Wage trap and housing policy

The truth is hitting us faster by the days. Our workers' salary cannot keep going up like the PMETs. No matter how we try, the larger pool of hungry and equally adaptable workers in the world will compete with our workers for jobs. And there is no way we can keep pushing our wages up. In fact the trend is to push them down. How is this going to affect the cost of living here? Everything is up, gravity defying. Now public housing for 4 rm flats in prime area are costing $500k, 3 rm flats $400k. How can our workers pay for such luxurious public flats? As the prices of flats cannot come down or many HDB owners will lose the value attached to their only asset, it can be expected that more and more will opt for rental flats. How many working class young people can afford to pay for a $300k flat? It is time that HDB turn to building rental flats and the existing HDB flat owners can hope that there will be people with the money to buy their flats with a profit down the road. Look out for en bloc sales. These people will be cash rich to buy cheap HDB flats. Or they may upgrade to private properties with their new found cash.

Days of paying millions to employees over?

Other than fraud, con jobs, collusion, mismanagement, the other major cause of the financial breakdown in the US is the paying of crazy millions to the top management teams. This practice came out as a scheme among the top management and the board of directors, a case of 'I pay you and you pay me' at the expense of the minority shareholders. And the amount they were paying one another kept going up from tens of millions to hundreds of millions to a few individuals. And what did they get? A bunch of cheats and conmen doctoring the company accounts to reflect profits and roaring businesses, but actually an apple rotten from within. Employees are employees, even at top management level. How could these people command millions and millions while the organisations kept going down? But would this insanity stop and the paying of multi million dollar salary come to a halt?

Myth 200 - Workers need to be represented by worker's parties?

Can a worker's party not representing the worker's interest or with a membership of workers? Can a worker's party operates without trade unions under its umbrella? In every country, when a party calls itself a worker's party, it normally has a list of trade unions in its organisation. In paradise, it is very strange that trade unions are under govt link organisations instead of worker's party? You do not need a worker's party to represent the workers. This is a unique formula.

Telling the good stuff

This was easy in the olden days when things were either black or white. In the ever increasing complex modern world when grey is bigger than black or white, trying to say that things are white when they are not is going to be tricky. This is made more difficult by the higher literacy level and worldly wise population. Everyone can now see a rotten fish when they see one no matter how many layers of gold plating were coated over it. It thus takes a very brave man or woman to proclaim that something is white in a public forum or with international audience when it is not. Whew, what a task. For the people put in such a position, often it only compromises their own integrity and reputation as decent and honourable men and women. How could someone stand up on stage and claim, with a straight face, that there is no shit when shit is everywhere? Earning a decent living nowadays is not so simple. Righteousness, morality, decency will have to be sacrificed for the right to lead a comfortable life. I try to tell the good stuff as often as I can here. But I will look very fake if the good stuff that I claimed were not really good at all. So it is a very sticky situation. I can only tell the good stuff when they are really good to retain some credibility here. Similarly, I can only tell the wrong stuff if they are really wrong for the same reason.

Why an A Team will succeed

I posted on a hypothetical A Team with members like Tan Kin Lian, PN Balji, Leong Sze Hian, Goh Meng Seng and maybe Subhas Anandan to stand in a GRC in the next GE and I think they will get elected quite easily. I received comments that they may not really be that good. That I agree. How good is the A Team is relative as there are many better people out there to form even better A Teams. For the moment, a team like the above is the best the opposition has ever assembled. This team, if they could come together, could stand in any GRC and win. That's my assessment. I mean any GRC with no exceptions. No GRC team in the ruling party today is infallible or formidable given the current situation and climate for change. And the ruling party has done itself a disservice by painting their A Teams too highly, and with a pay package that demands that they perform like super human beans. Unfortunately they could not and came out looking like very ordinary. Given the high expectations and mismatch in perception and reality, the people must be very disillusioned with the A Teams. Any opposition party that could put up teams like the above will be a tough proposition for the ruling party to take on in the next election.