William Pesek's page

William Pesek has a one page column in the Straits Times to write all he wants about Asian political happenings. This is a very powerful instrument accorded to anyone in this little red dot, and much more to a foreign writer. William must have earned his right to such a great honour and privilege not bestowed to any local underlings. Such a situation can only happened in an Asian country where there is a dearth of local talent or a foreigner is so damn good that his contributions and views are very superior and useful to inform the locals. William is definitely very good. And he deserves to be given space to write. The pathetic thing is that the dearth of intelligent writers is not a joke but a reality. We can't find any to write as good or half as good as William. So by default, we need to give a foreign talent a whole full page to fill. And we have world class or among the top of the world class tertiary institutions and supertalents in our midst. Where are our local talents? Or they all have no views or no interest in watching Asian political events. All busily trying to make money in property speculations or figuring out how to make a fortune in the coming IR?

Make profit is no crime

"Dr Wong Chiang Yin, the hospital's chief operating officer, said: 'When foreigners walk into a hospital, it can be a little forbidding, so we hope the new centre will meet their needs.'.... As the hospital is located near Changi Airport, it sees transit passengers needing medical attention, and this adds to its influx of foreign patients. The hospital also actively recommends its services to potential foreign patients - through its network of 11 medical associates stationed in Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. But Dr Wong said that providing additional services like these was not an indication that the hospital was going all out to court foreign patients. 'It's not about making money,' he added. " Can someone talk some sense into this guy? There is no shame in making profits, especially from foreigners. Make as much as you can from foreigners and use the surplus to subsidise the locals. That should be the way to go. Restructured hospitals are profit driven. If they are not going to make profits from foreigners, are they going to make profits from locals? All restructured hospitals must be encouraged to compete for foreign patients and use the higher profits to defray the cost of local patients, or to raise the income of the medical professionals. Just make sure that locals are not turn away because they have no time or for lack of facilities. Increase the capacity if need be. Don't they know how to do business?

Sad for would be pensioners

If the retirement age is raised to 62, the would be pensioners would only be able to collect their pension at 62. If it is raise to 65 or 67, then it can be expected that their pension will only start at the respective age. This may be cheaper to the employer as the expected lifespan after that could be much shorter than starting from 55. Some may not enjoy seeing their pension at all. Big savings.

More ERPs

Come 1 Nov, 4 more ERPs will be up and another 5 on standby to be activated when traffic get congested. Also operation hours will be extended. Can't be helped. No other better ways. This is the most efficient way as it hurts the pocket. No need to pay super talents to manage with such brilliant solutions. Pay any Ah Beng $5k a month and he will come out with a solution as excellent as this.

Sin of wasteful ways

While we are all worry about having not enough money for retirement, applicable to the hardlanders only, we are still caught up in this wasteful cycle of spending our hard earned money thoughtlessly. And at times this wasteful spending is even a compulsion. We waste thoughtlessly on scrapping cars in good working condition in less than 10 years. We waste tearing down sound buildings just to increase the value of the next development. We waste by making HDB flats affordable depending on how much is the savings in the CPF. Those who have certain incomes must pay for bigger flats even if they do not want to. And we even waste by insisting that people who are more financially well off must spend more in paying for more expensive wards in hospitals. They cannot opt for cheaper C wards! MEAN testing. At the other end, the income level of these hardlanders are not increasing exponentially but at a snail pace while cost of living is galloping away. How to expect these people to save enough when the system demands that they spend according to affordability? Why is thrift not encourage but a lip service? Why do we sometimes hear the statement that thrift is good and that people should spend within their means but the system is against this? If we truly believe in savings, then we must not spend extravagantly, unnecessarily, and thoughtlessly. We need a change of mindset and encourage people not to spend if there is no need to spend. And our system should be redesigned to help people to save than to spend. Then there will be more money left. Why people have so little savings for old age when we are one of the highest savers in the world? Is it so difficult to figure out why?