Japan caught sleeping

The nuclear meltdown may happen. All systems failed. Human error compounded by a huge earthquake. Did they plan for such a day? They must have. The construction of a nuclear power station must have taken into account all the possibilities of a meltdown and to prevent it from happening. It happened. But what was disappointing is that the 8.9 Richter scale quake did not lead to an immediate evacuation of coastal villages and towns. If it did, it was too slow. The Japanese have been preparing for such eventualities all their lives. They have tsunami drills regularly, more regular than conducting war games with the Americans. How could so many lives be swept away if there was a tsunami warning and evacuation of the coastal people? Caught sleeping? If it is a once in 50 years act of God, maybe excusable. But earthquakes and tsunamis are part and parcel of the Japanese life and they are very well prepared and equipped to deal with them. Japan caught sleeping. The world expects the Japanese to do much better in preventing such disasters. They are very meticulous and systematic people. They have failed their own people this time.

106,600 PMET jobs for Filipinos

This is how successful we are in job creation. And if you add the others, we could have created at least half a million PMET jobs for all the foreign talents here. It is indeed a great feat and something to crow about. It is also a great feat that so many ex PMETs are now driving taxis or becoming agents or self employed, and struggling to make a living. Yes, we are an all inclusive country, including all foreigners as well. For those Singaporean PMETs who are still left in the lurch, it must be their own inept, that they could not compete with the foreign talents. Serve them right. And if they have a big mortgage to service and growing children that need to support, it must be their bad karma. I do try to believe that it is all the faults of these ex PMETs for their own failures. Somehow I also have this niggering feeling that something is not right. Maybe 10%, statistically never wrong, to presume that there will be some that deserved to be in the shit hole. For the rest, I believe they are true Singaporeans at heart and are hard working and will be the ideal employees like all Singaporeans are, work and work and work. It is sad that so many of our own PMETs have ended up in such a dire strait, and many in the prime of their lives. The option is to be retrained as service workers, and their valuable training, experience and expertise be dumped into the longkangs. There is no need for their skills as they can be replaced by cheaper and hungrier foreign talents. Is there anything wrong about this state of affair?

Today we plan for economic growth

Our economic growth is the envy of many countries. We took pride in our economic growth and place all our bets on it. Economic growth, growing the economic pie, is the answer to all our social problems. And the key to our economic growth is economic activity, and the basic ingredient is human beans. The more human beans there are, the more economic activities can be generated and all the numbers added up to a lovely piece of cake, a bigger cake for all. The formula is simple. More human beans, more work, more productivity, more revenue, more activities, more needs, and more of everything. There is more creation of wealth, more consumption, more expenditure, more demands which will create more and more demands of other supporting and service activities. Today we plan for growth. Tomorrow this growth will dictate how the economy will run and all the other human activities. More people mean more food, housing, transportation, jobs, services and space. We can build up and build down. We can share the piece of rock with more people and more people. There will be higher demand for food, water and electric power. So more facilities will be built to store water and generate power. The nuclear option will not be an option but a necessity. There is no way out. The nuclear disaster that is awaiting to blow up in Japan must be food for thought for many who think it is a logical road to take. Our economic growth and growing population and needs for power will push us down this road. Japan, with probably the most efficient and trained workforce, is now staring at a human disaster they think will not happen. It happened. They are trying to play it down. People from a radius of 20km were evacuated. If we have a nuclear plant on our shore, 20km radius means the sea. No where to evacuate, no where to run. And the beautiful architectural feat of high rise buildings, the new Towers of Babel, are massive disasters and tragedies waiting to happen. They are death traps. So are the massive underground living space. No, we don’t have to face an earthquake or a tsunami. The worst we could get was a little tremor from a distant quake far away. And the water level, if there is, will be a knee deep flood in Orchard Road. We are blessed with no dramatic natural disaster, yet. We cannot escape from human error and human created disasters. With so many people packed tightly together, even a full loaded sardine packed train can take several hundred out at one go. A high rise collapse can be more destructive. Our planning for economic growth today could be our planning for a major disaster tomorrow. If the Japanese can foul up a top security nuclear plant with all the safety measures, the lesser beans of this region better restrain their ego trips and don’t think they can do better than the Japanese.

A vote for Greed

Greed is good. And that is coming out quite freely from all the successful people. There is no denying the fact that our prosperity has been driven by the power of Greed. Greed is the greatest motivating force that transformed what we were to what we are today. Greed is now the prevailing culture in this great and affluent city. Anyone who does not subscribe to the goodness of Greed or condemns Greed is condemning themselves to mediocrity. Greed has brought the best out of our super talents in all fields. Through Greed, they have reached the peak of their fields of expertise and are among the best in the world, with many excelling and becoming the bestest of the best, or at least in the income that they can command. The highest paid professionals in several fields are Singaporeans. We can boast of the highest paid President, PM, ministers etc etc and surgeons and lawyers. In other words, Greed has propelled our citizens to the top of their profession. The belief that goodness, ethics, morality, sacrifices, selflessness, are virtues is only meant for the losers or the idealists. The pragmatic and talented know that these are useless values only to be taught to children. They have no time for such idealism. They are busy making themselves worthy and reaping the reward of Greed. Because they are so good, they can demand any price they wanted. A dying man needing some expert to save his life will have to take the price. And asking a million a day is reasonable in a life and death situation. The more professional one may go one step further and ask the victim if he has the money to pay before proceeding to save him. Check the affordability of the victim first. In a highly competitive world, Greed is nothing to be ashamed of, and is doing us well, to compete and be the best in our pursuit for excellence. The culture of Greed pervades every level of our society and is being practised zealously to a fine art. And the epitome of Greed is not the contribution but how much one is able to ask to be paid. Some may do very little and being paid a ransom. That is the ultimate art of Greed at the highest level. It is time to vote for Greed. Give a resounding vote of confidence that Greed is Good. No kidding.

$4,267,500 for the President

Up from $3,376,800, the President's pay is now $4,267,500. And the govt announced this in Parliament and believing that it will go down well with the people, or the people will quietly accept it. I am not sure if this is arrogance or what? Maybe the govt knows that the people will accept everything as long as it is passed in Parliament. It happened. What can you do about it? One thing the people can do, clap, clap and say the President deserves it. It is peanuts really, compared to the medical bill a good surgeon can charge. It is peanuts really, as it cost less than $1 from every resident in the island of more than 5m people. Cheap, cheap.