In absence of propriety

Why did the American financial woes grew so big and for so long? A lack of propriety, when everyone who is supposed to do his job, failed to do so. There was total negligence, no due diligence or worst, collusion. The consequences, the thieves and conmen had a field day doing what they wanted without any interference from the regulators. The first failure was the auditors. They were the first line of defence. Why are organisations paying so much for these auditors for not doing what they were supposed to do? And why is there, yes, why is there no one to watch over the guards? And the auditors are keeping very quiet because everyone is pointing the fingers in all directions but not at them. They must be held responsible and charge for the crime or as collaborators of the crime. And that includes guarding the regulators. Obviously the regulators were all sleeping or in cahoot with the thieves and con men. Or they might be beholden to them in some ways. Everyone got very rich, extremely rich in the process. And paradise is trying to emulate this great model of success. When people or organisations are responsible to do their jobs did not do them for some reasons, it is the recipe for disasters. The American lesson must be learnt fast and the flaws corrected.

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.