Soaring rentals!

Rentals for housing and now shop spaces are soaring. Good for the property owners. Excellent investment foresight. A little shop in a choice location can fetch $20k or $30k rent a month. And the shopkeeper will need to pay for salaries, the cost of goods and other expenses. Who pays for all these costs? The first $40k or $50k are cost to the shopkeeper. He is going to make someone else pay for it. He is there to provide a service and to make a profit. He is not running a charitable outfit. Good heavens, it is me and you, the consumers!

The new social class

We have seen the reinvention of many social classes over the years. The 4Cs class, the landed property class, the club ownership class, the platinum card class, the car owning class, etc, all status symbols of an increasingly materialistic society. Soon we will have IR membership class to wave about. There is now in the pipeline the creation of a new social class that is going to worth a small fortune. This is the new privilege class called Subsidised Class. Membership can only be attained through a rigorous means testing programme and only the fittest will get through. At the end of it, the members will hold a card that entitles them to heavily subsidised hospital wards and can save them thousands of dollars per visit. I can envisaged that fee paying courses will be conducted for people on how to make themselves qualified for this subsidised class status and privileges. And there could be a secondary market for people to loan out such membership at a fee. For people can have all their CPF and Medisave savings emptied on a couple of visits to the hospitals. But with such a card, they would only need to pay a very small portion of it. But such privileges will be very exclusive. Very exclusive, and not many will be able to sneak through the stringent criteria. But many people will be fighting for it. Imagine the envious oohs and aahs when a member flashes a card at the hospital admission counter. It is The Card to have.

Curb skyrocketing prices or quit

Taiwan PM was told by his own party to quit if he cannot curb the skyrocketing prices of basic goods. The prices of food, rice, flour, eggs, vegetables etc are shooting to the sky. Quite familiar here. What is the reaction of the people? Forget about the party or parties. Other than some reports in the msm, I think Singaporeans are generally quite happy or resigned to their fate. Nothing can be done. Just tighten belt and move on. There will be no protest. Not even a whimper of unhappiness. Singaporeans are really tough in this way. Singaporeans will cope with the rising cost of living. No sweat. Life will go on. And they will elect the same party to power in the next general election with bigger margins, for a better and brighter future.

Returning to the nigthmares of the 60s

Parang wielding gangs slashed several youths in Clark Quay. And they laid in their pools of blood. One had his hand nearly chopped off. Such blatant and law defying violence are hitting the headlines more often than can be tolerated. What is happening to law and order in this island? What happened to the peaceful 70s and 80s? Haven't the triads and secret societies been rooted out from our midst? It is time to come down hard on these hardcore criminals before we ended being more infamous than JB. This will be the latest madness to chase away our tourist dollars. It is so easy to lose our reputation as a safe and peaceful city state. Bloody shit. Someone is sleeping on his job.

The stubborn idiot

Despite Abdullah's calling for less racial and threatening words or acts, Hishamuddin continued with his kising the keris antic, thinking that by insisting that it is something else, people looking from outside will accept and think that he meant no harm. This time he claimed that the keris is a symbol of power and unity. If this is the thinking of the future PM of Malaysia, then more trouble can be expected in the future. Why is it so difficult to admit that the kissing of the keris is a hostile act, or better, just don't remind people of it again, let it pass and move on from it? Even Syed Hamid could comment that leaders must 'exercise restraint and rationality.' What Hishamuddin has proven in his latest act is to entrench in the minds of the minorities that he could be a dangerous man to deal with. He is not in the mould of his more rational father Hussein Onn.