No French cap in Paradise

The beautiful thing about living in Paradise is that there is no need for a cap. Everything will just go up, no need for any cap. Get what I mean? In our paradise, we can defy gravity forever. But that is our unspoken tooth or truth. Where got gravity in paradise? So we can expect everything to go up, all the prices must go up. All the cost of living must go up. But have no fear, all our salaries will also go up. We can be paid more and more everyday, so that we can afford to pay for all the GST, ERP, and all the fees needed to live and get around. No country can be so blessed as us. But we are in paradise. We do not need to conform to the any economic or natural rules, principles or laws. We decide our own operational parameters. Affordability is never an issue. We will make sure that everything is affordable to everyone. The prices will be raised, and the income will also be raised to catch up with the prices. Why is it that a TV set, or a PC, or fridge, or a camera, no matter how many improvements added into it, will still be sold at about the same price in the world market, including paradise? Are these affected by globalisation, by competition from around the world? The quality and power of these instruments have increased by 100s of folds, but the prices remain fairly the same. Is it because of affordability? Should these manufacturers raise their prices to atmospheric level since their products are of super quality? They should as their products are definitely of super quality and created by their super talents. If they do not price their products to world class prices, how are they to feed their super talents? Or are they under paying their super talents? Aren't they afraid that their super talents would quit, go elsewhere to get more money? Do we see all the super talents coming to paradise? Or we are seeing only the third or fourth rate talents here? And they too must be happy to know that there is no cap here and may one day shoot to the sky. At the rate we are going, our workers can expect to be paid in tens of thousands in a matter of time.

Feeling tired?

How many of you out there have been working for 30 or 40 years and feeling tired? Or how many of you are looking at your ageing parents, still working, and looking tired? An average Singaporean will spend about 15 to 20 years of his life in the confines of a school, from nursery onwards, cramming life sustaining information. And then he is expected to keep working for the next 50 years or so. Is that what our life should be? Why is it that our poor parents and grandparents were able to retire and slow down, and still live on and why, we are much better educated, and richer, cannot afford to retire? It is a strange development indeed? The richer we get, the worst we become and the more we need to slog to keep ourselves alive. There used to be a pension scheme that is life sustaining. There used to be a CPF scheme that worked. What happens? Now the pension scheme is as good as gone or eaten up by inflation. And the CPF is never enough. So we need to work and work and work. When I say 'we' I mean those who need to work to keep themselves alive. Not those who do not need to work but who work for fun and pleasure, for ego or some personal reasons, or a very profitable way of passing time, but really do not need to work. When a person has to work to live, and seeing that his work is getting more meaningless, his income is dwindling, and he cannot stop work, it can be very tiring and depressing. It is no fun to work in this way. Anyone looking forward to live to a ripe old age? It is a tiring thought. It is a new rat race, a never ending rat race. Like walking in the middle of a conveying belt and going no where. Have we screw up our life?

Been there, done that, will do it again

Billions of dollars were wiped out of the stock market in recent weeks by the sub prime loan collapse in the US. Though far away, we were not spared. What then is this sub prime loan and can we learn anything from it? The gist of this mess is 'clever' financing and refinancing. Lending to high risk debtors to buy properties and repackaged the high risk loans into something else thinking that the risk will go away. This is the American version of loan shark financing, except more glitzy and sophisticated. But when interest rate soared and the bad debtors defaulted or cannot afford to pay, the house of cards collapsed. It all started by not only selling properties. The housing agents, property developers and their collaborators, all joined in to paint a glory picture of a property boom. Prices were raised higher and higher or chased up. Analysts and reporters, maybe even paid, wrote about the euphoria as if it will never end. And during a time of low interest rate, buyers were roped into the mad rush as if they would miss out if they did not buy then. There was the fear of missing out, the greed of making money in a property boom, the selfish manipulation of property developers and their accomplices, the media, helped to shore up the whole industry. Sounds familiar? Were the regulators involved as well? The funny thing about this is that we have been through it and beaten very badly only 10 years ago. And we are going through the whole process again, driving up property prices, writing about how high the prices will go and how big is the liquidity that will absorb all the properties, that it is a sellers market. And we add in the foreign buyers into the pot, plus the en bloc phenomenon, all add in to the fury of a property boom and bubble. Why are we allowing this bubble to grow only to see it go bust? Why are we so irresponsible? There are really two kinds of property buyers. The very rich, including the speculators, buying and selling for profit. The next is the genuine property owners, the Singaporeans who need a roof over their heads. This group can only afford what their income dictates. Property prices that shot beyond their income will always be out of reach to them. And if those who have vested interest in high property prices continue to fan and allow the prices to shoot to the sky, the genuine buyers will be the one to lose out. Because of the limited income of the lower income group, maybe 70 or 80% of the population, they just cannot participate in the private property market. This sector can only be supported by the rich and foreign money. Maybe we should bring more foreigners to buy up all the private properties. Will we be digging our own grave?

Asian affairs, western perspective

I just read 'The week in Review' in the Straits Times this morning. There was this whole page touching on issues in Thailand, Japan, Sino Russian relations and the Asian market downturn. Only the first article had the author's name under it. So it is clear who wrote the article. The other 3 articles did not specifically said who wrote them. But at the top of the page was the photo of Jonathan Eyal of the Straits Times Foreign Desk. So presumably they must be contributed by Jonathan. There is no doubt that Jonathan is a prolific writer and an expert in Asian and world affairs. And I enjoy reading his articles. But the approach of his writings is very similar to writers like William Pesek and Tom Plates, a western view, tinted, to reflect western interest, obsession and agenda. And this is the kind of material that readers are fed with practically everyday. And eventually they will used these material subconsciously to form their opinions and viewpoints of things, especially the negative perspective and agenda of the west on Asian countries. It would be more balance if national papers of Asian countries publish more of the views of their local writers on Asian affairs and give them an Asian favour. Maybe the Asian countries truly are lack of Asian talents to write about issues and matters concerning Asian interests. This must be the greatest failure of all their institutions of higher learnings. Can't even produce writers and commentators on their own affairs. It is a pathetic state of affair that today, we are still looking at ourselves through western glasses. When will this change?

Capitulation of Opposition Parties

All the opposition parties are silent and dare not breathe a word on the issue of whether Malaysia is an Islamic state. They were told to shut up and they shut up. I thought this happens only in the red dot. Only an East Malaysian Minister in the Prime Minister's office, Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok, dares to speak out on the issue. To him the minorities cannot live in a state of denial when things are obviously wrong. To him, if the people's representatives, the leaders representing minority races, refuse to speak up, then they must give up their positions as leaders of their people. The MCA and MIC have sold out their people in the past and are doing so in this issue. So are the other minority parties. Do they still believe that they have the right and moral authority to represent their people? As Malaysia progresses, certain issues must be discussed in the open, intellectually and rationally. Not by the threat of the kris and blood letting. If it is too much to debate in public, at least it should be debated in parliament among civilised men. Can this be taken for granted? And it needs not be telecast live to the people. Keeping mum and not talking about it is a betrayal of the people they represent. The Malaysian politics have been held at ransom by the ultras under threat of violence for too long. It is time Malaysia changes its course in the political development of the country and works towards a more progressive and mutually tolerant society among the various races.