The years that Asean squandered away

China made the decision to open up their economy in 1978. It was, till then, a closed and very backward country and economy. In 1978, Asean and several countries within Asean were already a mini economic powerhouse compare to the China. What happens today is that China and India have leapfrogged over Asean and are now two big engines that run the world economy. Where is Asean? Still stuck in its own bickering over national interest and pride but not moving anywhere. We laugh at the two giants, India and China, as slow, difficult to manage with gigantic population and infrastructure problems. They have got their acts together. Have Asean got theirs together? Hsien Loong called for more rapid liberalisation, opening up of the skies and economies. There were several attempts at building growth triangles but only to fizzle out like the opening of a bottle of coke. Only some gases made a little noise. And the world moves ahead.

The international dumb asses

If pay be the criteria for intelligence, these must be the dumb asses in international politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin S$113,000 pa French President Nicolas Sarkozy S$480,000 British PM Gordon Brown S$534,000 German Chancellor Angela Merkel S$544,000 Irish PM Bertie Ahern S$620,00 These dumb asses were so shortchanged that they didn't know their market values.

My take on the mean criteria

With means testing becoming a reality, let's guess what the criteria will be to qualify people for medical subsidies. Starting at C wards. First condition will be living in rental flats. Personal income not more than $800 pm and household income not more than $1,500. Also there must be no savings and the Medisave account must have less than $3000. For B2 wards, subsidies will be eligible to those living in 3 rm HDB flats or equivalent. Personal income should not be more than $1500 pm and household income not more than $3000. And Medisave should not be less than $10000. For B1 subsidies, only for those living in 4 rm HDB flats. Personal income less than $2000 and household income less than $4000. Medisave account should be less than $15000. I think these could be the possible conditions for means testing. Anyone in better conditions than these should be warded in B1 or A wards and pay accordingly. The poorer people will thus benefit from lesser people competiting for the subsidies while more people will have to pay the full rate, providing more subsidies for the poorer people. Brilliant right? What say you people?

Response to ERP rates

I watched a few interviews conducted by the media on TV last night. A couple responded in shock. How could it be, so high, it was going to affect their livelihood. Then another put it in another way. Too many cars on the road. And he recommended that the COE price should be raised to $80k. That would keep the car population down. The latter response is more in line with my earlier post. You either make car ownership so costly or driving on the expressways so costly, otherwise the congestion problem is not going to go away. But of course there are many other ways of minimising the problem and these will take time and cost. The raising of ERP charges or COEs are short term measures and have been short term measures for many years. The real solution is still awaiting to happen. And the 6.5 mil population will only make things worst.

Giving is stairway to hell

I was reading Sheralyn Tay's report in Today on what Charles Hampden-Turner said at the conference on National Volunteerism and philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility. In his speech he said everything that we need to know about the false assumptions and farce of charity and means testing. He does not recommend blind generosity, the singlemindedness to give and think that that is the road to paradise, a good and generous act. One side just give and the other side just receive, instead of rewarding success, we reward failure. And related to means testing is that the recipients will try to outdo each other to be the '100% certified slob' to qualify for handouts or subsidies. These people may even give up job opportunities or other means to help themselves as those means would make them less eligible to qualify. Thus there will be 'a race to the bottom.' And that was exactly what the public were slapped with during those charity shows when pathetic cases were paraded to show how bad their conditions were. Does anyone bother about the pride and diginity of these poor souls? Or poor souls need no pride?