NUS and NTU ranking drop

The Times London Higher Education Supplement has ranked NUS and NTU at 33 and 69 respectively compared to 19 and 61 the previous year. This call for alarm. Our rankings have dropped! Though the reports still considered the two universities as world class, they are dropping and will drop out of the top 100 soon. Jialat. Actually, when looking at the criteria and how the rankings were done, it is a western biased and pseudo intellectual ranking that is as good as a straw poll from people on the streets. What is so great about being ranked high by using digits on number of foreign students or faculty staff or staff student ratio? What is important should be the quality of the staff, their academic achievements and also the quality of the students produced. What is the point of ranking as number one when the students are all but average?

Would we have our own subprime loan crisis?

By the look of things, our stringent financial controls, and the CPF savings, we should not have any subprime loan crisis. So we should be spared because of our prudent policies. Spend only when one can afford it. Don't anyhow spend and don't spend beyond your means. For this, the medical services must take note and not force people to consume more expensive wards and services beyond their means. Medical costs must be brought down quickly. I digress. Superficially we may think that we will not have subprime loan crisis. But if we recall the way the prices of HDB flats were pushed to these levels without the income to match the increase, many people are actually living beyond their means. The worst hit are those that sell their first or second HDB flats and upgraded thinking that they could afford it. But they forgot that their incomes are not upgraded at the same rate as the price of flats. And all it needs is a little financial crisis, losing their jobs, and they will be cooked alive.

Another saga?

While begging has taken a different form and scale, corporate governance for such organisations are changing at an unusually slow pace. Thanks to NKF that more is being done to clean up the management of such charitable organisations. When professionals take over the art of begging and transform it into a business concern, they somehow forgot to transform the management of the organisations and its funds by bringing in the same quality of professional management. So, while the process of introducing professional financial management to charitable organisations, we are going to uncover many unsightly things, so to speak. The public must be prepared and braced up for such an eventuality as more organisations are dissected up for the full view of the donors. We may need a campaign to psychologically prepare the people so that they are mentally able to withstand the tsunami coming their way. More psychiatric clinics and pyschiatrists need to be roped in to help the people so that charitable organisations are not disadvantaged and donations do not stop coming to them.

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.