Ngiam Tong Dow added his weight

Ngiam added his 2 cents worth to the foreign talent debate and shared his views that we need our own people to run our big corporations and country. This is nothing to do with being xenophobic. It is being natural, charity begins at home, and not being stupid. Philanderers can come in different forms. One of which is throwing good money to foreigners and leaving your own kind in the cold. It is also very insulting to say that your own kind is useless and incapable. It is so embarassing and shameful to take the position that all the supertalents that we crowed about daily and could not find one to run our big local banks. Maybe we have heard too much from Mahathir and agreed with him that our children cannot measure up to more superior foreigners. Bloody shit! Our talents graduated from Ivy League universities in the US/UK and many top their class or with first class degrees. What did the foreigners have to show? I remember one attended a Harvard or MIT one month programme, or something like that, and claimed to be from the universities. Wee Cho Yaw must stand firm and prove to the jokers that Singaporeans can do the job equally well. Make UOB the number bank in Singapore, bigger and more successful than DBS and OCBC, with footprints around the world. But make sure not to buy rotten apples and paid for them like real gold. There is an urgency to dismiss the myth that Singapore has no talents of its own and we need to depend on foreign talents to bring us forward. If we don't provide the chances to our own kind, who is going to give them the chances? Look at our artistes at MediaCorp. If MediaCorp did not use them, they would not get any offer from Hongkong, Taiwan or China. As extras for Hollywoods maybe. But with MediaCorp, they are now stars and celebrities in their own rights.

We were caught off guarded

Caught off guarded, a once in 50 years incident, an honest mistake, we did not see it coming, are these words enough or acceptable? We paid big bucks for super talent performance. We don't pay pennies for third world administrators. How many more caught off guard replies are we going to get before enough is enough? The people demand a higher standard of performance and accountability for the money that is being paid. We do not want to hear anymore off guards. We want to get life going without all the big mishaps falling onto our laps. Can we have an assurance that things will be better and no more once in 50 years flops? Two big floods, SMRT graffiti, football fiasco, trees and killer litters falling on people's heads, and what else?

What did football fans wear?

I was looking at the pictures forwarded to me and these were the things they were wearing. Bold 'Germany' written on their buttocks for Germany. The Italians painted their faces with the flag of Italy. So were the Koreans, with Korean flags on their faces as well. The Danes and Swiss wore the colours and crosses on their Ts. The British wore their Union Jacks. The Brazilians And Argentinians wore their national colours. What did the Singapore football fans wear?

Where are the ministers?

With the GE approaching, somehow they seem to have all disappeared. Where have they gone? Even those involved in all the controversies have not been seen. Let me guess. Preparing for the GE? Working very hard to eliminate the controversies? School holidays?

New brooms needed

The western economies are all in deep shit. Even those that have not announced anything, pretending that all is well, including France, Germany and UK, who knows how big are their national debt. They cannot be too far from what is happening to the other European countries and the US. They employed the same breed of people from the same school of thoughts and practicing the same flawed formula of spending now and pay later. And Japan is no exception. They had done well in the past from simple economies to huge complex economies. And they were applying the same old methodology of growth and management. Of course they thought they were damn brilliant by printing papers and trading papers to churn huge profits in double quick time, on paper, without real production growth. The best analogy will be our local banks. Starting from small little banks and grow to what they are today on hard work and low pay. The harder they work, the longer they work, the lower they pay, the bigger the profit margin. And they are now at a cross road. Old methods and old tricks don’t work anymore. What is the solution? It’s elementary. They need qualitative change, new thinking and new ways of doing things. In short, the old banks, the old economies, all need new talents. They need fresh minds and fresh ideas. These new talents will teach them how to make big profits by working less hard, working shorter hours, working smart and by paying more. Our local banks need to be managed by foreign talents if they want to transform themselves into big global players. The American and European economies need the same foreign talents to give them a new breath of life. The best talents should be those of different molds, from India and China. On the other hand, India and China would need the foreign talents from America and Europe as their economies are still in the adolescent stage. The developed economies and the developing economies should swap their talents and called them foreign talents. Then all will be well. Foreign talents will be the most innovative and successful formula for the future. The new economies are rich and can afford to pay more to their foreign talents. The old economies are poor and bankrupt and cannot pay much but what they pay to foreign talents from the new economies would still be considered a lot. Everyone will be happy with the exchange.