quality does not come cheap

Letter from Lee kiao Hoong in Today paper '....My wife gave birth to twins at the SGH recently. They were born premature - at six months gestation - and thus admitted to the NICU. After a two and a half month stay in a B2 ward, the hospital bill for my elder daughter came up to a whopping $29,000, after government subsidies. As a result, the Medisave accounts that both my wife and I had built up over 10 years were wiped out overnight.... I also hope this serves as a reminder to couples who are planning to have a baby. The simple act of having your very own child could possibly turn out to be one huge financial nightmare.' World class facilities matched with world class bills. That must be expected. Nothing is for free. There is a price to everything.

happy opt in

MP Seah Kian Peng suggested that those who earned $100k or more should be opt in to donate the $100 they are receiving from the GST rebate the govt is giving out. I supported this definitely. I agree with Seah Kian Peng that they are so happily rich that $100 really mean nothing to them but a lot to those who need them. And I am very sure that those being opted in will be more than happy to do so. This is a happy opt in, though it violated their right from having the choice to opt in/out. What the heck? Can we just opt people into anything just because it is insignificant to them or useful to others?

without spirit we are nothing

'Without spirit, what is sport? You can have really nice buildings but without spirit, what use is the hardware?' Ang Peng Siong I like to borrow this statement by Ang Peng Siong and substitute sport with Singapore. Without spirit or passion, what is Singapore? We can have all the world best infrastructure and talents, but without spirit, we are nothing. Yes just a hotel.

between hell and paradise

Between Hell and Paradise Paradise is where everyone desires to be. It has the best of everything, world best! But paradise is only for the select few, the chosen few. Not many people can afford paradise. Many people will be in 'hell' in a way, the living hell. It is admirable for the govt of the day to want to build a paradise on earth, world best in everything. But can we afford it? How many can afford it? It is like the debate between Wei Ling and Philip. Philip operates on a huge budget and casts his net very wide. Wei Ling is talking about making choices with our limited resources. We need to be selective and spend cautiously. We want world best facilities in everything. Yes we must have them. But no, we cannot have all of them. Segmentation and allocation of our resources must take into account the reality. The 'we' is a very loose group of people stretching from the penniless to the super rich, including foreigners that we want them to be here to pay for world class facilities. National resources must be allocated to build or develop facilities according to the needs of the different segments of our society defined by financial affordability. We have to cater to the needs of all levels and our resources must be allocated proportionally. Ask anyone if they want world best facilities and I bet the answer is yes. But ask them to pay for it and the answer will be no. The govt will continuously be running on an ever expanding budget if it keeps on telling the people that it is striving to provide them with everything that is world best. And the govt will be perpetually coming back to demand more money from the people for their world best ideas. Why not just try to make 'hell' more liveable instead of building a paradise

nkf story - chapter 3

Chapter Three The criminal trial has started. And Durai is facing two charges which he pleaded not guilty. The charges are 'using false documents with the intention of deceiving the NKF into paying out $25,000-$20,000....' Are these all the charges that he is going to face?