Greed in Corporate America

80% of the public, including 2/3 of the CEOs interviewed, agreed that the salaries of American CEOs were too high. Only 2.2% said it was too low. Understandable. The high salaries of American CEOs have been going on for too long. It is the worst kind of robbery, robbing minority shareholders of their real worth and the latter cannot do anything about it. What they need to do is to sack all of them across America and pay half of their existing salaries to the next in line or those young and eager beavers to take over. Corporate theft in the American style has been going on even in our squeaky clean island. And they did it all legally and legitimately by getting the boards to pass all the resolutions to grant them more shares, bonuses and higher pay. Oh, they will not call this robbery but legitimate rewards for their talents.

How much do you pay for your water?

1 Cu M is $1.17 Waterborne fee is 30c Water conservation tax is 30% of $1.17 GST is 7% The final cost to a user is $1.948 per Cu M. Cost, is it still 3c? How much is processing and administrative cost? Water conservation tax is 35c. GST is 8.2c. Total tax is 43.2c.

Good acts and good intentions

When too much goodness turns bad. That is how mankind will eventually destroy itself. That is how Singapore too will follow the same road. Today we praise the great achievements of medicine and technology to extend life. We live with great hope and exciting anticipation of life at 100. Thanks to our high standard and quality of life and health system. All these means one thing. We are defying nature, the law of nature in self renewal. Nature must wear. Nothing is forever and must not be kept forever. By extending life, apparently a good thing, we are creating more stress to our system. All these lives must be supported. They consumed energy, space and resources. Can our system take it? The world is dying, as they say. Climate change due to a growing population that only consume and destroy the earth's resources. How many people can the earth sustain before it finds it unbearable anymore? The world will not be able to cope with an incessant increase in population. Man has lengthen the self renewal process of life. And the world is fighting back. Natural disasters are sweeping across the earth to destroy what it cannot afford to sustain. We as a small country, will face the same fate as the earth when we over populate our island and burst at the seams. That is how we will end up if we keep on gourging ourselves. The success and big strides forward will quicken our own demise.

How to make quick and easy money

I mean how to make quick and easy money from Singaporeans. It is a piece of cake. Just sign up with a foreign party, form a company, create a beautiful catalogue of prime housing in a foreign shore, the best is Bintan and Batam. Then sell them to Singaporeans. In the process of selling, build a few units as show houses to lure more Singaporeans in and put in more deposits. Then when enough is collected, just fold up and disappear, with the money of course.

Taxi drivers touting!

What a shameless thing to do. Taxi drivers are touting and cheating foreigners by charging them high fares and not using the meters. Wow, Singaporeans turning into another kind of robbing. Why is it that taxi drivers are not allowed to rob their passengers? They are just doing it to earn a living to feed their families in the face of ever rising cost of living. What is wrong with taxi drivers trying to earn a bit more? When other people are earning by the millions, why can't taxi drivers aspire to earn half a million? Oh, maybe they don't have a piece of paper with a first class honours chopped on it. So they are undeserving to earn a million dollar. Oops, I mean a measly half a peanut. Are people envious of these low down poorly educated people who can earn a million or trying to earn half a million? Actually the taxi drivers are not robbing. They are entrepreneurs offering their services to a select group of customers. They are willing to provide a higher level of personalised service to these customers, like the high net worth clients of banks, premier banking, no need to queue and service with a specially created smile. Hey, it is willing buyer willing seller. If the foreigners did not want to take their cabs at their asking price, so be it. They did not put a knife at their throat to force them to take their cabs. It is not compulsory huh. No coercion. And they are talking of a pathetic $20 ride. In New York, London or Tokyo, they can easily charge $100 plus tips! Now compare this with the $30k compulsory savings in the Medisave, the $99,600 compulsory savings in the Minimum Sum, the akan datang compulsory annuities which is going to be another few thousands? Come on, give the poor taxi drivers a break. Let them make a few dollars more to have a bottle of stout or a pack of cigarettes after a day of backbreaking work. Free the market and let them charge their own prices. Service with a difference must come with a price. It raises the standard and quality of service. They may earn enough to have the luxury to go for personal grooming courses to serve their customers better. Dress better and smell better. This is just another way of looking at the issue. Or shall we accept the guiding principle that low down people must not be allowed to earn more money than the super talents? Only super talents can charge and demand whatever they want and low down workers must accept whatever that is being decided for them?