Hsien Loong's follow up visit to KL

Hsien Loong met up with Najib again to follow up on the Tanjong Pagar land swap deal. They had a joint press conference and both were beaming broadly giving the impression that they are steaming ahead. Did I detect a little misgiving? Hsien Loong led a high level team including George Yeo, Mah Bow Tan and Shanmugam. On the other side the faces were not recognisable to me except Abdul Ghani of Johore. Where were the other ministers, notably Muhyiddin and Hishammudin? Is their absence an indicator that strong disagreements within UMNO is surfacing? I hope my concern is unfounded.

The end of the Mahathir's story

He chose his date for his last battle, May 13. They rejected him. Still, a month later, he spoke with the same venom. He tried to incite the Malays against the other races. Thank God, they ignored him. That was his last show and he failed. During his reign, a speech like that would have UMNO leaders kissing the keris, UMNO Youth supporters on the streets of KL and Kampong Bahru, threatening to run amok. And further south, Johore UMNO branch will be shouting across the causeway at you know who. These could only happened in a coordinated move by an edict. This time no edict and the event slipped away. So hopefully will Mahathir. But his legacy and the mindset he helped to nurture over the 20 over years of his leadership will continue to drive the thinking of conservative and ultra Malays. Vincent Tan may not get his toto booth licence with the conservative Malays threatening to organise a 100,000 men protest. A Chinese group attempted to take over a bank but the Malays protested that banks should be Malay owned. I am not sure if there is still a Chinese owned bank in Malaysia.

Selfish, unsportsmanlike, small minded

Vivian Balakrishnan lashed out at people who attacked the foreign sports talents as selfish, unsportsmanlike, small minded and many more. He also stressed that our survival and prosperity are dependent on the foreign talents. So without foreign talents we are doomed. I am 100% sure that without foreign sporting talents, our survival and prosperity will not be affected a wee bit except for the lack of sporting glory. I am also very sure that many critics did not attacked the foreign talents for their contributions but more for the foreign talent policy. The foreign talent policy is like taking a short cut, coveting other people's talents instead of using the same money and resources to nurture our very own talents. Would it make any difference if the resources were given to our children instead of buying talents? Vivian also talked about the X factor present in the North and South Korean teams. Obviously you can't buy X factor with money. And I also believe that it is treacherous to place our future, survival and prosperity, on foreign talents that can be bought by money. A nation's survival depends hell of a lot on X factor which no amount of money can buy. Many will die not for money or glory but for a conviction to country and nation. But some may called them silly idealists. Then again it is the silly idealists that countries depend on in desperate time of needs. The talents that can be bought by money would have bought themselves an air ticket out at the first opportunity.

Terrorist attacks are a threat to national security

Are private organizations up to it in protecting themselves from terrorist attacks? The terrorists are not your daily thieves and robbers. They are well trained and well armed. Like Mas Selamat, some of them are experts in destructive warfare, and highly intelligent. What kind of staff do the private organizations have to defend themselves in the event of an attack? Are they trained and armed, as well armed as the terrorists, and as intelligent as them? The private organizations may be able to secure their place of work with technology and the handful of security guards which, unfortunate to say, many are from the Dad’s Army, some ex detainees for petty crimes, and some fat ladies. Pit them against the well trained experts of terrorist armies, well, the odds are like Argentina against Singapore in football. Shall the responsibility of defending against terrorist acts be the responsibility of private organizations? Terrorism has changed the face of security of private organizations and businesses. It does not draw lines and boundaries, no war or civilian targets or battle fronts. It is trained terrorists against untrained or superficially trained security guards. This is a new ball game.

Punished for being self employed

Many of the oldies are fully retired and living on whatever they have left in their savings, plus whatever they could withdraw from their CPF. Some oldies refused to quit and wanted to continue working. Getting a job is out of question unless you are a super human bean and indispensable. They may even pay you millions to keep you employed, happily. So the less talented and not so super human beans will try to be self employed. Some may sell things in pasar malam, some as agents of this and that, except secret agents, some may try driving taxis. Some may want to start a small biz. What they all wanted to do is to earn a living, post retirement. What they did not bargain for is that by being self employed, they must pay protection money to the CPF in the form of medisave contribution. They don’t care whether you have any other insurance to cover your backside, they don’t care whether you can afford to pay this protection money. They just say you pay if you want to be in business. And they will tell you that it is for your own good. What a ransom against the oldies who are trying to be independent and not drawing down on their little savings. What kind of business cost is this? Bloody shit! It is like being punished for trying to help yourself. And they are trying to help you by taking more money from you. Or are they making things more difficult for the oldies to want to be self reliant? If they sincerely want to help the oldies, self employed oldies should be exempted from contributing to Medisave to reduce their business cost.