Message from Parliament

We need more foreign talents. And we need more foreign talents. We have more than 5 million bodies in this piece of rock. And we need more foreign talents. When we are at 6 million, we still need foreign talents. When we are at 10 million, we still need foreign talents. When we are at 20 million, we will still need foreign talents. We need the bodies to ensure economic growth. Our economic growth is vital to our survival. Without economic growth, we will be history. And our economic growth depends on bodies. We need bodies to fill up our trains and buses. We need to fill them to the brim or else it is inefficiency and unprofitable. We need bodies to fill up our shopping centres and food courts. If not, business will be bad and rentals will fall. We need more bodies to fill up the factories and offices, or rentals will fall too. We need more foreign talents. We need more bodies to buy up all the properties, housing or commercial, or else prices will fall. And when all the properties are bought, we need to build more to generate more economic growth, and we need more bodies, and we need more foreign talents. And our roads must also be filled with cars or else it will be a waste of resources. A jammed pack road system is a sign of prosperity and high economic activity. Also good for COEs and ERPs. Our world class hospitals need to be filled. Can’t imagine if they are half empty or 70% filled. We need more bodies to fill them, from staffing to patients. Every head counts for economic growth. For the sake of economic growth and efficiency, we need to keep growing our population. And since the locals are not reproducing enough, we need to bring in more foreign talents. Don’t worry, economic growth is everything and it will not stop. We will keep growing, and keep needing foreign talents, and more bodies.

Comforting words in Parliament

Raymond Lim spoke in Parliament about his ministry’s plan for public transportation. More trains, more buses, higher frequencies, and best of all, more comfortable rides. Gone were the comparisons with Tokyo’s sardine can trains. It used to be the reference point, that if our trains were not as crowded as Tokyo’s, we are still not there, not up to Tokyo’s standard. Now comfort and higher frequencies are important. Thank you. And there is more money for everyone. The students are going to get more assistance with their school fees and the qualifying income has been raised. The poorer groups of citizens too will be seeing more help coming their way. Is this part of the election process or what? If it is part of the election process, a pre election morphine jab, what will the post election process be like? For sure, the fares will go up. The delay in fare hikes is only temporary. And for sure, someone is going to say, hey, all this costs money. And money must come from somewhere. Anyway it is a nice change. I am hoping that Boon Wan will also say that medical fees are too high. But no, when an open heart surgery cost only $8 out of pocket, it cannot be too high. In fact it is too cheap. And then we have seen medical bills in the tens of millions. Seriously, there is no reason to say that our medical bills in govt privatized hospitals are too high. The only way to say that they are too high is to ignore the $8 open heart surgery as only good for the likes of Boon Wan. Hope he will share with the people how he could do it. And also the $24.8m medical bill must be seen in a different light. Taking these two examples as anomalies, perhaps, maybe, we can then take a serious look at those $150k or $200k bills and say yes, honestly, undisputably, they are extraordinary high and not suitable for ordinary people. In reality, any bill that is above a couple of thousands is high. Any bill that is in 5 digits is very high and very unaffordable to the average Singaporeans. But they are lucky, with so much money in their Medisave and all the Ms to pay for them. What if they have no Ms? And would somebody admit that the prices of public housing is no longer affordable to many average Singaporeans? It will be a pleasant sound to hear. But I just heard a loud No, they are very affordable. Hey, this is pre election time, would it not be nice to say something nice?

Why is there a need to apologise?

LKY has made a statement that he stood to be corrected on his comment that the Malays should loosen up a little in their observance of Islamic norms. He was just being polite. As an elder statesman, he was being generous to offer his advice for the Malays to integrate better with the other communities. For him to have made the statement, the reason is obvious. If the Malays have integrated at a pace and level that he found comfortable, he would not have to say this. The Malays may think otherwise and feel that they have integrated very well and no need further advice. It is just a matter of perception from two different perspectives. Some may agree with him, some may not. I am still reading many comments that LKY needs to apologise. Apologise for what? For trying to them to be better integrated? Is that a derogatory remark, something that hurts? If the Malays disagree with his observation, just tell him they don’t agree. Both need not see eye to eye. Actually the way LKY puts it, the comment was most polite. He is not demanding the Malays to do what he wanted or else…. He did not reprimand the Malays for the pace of integration which he found still not good enough. The more the Malays and the other communities integrate with each other, the better it is for hotel building. Oops, I slip. I mean nation building. Even if it is just a hotel, integration of all parties working and living in the hotel cannot be bad. Need to apologise for wishing the community to be better? Come on, grow up lah. Take off the blinkers and see the world from the level of a higher good and stop being so petty and personal. The Malays are lucky that the MM is thinking about their problems and how to help them along. He could just keep quiet and pretend, which everyone is doing, that all is fine.

Ignoring the people

The flame that is burning in the Middle East is all about the rulers ignoring the people. There you have dictators and kingships and democratically elected leaders who are dictators in all counts of the word ruling the people at their own fancy. The people were just subjects or masses that could be ignored. And the leaders thought they own the people, the country and all its wealth. Now the time has come when the people no longer wanted to be ignored. They are taking their countries back. They are throwing out the dictators and royalties too. It is only a matter of time as the tide has changed. There is no where to hide and no where to run. The ignoring of the people have gone on for too long. Some may want to relate the crisis in the Middle East to the situation in South East Asia, and in Asia, with fingers pointing to China and praying that China should be the next to fall. There are differences. Every country is different. The oppression and subjugation of the people in the Middle East and their standard of living are all grievances that prompted the people to rise against the rulers. Relatively the people in Asia and South East Asia are fairing much better. China is a big contradiction but a country that is making the most progress to improve the livelihood of its people. Many are getting richer by the day and the middle class is growing. China and the Chinese have never seen such good times for several centuries. At the rate it is moving, China is heading towards its golden age. The rest of the western craps like freedom of expression will fall into place as the country grows in affluence and abundance and when everyone is well fed and well clothed. Singapore is another aberration. A little pearl of progress, a little shining light as far as economic growth and material wealth are concerned. Are the rulers here guilty of ignoring the people too? There were some demands, nothing critical, for more transparency. What are the assets worth under the wings of GIC and Temasek? The rulers have explained that for strategic and business reasons, cannot tell. How much assets are the elected President supposed to guard? Too complicated and will take many hundreds of manhours to tell. I think the rulers are still working on it, another work in progress. Both explanations are reasonable from the perspective of the rulers. Then what about the cost of building public housing? So far also no answer. There is no commercial or national consideration to keep this information confidential. Would the rulers tell? The people have been asking for so long and have been ignored for so long until the issue is as good as forgotten. After a few times of being ignored, case closed. Such issues are not life threatening and not telling will not make any difference. There will be no uprising over such minor non disclosures. No need to tell. No problem at all.

Can Malays bridge the gap?

This was the title of an article in the Sunday Times yesterday. The conclusion is that they need more help from the govt. And this mentality of more help from the govt can last in perpetuity. 100 years down the road, they will still face the same problem and will still need more help from the govt unless…. Apparently they did not know why. I may sound arrogant to make this remark, but that is obvious. No one wants to say it. Saying it will only draw all the brickbats and accusations and demands for apologies just like what LKY had to face recently. If one does not want to look at the problem squarely, one can never solve the problem. Period. Having said this, I think it is a myth that the Malays are not doing well. I think they have done exceedingly well. Am I kidding? No. To measure how well one does, one needs to know what one is aspiring to be and what one is prepared to contribute and work towards that goal. There are two elements here, the goal and the effort. What is the goal of the Malay community? Are they seeking materialism or religious comfort and way of life? Some may want the rewards of materialism which mean that one must put in all the time and effort to achieve that. You want to be a CEO, a doctor, a lawyer or whatever in the corporate world and industry, what is needed from you? You can’t be there if you don’t work for it. Many Malay families have reached these positions, though more are welcomed. Then there are those who aspire to be imams and religious leaders. They pursue higher education in this field. They succeeded and became religious leaders. But religious leaders don’t come with big houses, big cars and big pay packets unlike some mega churches. They have achieved what they wanted and should be happy with their achievements. They are not under achievers. They have different motivations and goals in life. And the in betweens, some wanted to be footballers, musicians, singers, performers, some wanted to be salespersons, some wanted to be workers, and they put in the equivalent effort to achieve these goals. And they are there. You can’t say that they have not achieved. There are many great Malay footballers and in fact the whole national team are Malay footballers if the foreigners are excluded. They did well in their chosen field. And there are some who just wanted to get married, make babies and enjoy life, with little pressure and stress, and not having to work 12 or 16 hours daily. That is their goals in life. They too have achieved. You can’t claim that they are failures because they are not professionals and did not live in big houses and driving big cars. It is their aspirations and the time and effort they put in to get what they wanted. One other point that surfaced in the article is that the Malays cannot succeed because they are the minority and did not have the numbers. Is that reason valid? Just look at the Indians and the Chinese, they are minorities in countries around the world. They did not need the numbers to be successful. The Indians are exceedingly successful not only here but in the US. They literally own and managed some of the biggest American and European banks. And they are minorities, absolute minorities in the exact meaning of the word. The Chinese too are coping quite well in many western countries, as minorities though not excelling the way the Indians do.. Numbers is not and never the only reason to be successful. It is what you want and what you are prepared to put in to get it. How many Indians or Chinese are there in the West? In many of the countries, they are not even 1% of the population. And they did not ask their govt for help. They just do it. So, is there a problem, a contradiction, or just a wrongful perception? Can the Malay bridge the gap? What gap? The gap of material success is attainable if they set that as their goal and work towards it.