Motor Insurance - The robbing must stop

The headline in ST, Insurance relief for motorists! What relief? They have increased the premium over the last few years by at least 40 to 50% and they said any rise this year will be marginal. What a hogwash. Look at the numbers given, record premium collected at $1.08b. Claims were $44.5m last year from $214m the year before. So where is the big losses incurred by the industry? What we are seeing are big profits. Who is responsible to stop the robbing of motorists by the insurers? Motor insurance is compulsory and motorists cannot say no but just pay grudgingly. Isn't there anyone or agency or ministry responsible to look after the interests of the motorists? Oh, a report is coming out today from the Motor Insurance Taskforce. And everyone knows that there is a big scam in motor insurance claims. And the buck was simply passed to the innocent motorists to pay. How convenient! How could this happen here? Let's see how much more will motor insurance premium be raised.

The unfathomable depth of intelligence

The whole world is so foolish. Why are they so afraid of inflation? Why are they so afraid of high property prices and property bubble? And the Americans too are getting silly, trying to curb speculations in derivatives and hedge funds activities and more stringent regulations on their brilliant bankers. And what is so wrong with huge income gap between the rich and poor? The bigger the gap, the better. They should come down to paradise and take a lesson or two on how good inflation is, how good high property prices is, how good deregulations and hedge fund activities and derivative tradings are. And they would surely be impressed by our world class number one income gap between the rich and poor. We are the best, with the unfathomable depth of intelligent beans, everything is just fine. Oops, my mistake, I mean demigods and immortals.

What arrogance of strength?

China had many embarrassing and humiliating experiences with arrogance of strength in the past. The British sold the Chinese opium only to be confiscated and burnt by the Chinese. They declared war on that ground, raided China, demanded indemnity for war raparation and the opium, including seizure of Hongkong. That was arrogance of the British Empire. The Americans followed by demanding that 5 ports be opened as free ports. Another arrogance of strength. Then the rest of the wolf pack consisting mainly Europeans powers, plus Russia and Japan followed to designate Chinese territories as their territories. That was arrogance of strength. Today, the American signed a defence treaty with a renegade defeated political party in Taiwan and insisted that they have now a legal right to arm and defend Taiwan. This is arrogance of strength in modern day. And the Americans and British cooked up the threats of WMD to invade Iraq and murdered its President, turned the country into a war zone, and getting away free without anyone daring to whisper a word about war crimes. And better still, dragging all its weak allies to help in the killings of the Iraqis. This is arrogance of strength. Is China exhibiting an arrogance of weakness? In the first place it was not even arrogance but standing up to the number one bully. You call that arrogance? Bloody fool! And China is weak? The whole of Europe can join forces and do a 8 Nations attack on Beijing today, like they did before, and see if China is weak. The US can also try to test how weak China is today. Between the two, I must admit that China is very much weaker. But it is not that weak for the US to attempt to be adventurous.

The fictitious American War against China

The Americans are accusing China of everything under the sky. The latest is currency manipulation. Who owns the major hedge funds manipulating currencies around the world? Or perhaps the Americans are angry because they could not manipulate the Yuan as it is pegged at a fixed rate against the dollar? Unpegging it and letting it free will be fertile ground for the American hedge funds to do untold damages to the Yuan and Chinese economy. I think this is likely to be the real reason. Oh, the Chinese are causing job losses in America, and unemployment problems. Why? Did the Chinese put a gun at the American companies to shift their production lines to China? And when these companies moved to China, they are making profits for who, for the Chinese or Americans? And China is the world's number one polluters of the environment. Their factories are pumping up all the gases into the sky. By the way, who owns these factories or the products and manufacturing processes? Isn't it true that the Americans didn't want them to pollute their own environment and the convenient place is to park them in China to do the polluting? In turn the Chinese are sweating it out in the factories to make the products for pittance and only to sell them cheaply to the American families. How atrocious can the Chinese be? Working so very hard to earn a bowl of rice on the table to enable the Americans to pay cheaply for their hard work. It is sinful! And the Chinese are hoarding trillions of Treasury Bills. Did they robbed them from the Americans? Whose faults, the Chinese of course. Put up more tariffs and taxes, maybe sanctions against the China. Or go to war with China.

The western hang ups

Why is it so difficult for Asians to have independent thoughts, to see the world from the Asian perspective instead of parroting the agenda of the West? We have CNA, probably the only credible media that speaks Asian other than Al Jazeera and China Daily. I read an article in the ST titled 'China arrogant? Maybe, but that's not the point'. I thought I was reading an article written by some western journalists. The views and contents were similar, everywhere in the western media, whacking China for standing up to the bullying of the US and calling China arrogant is the politically correct thing to do. Is China arrogant or just standing up to the bully? From the Asian perspective, I would say, show the Americans the middle finger. The US have been accusing and threatening and bullying every country other than its major allies. It is time a new power tells the US to shut up. It has nothing to do with being arrogant but refusing to be pushed around. What's wrong with that? I couldn't imagine that the writer is an Asian, by the name of William Choong. And he went on to explain that China was reacting from a sense of insecurity. A weak power fumbling around trying to make a defensive stand from a position of weakness. And he even talked this cock about 'face' as if the West do not have a face to worry about. The Chinese are sensitive to face. Obama gate crashed a meeting in Copenhagen when he was not invited. It was not about face but about American pride. How could they not give the American President face by not inviting him to a meeting? Then he went on blabbing about China's weak arrogance being troubling and maybe waiting to be kicked by the number one super power. American arrogance like George Bush's triumphant claim during the Iraq War is good. Weak arrogance like China is bad. And China is an irresponsible power not pulling its weight to protect the existing balance of power. Maybe it would be better for China to help the Americans to kill the Arabs and Afghans, then China could be welcomed as a responsible power. Maybe China should also join the US to threaten any country that it does not like, threaten them with sanctions to make the US feel better. Is that what is meant by being responsible? Attack another country, killed its leader, under the pretext of WMD. That must be a very responsible way to act as a big power. Now what is the point? China an arrogant irresponsible power? Let's give this writer a Congressional Medal or an OBE.