Case against minimum wage

This seems to be a hot issue in Parliament yesterday. And it is obvious that there will be one camp against one man. After hearing the reasons given, I am on the side of the camp. One dangerous principle of minimum wage is that an organization may be forced to pay some donkeys sitting there and not wanting to work. The examples brought up were short of hilarious. Workers did not want to work in kitchen because it is too hot. I have heard of cleaners complaining that their jobs were too tough, people find midnight shift intolerable. Basically complaints of all kinds about jobs. May I then offer to aircon the kitchens, make all the jobs soft and cosy, no midnight shifts, or provide restaurant meals and gym membership to the workers to make working a pleasant past time? Look at the other extremes, the politicians. Ask them to wake up at 5am to flag off a marathon, they will say yes. Ask them to go walkabout to shake every stranger’s hand, they will say yes. And they have full time job from 8 to 5. And in the evening they are everywhere, attending wakes and wedding dinners, community events, MPS, board meetings etc etc. By the time they got home they would have put in a 25 hour day work. And they are not complaining. Some work so hard that they did not even have time to attend Parliament or have to force themselves to stay awake if they did attend. And their hairs are prematurely turning white. Poor buggers! They are the best examples of exemplary work attitude. Never say no, never complain. Just work and work. Workers with such good attitude would not need to ask for minimum wage. The organizations will automatically pay them more.

Signs of rising intolerance

A Maureen Foo wrote a letter to Today paper yesterday complaining about noise in the HDB void decks. And her complaints included children cycling and rollerblading in the walkways. These are signs that the intolerance level of overcrowding is beginning to get to the nerves of the people. When space is aplenty and one needs not bang into another so frequently, community living is a joy, or at least bearable. When one starts to bump into one another in every corner, the nerves are likely to flare. When have people become so irritated with the aunties and uncles spending their time at the void decks or children playing in the HDB estates? Such problems will keep on increasing as the population grows. Those crazy people who want a 10m population here need to be sent to the firing squad. Oh, I just say this figuratively hor. Even husband and wife will get onto one another’s nerves when the novelty of marriage life starts to wear. The little irritating habits when repeated or accumulated and prolonged can be unbearable. This paradise will soon be turned into an inhabitable place when neighbours will start to give hostile stares at one another, commuters punch ups in public transports or people fighting in hawker centres or on the streets. The white mice effect is about to erupt if we are still complacent and think it is ok.

I disagree with Temasek Review

I disagree with Temasek Review, or more specifically with an article titled, Buoyant property prices a sign of rising debt as opposed to rising wealth? by a Singaporean. This is what I disagree with and I quote the first paragraph, With property prices escalating into no man’s land, we see paper wealth rise with the proportion of debt. This is brought about by loose housing policies coupled with the loose granting of Permanent Residence to foreigners, this diabolic formula creates a surge in demand, and inflates prices way beyond their actual value and affordability. Ok, I disagree only with the last phrase which I have highlighted in bold. Who says our property prices are way beyond their actual value? Our property prices are exactly what they are, determined by the market of course. And no one can fight or manipulate the market. It is real market price. And secondly, who says they are beyond Singaporeans’ affordah..bility? I read everywhere in the media and in official speeches that Singapore property prices are affordable. And the govt is ensuring that they are affordable. So they must be affordable. Period. Ok, I must agree that high property prices mean high debt. High debt means high risk and can be turned into a nightmare for the debtors. I pray they don’t have to jump off their market value and affordah…ble properties when a crash comes along.

What is bucket shop?

Those trading in stocks and shares or in financial products are quite familiar with the term bucket shop. The term is often not look at kindly and smell of distrust and a con job. They are supposed to trade in commodities like coffee bean, sugar, oil, wheat, pork belly etc etc. The general impression is that new investors often were attracted by the good returns and also tended to make money in the first few trades. Subsequently they will lose their pants, lock, stock and barrel. They have a similar modus operandi. They make sales talks of good returns to their potential customers. And whatever trades they ‘executed’ in the early part of the game often ended in big winnings. Then they will advise the investors to put in more money for bigger wins. Most investors obliged thinking that it was so easy to make money. And they will pump in more money and will receive monthly statements of winnings that will make them smile. The catch is that they cannot withdraw whatever money they put in. Their brokers will try all means to prevent them from withdrawing their money. These could be sweet words of good returns or more schemes to keep their money in. And if they fail to persuade the investors from withdrawing, the investors will be hit with their first shock, losses. All their trades will now be reported as losses and big losses. And any withdrawal will be less than they put in or even nothing left. In worst cases, they even owe money to the bucket shops from big losses. The trick of bucket shops is to keep asking their clients to put in more money and more money and to generate glowing reports of profits in their monthly statements. And the clients will be very happy just looking at the reports. What they did not know or did not ask is whether there is really any money left. Often actually not a single cent is there. The money is all gone except on paper, printed in the monthly reports sent to the clients, to make clients happy and to encourage clients to put in money into a bottomless pit. In short, this is what bucket shop is all about. Put in money and don’t expect to see it anymore.

TOC to be gazetted as a political association

Just read this from the TOC site. They have received an email saying that the PM will be gazetting it as a political association. By this it means that it cannot receive financial and other support from foreigners. My crystal ball says that in the next election TOC may go all out to be a political party and contest the election with its own slate of candidates. And my feeling is that their candidates could be as worthy as any candidates to be field by the rest of the parties. This is an interesting development in the politics of Singapore. Go for it TOC.