Judge I shall be

I reckon this is the most perfect position to be in life. Just sit in the office and waiting for people in trouble to come knocking. Then the judge will sit at the top of the bench and look down at everyone from the distance, totally innocent, calm and untarnished from the scuffles and mess in front of him. Better still, the judge should remain above and detach from the combatants. His role is simply to judge, dish out the punishment, who gets how many strokes, how much fines and how many years behind bars. Ideally a judge is best completely detached from earthly problems, and rightly he can remain blameless. For he is not involved, and has nothing to do with the problems people bring to him. In paradise, many in authority think and behave like they are judges. They may head ministries, corporations, administering big operating systems etc. And when trouble appears, they ride in in their 8 horse chariots and judge. Some will be fined, some whipped, some decapacitated. Then back they ride their chariots into the clouds to be near to god. Never mind if they are in charge of all the organisations, set missions, policies, directions, goals, systems, rules and regulations, they are blameless, like judges. Not involved. They are there to judge and punish. Even if they wake up late and turn up late is ok.

Preventing supernormal profits

Ho Geok Choo wanted to know why the govt did not set up an independent body to regulate electricity tariffs after the 21% hike. Iswaran's reply is that too much regulations mean that there will be regulatory risk. And 'If there's more regulatory risk, you must expect that electricity generating companies here will expect a higher rate of return than what they currently have.' And because we don't have independent regulatory body, 'Singapore Power...does not earned a "supernormal rate of return".' SP only earned $1 billion in profit last year. With independent regulatory body, they could probably earn $2 billion or more and the tariff hike could be more than 21%. Whew, Singaporeans are so lucky.

Milking to the max

When selling the flats during the first launch of the Pinnacles was already making a decent profit for the HDB, the additional $200k added to the second launch, when all the costs have been accounted called must be pure additional profit. And this profit is made from our citizens. And they called this subsidy. Then we keep wondering why our people did not have enough savings for retirement. The answer is simple. They were at the wrong end of the formula, 'Milking to the max'.

Australia continues to ban short selling

Australia must have seen the danger of short selling and is continuing its ban. And the Australian market is much bigger than ours. The US, probably the biggest market in the world, has now and then banned short selling. And we stubbornly or cleverly continue to allow short selling in our market. It must be good for us. I hope one day someone will have to account for this. And no one can claim ignorant of the damages short selling is causing to the investors and the market.

Thieves and Thugs

The thieves and thugs of today are not called Ah Seng or Ah Long. They don't have tattoos all over their bodies. They don't carry guns or knives. Very likely they come armed with a string of degrees from Harvard or Yale or some Ivy League Universities. And they are well connected and protected. Actually they are all very nice people. Dressed in designer suits and can be seen in all the high places. And for sure, they don't kill. They don't cheat people of a few dollars or a few cents. They only talked about millions and billions. They don't rob. They just reward themselves for their talents. Their rightful claims.