No need foreign talent!

Then we have Mardan Mamat. Now we have Lam Chih Beng. Chih Beng won the Volvo Masters in Bangkok. These are our local talent heroes. Shall we continue to spend millions on foreign talents or use the same money to groom our own local talents?

Upgrading your citizenship

Singaporeans are feeling that the value of their citizenships has been violated. For the more sophisticated international citizens, they are constantly upgrading their citizenships to a better one. From a third world citizenship, the first stepping stone is to go for one that is easy and fast to get. This is the citizenship from paradise. The paradise citizenship is a passport to many better countries. A few years in paradise, plus working experience, and maybe upgrading the educational qualifications as well, these new citizens will be ready for their next upgrade, likely to Australia. And they will keep on upgrading, to UK and finally to US. This is the prized citizenship. Once they have attained this high level of citizenship, they can than ship around the world as the privilege citizens of the world’s superpower. They will call themselves Americans and may revisit their roots, their country of origins, as the successful entrepreneurs coming home. Or they may return to paradise as PRs while keeping their American citizenship for protection.

Jokers in Macpherson

Why would the residents of Macpherson asked for free public transport, free travel in MRT and buses! What kind of mindset is that? It shouldn't be asked at all. And Raymond Lim was right to tell them off. Running the trains and buses cost money. If free, then money must come from somewhere to pay for it. The people must be sensible when asking for help. Better not to actually if they have a choice. Any money given to help must be taken from somewhere. When someone is being helped, someone else has to pay for it. The $200b reserves cannot be used for charities unless the situation is so bad. No one can anyhow spend the reserves to help the people.

The devil and Bernard Madoff

By Spengler Now that the whole horrible truth has come to light, I have no more reason to conceal my true identity. I am Bernard Madoff. Well, not really. But I wish I were. Few Americans have done more to punish stupidity, pretension and complacency than Madoff, whose apparent US$50 billion swindle calls to mind the caper by Mephistopheles in the second part of Goethe's Faust. The fictional devil persuaded the emperor to issue paper money against buried treasured yet to be discovered.... Most gratifying is the fleecing of the rich and famous - director Steven Spielberg, producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and even actress Uma Thurman's financier boyfriend Arpad Busson got stung, along with a list of supposedly savvy investment firms. The man deserves a medal. Deplorable, to be sure, is the ruin of hundreds of families who entrusted Madoff with their life savings, not to mention charities and school endowments. Call them collateral damage.... The very rich believe what F Scott Fitzgerald said about them, that "the very rich are different from you and me". Serried ranks of lawyers, accountants and financial advisors surround them and keep them from harm. Madoff proved otherwise, making a few of them into paupers and humiliating a very large number of them. Not because of what they do, but because of who they are, the very wealthy consider themselves above the fate of ordinary people. They know the right people, they join the right clubs, and they have access to the right advice.... Madoff has given Americans a lesson in humility that is cheap and painless by comparison. America's elite - the people characterized as "one-trick wizards" who lived off leverage (see Obama's one-trick wizards, Asia Times Online, November 25, 2008) - turn up as a self-satisfied, feckless gang of incompetents who could not spot the wolf within their own sheepfold.... If that sounds deluded, what shall we say about hedge-fund investing for the masses, who believed that American home prices would double every 10 years, as the National Association of Realtors continues to claim in television advertisements? Perhaps they should call themselves Sur-realtors. Madoff offered small change compared to Mom and Pop America, who put 10% down on a home that appreciated 10% each year, for an annualized return on capital of 100%. I copied the above from SingaporeKopitiam and have deleted parts that were irrelevants. The leftovers are pertinent points that we cannot afford not to know before another MadeOff happens here.

Who is the devil?

Singapore-in-crisis The new heroes In these times, it is not the elites that that deserve mass public accolade - but the simple food hawker who keeps his fare down. A tribute to them from Seah Chiang Nee. Dec 20, 2008 IN TODAY’S crisis, what group of people do Singaporeans most likely accept as their regular heroes – politicians, company CEOs or bankers? Answer: None of the above! I believe it is the simple food hawkers who keep their prices low in adverse conditions, something that exerts a major, repeated impact on every family. Let me explain my choice. Recently, I was attracted by a queue in front of a suburban hawker stall that was selling breakfast at a price I thought had long been extinct in Singapore. An overhead sign reads “Economic Beehoon (rice vermicelli) @ S$1.60”, a simple, nutritious dish that included a fair portion of vegetable and an egg. During these harsh times, with the cost of living at a 26-year high, vendors who sell food at this price are few and far between. They have become Singapore’s new unsung heroes... The above is part of an article posted in www.littlespeck.com by Seah Chiang Nee. When the hawkers can think of holding down their prices at times like this, mind you, they are talking about saving a few cents, taking a little lesser from the people, how would this compare to the $180K price hike of Pinnacles Duxton by HDB? And HDB said it is fair, the fairest! And many Singaporeans agree that what HDB is doing is fair. Unbeliever, but that is how these Singaporeans believe in. The only reason for people to think like this, is that they must be benefitting from the inflated prices in some way. Just ask a simple question. Who is the main cost of high inflation and high cost of living?