Boon Wan should go on holiday

There is an email circulating in cyberspace pleading to the PM to stop helping Singaporeans. With Boon Wan working so hard, he should also read that same email and take the message as addressed to him as well. He is just working too hard to help the Singaporeans which I think many are finding it giddying and must be wondering whether too much help is a good thing or a bad thing. The latest is a Health Promotion Board letter for health screening at a discount rate. Whenever I receive a call from a bank or a flyer telling me about a promotion or discount, I never trust them. The discount, no matter how much, will end up with you parting with your money. It is like a foodstall saying $2 a plate. You will end up paying more when you have to ask for more as the $2 does not give you what you want. Or a beauty salon advertising a hair cut for $10. Once in, you may end up with bleaching, perm, massage, facial, steaming etc etc, and from $10, the bill may come to more than a $100. Just don't help the people so much. Too much kindness can be repulsive.

Best way to help Singaporeans

There is nothing better than to have the best and able men and women to run the country. Let's go for the $10 mil quality of leaders who can then come out with even better policies and formulas to help Singaporeans. $3 mil quality is a bit jaded and does not seem to be good enough. We need the best and deserve the best. And we need real change, the meat and the bones as well. It will be unproductive if we pay $10 mil for the same meat and bones.

Pride and Nationalism

The engineered protest by the West during the recent Olympic flame run has rekindled a long forgotten passion among the Chinese youth. They were enraged by the attempt to humiliate China and sponstaneously stood up to defend China and Chinese interests. This is a new phenomenon from a people that have been humiliated for the last two centuries. They have found a new pride and confidence to fight back and to tell the West that they will not be pushed around. How this sense of pride and nationalism came about is to a great extent a result of the economic growth of China and the general well being of its people. There is now a renewed pride to being a Chinese and China. And this comes from the people itself. Some may say that it is supported and encouraged by the govt. There is some truth to it. But if the country is not governed well, will the people stand up to defend country and govt, even with govt backing? Would Singaporeans stand up and defend country and govt if the country is attacked? This is a strong signal of how the people feel for the country and whether they are behind the govt. What is the present mood of the Singaporeans? Will they stand up spontaneously for country and govt or will they join the attack? We have seen many criticisms in cyberspace and many strong negative feelings at the moment. Are these isolated and from a small minority or could they be willed away in the presence of a crisis or external threat?

Flogging a dead horse

Conrad Raj is tenacious in trying to rein in the abuses in corporate governance and the way independent directors are appointed. Today he wrote an article telling companies not to appoint cronies as independent directors. And he praised those independent directors who resigned when they saw things were not right. For this part I strongly disagree with him. The independent directors are there exactly for this purpose, to make right what they see is wrong. Running away is running away from problems or in army terms, a dereliction of duty and responsibilities. It is important and honourable and a duty for independent directors to stay on and right the wrong or if they could not do so, tell the shareholders why they have to leave. I am still waiting for a system that works to replace the present system when companies could appoint cronies as independent directors. How could we allow such a system to exist in the first place? And how could we allow it to continue to exist without doing anything to it? Beats me. An international financial centre could not come up with a better system!

Abusing Quota System

There is an article posted in www.littlespeck.com on the abuses of the education quota in Malaysia. What the writer said is that bumi students with very bad results, not even qualified for university places were not only admitted, but were also given scholarships. The saddest part is that they failed after 3 or 4 years in university, in engineering disciplines, when you really must have the academic knowledge to pass. What is bad about such abuses is not that money is wasted for a helpless cause. There are many very bad consequences. Universities and their degrees being discredited, university education being wasted, and the time of the students are also wasted. Why waste these poor students time in the university when they could be placed in an institution more suitable to their level of academic and skill needs? They could graduate with a useful skill to earn a living. If a piece of paper is all the govt wants to give them, just designate a third rate university and print the degrees for them. It will save a lot of money and the time of professors and students, and money for scholarships could be put to better uses.