Tempering with land sales and property prices

The govt is withholding the sales of land for the moment as demand for properties have fallen. That makes good business sense. Sell when the demand is high, to command higher price and also to prevent prices from escalating. Very logical. A letter by Ee Teck Siew in Today questioned the tempering of the supply and demand of land as it will artificially prop up prices but will not allow prices to fall to their real values. His reasoning is that people are complaining that properties and rentals are too high. Shouldn't we let the market determine the price? We have a free market don't we? Now property owners will be up in arms against him. How can he suggest that we let property prices to fall? My property is all I got, my HDB flat is all I got. But the young who are looking for a cheaper flat will be supporting him. Ya, let the market decides the true value of properties. Stop meddling with supply and demand. We cannot buy expensive flats at sky high prices. Let it drop the natural way. Who is tempering with the free market forces?

Looking for an Ethics Committee?

The Bioethics Advisory Committee(BAC) does not agree that women who donate their eggs for research should be reimbursed except for expenses like cab fares, loss of earnings and loss of time. 'They should not, however, expect to be paid for the inconvenience, the pain they undergo, nor the risks involved in egg extraction.' BAC said. The procedures involved in egg extraction go something like this. Women go to hospital daily for 2 or 3 weeks, undergo tests and hormone injection to harvest their eggs, put on sedation and needle injected to remove eggs in a 20 minute operation. I have seen how guinea pigs were handled in the lab. Not much difference. And it is ethically correct that women should be carefully scrutinised and those who gave their excess unwanted egg should not ever think of being reimbursed. The BAC is very clear about using money as an incentive. The amount reimbursed should not be so big that it becomes an inducement. Inducing people to do things with money and more money is unhealthy and unethical. People who are induced to do things because of money are money minded, to say the least. So as for the Ethics Committee that I am calling for yesterday, look no further. The people in the BAC are just the right people to sit in that Committee. These are ethical people that will not be induced by money to do unsavoury things. PS. If I am a woman, I will demand my price for the trouble that I have to go through. And if my genes are of graduate quality, I will demand a ransom for them.

An Ethics Committee is needed

We may be transparent, not corrupt and have no guanxi to worry about. But we still have serious flaws in terms of ethics and morality in the way we do business. Unless we are saying that in business, ruthlessness to make profit is the right way to go forward, then we should not even waste time listening to the victims of minibonds and notes. They did not do their homework and became suckers is their own fault. I am still puzzled that if their cries were not heard, if the people’s hero did not stand up to organize them to take on the financial institutions, will it still be business as usual? That ethics and morality can go into the longkangs? That the minibonds and notes and other toxic products will still be sold to the unwary? I have encountered many cases of unethical conducts in organizations. Some I have fought and dealt with. Some are still waiting for the right opportune moment to do battle. Many corporations stink of lowly creatures in their midst. What we may need now is an Ethics Committee to be appointed in big organizations, private or public, to deal with unscrupulous management who just care for the bottom line and their perks and bonuses. It is a sad call but a reflection of how far down we have gone in decency and respectability. And please, these committees must be made up of people that do not have any incestuous relationship with the management. They must be steadfast and with a conscience to do the job they are assigned to and not be beholden to the people who appoint them. To be real, this is just fat hope.

Foreign workers indispensable?

Shanmugam is emphasising on the importance of having foreign workers again, as if they are indispensable to our growth and viability as a country. Yes, I agree, we need foreign workers, at least to upgrade the depleted and poor gene stocks we are having today. Then the question is how many and how fast? We are not a continent like Australia or the US. We are just a little piece of rock. We cannot keep filling this rock with more people. When shall we stop? 5m, 6m, or 10m? And when we reach these numbers, will we keep adding on? Don't get too ambitious about how big we can be. Just like our financial centre, it has limitations because we are just small. I wish I can type this word small in size 1 to emphasise how small we are. Don't get carried away by pushing for more foreign workers and growth and growth. There is a very heavy price to be paid.

Selling Alaska

Does this tickle your senses and thoughts? The Russians sold Alaska to the Americans for quite a sum of money in those days. By now the money would have been spent and lost. But Alaska still stays, maybe in perpetuity, as a state of America. How much should the Russian price it to make the deal worthy of the land that will be there forever? We have our own equivalent of selling Christmas Island to Australia. Accepted that it was all a British deal and there was nothing we could do about it. The moral of the story is that you do not sell your land, the motherland, away for cash. Cash disappears or becomes worthless, or diminishes in value. The motherland is forever, there, as an inheritance for the future generations. I saw this advert yesterday of this beautiful island called Sentosa Cove. I wish I have the money to buy a unit there. What saddens me is that it is for sale to foreigners. Do we need the cash? Do we need to sell the limited motherland that we have to foreigners for cash, like selling Alaska? Even the Indonesians have better cow sense to lease their lands to foreigner for only 30 years. As a temporary short lease, I have no problem with it. But to sell our inheritance away, my god, what do we have left for our future children? Or are we preparing to migrate to the moon when we have sold off everything?