A green Sunday

What a lousy Sunday morning My eyes were sleepy, and everything takes an unusually slow pace. Even my movements were slow, slower than any other day. Sunday is meant to slow down, relax, forget the world, forget the rat race. The sexy pictures of Tang dynasty women did raise the heartbeat a little. But my poise and serenity vanished when I hit page 3 of the Sunday Times. My eyes turn green and instantly I am fill with rage, the rage of envy. How can young upstart claims that it is normal to earn US$500k at a tender age of 34 years? And what he was implying is that many are earning much more. This reminds me of those heady days of an unprecedented bull market when stupid remisiers went bragging that any normal remisier would earn $30k a month. And what happened to them is history. The same pathetic state also befell the insurance and housing agents. Probably many have now turned to become taxi drivers. In Singapore it is very hazardous to brag about your stratospheric income. People not only get envious but angry as well. Just like how I feel now. How can these young people earn so much and easy money some more. Must do something about it. I am still wondering what is the agenda of the paper to splash the erotic incomes of children and what will likely to happen to them later? It was only a few days ago when we read about the pathetic existence of 'has been' high flyers and the top 20% of our population only having a per capita household income of $3000 a month. If we have a young couple earning three quarter of a million each, it will mean that their per capita household income will be $60,000 a month or $30,000 if they have 2 children. This is really obscene. I am still seething with green rage. I am going to do something about this. I am going back to sleep and forget about this brutal reality.

plight of the unwanted talents

The unwanted talents I was talking to a cab driver last week. He was only 46, a NUS business graduate. Lost his job and could not find any and was resigned to driving a cab for $3k a month. He knew that no one will want to employ him anymore as he had tried and tried to be reemployed. In the Straits Times today, several pages were devoted to the issues of the unwanted talents. These are highly qualified, highly experienced and matured professionals, all ended unemployed or underemployed, disenchanted, disgrunted, ego deflated and life shattered. And yes, our country is crying for more foreign talents to replace them, that we have no talents and no experienced professionals and managers. And yes, our qualified people are leaving our shores and we need to replace them with foreigners. What is the problem? No problem at all. Can't see any problem. It is all globalisation's fault and nothing can be done about it. It is so pathetic and depressing to see these once high flyers who are now willing to earn half or one third of their income, maybe less, begging to be employed. We don't have jobs for them? Bullshit! There are many jobs waiting to be filled or filled by people who don't need them or did not have the time for them. We have a few super talents hogging on many jobs and pretending to be working and effective, but in reality, going through the motion as the multiple jobs they are handling are beyond them. That's why shits are piling up everywhere. Just take the occupation of company independent directors will do. There are something like 700 companies listed in the Stock Exchange and each requires the services of at least 2 independent directors. But many of these positions are filled by duplicates or people who either cannot do the job or do not have the time to do it. Indepedent directors can be a profession by itself for the lost talents who have acquired a wealth of experience through their working life. Then the multi tasking that have gone crazy and people ended up with 10 or 20 hats. This is another bullshit in our system. 2 or 3 hats may be just the maximum that an able person can handle, and still stressing him out. More than that, I can only think of one person being capable of doing it. He must be omnipresence, omni conscience and untiring and undying. If there is conscious effort to create more decent and highly qualified jobs for the experienced professionals, there are many ways. Manage the appointments of independent directorship and cut down on multi tasking, and we will have created some extra jobs to go around. Provided those with a big fat pension are not allowed to say I want also. I almost forgot that this multi tasking thing went down to the middle or lower professional level too, making people doing several jobs at the same time without understanding that at the lower level they are definitely not super talents and would not have the talent to do them. One man or woman only has 8 or 10 hours a day to work. Beyond that he/she is working to his own death unless he/she is cheating all the way, without doing his/her fair share of the load.

hypocrisy of the howard govt

Come come, Howard, Please get off your high horse and join the community of free trades. You can't be protecting Qantas by accusing Singapore of protecting SIA. You or Qantas has been given special privileges, more than SIA, through out generosity and stupidity to trust that you will reciprocate a magnanimous gesture with another. Now you are showing your horns by saying that 'One of the reasons we are sceptical of Singapore Airlines is that it has a level of protection from the Singapore Govt which far exceeds the level of protection that Qantas enjoys, and it is very important that we do not needlessly bargain away the interests that our national carrier has.' Just tell the world what SIA enjoys or is being protected by the Singapore Govt and stop making sweeping remarks that you know you can't justify or is untrue. The truth is that Qantas is over protected by the Australian Govt. The Singapore Govt shall henceforth drag its feet in facilitating or pushing for ASEAN's inclusion and acceptance of Australia.

'The naughty lion'

'The naughty lion' Many long years ago, there was a lonely lion in the island called Temasek. It was the only lion and had never seen another lion. One day, while frolicking in the water off Pasir Panjang beach, it saw a beautiful sea lion. To the lion, a sea lion was also a lion. And it was happy, and they were happy. A few months later a baby merlion was born. The paintings of this beautiful merlion is on exhibited at the new National Museum by our very own painter David Chan. He even christianed the merlion as Singa Merlionus. And so the story goes. And we have our naughty lion and merlion. Copahagen has a mermaid.

the pap mentality

The PAP mentality No, I say again, no, I am not referring to the political party of the same initials. And I am not trying to discuss about the political party or pap smear. I am referring to a Singaporean mentality that everything can be solved by paying. Tan Choon Ming wrote an article about how plastic bags, the indiscriminate disposal of them, is harming our environment. And the Singapore style solution is, yes, make them pay for the use of plastic carrier bags. Singaporeans are paying for rubbish disposals. Now we have to pay for the containers that will eventually be used for the disposal of rubbish. Fine, it will surely work, the Singapore way. Oops, what did I say? Did I say something right? Oh yes, fine, fine them like littering. But didn't we already have littering fines? Obviously this fine isn't working. So for the use of a plastic bag, Singaporeans will have to pay for it, which is a commercial decision, pay for their disposals, or fine for not disposing them properly. Fine, let's get it going. Singaporeans only understand the meaning of pay and pay. We pay for everything, from the paying of top dollars to solve elitist problems to the irresponsible who litter everywhere and to pay taxes to help the poor.