Bring back the law to hang horse thieves

The financial crisis is stabilising and things appear to be settling down. The banks and financial institutions are nursing their wounds after trillions of dollars have been thrown in to save them. But the thieves, conmen and fraudsters are still intact, still in the game, stealing from these organisations. The banks can afford to fail and go bust. But nothing will happen to these thieves and their collaborators. How so? They are so talented that whatever that they are stealing from the organisations are legal and contractual, approved by the Board of Directors who in turn are paid handsomely by them. Brilliant. Whatever that will happen to the organisations under their watches, the thieves, conmen and fraudsters will remain free, respectable, above the law, and very rich. The APEC meeting is in town and one of the first recommendation coming out is on how to save and protect banks and financial institutions from going down. The wise men and women have proposed a long list of do's and don'ts, to tighten control and procedures etc etc. Someone even suggest that banks should buy more insurance to cover their positions. They forgot that insurers can also go bust. And who is to insure the insurers. But the most important element they forgot to safeguard is the thieves, conmen and fraudsters. These thugs are allowed to continue to do what they were doing, to enrich themselves by robbing the banks and institutions in their control. The wise men and women in town seem to have forgotten that there is nothing wrong with the banks and financial institutions but the people managing them and robbing them. My simple layman recommendation is to reintroduce the law against horse thieves. Hang them and confiscate all their ill gotten wealth and return them to the organisations they brought down. That is the only insurance against these thieves. They must be held accountable and be made to face the ultimate punishment. Nothing else will work. The thieves, conmen and fraudsters are working within and inside the system. Where is the resolve to clean up the system? Or are the thieves, conmen and fraudsters still at work and having a say in all these recommendations, to cover everything except them?

Panic button or election fodder?

Not too long ago, the developers were trying to sell the line that 1000 psf properties are cheap and could even go higher. They knew their sums. More foreigners, limited land and limited supply, sure property prices must go up. Then some quarters were extolling the great virtues of our housing programme and how lucky we are compare to the mickey mouse flats and shoe boxes for rats in Hongkong, and selling at 3 times our prices. The message is that housing prices will keep going up and the sizes of flats will shrink. That is the future of Singaporeans. And there were quarters telling the people that public housing prices are affordable and good value for money. And supply is not a problem. Then a few days back, Chok Tong and then Mah Bow Tan came out to assure the people not to panic, don't rush in to buy, the govt will provide more affordable housing by putting up more land for bidding. It is like going to the toilet and the flats will be out in a few minutes. The MAS chipped in yesterday to warn of more measures to curb speculation if necessary. This is turning into something quite serious. Is all these panicky measures necessary? Looking from the positive side, Singapore has more than 800,000 units of public housing alone. If the govt could relax the sub letting rule and let all public flat owners to sublet their flats to foreigners, all Singaporeans could be instantly turn into landlords. In such a scenario, there is no need to build more flats. In fact the flat owners will be begging the govt not to build more flats. Squeeze the supply so that their flats can be worth $1m or $2m. Then they have the options to sell them or sub let them at higher prices. And all Singaporeans need not work anymore, just live on the income of their rentals. We will become a land of landlords. And we can increase the population to 8m and the people will be asking for more to increase the demand for rental flats. Foreigners will all be welcome. No need any campaign to be nice to foreigers anymore. All the flat owners will live happily with the foreigners as their tenants. And we will be number One again in integrating foreigners with our citizens and they all live happily together, under one roof. Won't that be nice?

Another nail in the coffin of the American Empire

The Americans have just passed a health bill amounting to US$3 trillion to provide health coverage for the poor Americans. This looks good, generous and a pro people bill. But it does not address the causes of the high medical cost. America is just feeding the greed of the people in the system, from the medical professionals to the insurers and the lawyers. They are the ones who are benefitting extraordinarily from the poorly managed health system that generates billions into their pockets. Unless America stamps the extravagance in medical/legal/insurance cost, it is an exercise in vain. The hole will be bigger and bigger and will drag America into more debt. Now there are two big black holes, the financial system and the health system.

No greed in the animal kingdom

My experience in watching the animals and birds at Sungei Buloh told me one thing, there is no greed in the animal kingdom. The crocodile will not kill more than one prey. It kills only when it is hungry. So are other predatory animals. Even the stray cats will not kill unnecessarily. And the birds do not build more than one nest. They are contented with just one nest. The only specie that exhibits greed to the extreme is man. They not only want $10m, but $10b or even more if they could get their hands to it. And houses, the more the merrier. 10 houses, 20 houses or 30 houses, there is no limit to this acquisition. There is no such thing as enough in the mindset of man.

A timely intervention

This incident happened about 40 years ago, when good men were in the govt looking after the welfare of the people. In the heart of the Singapore River was all the trading activities, and a few rice merchants were forming a cartel to corner the rice market. They wanted to make huge profits by controlling the rice trade and price. The consequence was that the masses, the common folks, would be at their mercy, paying whatever price they demanded for rice. The govt stepped in, ticked them off, ostracised them, and set up Intraco with the main purpose of keeping the price of rice and essential food affordable, not charging at market price and no need for subsidies. Just simple cost plus some profit. No need to explain until face green green and nobody believe any word spoken. The people till now are still benefitting from this timely intervention, and the price of rice did not go spiralling up to a point of being painfully affordable. Those were the good old days with good and selfless people in charge and caring more for the good of the people. They were paid well, but not extravagant. These were the good records of a good govt that is for the people. After all the kpkb in cyberspace, we are having two assurances, one from Chok Tong and another from Mah Bow Tan. How would these turn out? As long as the bidding for land mechanism, market pricing, 'subsidising market price' policies are not changed, nothing will change. The price of properties will continue to spiral upwards. And the new mantra is that micky mouse flats or shoe boxes are good for living, a new lifestyle, and cheap too, at half a million for 400 sq ft. Looks like the goal of a Swiss standard of living has been modified to a Hongkong standard of living. Could we hope for a timely intervention like 40 years ago?