Educating on the Inevitable

The old must die. That is a certainty that no one can escape. When the body ages, all the systems must fail, and all the regenerative and defensive systems must break down. That is life. We need to educate the people on the inevitable. We must educate the people that the road to the beyond is not something to fear or to delay at all cost. The people, especially the less educated and enlightened masses, must be assured that there is nothing in dying. It is a natural path to take. It is good to live as long as one is healthy and able, and with the finances to keep life going in a comfortable way. But if health does not permit, or finances are drying up, and when age and sicknesses catch up, there is a time to let go. When the people have been taught to expect the inevitable, there is lesser fear of death by old age. There will also be lesser worry about saving not enough for old age and the expensive hospital bills. There is no need for expensive hospital bills. Why should a lonely, homeless, penniless person, with all the body systems breaking down, insist on staying alive and paying a ransom to the medical profession and institutions to remain in that pathetic and useless condition? Would it be better, if he still have some savings in his CPF or Medisave, to use it to make his life more comfortable, enjoy his few remaining years with the food that he misses or the wine he wants to taste and live life to the fullest instead of stinging to keep all the money to be given away for the medical care givers to splurge on themselves? We must educate the people to save for their own comfort and enjoyment and not to feed the medical bills. Up to a point, there is no need to throw more money away to pay medical bills when the effort is futile.

Japan, the military demon awakening

Despite all its claims of being a peaceful nation, the Japanese have been quietly and steadily reviving their militarism and are eager to tell the world that the old Japan, military supremacy, is back on its feet. The Japanese military build up is anything but small. Its armed forces are probably bigger than the Chinese in financial terms or at least not too far off. It could even take on the two Koreans combined if necessary, and China, with the Americans behind them. That is how powerful the so called Japanese Self Defence Force is. And like Taiwan, they are slowly changing all the names from a Self Defence Force that cannot be deployed to conduct wars outside Japan, to a normal, and a military machine to wage wars against other nations. Its constitutions too have been amended. And the regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and the drumming up of military sentiments and past glories, including rewriting history books, revealed the real intention of the Japanese. Iraq was a stepping stone to test the water. And with the Americans controlling the agenda, the world kept quiet and allowed Japanese troops to be deployed outside Japan. Now that the taboo is over, the next and more aggressive posturing will be Afghanistan. The Americans are goading the Japanese to go along as a warring partner after Europe have given up on them. Now it is left only for one war mongering nation to join hands with another war mongering nation to prove how capable they are in the conduct of war. Afghanistan is the new battle ground for imperialist forces to quell the resistance. Afghanistan will be the new burial site for young Americans and Japanese soldiers. Japan will see their first war casualties after the Second World War in Afghanistan. Two eager beavers who see military supremacy as the absolute goals for their nation, and for the egos of their political leaders. When the rest of Europe and Asia were devoting their resources and energy in the peaceful pursuit of trade and industry, America and Japan are making plans for more wars. Rice and the Japanese Sushi are in serious discussion on how many Japanese troops should be deployed in Afghanistan. Did the world see another Hitler and Hirohito in the making?

Myth 157 - The American Financial Myth

What goes round will come around. The Asian financial crisis that battered Asian economies and made them look like little boys in the world of high finance, and making the West looked like school masters having a thing or two to teach the unsophisticated Asian govt, was a humiliating experience to say the least. And IMF came around, with the Americans in charge, dragged the little Asian boys by the collar and cane on the other hand, and reprimanding, these are the things that Asian govt must do. No buts. Asian govts were told to open up their books, revealed all the bad debts, more transparency, more regulations and controls, no more subsidies, closed down badly managed financial institutions, basically, to get their straw houses in order with strict financial control, thrift and prudent govt expenditure. The Asian economies were badly managed, or Asians just could not manage them and needed the expertise of the West to clean up their acts. It is time Asian govts pop over to Washington and see what Asians can do to help the Americans. They have badly mismanaged their financial institutions and are literally broke. Not only the sub prime loans but also huge trade deficits and wild and unrestrained spending. How about Mahathir going there, representing Asian financial institutions, carrying a bag of goodies and a cane and telling Bush to pull up his socks? Imagining Mahathir telling Bush to rein in all the bad debts, closed the loss making institutions down, tighten belts, no more deficit spending, no more money for wars, and more regulatory controls and transparency? And if all these still fails to bring back the American economy to health, Mahathir can teach them to stop the greenbacks from trading and fluctuating freely. Fix the exchange rate for the greenbacks, institute currency control and stop speculations. That would be the American nightmare. What happens to all the world class financial gurus? How could America's financial institutions be so badly mismanaged and allowed to go on for so long? Did they know what the hell was going on or do they know the fundamentals of economics? Cheap loans, high credit risks, deficit budget, are all the ingredients to a major economic crisis. The next thing that will come around are the diseases on livestocks and natural disasters that the Asians are experiencing. You cannot run. It will come around.

Preventing a meltdown

Across the world, all the central banks are pumping money into the economy and stock markets to avert a meltdown, except for those who have delinked themselves from the American capitalist system, eg the muslim states and Myanmar. What an irony. They are saved from a world system that is built on greed, exploitation and mismanagement by the Americans. And the Americans are pouring good money to chase after bad money, US$38 billion in the last few days to buy up bad sub prime mortages. When the fundamentals are wrong, it will go badly wrong. Spending and living on credit without thinking of repaying, or extending credit to unworthy customers, like our Ah Long, are awaiting a disaster of unimaginable proportion. The Ah Longs will find all ways to recover their loans. The Americans think that there is no need to recover these loans and will keep refinancing them over time, just like their trade deficits. Can it last? While the Americans were deceiving themselves into the sub prime mortgage industry, the bad thing is that they are exporting these poor credit risks to the rest of the world. Many unsuspecting countries and funds were lured into investing in such mortgages. And Murphy's Law was waiting to prove itself right anytime. Dow was down about 200 pts last night but managed to crawl back to lose only 31 pts. What a close call.

Myth 156 - Saving not enough

Singaporeans, at least 80% of them, are having a nightmare that they have insufficient savings for old age and retirement. Why is there so much hype and obsession about savings? Insufficient savings have been an issue as old as prostitution. The people of the world have insufficient savings to retire like kings and queens. But many will still live and survive even with little or no savings. The present assumption is that everyone must retire with a huge nest egg, scrimping from their daily needs, so that when they retired, they will be richer and have more money to spend than when they were healthy, young and working. And there is also this assumption that the cost of inflation will outrun all their savings and they will never have enough. Another part of the equation is to take away all family support and the asset esp the HDB flat that will also become quite a bundle with inflation. And of course when all these oldies are old and feeble, they need to spend more to live like healthy young things with a growing appetite to spend and party. And now people are encouraged to work for as long as they are alive. Actually as long as one is able to find a job that one can work till one drops dead, there is no need for savings. The longer one works, the shorter one has to live on one's savings. So the lesser savings is needed. If only more jobs can be created for the oldies. Who needs all the pretty young salesgirls or salesboys when these jobs can be done by granddads and grandmas, and at lower cost? Singaporeans are over saving, and for what? Oh to feed the ever increasing hospital bills and other cost of living.