A little window dressing not going to work

The few changes in housing policy are not going to make any difference. The target of 30% of the buyers household income is fixed and viewed as affordable and reasonable to take. No need to bother about cost of construction, no need to bother about the risk that the buyers will be exposed to. In such cases, the bigger the income the bigger the stone mill hanging on the neck. And when a crisis comes, the bigger the income/stone mill, the bigger the losses and pain. We have got through that many times. Preventing people from buying what the people think is affordable to them, and dictating what is affordable to the people is another mean policy like the mean testing in hospital admissions. The govt decides on what the people should spend as reasonable and affordable. The people cannot decide what is prudent for themselves. And like the deaf frog, no need to listen, just move on, bring it higher for the good of the people.

Gopalan Nair can be arrested

Gopalan Nair wrote an article yesterday claiming that LKY sufferred a massive heart attack and was warded in SGH. He also posted about demonstrations which gave the impression of civil unrest in the island. He has admitted today that it was a hoax created by him. Gopalan should not play with such rumours as it can get many people killed. Just imagine if his article comes out this morning and the stock market reacted negatively to it with fearful investors unloading and causing many to lose their little fortunes in the market? It is utterly irresponsibile for Gopalan to post such vicious rumours in the net. It only destroy the credibility of himself and other bloggers. I hope no bloggers will think this is funny and exciting and follow what he did. Be responsible and post rationally. Do not stoop to spreading vicious rumours.

Myth 217 - Govt that listens to the people is good

This statement is now a myth. Good govt does not need to listen to the people. This is especially true when the govt is manned by the country's top talents and knows best what is good for the people. The high price housing policy is an excellent example of a govt that does not need to listen to the people. It is very sure that the policy is right and the best. So, despite the people's cry that public housing is unaffordable, the govt just insists that it is affordable, and moves on. In the long run, the people will learn to appreciate this high price public housing policy. And the wisdom of a govt not listening to the untalented people and just do what is right is best encripted in the story of the deaf frog that climbed to the top of the mountain. No one asks why the frog would want to go to the top of the mountain when it is more comfortable in the ponds below the mountain. Deaf frog or undeaf frog, I will vote for a frog or a donkey that listens to the people than a deaf frog that is too smart and not willing to listen to the people. For those who want to vote for deaf frogs, this is democracy and they are free to do so.

Sunday, March 07, 2010 Temasek's recruiting spree at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IMM-C). This article is posted in Singapore News Alternative. And there is another article there by Seah Chiang Nee, More Grads join jobless queue, published in The Star. Putting the two articles side by side, what can one make out of it?

The badge of pride and pedigree

The princelings of China are emerging everywhere, and very successful. Their pedigree background is a badge of honour and also a badge to a smoother path to material success. It gives hint to an age old culture when princes and royal ties were equated with power and status. This is a big contrast to the days of communism when poverty and peasant background were brandished as a badge, as a true red communist. And in the days of the flower people of the 60s, rich kids rejected their affluent trappings to smoke pots and donned filthy and tattered clothes, living in the parks, as the way of life. Rejection of society and wealth was the in thing. Scions of the rich left their homes and families to look poor and smelly. This reminds me of a confrontation between the Soviet leader Khruschev and China's Zhou En Lai. Khruschev came from humble and peasant background and was very proud of it. His badge of pride and pedigree. Zhou En Lai's background was from the gentry and landlord class. And both became communist leaders. Khruschev used to sneer at Zhou En Lai for his rich background and proclaimed to everyone that his was of poverty and peasantry. We were both communist, but from different classes. Zhou En Lai agreed, yes we were both communist, I was rich and you were poor. And we have both betrayed our class. And they toasted to that.