Step aside Tan Kin Lian

We have two heroes coming in to help the investors in the minibond debacle. Professor Hans Tjio of NUS will oversee the process at Hong Leong Finance. At DMG & Partners Securities, Kim Eng Securities, OCBC Securities and UOB Kay Hian will be Hwang Soo Jin. Both "will not be personally involved in the resolution and settlement of individual complaints. 'They will provide MAS with regular updates on the progress of the financial institutions' complaints review and will highlight to MAS any shortcoming in their processes as well as any issues that require regulatroy follow up,' said the central bank." This is reported in Today paper. Tan Kin Lian's role is over. Now the heroes will step in to finish the job.

Workers clapped after being retrenched

This is the headline of an article in the old media, 'Somthing to clap about' by Lin YanQin in Today. Workers of Chin Heng Garment Factory still found something to clap about after being retrenched. They were initially unhappy and angry and feeling quite emotional about being out of job. Soon they were clapping when the severance package negotiated over a month was improved. The workers greeted the news by bursting into an applause. This is a very positive spin on a depressing news. And the workers' morale is high and bubbly and looking forward to more challenges in good spirit, like oxens.

Singapore's answer to save the world

Singapore went to Davos with a solution to save the world from another financial meltdown. It has diagnosed the cause of the current crisis to the low pay of regulators and administrators in charge of Wall Street and the financial institutions. The solution is simple, pay the administrators and regulators at least as much as the bankers and fund managers and the problem will not have happened. The underlying assumption, according to my understanding, is that you pay for good talents. By paying the administrators and regulators as much as the bankers and fund managers, the supertalents will become administrators and regulators. And if they are paid even more, then they will be better than the bankers and fund managers. Now, how much will be enough to pay these supertalents? The bankers and fund managers are being paid hundreds of millions with the top three getting billions at the peak of the market. But there is one problem that I noticed. These supertalents of bankers and fund managers were being paid so much and they could not stop asking for more and actually resorted to frauds to continue to demand more and more pay. Would they behave differently if they become administrators and regulators? Won't they be the same greedy and unscrupulous thieves again? One thing for sure. If this is our solution, we must put it into practice first to show the world it works. The minibond crisis and the rubbish dump stock market are indicators that our administrators and regulators are not being paid enough. Let's pay them as much as the bankers and fund managers first. And when our stock market shoots pass 4000 points and no more similar minibond crisis, then we can tell the world that we have done it. We can solve all kinds of problems by throwing money at the problems.

Who is more guilty?

Wall Street and the American corporate world are in a big mess. And the whole world is suffering the pain. Who is guilty or more guilty? At the moment only a handful of big wigs are caught with their pants down. No, they were not caught. They surrendered to the authority, confessed their own crimes. The authority was sleeping! Or were they sleeping with the thieves? The wonder of it all, the real criminals are all enjoying their ill gotten wealth without any sense of guilt and not guilty of any crimes. The real criminals are the regulators and administrators. They created and managed a flawed system! And the rest took a ride on the flawed system and benefitted from it. No crimes, just mismanagement. The thieves are stealing from an open till. So who is to be blamed? The regulators and administrators are pointing the fingers everywhere except themselves. Who is to regulate the regulators? Who is to guard the guards? When the administrators and regulators are cock enough to let flawed systems to operate and the thieves to take from the till legally, or without breaking the law or the rules, where is the crime? It is time to hang the regulators and administrators. They cannot find excuse that they are not paid as well as the thieves.

Pass the hats around please

We need to create more jobs. I don’t mean creating jobs like cleaners and chambermaids. I mean real jobs that pay reasonably well. There are three ways to go about it. One, with our huge reserves, more jobs can be created with the money available. We can create more seniors and deputies positions, eg senior or deputy President to the President or senior vice Presidents, deputy to the vice President, senior Perm Sec, deputy Perm Sec or deputy to deputy Perm Sec. We can also have senior mayors, deputy mayors, or even create new ones like governors and deputy governors. The people have already accepted the practice of seniors, so it should not be an issue. Precedents have been set. It is a good precedent. A second way is to pass the hats around. Stop the ridiculous practice of one person wearing 10 or 20 hats. Pass the hats around so that more people can wear one or two fat hats. The greedy practice of several hats on a small head or a small head that thinks it is very big is unhealthy. Ok, I must be careful about this as there are not many people that are fit to wear big hats or many hats. A third way, and this concerns the filthy rich oldies. Many of the oldies are so rich that even without the income from their jobs they will have enough money to last a few generations. Let them retire gracefully to enjoy their wealth, to see the world and smell the roses. And let the younger and hungrier people take over their jobs. After all many are so feeble that most of the time they were on sick leave or fail to turn up for meetings or for work. We can spread a little generosity around and cast the net wider to share the goodies.