How much is our world class education?

Singapore citizens pay about $7000 tuition fee per year at NUS for year 2010/11. International students pay about $11,000. We consider ourselves very lucky to receive a tertiary education in one of the top universities in the world. The tuition fee for Imperial College of London, the top 3 university in UK and ranked 5th in the world by Times is 3,290 pounds for UK and EU citizens. For international students the fee is 21,400 pounds for an Engineering course. Am I right to say that a UK or EU citizen is paying lesser for a world class education in Imperial College than our citizens in NUS? The exchange rate is S$2 to a pound. In fact practically all the universities in UK is charging the same tuition fee for UK and EU citizens.

Going after short and naked sellers

If you are short and naked, and a seller in stocks, the German Stock Exchange will ban you from trading. You can be short but not naked, or naked but not short. Or better to be tall. The action by the German Stock Exchange to curb wild sellings led to another rout yesterday. Edward Krudy reported in New York that the SEC was treating the symptoms instead of the cause of the failures of the stock exchange. The stop gap measures of having circuit breakers are not dealing with the cause of the big plunge in the market. They must go after the high frequency traders. All of them are treating the symptoms and not the cause. The real cause is the problem of being too big. In the past, local syndicates were considered too big to manipulate the stock markets and were watched like a hawk. They were monitored and policed very closely to prevent them from doing mischiefs and harm. But these syndicates are like a little mouse compare to the hedge funds and investment banks with their billions to thrash around. These are the biggest threats to the stability of stock markets, currencies and countries. They could ruin them by their concerted effort to sell down markets or currencies and destroy a country and its economy. Then the investors have suddenly realised that Goldman Sachs was making billions of profits while their clients were losing billions following their recommendations. Why? It's elementary. Conflict of interest. Investments banks must not be allowed to make recommendations and trade for themselves and their clients. Period. All the regulators must wake up from their stupor to rein in the big funds and banks from their destructive selling and buying activities. The big funds have a huge unfair advantage and are hundreds of times more dangerous and destructive than the local small syndicates. Would anything be done? I doubt so. And stock markets across the world will continue with their roller coaster rides, dictated by the big funds. And the victims are the small innocent investors.

MRT jumpers, a cheap and easy solution

Another jumper missed the train, or the train missed the jumper. The jumper was on the track but train stopped in time. Jumper hauled up and sent to hospital with minor injuries. Looks like the jumpers are ever ready to smash at the train as long as the sophisticated screen doors are not installed. The multi million dollar system is still waiting for full delivery, or maybe SMRT are monitoring its effectiveness before commissioning the whole works. Actually a cheaper and easier solution can be found and be implemented instantly. Why can’t the trains be made to slow down to a speed that would not kill as it near the station? Is that so difficult to implement? How much time will it lost, 10 sec per station? The little time lost can be made up with a small increase in speed on its way to the next station, and no time would be lost at all. And once the jumpers know that the train speed is slow enough not to kill, they would not risk jumping down to get injured only to live. See, no need to spend multi million dollars and complicated system. And there is a high recurrence and maintenance cost to foot in the long run. Just a little procedural change and training were all that is needed. This is common sense and the same principle is being applied to road speed. Why so many roads are limited at 50 kph and the expressways at 90 kph? Safety, and to minimise road accidents of course. A slowing down of train speed before hitting the station could solve the jumper problem so easily and cheaply. They better pay me for consultancy fee. I don’t offer ingenious ideas for free.

The shame of the diplomatic corp

Is Silviu Ionescu a typical example of the character and integrity of a diplomat? If he is, then the whole diplomatic corp is a sham. How could a man of such low integrity and despicable conduct be chosen by a country to be their representative? And presumably he is the best that Romania can find. It is either their system is so flawed, or the quality of their civil servants is suspect. And if they do not bring him to justice it will reflect very badly on what Romania is all about. On the diplomatic corp here, what are their views and stand on this Ionescu incident? So far they have been very quiet. It would be nice if the head of the diplomatic community take a stand to distance themselves from this obnoxious man whom they wined and dined and embraced as one of them. If they still think that Ionescu is one of them and a good one, then the diplomatic corp will become a joke in town.

The MTL Debate

The debate continues. Actually it is a very healthy exercise to talk about this issue as it affects practically every school going child and the parents. And the outcome will have a very significant impact on the future of the generations of children to come, and what Singapore will be. At the moment the tussel is between those for and those against MTL with some in between. Both camps have strong reasons to argue for their cases. In between there is a middle camp that accepts MTL but wants it to be made simpler or easier. Ng Eng Hen and his team would now have to sweat it out to come out with a compromise solution to appease the parties. I doubt that in this case they would dare to use the compulsory sword and just decide and make the people accept it like CPF Life, Medisave, Minimum Sum etc etc. Taking such an option will be very costly politically. Whatever the final decision on this, let's hope it is a wise one. The unfortunate thing is that not everyone is going to be happy about it no matter how it turns out. This is clearly an area that is not white or black. Maybe he can fall back on his policy as a long term one as the consequences of the policy will take generations to bear fruits, be it sweet, sour or poisonous. Only the future will tell.