How many casinos is enough?

One casino licence has been issued to Resorts World Sentosa. Marina Bay Sands should be getting theirs in no time. Would the two casinos be enough to satisfy the gambling urge of the Singaporean gamblers. And to include the Toto, 4D, Football Pool and Turf Club, I think we should have enough gambling instruments and organisations to please everyone in need of pleasing. With Singaporean gamblers now spoilt for choices, maybe it is high time that MAS take a more serious view of the financial industry, including banking and the stock market, to reduce or remove the gambling elements in them. The banking and finance industry used to be solid institutions for long term investment and perhaps slower growth. But with the ingenuities of the financial experts, many paper products were created and pushed to the investors with little regards to the harm they are causing to them and the industry as a whole. The minibond saga was a case in point. Tbere are many derivaties that are in the market, worthless pieces of paper that are not backed by any securities or collaterals, or heavily leveraged that when there is a call to dump them, many investors will end up with practically nothing but yes, worthless papers like the Lehman Bonds and other toxic products. It is opportune time to reflect on the health of the banking and finance industry and rein in fictitious and questionable products from the market. Just because the Americans are doing it, marketing it and playing with it, it does not mean that they are reasonably save products. They are mostly leveraged tens of times of their real values and at times the real values could be as much as the value of the pieces of paper they are printed. The banking and finance industry must return to their fundamentals and slower growth. The industry in American are highly geared to pay astronomical bonuses by taking high risks that are unbecoming of the institutions that are the cornerstones of the whole financial industry and the economy. The products are highly dangerous and only fit for the casinos. We don't need more casinos.

When will the balloon burst?

There are many things that we are paying through our nose and are taken for granted as our way of life. The question is whether we should be paying so much for them, and if we can afford to key paying for them. Our housing is going the way of Hongkong and Tokyo. Our cheap public housing is no longer cheap anymore. And we will make them more expensive for the good of the people who have bought them. But someone must pay for it and keep the balloon from its unstoppable inflation. We are paying for cars that cost about one third of its import price. For $50k or $60k, we could be driving much bigger and more luxurious made cars. Or we could be driving the same cars and saving a fortune from it. How much does a Toyota or Honda cost really? And how much is a Mercedes or a BMW? Are we being shortchanged? And our medical cost is skyrocketing like hot air. Funny thing is that there is a ruling against doctors overcharging their clients. The complicated surgical procedures and the expensive and sophisticated equipment will add to the cost. What about cough and colds, tooth extraction or fillings? The way it is going, another big chunk of our income will have to be set aside to pay for medical cost. Then we have to pay astronomical salaries to ministers, and some are still complaining. But this is the cheapest to pay for. Just one plate of kway teow or maybe add another plate every time they increase their salaries will solve it. This one is cheap really when the cost is spread around to every Singaporean. The good thing is that Singaporeans can afford to pay for all the extraordinary costs of things which need not be. And there is no fear of the balloon bursting as long as we can keep paying our people more and more salary to feed all the high cost items. Can we really continue to pay our workers higher and higher salary in a competitive and interconnected world? Why should our cleaners by paid $1000 pm when other countries are paying them $300? Why should our average workers by paid $2000 pm when others are paid less than half of that amount? Can productivity really solve this imbalance? Use more machines and computerisation and lesser manpower? Starting from the worker's level, once they cannot feed the system to pay for their cost of living, the effect will be felt to the next levels. But some levels will be so insulated that nothing will happen to them even if the dam breaks. For now, the magician and his magic wand is still doing wonderfully and paying for ever more expensive items for a living seems to be easy.

No criminals in our casinos

The police have announced that 3,500 people with serious criminal records will be barred from the casinos under the Commissioner of Police Exclusion Order. This is different from the Self Exclusion Order that a gambler or his family could exercise to keep himself out of the casinos. This is another positive step in the right direction to keep our casinos crime and sleaze free. I am sure all the religious organisations will also be helping the authority in their daily sermons to advise their believers to stay away from the casinos. With this two prong approach, the casinos can be sure to be free from criminals and angels. Only the secular and ungodly people will be left to visit these new playgrounds. I am wondering whether those commercial cheats who squandered away money from commercial and charity organisations will also be barred? I think they should. People who committed breach of trust, commercial frauds, dishonesty, should also be excluded from the casinos. With such an exclusion order acting as an additional deterrent, the casinos could be doing a good thing for society, telling potential cheats to be good if they want to play in their games rooms. An incentive not to take the wayward path.

When paradise beckons

We are into the second month of 2010 and things are gradually transforming. The stalwarts of first generation Singaporeans are fading away one by one. Ng Teng Fong, the richest man here, has been called home to the Lord like many before him. Our Olympian Tan Eng Yong, also went home when the Lord sent a driver to fetch him. Both men, given their health and wealth, should technically live forever. Their departures are a reminder that paradise is where we should be, our home. Funny thing is that no one wants to return home to paradise. I was at a funeral service of a young friend whom the Lord loves so much to take her back in her thirties. And all was grim and gloom. All wore black to show their sadness when paradise beckoned. And our good friend Boon Wan is working tirelessly to provide us with the best medical services, facilities and treatment to keep us here longer. And he unknowingly think that with more money in our Medisave, we can remain here longer and happier, better taken care off in the nursing homes, with first class nursing care. Does he think that his hospitals and nursing homes are better places than paradise where the Lord had gone ahead to prepare his mansions for us? This is an issue that is most confusing and most contradicting in the minds of mortals. Paradise beckons and no one is tempted. Hell is where they want to be. Or hell on earth is where they want to hang on, for as long as they could, even forgoing their little comforts, saving as much as they could to cling onto life in this hellish world. I can't blame those who have found paradise on earth and refuse to go. But many would have been better off returning to the ultimate home in paradise. While the Lord prepares his empty mansions in anticipation of our return, Boon Wan is preparing his nursing homes with great comforts in his imaginable ways, to show us how much he cares. He also makes sure that we have the money to pay for it.

Disproportionate reality and disproportionate truth

Properties in Singapore are cheap, especially the high-end ones that are built for the super rich. At $3m or $5m a piece, it is too easily affordable. Many of the super rich will find properties at $20m or $30m a piece affordable as well. At the employee level, i.e. workers who earn a salary, this includes ministers and top civil servants, properties at $3m or $5m are actually as expensive as peanuts. They could buy one every year or every other year with their annual salaries. Isn’t that fun? Life is really good for these highly paid workers. Then we have workers, the genuine low down working class, complaining that a $300k flat is expensive and unaffordable. And the ministers and top civil servants are telling them it is not so. These flats are really and truly affordable. It makes sense when one could pay a $3m to $5m property with one or two year’s salary. But the disconnect is quite obvious. Why are the workers complaining? Simple, their incomes are just too little relative to the price of the flats they have to pay. And they need two incomes and 30 years to be able to pay that miserable $300k. So, is their complaint genuine or they are just a pain in the arse? To these low paid workers, their perspective of affordability must be different, and real. They think so anyway. The cheap flats are expensive, very expensive to them. And the reality of the cheap private properties is also real, as the buyers need only cough out a couple of years' income to pay them off. No need to take loans at all. The disproportionate reality and the disproportionate truth divide the real workers from the surreal workers in paradise. Quite funny huh?