What if it is Agent Orange?

The perennial blanket covering of Singapore and Malaysia by haze arising from forest burning is becoming an annual Great Expectation. We knew it is coming, and we know that there is nothing that we can do about it. We can ask to talk to them, call for conference, ministerial meetings, but the haze will still come. Perhaps we shall just yield to their demand for a multi million dollar satellite and see if they will stop burning. The chances are that the burning will continue as the satellite could do nothing except to tell them where the burning is taking place, which we already know. They will probably make the best use of the free satellite for other commercial pursuits. The thing is that everyone is treating this as just a nuisance. What if it is Agent Orange or something more toxic? They don't need an armed invasion or an army to decimate Malaysia and Singapore. It is so easy and cheap.

A standing Orgy

It was a case of meat to meat. The people were literally glued to one another. They were squeezed so tightly that if you remove their clothings, the flesh could have fused together. The breathing was heavy. The eyes were in a daze, some in a state of shock and disbelief. Wet, yes, I could see that everyone was wet, perspiring and sweating, young and old, men and women. It was a standing orgy alright. And I was caught in the midst, right in the thick of action. The foreign workers loved every minute of it. That was the standard of public transportation they were used to. I was wondering how the cleanly dressed female office workers and the little girls in school uniform felt about the big squeeze. And this standing orgy will repeat and can repeat practically everyday. All it needs is for the train to delay for 15 mins. And that was how long my morning train took to arrive. And everything slowed down. At every station the commuters going down would have to squeeze slowly through a mess of fusion meat. It took quite a while, and a big struggle to get out of the train. And to make matter worst, the huge crowd outside were panicky, trying to force themselves into the party, to join the orgy. The time taken for the journey simply doubled. This little delay can cripple the normal lifestyle and routine of the commuters. It can bring everything to a halt if the breakdown is extended. This is the price we are paying for living it up to the limits. Good to increase the population to 6m. We can increase to 10m with a little clever planning. And we can have orgies everyday too. Nice!

All Japanese must not forget Unit 731

What is Unit 731? Just google for it and a detailed description will be available in Wikipedia. For those who intend to, please be warned that it is not good for weak stomach. It describes the monstrous Japanese and their barbaric crimes in World War 2 in China. For ignoramous Japanese like Seiji Maehara, Shintaro Abe, Junichiro Koizumi and the likes, either they refuse to know their history or Japanese school left out this part altogether. If Japan continues to ignore their historical crimes, they can never dream of a peaceful co existence with China and Korea in the long term. Unless they recognized their evil deeds, repent, and return all the loots they robbed from the two countries, including territories and islands, you just would not know when someone in the future will take these issues up and start a war with Japan. While there is time, it is only honourable and decent, and rightful for Japan to return what they had taken. It would put them in a better light than to pretend the past did not happen, they did not commit any crimes to their neighbours and the land or islands seized were inheritance from their forbears. They were robbed from their neighbours at gun point. If they don’t return today, one day they will be taken back at gun point, for sure. The Japanese leaders and people better have the wisdom to do the necessary and clean up this bad patch of their history with their neighbours, once and for all.

The Stock Exchange should go 24 hrs

SGX is still pushing for continuous trading with no lunch break to improve trading volume and to capitalise on the connectivity with other operating exchanges. Though the idea is good, it is half hearted. SGX should go all the way, provide continuous trading round the clock. This will make SGX the only stock exchange that never sleeps and investors who have insomnia or in different time zones can always call our exchange to trade till their hearts contend. This will definitely generate all the volumes that SGX intended and even propel SGX to become the world's number One stock exchange. It will be another feather in our hat. There should be no problems with our pool of remisiers and broking house employees. They will welcome such a great idea with glee. Plentiful of money to be made. The broking houses can help by redesigning the trading area with beds attached to the terminals so that remisiers can literally trade, eat and sleep in the same place. I would suggest something similar to the SQ jumbo airbus first class seat cum bed. That would allay any protest from the remisiers. Just make them comfortable and happy. Anyway the remisiers are very pliable and adaptable bunch and would just adapt to the new demands. They don't have a troublesome union to fight for humanly working hours or other craps that make operating the business difficult. There will be fatigue and stress problems no doubt. Just provide more steriod jabs in case they need them. And if they make mistakes, the stock exchange should be generous enough to pay for their errors. Working in a highly stress environment, none stop for 8 to 10 hours, can be killing and mistakes are bound to happen. And working 24 hours is a new ball game. No joke. If the maids can cope with working for 24 hours without any problems, I think remisiers too should be able to do it equally well. Take this as an experiment and if it works well, other industries too can go on 24 hours non stop operations. Our Ministries and Ministers too can work 24 hours to increase their productivity. 24 hours is the way to go. Make Singapore a city that never sleeps.

The housing predicament - What we do not know

One thing for sure, we do not know that we have limited land, that land is scarce. We do not know that we should not be selling our landed properties to foreigners, like selling Alaska, gone forever. We do not know that property speculation is bad, as a home is a must have essential asset, a roof over our heads. We do not know that prudence is good, or at least until yesterday. We also do not know that the laws of demand and supply can wreak havoc to our property market. We do not know that allowing private property owners to buy public housing will inflate property prices, and that is bad. We do not know that allowing more foreigners into the island will result in high demand for property prices and high speculation. And we also do not know who is the main cause of high property price. Maybe now we know, or do we?