Singaporean Toh demoted at UN

It is a shame for a world organisation like the UN to suffer from the bickering of office politics and demoted an innocent man from his post. It is a dark day for the UN and for Ban Ki Moon. Andrew Toh must stand up and fight against the injustice and the Singapore govt must do all it can to see to its fair and just ending. Toh and the Singapore govt should take out a suit against the UN and all those involved in incriminating Toh. The whole episode is so disgraceful and reflected so poorly on UN and its Secretary General.

notable quotes - Bala Rajaratnam

'My plea is to prevent malicious individuals and aggressive lawyers from abusing the litigation process.' Bala S Rajaratnam In view of the rising legal cost and the lessons of Jonathan Lock, people are more concerned with how people and lawyers can abuse their financial and professional clout to the disadvantage of the poorer and weaker citizens. It is timely that there is a called for an alternative route for justice. Not the kind where you need money to buy justice.

Banning racist blogs and forums

Taking down racist blogs and forums Oooh, they are taking down racist blogs and forums in cyberspace. I agree that this is necessary as many of the blogs/forums are really instigating antagonistic groups to hate and violence. The only problem is that it is like swatting mosquitoes in your little room while millions of mosquitoes are swarming outside or in public places. How effective is that?

67,000 millionaires

67,000 Singaporeans have more than US$1m in assets. My immediate thought is that these millionaires should be exempted from the compulsory annuity scheme. Not only have they proven themselves to be capable of managing their finances and income, they surely have plenty of money to look after them in their old age. In fact any Singaporean with a net asset of S$1million should be exempted. Or those with half a million should also be exempted. Would they be or would they be treated like incapable and irresponsible children, unthinking and cannot manage their life time finances?

Good News Day

Today Singaporeans are greeted by another piece of good news. The 3 power companies will be sold to commercial operators who have promised to improve the system and bring down the cost. There will be another first in introducing a new meter and electronic payment systems. New meters will be introduced to measure usage. Meter cost has come down. Users will have to pay upfront to help them manage their usage. While introducing all the new processes and equipment, the new operators will have to bid with other interested parties for the gencos. Obviously they will have to pay a premium for the right to buy and operate them. Unless the existing gencos are going to sell them below cost, which is unlikely, they will have to invest quite a substantial sum initially. Their sunk cost and operating cost cannot be lower than the present operators. With all these costs and with profits in mind, it is amazing that they can reduce the cost of users and the present gencos cannot, and make profits some more. It must be the efficiency of privatisation and competition between 2 or 3 operators. You can be sure that it is a free market and there will not be any cartel or price fixing. Singaporeans can look forward to more efficient and cheaper power supply.