No property bubble yet!

'Even if we cap our excess, people in Hong Kong, Indonesia, will say, compared to what I have to pay, Singapore is cheap, let's buy it,' he added. 'And apart from landed properties, they can buy into any condos.' Mr Lee, who was speaking at a dinner hosted by the Association of Banks in Singapore, said that the Government is convinced that there is real underlying demand for residential property. 'So it's probably not a bubble yet,' he added. The above comments by MM was reported in the ST. So foreigners want to buy even at much higher prices and we sell. They can buy into landed properties and condos. Would their buying raise the prices of other properties and in turn raise the cost of living here? Just because they want to buy, must we sell? Who sets the rules to allow them to buy condos and landed properties? Are these rules good for Singaporeans? For sure, it is good for developers and taxes. My gut feel is that one day we will regret this thoughtless selling of our precious land to foreigners. By then it will be too late to unwind the clock. And we can't do it like Mahathir, introduce laws to be effective retrospectively. Once the land is sold, freehold land, it is gone forever.

Britain and Australia curbing entry of new citizens

They cannot afford to keep growing their populations. Both are little islands and have limited space and they fear that land will run out on them. The Australians are particularly worried that the people in the Gold Coast got no where to go if more new citizens are minted. And the Big Australia policy of Kevin Rudd was his down fall, for wanting to bring in more migrants. Maybe we shall offer our supertalents as their consultants on how to squeeze more people into every inch of their precious little islands. Australia, if under our management, could easily take in another 1 billion new citizens quite easily. Another revelation is that the majority of the migrants are Europeans. Asians are still restricted. And Britain is taking one step further to only allow Europeans into their little island. Africans and Asians got to wait long long now. We can capitalise on the restrictions in Britain and Australia and open our door wider. Immigrants that can't go to them can apply to come here. Our island has more space for them and we welcome them with open arms.

Brace up for more floods

Floods are unavoidable. We had three real big ones recently starting from the Bukit Timah flood to Orchard Road and last Friday's across the island. Why should we be looking for more floods? First it is unavoidable. Two, as we keep building up infrastructure, to provide for 6 million population, more land will be needed. But land for big canals is expensive and not productive. So if we will plan for a city of 6m million or more but skimp on drainage, flood will happen and more will happen. Can we really cope with 6 million people if we can't provide land for drainage? Or that is something that we have to live with, big floods to become our daily routine?

HDB cleared PAP activist

Sinha Shekhar, an outspoken PAP activist and one of the good catch from the new citizen pool, has been cleared by HDB for subletting his HDB flat. He has asked for HDB's permission and has qualified under the number of years of occupation to sublet his flat. He is now living in his private property and let out his HDB flat. I also read somewhere that HDB's ruling requires the owner of both a private property and a HDB flat to physically live in the HDB flat. If this is the condition, Sinha must live in his HDB flat and rent out his private property and not the other way round. Can someone confirm on this as it means he is either contravening HDB rulings or he is not.

Something is not working

I was not working, took a little break and just came back. Heard that there was a heavy downpour this morning, and a pleasant surprise, no flooding. Is the system working or the amount of rainfall fell short of the 100mm in less than 3 hours? It seems that we have had two of such 100mm rain within 2 hours and flooding occurred. I still remember someone saying that the Marina Barrage is not only a reservoir but a flood control system and that there would be no more floods. It is a very expensive piece of equipment and it better works. And I think it is supposed to work in auto mode, or is it? Maybe the parameters were wrongly set and thus it did not trigger to release water from the Marina Bay Reservoir fast enough, or enough in volume to avoid the flood. or maybe there have reset it right now and this morning's rain would be easily taken care of by the system. Or maybe we have an expensive piece of equipment but failed by the minor blockages of culverts and drains here and there. Let's hope that another 100mm rainfall within a few hours will not do the same damage again. I was shocked by the picture of Bishan Park.