More Parliament gems

Judy Mitchell must be told the brutal truth. If cannot afford to stay in 5 rm, downgrade lah. Go for 4 rm, 3rm or even rental flats. Live within your means and affordability. Simple. Now who is going to tell her that? Who is good at telling brutal truth? I am only good at talking about compassion, kindness, help the needy etc etc. But these are only rhetorics in cyberspace. Just talk cock only. Can't do anything for them. What, I don't have that kind of money, and that's the truth. And Lily Neo is fighting for the lower income group again. She is appealing for more help for them. She said we can't keep telling these untalented people to keep running faster. We need to train them and help them to upgrade. That's true. If they can, they would not need help anymore. But what do they expect, to become managers, CEOs or Ministers? Just kidding.

MPs scoring own goals

Unbelieveable, but the MPs are doing just that, questioning policies and happy mistakes in Parliament. At the rate it is going, we don't really need an opposition. They are definitely doing a better job than the opposition, or is there an opposition? Inderjit Singh looks more like the leader of the opposition bench. If they continue to do such a fine job, next GE everyone may be voting just for PAP. Now when will the Whip crack? When will someone stand up and say don't score your own goals? Actually it will be interesting for all the govt MPs to say aye and shut up and see what the opposition will say. It is likely that Parliament will be over in two hours. And everyone can go back to work and make more money. Don't have to waste time saying the obvious. But the obvious have to be spoken for two reasons. If they are raised and forgotten, like the housewives, then people will say, see, I don't hear any objections any more. The people are all happy and support the policies. After a few days everything will be forgotten. I also forgot who spoke for the housewives vehemently in the last Parliament session. Now everyone will not want to know about the housewives anymore. Correction, Amy Khor did mentioned about them again. Anyone else? Issues must be repeatedly raised and spoken to keep them alive or else face the fate of becoming non issues and passe. The second reason is that though they are obvious to many, to the decision makers, they may not be that obvious. Or they would not agree to the policies and decisions and schemes. That's how happy mistakes are made and why MPs got so many goals to score. And then there is the group that will say everything is affordable. I am going to stick up a column to quote the comments whenever someone said something is affordable from now on. That will be good for posterity. Then we can start counting the affordables and aggregate them up.

When bonuses are tied to profits

Where would these lead to? Essential services, transport companies, hospitals, schools and universities, etc, when the bonuses of their top executives, including staff, are tied to profits made, what would be the organisations' objectives and policies? Would the fees or prices of their goods and services ever come down? Coming down means lesser or no bonuses. So what? Profit for profit sake without looking at other intangibles or objectives can be very destructive. Just like managing a country for economic and monetary rewards and ignoring other values or the people's general well being, can lead to one certainty.

A $6.4b happy mistake

Some said it was pleasantly embarrassing, while some said it was an astonishing surplus. Some even praised it as commendable, far sightedness and prudence. Really? Ask those who have been squeezed out of their few dollars which could buy them another meal. To those who have contributed tens of thousands to this $6.4b happy mistake, they would simply brush it aside as a non event. For those who are adversely affected by it, would they take it as a joke and laugh it off? Inderjit Singh was pointed in saying that all the affordable increases have contributed to a projected $.07b budget deficit to a $6.4b surplus. But some offered that it was all because of the adjustment of the value of housing. It seems that it is very difficult to understand how a little affordable increases here and there when added up can become a little mountain. Is it that difficult to understand or too tedious to understand? Or is it that such little irritating problems do not deserve to be looked at as they are very time consuming? Better to spend time assessing the benefits of buying a 80ft yacht or a 100ft yacht. Now that is a pleasant problem to spend time on. For those who still fails to see how a few affordable increases can bring hardship to the people and lead to a happy mistake, they should be punished to watch 100 hours of Moses Lim and Jack Neo's comic sketches on throwing a few bits of litter now and then. The moral of these comic sketches is that a little bit here and there will soon add up to become a big big mountain of rubbish. Whether it is a happy mistake or a pleasant embarrassment, the high cost of living is not going away, the GST increase is not coming down, all the affordable increases will remain and the poor will continue to be squeezed. Must be very pleasant experience, like sitting in an Osim chair.

Huang Lizhen's hospital bill

The MOH has put up an advertisement on the hospital bill of Huang Lizhen in the paper. It started with the first paragraph as follows: 'For the past seven years, Ms Huang Lizhen has been in and out of hospital, chalking up medical bills that have since wiped out her widowed mother's Medisave savings.' Medisave wiped out! Later her case was referred to 'medical social workers, who helped her apply for Medifund assistance.' The Medifund covered 100% of her bill after subsidy. And they were grateful even though the mother's Medisave was already empty. For 79 days in a C ward in Tan Tock Seng Hospital for Systemic lupus erythematosus, the bill came to $52,000! Govt subsidy was 80% or $42,000. After subsidy, balance $10k was fully paid by Medifund. They paid nothing. Or they will be in deep shit since her Medisave was already wiped out. How many people can afford a $52k bill? And this is C ward rate. It could be higher if in better wards. It is more than $500 a day. That's what it costs for world class medical treatment. Please don't get admitted to C ward if you can afford it. Huang Lizhen and mother are so lucky. For those who are not as desperate as them, please make sure you have money, and plenty of money, to pay your hospital bills.