creative profit!!!

in the next reporting season creative technology will report an extraordinary gain of us$100 mil! where on earth got asian companies claiming against western giants like Apple and won this kind of damages without even fighting it out in a long legal battle? only creative can do this. and now it has another leg inside apple territory, given the right to produce accessories for ipod. so creative can produce for its zen range of mp3s and ipods. who is this sim wong hoo, the singapore wonderboy? local talent.

myth 55

'Our problem is not Singaporeans giving up citizenships. Our biggest problem is getting people to come here, to take up residence and eventually become citizens.' Wong Kan Seng Is this a myth or a statement of reality? For 41 years, we have been brewing this concoction called 'mee siam mai hum,' just kidding. We have been brewing this Singapore stew and are almost there. The people are starting to gel and singing one people one nation. Today, for some reasons, we are in a hurry to throw in more new ingredients into the stew in double quick time. Can we expect the stew to be the same? How can that be when the recipe is changed? It will take maybe another 40 years to see the result. But the immediate position is that the 41 year stew is not going to be served. It will have to start the whole process all over again, depending on how much new ingredient are thrown in and at how fast a pace. We are not afraid of Singaporeans giving up citizenships. We want to welcome more foreigners quickly by making things easier, more transparent and probably more attractive terms. Now where would all these leave the Singaporeans? The next question is whether the potential citizens will bite. They are not stupid. They too will look at how the govt treat the Singaporeans. For they too will become Singaporeans too. And if they think once they become Singaporeans, they will be treated in the same way, will they have second thoughts? Now they have the best of both worlds. Why would they want to become shit in a shit hole if becoming Singaporeans means they will be lesser off than be better off? Can there be a level playing field for Singaporeans to opt to become PR just like PRs opting to become citizens? Make it easier and just as attractive, a freedom of choice to go either way. Why is it that PRs have greater freedom and flexibility and citizens have more restrictions? Who is better off? Membership has its privileges. Or is it the other way round?

welcoming foreign talents policy seems so right now

30 years ago we had the stop at 2 campaign. everyone was trumpeting how necessary it was to stop at 2. today we are paying the price for that decision. but mind you, it was the right thing to do then for they could not find enough jobs for a rapidly growing population then. today we are trumpeting this foreign talent campaign as if it is the only right thing to do despite our people crying for more decent paying jobs. will this be another big regret 30 years down the road? the british must be kicking their arses for freely allowing their colonial subjects to migrate to uk. otherwise they will not have, or will have lesser terrorist problems. such decisions are never a clear cut right or wrong solution. every solution will have its consequences. anyone dare to vouch that this is the correct thing to do? that is why i always call for moderation. the restructuring of the financial industry in the 90s had caused the loss of many high paying jobs when many in the industry were retrenched. is the financial industry really better off today? the banks appear to be doing well. but the stock market industry is like a big shining red apple on the outside, but rotten to the core and waiting to implode.

'preserve our rights to use our cpf'

I read the above title in the Today paper and find it amusing. There was a hot debate after Tan Keng Soon wrote an article suggesting to modify the CPF scheme and children should contribute to the CPF of their mothers. And now readers are not agreeable to this and wanted to have more control of their CPF savings. Now why is this so amusing? It is amusing because whatever CPF one has, it is well known and has already been factored into the big picture of the country. How much the people have in the CPF have been computed to make sure that they can afford to pay for HDB flats and medical cost. When people have more CPF money, property prices will be priced according to their affordability. Now that people have lesser money left in their CPF, HDB will build 2 room flats to meet their lower affordability ability. And when there are more in CPF, bigger flats will be built again. And today's paper headline has this cheerful report that Singaporeans can now afford to pay for their medical cost. These are also priced according to affordability. According to the report, if Singaporeans seek to be admitted into C and B2 wards, then they should be able to afford to pay for them through their Medisave. But the report forgot that admission into C and B2 wards is not a matter of personal choice but depended on the means testing. So much as Singaporeans may want to save some money by opting for C and B2 wards, they may not qualify and have to pay for more expensive wards because they could afford to. What does all these mean, ie affordability, is to see how much one has in the CPF and how much to price facilities and services to use up these CPF. Now the cry to preserve our right to use our CPF. Fat hope. Every organisation is thinking of how to use up your CPF. Their rights to use your CPF come first. By then they would not be much left. And the final condition, you don't have the right to decide when you can take out your cpf and how much to take out even after you retire.

myth 54

'SMRT is doing well and should not raise fare' I was in the train this morning and something caught my attention. First the thought that SMRT is going to raise its fare after making more than $100 million in profit. Should that be enough to cover for the higher fuel cost? Lets say fuel cost will add another $50 million to its operating cost, just a guesstimate, they will still make another $50 million, ceterus paribus. Then I look around the train carriage all over again. I just felt that something was not right. The two tv screens that were supposed to bring in advertising income were dead silent. The screens were blank, black and not powered on. One big source of income not coming in. What about the billboard advertising panels? There were at least 20 of them on both the inner sides of the train carriage. What? Only one panel has an advert! The rest were empty. This means there will be a drastic fall in advertising revenue. I only hope that it was only in one train carriage. But very likely it will affect the rest of the trains. And this will also mean that many businesses are not advertising, businesses not doing well, or cannot afford to advertise. Or maybe advertising in train is not rewarding. Make your guess.