Would Wee Cho Yaw pay himself $20m bonus?

He owns the biggest bank here. The turnover of UOB is not less than Capitaland. The profits made by UOB were consistently higher than Capitaland. Why did Wee Cho Yaw pay himself a miserable $6m or thereabout when an employee in a public listed company could be paid $20m? My take is that in the case of UOB, there is ownership. When you own the company, when you know that it is your money, you will be more careful. You would not just pay away the profits of the company. If the top guy got $20m, what about the next 10 guys and the next 100 guys? Together, their bonuses will become a bomb, maybe $100m or more. The rot in Wall Street was exactly due to a lack of ownership. The Wall Street thieves and robbers literally robbed their shareholders of their wealth by paying themselves crazily. And the small minority shareholders got the crumbs and paid for all the losses should the companies go bust. The employee CEOs and top management staff will just send in their resignation letters and laugh all the way to the bank. This is the anomaly and injustice in public listed companies, where the employees just dipped into the coffers, legally, all approved by the board of directors. Very familiar isn't it?

UMNO will still be UMNO

I thought after the General Election UMNO will really reinvent itself to be more national than communal. And the PM to be also called for big changes to remain relevant. Yesterday's election of Khairy as the new UMNO Youth chief confirms that UMNO will still be the same UMNO. Nothing will change UNMO. It will be what it was and will be today and tomorrow. The kris was wave and kissed again. It was handed to Hishamuddin by non other than Khairy, who looks like having a higher potential to use it. Good luck UMNO. Good luck Malaysia.

What? Too much?

These seem to be the reaction of the public and the letters to the media forum. They are envious of the huge bonus that Liew Mun Leong has been rewarded. But what Liew got was all legal and just reward for his talent. Come on, what he got is peanuts compare to those in Wall Street or in Fleet Street. If we aspire to be a nation of rich billionaires, we must learn from Wall Street and pay the best talents their just rewards. Then only we can have more billionaires. I hope no one is going to call Liew Mun Leong to return his big bonus or a new law being passed to tax it at 90%. That will ruin our policy of rewarding real talents. All our talents will run away and we will end up as the net losers. In fact we should reward more to those who are underpaid when their responsibilities are much greater than Liew Mun Leong but getting less than him. Let Liew Mun Leong's bonus be the reference point to attract more super talents to our shores. Liew Kai Khuin wrote to the ST about the grotesque 700,000 pounds pension being paid for life to the former CEO of RBS. Why should it be troubling to pay him so much for life when his contribution and merits will be good for life even after he has left RBS? His contribution will continue, everlasting. And the public anger in the US over the bonuses paid to AIG was also raised. But we are different. We are making money, a lot of money! In the ST today it was reported that the homes of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced CEO of RBS, has been attacked. And the attackers warned that it was only the beginning. They called themselves 'Bank Bosses are Criminals.' What is the world turning into? People getting honest rewards, just because the losers think that the rewards were a bit too much to stomach and they want to attack them? The losers must be put in their place. They must be reminded that if they were just as good, they too would be getting the multi million dollar bonuses. Please don't begrudge talents being paid their worth. Can I have some crumbs?

To spend or not to spend

Like real, as if I got all the money in the world to spend, to help the economy. I was planning to go for a foot massage. But now I am not too sure. LKY said, "I've got economists saying you've got to change your system. Wall Street Journal has said, 'Oh, this won't work, consume yourself'. Four million people to consume and keep an industry that supplies the world with top-end goods - it's rubbish." If what we spend, no matter how much, is not going to make any difference, I think I better save my $20.

34 more subsidised hospital beds

This is the bold headline in My Paper. Because of rising demand due to population growth, about 1 mil more non Singaporeans, and an ageing population, 34 more subsidised beds were added to bring the total to 3,656. Shall I congratulate the MOH for such a big increase in number of beds available?