Instant baby solution

Why is the govt struggling with the baby problem? Our baby growth rate may be lower, but why is there a need for more babies? We are not producing enough babies to keep the pyramid game going? Or is it that we are still chasing the 6.5 mil target? More incentives and more money will be considered to make parents start to reproduce again. The question is, reproduce for what? To keep the economy going, to keep the social and family structure viable? To keep the main core of the population local Singaporeans? Having more babies should not be just a simple case of economic consideration. It used to be a natural thing, get married and keep mating and producing babies. Today, having babies bring along a life long series of problems of maintenance and making sure that the babies are going to get a reasonable life when they grow up. The rich have accumulated wealth, bought houses in advance, to make sure that their progeny will have a comfortable life. What about the poor who are struggling to even feed themselves? Is it responsible to ask them to go ahead and produce recklessly without much thought of their children's well being? Many from the lower income homes will grow up handicap, unable to compete with the more materially well endowed children. Many will start life with a ball chained to their legs. Is this a good thing, producing cannon fodders? What about a promising future, a brighter future of hope and happiness? Many at the lower rungs of society will only continue to perpetuate their pathetic life of deprivation by bringing more children into this competitive and highly stressed country. It is very difficult for them to break free from the poverty trap they are in. If they so choose to have a couple of children, that is a choice that they have made for themselves in their given circumstances. But to push that choice into a non thinking quest just to produce more cogs for the economy, that may be quite tragic. We have done it for many years. Instant trees, instant population, and why not instant babies? Are we having second thoughts on the consequences of having instant babies that may lead to more instant problems when they grow up? Would such questions be unnecessary as we claimed that we are all migrants and having more migrants is only a natural thing, a good thing? We can have a more migrant and vibrant people in the future. And they shall be the new Singaporeans and they shall decide what kind of Singapore they want. No need to sweat the small stuff and coming out with more and more costly options. We have created a system that technically is fair to all but in reality put those in the lower income group in a very disadvantageous position. Why are we making things so hard, so expensive to raise a family by pushing up cost of living without a second thought of how it will impact the people and change their lives and expectations? Did someone say we create our own problems only to find superficial solutions for them?

Singaporeans are doing well

Despite the high inflation rate and prices of everything going up, Singaporeans are coping excellently without govt assistance. All they did was to tighten their belts a little, apply food substitution theory for cheaper products and kpkb to let go some steam. Then life goes on as normal. Actually Singaporeans were hit more with the introduction of more ERPs and higher tolls to pay. They took it in their strides. No problem at all. This is the strength and depth of Singaporean wealth and healthy income. And the workers would not be expecting much of a wage increase to compensate for the rising prices. Singaporeans should be proud of themselves to be living in the 5th most expensive city in Asia and 13th in the world, and doing fine.

More than US$10 billion in losses

"Temasek Selling Merrill Lynch Half or total of 87m shares have been sold off at a loss, according to US recorded filings. By Seah Chiang Nee Jul 24, 2008 Temasek Holdings has sold off half its ill-timed investment in Merrill Lynch - or about 87m shares, according to a mutual funds report on institutional trades on US stocks. The online report, MFFAIRS (Mutual Fund Facts About Individual Stocks), reported it sold off 86,949,594 shares (50%), leaving a current holdings of 86,949,594 shares (50%), according to the filings made public.... At that price Temasek would have suffered a loss of $17 a share - or a total loss of about US$1.48b for the 87mil shares.... Huge paper losses The disposal leaves Temasek Holdings and the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) still holding substantial parts of big troubled Western banks. Its remaining investments in UBS (Switzerland), Citigroup, Barclays and Merrill Lynch - at an original cost of US$21.88b - have declined on by some 47 percent in value. That is a paper loss of US$10.28b. However, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had said these investments were made as a long-term strategy of 30 years...." The above was extracted from www.littlespeck.com Murphy's Law working? Things that can go wrong will go wrong? When I first posted on the acquisition of these top international banks, I was a little optimistic that this was a god sent golden opportunity to be a big player in the internation financial market. I was also expecting that enough groundworks were put into it and the risk factor of this turning bad has been factored in. And should the investment becomes a bad deal, the losses are limited and we are protected from digging a big hole for our reserves. I am feeling very depressed now. It was a huge investment, an opportunistic one as someone has called it, but betting with such a big sum of money cannot be taken lightly. Didn't the financial experts cover their arses just in case it goes like what we are seeing? In stocks we always talk of trading in short term but often we are caught and short term trading turns out to be a bad long term investment that could eventually melt away. This is going to be a really long term investment now.

TOM is flawless

News reporting by the TOM is as flawless as you can get. They have been impeccable in their reports on govt policies, what political leaders said, or on national issues. It is tough to find them being critical or taking a dissecting knife to cut them to pieces to show just a little flaw. Generally, everything is flawless. I am not sure about reporting on other issues or on alternative parties and their members. But glancing through some of the criticisms in cyberspace recently, I think TOM must be good at critical analyses that naturally will incur the wrath of netizens. The drawback of a flawless TOM is that the flaws will be left to the netizens to expose and report on. And netizens are never kind in writing about things they are unhappy about. The division of roles will continue. The more flawless one side is being painted, the more flaws will be repainted in cyberspace.

Money babies

Money solves everything. Have babies, more babies. We will give you money. No one wants to know why must have more babies. No one wants to know what life will be like for the babies when they come. Having babies is no longer an emotional or sentimental thing. It is about got money or no money. It is not about loving the children and giving the children a life that is worth living. No need to think about such things. How much you need? Tell me how much you want for each baby you produce. Very clinical. Very economic. The state needs your babies. For what? Come to think of it, it is better to produce babies for money. At least there is a reason to do it. Many produce babies without knowing why? No reasons, just keep producing.