of affair. What Bhavani's edict actually forbid are very reasonable. No partisan politics, no undermining national policies and no championing of issues. Anything else ok. See, what more can one ask for? There are a lot of press freedom as long as one does not violate Bhavani's edict. And cyberspace and blogs, completely free to write whatever you want. Complaining that there is no press freedom is thus a myth.

singtel may be looking for foreign ceos

In the paper's headline today, Singtel may seek foreign CEO. This is probably the wisest and most sensible thing to do since there is no local talents left after Hsien Yang vacated his seat. He was there for 12 years and was too busy expanding the business that no one was groomed to succeed him. Don't they have any good local talents left? I did asked earlier about Ngiam Tong Dow's criticism of getting foreign CEOs to run local companies. I think he was joking. We truly, really, don't have that kind of talents that can earn US$200 mil a year. See, talent is measured by how much one can command. We have seen so much praise to a local talent who earned peanuts. The second notch international talent should be asking for US$50 to 60 million. Third notch maybe US$30 mil, and 4th to 5th notch maybe asking fot US$10 mil. These are still far more talented than all our local CEOs who are talented only up to US$3-5 mil. So maybe we get a 6th to 7th notch foreign CEOs should do the trick. It is actually quite disappointing that after so many years we still don't have top notch CEOs. Not even in the top 5 levels. It is high time we employed someone who is really top notch and pay him US$200 million. Then we can showcase to the world that we have world best top notch CEOs. For the time being we shall be content with our 10th notch local CEOs and quickly replaced them when some foreign 6th or 7th notch CEOs are available. But better check which universities they graduated from, if they did graduated as claimed.

is it embarrassing to be a local journalist?

Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma spoke about the declining and limited role of local journalists in the main stream media. What he said actually made a lot of sense. Not only has the credibility of the local journalists is being badly bruised, they should be now quite clear what they can write about and what they cannot. And the good thing is that the bloggers and internet forums are given a freer hand, which means that people who wants an alternative view must get them from the internet. The mainstream media is just there to present a specific news angle. Would this lead to more interests in internet news and internet be seen as a threat to the official views in the mainstream media? And, would the local journalists speak out to redefine their role or are they going to swallow everything and surrender their sacred role and duty as journalists? How would our journalists face up to their international counterparts when confronted with questions regarding their professional duties as journalists? Maybe all these are good for a young country like ours. We don't need the flair and inquisitiveness of journalists running around and telling different things to the people. We cannot afford to have different viewpoints that may undermine the efforts in nation building.