parliament - i scratch you, you scratch me

The MPs have done their part to praise this 'Made in Heaven' budget. It is time to reciprocate and praise the MPs for their angelic chorus. The quality of debate has been good beyond recognition if we are to learn from Kan Seng's summation of how good parliamentary debate is today. But he also dropped a hint that time and effort should be apportioned to more important issues and not wasted on issues that are of lesser importance. That is as frank and honest as Kan Seng can be. Now what after the great debate? Is there anything that is going be changed or all the papers submitted will be passed lock, stock and barrel? Are we going to have our 6.5 million population, increasing ERP charges, higher cost with world class facilities and infrastructure, or spending more money on not so important mega projects and lesser on the bread and butter issues facing the pathetic poor by giving them another $1 a day for a meal? Will our MRT go the Tokyo way to be world class and be packed 100%, 20% more than the current under utilisation? It must be a great sight to see MRT staff shoving and pushing commuters into an already 100% sardined pack carriage so that we will be more like Tokyo! The 6.5 million population is a very serious proposition that no one, no matter how conceited he is, is in a position to guarantee that nothing can go wrong. For when it does, it will go drastically wrong. We have made all these great plans only seeing it from our own point of view and interest. I cannot imagine the conditions at the causeway and second bridge every weekend and how our neighbours will react to the massive jams. Maybe next time not only no sand or granite, but no causeway as well. Who knows, as the problem that a 6.5 million population can contribute to our slow and leisure pace lifestyle of our neighbour is yet to be fathomed. A Richard Lim Siong Kheng wrote to the ST, 'There ought to be smarter ways to grow our economic pie, for examples, through increasing productivity...In other words, emphasise quality rather than size in the Little Red Dot. Let us do things the smarter way and leave something for posterity.' This kind of problem solving is nothing different from increasing ERP charges. Like Ong Kian Min said, '...there is a "psychological limit" to how high the ERP rates can go before drivers "will be up in arms". When there is only one aorta in our system, all the blood must go through it no matter how hard one squeezes it. And this is elementary and does not need supertalents to see the problem and does not take so long for anyone to realise why increasing ERP is not the solution. Or as Seng Han Tong said, 'lets make ERP more effective and not more expensive.'

cpf top ups

Changes of CPF rules for top ups Why would people want to put in money into CPF for top ups of relatives when they could simply put the money aside or into their savings account? For the 2.5% or 4% interest? Is that good enough to put give up good money which one has full control and put into a fund that one loses complete control over the money? Once the money is in the CPF, CPF is in full control of the money and any changes to the rulings, if unfavourable, cannot be reversed. Once in, that's it. But it is a great scheme for Singaporeans who cannot manage their own money.

nkf story- chap 3 part 2

Richard Yong and Loo Say San were charge for failure 'to exercise "reasonable diligence" and casued the charity to pay excessive fees to an IT company.' The IT company wanted to charge NKF 9,219 man days spent. But the IT department disputed the claim and NKF agreed on a new figure of 5,310 mandays, a savings of nearly 50%. Under normal circumstances it should be a great job done. But in this case the former IT head of NKF, Jayaraman, actually computed the number as only 538 mandays. But after that Jayaraman was out of the negotiation when the final number was accepted, ie 5,310 mandays.

good employment opportunties for singaporeans

Enough jobs for Singaporeans Lets look at some of the numbers quoted by Eng Hen in the Today paper. 173,000 new jobs were created last year. And another 90,000 jobs will be created annually over the next 5 years. Singaporeans could only filled 30,000 jobs annually. And for every 'additional foreigner brought in has resulted in three jobs being created for Singaporean workers.' What does all these mean to the employment of Singaporeans? If Singaporeans can filled in 30,000 jobs annually, then out of the 173,000, 143,000 must be filled by foreigners. Am I right or wrong? And for the next 5 years we will need to bring in 60,000 x 5 foreigners or 300,000 foreign workers to fill all the new jobs created. Correct? So from last year, 143,000 and another 5 years, 60,000, we will have brought in 203,000 foreign workers. Now comes the happy part. For every foreign workers brought in 3 more jobs will be created for Singaporean workers. So how many jobs will be created for Singaporeans as a result of this 203,000 workers? 609,000 jobs! Wow, we will have more problems don't we? Singaporeans can only filled in 30,000 jobs annually. I am just drawing a simple computation from the numbers and reasons given. It is a happy problem for Singaporeans. No Singaporeans will be unemployed. Employers will be begging Singaporeans to work. There will be more pay rises when demand exceeds supply.

it will come, an economic slump

The Straits Times editorial raised a very pertinent question today as it discussed about the reemployment of the aged workforce. While the govt is planning to revitalise the employability of Dad's army, if another economic slump hits us, the first to go will still be the aged. And if we have 6.5 million people, the problem will be multiplied accordingly no matter how much assurance we are going to get. And with the world economy going in cycles, it is only a matter of when it will hit us again and how serious.