Selling in bits or all in one go

What is the difference in selling our land to foreigners in bits and pieces or all at one go? At the rate we are selling them, it is just a matter of time before we hit 20%, 30% or 50% of what we have, if the process is not stopped. I don't think any Singaporean will think that it is acceptable if someone is to announce that we sell 30% or 50% of our land away. Unthinkable. But if the selling is in bits and pieces, 500 sq m here and 1000 sq m there every other day, no one will notice or feel a thing. How much of our freehold residential land is now foreign own? This shall include the high rise freehold properties that can be sold to foreigners as well.

The Americans got it all wrong again

They said big banks that are too big to fail are bad. They are not going to have anything that is too big to fail. Now they have passed another bill of historical proportion since the Great Depression to rein in the free wheeling of Wall Street. They are not going to let their supertalents do as they pleased, to make millions and billions for their organizations and for themselves. This is going to be disastrous as their supertalents will be head hunted to use their talents elsewhere. How stupid can the Americans be? Two wrongs don’t make a right. All their funds will flock to enlightened city like Singapore to do their businesses. Their supertalents will set up bases here. In fact many have already came to this free wheeling financial centre of the East that will soon rival New York and London. And some of the bright financial engineers will do a big merger and acquisition just like Prudential trying to take over AIA. Now, if they do something like this, to create the biggest global bank in the world, they are likely to succeed. Our govt is likely to give them the full blessing. And we will join in the fornication for having the biggest global bank in the world, with no more DBS, UOB or OCBC, maybe no Standard Chartered and HSBC as well. All is one. And it will be a roaring success, a role model bank for the world to salivate. Of course the bankers will be the best paid employees in the world, and be allowed to continue with their free wheeling and dealing operations. It will be so impressive that all the big banks in the world will be dwarfed. Imagine, I am already wet at the thought of it, the biggest global bank operating from here, and the major shareholders are Singaporean entities. We will indeed become the freest and biggest financial centre in the world, the centre of the world. A fleeting dream in Alice's Wonderland.

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?