Blogging is a waste of time!

Blogging, whinning, complaining, writing letters to forums to air your disagreements etc were a complete waste of time. This was the message I got in a discussion with some friends. Why bothered whether it was Low or Chiam or Sitoh or Eric making the announcements on the LUP? It was money spent for the good of the people. There was no issue or the issue was too small to talk about. Later I discovered why it was a waste of time. All these talks would be worth nothing, and nothing changed. Go and form an opposition party and take on the govt if you think strongly of issues or else get on with your life and let the govt do what they think best. If this is the kind of attitude that Singaporeans should adopt, then there will be peace in paradise. And everything will be well taken care of. There will be no need for the ST to spare 3 or 4 pages on the public housing issues today. In an article, 'Insight examines the six most hotly debated issues among house hunters today' by Tan Hui Yee, the following were discussed: 1. Are permanent residents driving up resale flat prices? 2. Are investors pushing up prices of resale flats. 3. Are new HDB flats really subsidised? 4. Are new flats affordable? 5. Is $8000 income ceiling too low? 6. Are leftovers flats really 'undesirable'? Though I would expect more insights from these articles than just what have been discussed publicly, it is good that ST officially dealt with these issues and gave it a wider coverage. And there was a letter from Lim Yuin Chien responding to Sylvia Lim's rebutt. What Lim Yuin Chien said is simply, 'Let's agree to disagree.' What this means is very similar to what I heard last night, that the govt will do it its way and you can disagree. But if you want to do it differently from the govt, make sure you form the govt, ie, form an alternative party and vote the govt out if you can. Otherwise, tough.

And we want our workers to be CBF

In order to be CBF, our workers must be cheap, work better and faster. Now there is a new call, not to cut the pay of older workers. Can the older workers be faster than the younger workers, better, possible. Then while the rest of the workers are expected to be cheap or cheaper, would the older workers also be cheap and cheaper? 3 old workers doing the work of 7? In the private sector when everything is about competition, when the money paid to the workers must come from somewhere, from the revenue or at the expense of profit, it is easier said than done to keep paying workers the way they are being paid. Unless of course the organisation can print its own money or money is not an issue. By all means, pay the older workers what they deserve and more, pay them pension as well, or gratuities for long service at the same time. Is there a contradiction?

What CBF?

What is CBF? Someone asked. It means cheaper, better and faster workers. Cheap and good, that’s what it means. How can cheap be good? Singaporeans only know that cheap means no good. You want anything good, you must pay for it. Good public housing, good market price. Good medical, high fees. Good govt, pay them well. If we are not willing to pay the price for it, we will get poor quality public housing, poor medical care and lousy quality govt. Can we really have good and cheap workers? But this is only one part of the equation. Can our workers afford to be cheap when housing is not cheap, medical is not cheap, govt is not cheap, cost of living is not cheap? Cheap worker and high cost of living is a ‘bao si’ or sure die combination. When housing, rentals and everything keep going up, how to get by if the pay is not going up? Ah, here is the secret. Cheap and better worker does not mean low wages. Our workers can expect their wages to go up. Productivity will be improved through mechanization or improvement in work processes. Or anyway, 3 workers do 7 workers’ work. It will mean higher productivity growth versus lower wage growth, but still growth, I think. Tiok boh?

'Ya1 Ban2'

Ha, the 2 words did not make any sense to many. Try to read it in Hokien. The second word should sound like 'barn'. They are used to describe the callous and unreasonable logic and reasons of the rich and powerful whose argument would always end in 'head I win, tail you lose', no matter how illogical their position is. Someone has used these terms to describe the LUP in Hougang and Potong Pasir. From the beginning I thought the award of LUP in the two opposition wards was to bring a message that the govt is neutral, fair and just, and will allocate national resources to all the tax payers equally, regardless of race, language and religion and the MPs they have elected. Such a message should rightly be received positively by the people in general. How is it that the LUPs in the two constituencies have ended like this? All the comments I have heard are like people being incensed, angry, unfair, highhandedness, no respect for the people's choice and many undescribable words that cannot be posted here. It is as good as a good PR exercise turning sour. It is like winning a battle and losing a war. It is better not to have the LUP instead. I think this LUP is going to cost the govt more votes in the next general election rather than to turn the tide against the two opposition candidates. Of course some of you may totally disagree with my observations and claim that the govt has scored big by bringing the LUPs into the constituencies, and the two rejected candidates in the last election, now the govt's appointed advisers in the constituencies, will now stand a better chance to be elected for their great effort and role in the LUPs.

A message that comes too late

Khairy Jamaluddin, the new UMNO Youth boss, has set a new agenda. He is calling on the Malays to stand up, have a new mindset and to lead Malaysia forward with compassion and magnanimity towards all races. He told the Malays to get rid of the seige mentality, that they are slow, backward, and needed to be protected, to 'civilisational confidence'. What he meant was that Malays must be confident of themselves and their ability to compete equally with everyone, with the ethnic minorities at home and the people across the world. 'For too long, Malays and Umno have been caught in a mindset that is negative and overly defensive....' Reflecting on this negative mindset, one wonders how a people who see themselves as backward, slow and lacking in intellect, be able to lead a nation forward? And that was what Malaysia was for the last 30 years under Mahathir. The latter claimed that Malays were stupid or less able than the rest, not sure if it includes himself. And if that is true, how then can Malaysia progress if it is being led by the less able? Would Khairy's new message see a more confident and self assured Malay step forward to face the world squarely, as well as their minorities, and to move forward with the rest of the world?