Rising cost of living an issue in Parliament

Several MPs will be raising issues and concerns about rising cost of living, or costs of everything in Parliament on Monday. My eye balls are rolling all over. Who is the major contributor to the high cost of living? External factors! Bull! We all know who and what were the major causes of high prices and high inflation. But no one is going to go to the monkey and stick a pin into its back. The indiscriminate jacking up of prices by the hawkers is causing great worries. Really? Are the hawkers the real culprits, or were the price hike indiscriminate? Who were the real Mohicans who have been raising prices indiscriminately? Then again they will tell you all the hikes were justified with numbers and statistics and graphs and charts presented by the most talented managers. You can’t beat that can you? Only the hawkers, facing higher and higher rentals, refurbished and upgraded facilities, aircon, etc etc and higher cost of raw materials, transportation,…but unable to come out with beautifully cooked data and charts, are seen as indiscriminate. The real causes of high prices are the big corporations, big businesses and, who else? …. Rentals, fees, transportations, land prices, and whatever were Not indiscriminately raised, but with very good reasons that are unquestionable. At worst they would not even show you the real statistics. Would someone be real and ask some honest and real questions in Parliament? Or would asking questions solve anything other than getting some prepared answers from the ministers and matter closed? Don’t be surprised some jokers will say inflation is progress! Or inflation is good or else how could a $10k HDB flat becomes $300k after 30 years. And high prices of cars, COEs and HDB flats are signs that the people are wealthy and rich and can afford to pay for them. With this kind of brilliant answers, one can argue until the cow comes home, and nothing will change. Any change will be temporary, pre GE, and the worst is yet to come, with more brilliant explanations.

Donation Drive to free Chee Soon Juan

Someone asked me why I did not post anything on this issue that is pretty hot in the internet. I replied, 'Shameful'...for I did not do my part.

The scourge would not go away

Many have been caught, jailed and caned. Unfortunately the harassment against innocent residents continues. It seems that it will never end and can never end. Is it so difficult to deal with loan sharks with the technology and resources today? It was reported that less than 1% of HDB households are victims of loan sharks. Using this percentage angle to describe the crime as if it is insignificant is shameful. And if even one case is too many, how can we live with so many cases? 1% of 800,000 households means 8,000 households are being harassed by the loan sharks. And this is a huge number and can never be tolerated. Imagine if the ST claims that it is acceptable to have a 1% typo error on its news papers, or the PUB claims that 1% of power outage is ok? It means that on every page of the paper, every 100 letters there will be an error. Similarly, every year there will be 3.5 days of power outages. Acceptable? 1% of households are victims of loan sharks cannot be accepted as good or even satisfactory. When will the scourge be removed from our shores? Paying top dollar, the people must demand for top dollar performance.

Our Malays are integrating very well

Several articles appeared in the ST yesterday on comments that were translated from Berita Harian and Berita Minggu, our Malay papers. They were the views of our Malay elite responding to what LKY said on Malays integrating into the main stream of our social activities. The views were guarded but mainly told of how well our Malays have adapted and accommodated to the modern life style of this city state and tolerating the differences in cultural and religious activities. On the first page of mypaper there was an article about the authorities in some Malaysian states ramming up checks on immoral behaviours between the sexes during Valentine’s Day. The Islamic apparatus will be increasing checks and patrols on Muslims in dark corners engaging in ‘immoral acts’ of close proximity. I must add that such vigilance is only confined to Muslim authorities wanting to ensure that the Muslims are not indulging in sinful lifestyles. I have read an article in the net that when Najib was invited to attend a Christmas function by the Catholic Archbishop of KL, there was a polite request that the Christian cross be removed, no carols and no prayers during his visit. That is the level of tolerance in Malaysia. This is from an article by John Malott, former US Ambassador to Malaysia. I stand to be corrected, there were postings in the net that there were calls to prohibit the sales of ‘bak kut teh’, ‘char kway teow’, ‘wan tan mee’ etc etc unless they are halal and carry the halal signs. Thank god, our Muslim brothers are more tolerant than the Malaysian Muslims and did not insist on such regulations. In the ST articles, many emphasized that the Singapore Muslims have no problems eating together with non Muslims and are mixing freely while keeping the limits of their own constraints. An article by A Rahman Basrun commented that Islam is not the problem but the Muslims were. I quote, ‘Finally, it is not Islam that is troublesome; rather, Muslims are the ones who cause trouble to Islam.’ By comparing the two states, Malaysia and Singapore, both have Muslims practicing Islam, we can see what is the real problem. I agree with Rahman Basrun, that Islam is not the problem, but the Muslims and the way they practiced their faith is. If that is the case, LKY’s comment is fair in the sense that Islam allows room for tolerance and the Muslims could, in some ways, moderate the practices, without compromising on the key doctrines, to adapt to other cultural and religious activities. If Islam is the source of intolerance, then there is no room for any moderations.

MAD-ness in the financial world

The concept of MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, used to be only applicable to superpower conflicts where both parties will destroy each other with their WMD. The end of the world consequence of this concept is enough to bring fear and prevent any crazy hot heads from attempting war with nuclear weapons. This term is gaining relevance in the financial industry with all the devious and greedy men in charge. They all think very big, with big machines in the forms of high speed computers and networks to link all the markets together. What this means, simply, is that all the big guns can be trained at one market and blasts it to the end of the Universe. Impossible, they said. There will be no collusion of that sort, market forces and regulations will not allow it to happen. Really? When there is GREED! The financial world is so corrupt that with all the devious men in charge, all the classical rules to ensure fair play have been shoved aside and buried. Fair play, level playing field, transparency, cornering the market, buy and sell without change of ownership, false trading, churnings, syndicates manipulation, etc etc are now part of the game. We are seeing the breaking down of all good regulations, even deregulations, concocting systems for the big funds to take the fullest advantage of technology and their financial muscles to wipe out the markets. Theoretically it sounds fantastic and super efficient when the whole world and all the fund managers can trade in every market at the same time. It is an ideal market, with many players to allow the free market forces to run at its most efficient manner. In reality, a financial holocaust is waiting to happen when the power of destruction is in the hands of a few irresponsible and greedy men with no morals or responsibility except to make profits at any cost. God is great. It allows ingenious men to scheme together to meet at Armaggeddon happily, and thinking that they are very clever, to create the mother of all systems for self destruction. Globalisation, interconnectivity, de regulation, mergers, etc, etc, all points to one end. The rogues never think that they are the rogues. And they are in charge. We have experienced the frightening story of too big to fail. The next big story is too big for the good of everyone. The big funds, when acting in unison, can be more destructive than WMD. The world was given a glimpse of what is yet to come during the financial crisis. If the rascals in the financial industry are allowed to do what they wanted, we will get there sooner. They are linking all the markets together, to be burnt together at one go. Does it ring a bell? It is happening in Hongkong today!