Being paid $400k or $500k a week just to play football is common in the British football league or the European league. That is a cool $2m a month or $24m a year, excluding bonuses. Where else can one find such a well paying job and so dignified, with fans screaming everywhere just to see them?
Carlos Tevez is one of the fortunate super football talents to be paid this kind of salary in Manchester City. This is the sister club to Manchester United that will probably reappear anytime for a listing in our stock exchange. And Manchester United, being a better club, with betterer talents, is likely to pay their star players much more, or not worst than Carlos Tevez’s $500k a week pay.
When Manchester United finally got to be listed here, Singaporeans will have the privilege to be associated with this great football club, and also the privilege to be their paymaster, paying each of the star footballer millions every month. Singaporeans should be happy to do that, as paying huge obscene salary is a normal practice here. They are used to it. It will cost them an additional plate of char kway teow at most.
The most important thing is that they are happy paying. It is value for money, every cent of it. Now, why are the parents craving for their children to be in the best school and to get a degree when they could have fun kicking a ball and not being stressed up in our hot house schools, and getting paid several times more than our President?
9/29/2011
The more scary and horrifying part of Halloween Horror
I am in the mood to tell a story that happened many eons ago. Singapore was a young and dynamic state, with an equally young and robust PM. It was an era when mistakes were not tolerated, not even a misplaced comma or a full stop. It could ruin the career of a civil servant for not minding his comma or full stop. Yeah, can be quite unforgiving. But that was the standard of the day.
The PM went golfing on a Sunday morning in Tanah Merah. He drove his tee shot into the centre of the fairway. The sound of a plane roared as it approached for landing. The PM looked up, trying to take a look at the spectacular sight of a Boeing 707 with wheels hanging down. Oops, no luck, view blocked by the casuarina trees. ‘The trees are a bit too high. Otherwise the view would be excellent.’ Said the PM as he went on for his second shot.
The next Sunday he was at the same hole and drove the same ball into the fairway. There was a gust of wind and the ball swerved into OB. A bit annoyed, he looked up. ‘Where are the trees?’ Apparently someone took his comment very seriously, and the trees were cut to waist height, contributing to a more gusty course.
It was an old story and no one will ascertain if it is a true story. The morale of the story is that people at high places should be careful with their words. People react irrationally, taken every word, comma and full stop very seriously too. Some may even over react, for good or bad reasons, for their rice bowl, fear, or to angkat, to please the lord.
And many people suffered as a result. Resources, time, energy and even money were spent that needed not be. How many workers were involved in cutting down the trees? How much was paid to the contractor. The saddest part, the trees suffered a tragic fate all because of an innocent statement. But who cares for the trees anyway?
In the Halloween Horror case, the victims are the poor students, full of enthusiasm, doing their best to score an A for their projects. It would go into their CVs as a shining star when the time comes for sending out job application letters. It probably came to nought. How many people were involved and supported the project and the students, guiding and encouraging them in this endeavour? The lecturers, the principal, the staff of WRS, their friends and relatives, the customers who were willing to pay for the show, never see anything wrong with the event. They were all rebuffed.
How many people’s negative comments were needed to cancel such a project?
What can be worst, not happening yet, and I hope not, will be an asshole to fail the students. The reasoning, the students should know that WRS is a family oriented organization, for wholesome family activities. Choosing something like Halloween Horror and holding it as a WRS event is simply poor understanding, planning and foresight. The students failed to think through the project carefully and thus ended with an abandoned project.
I am just speculating. But knowing the ethos of the day, scoring points, trying to read the minds of those that matters, and taking a stand to please the ‘boss’, angkat angkat a bit, and you can have hell for the students. And don’t expect the devil to protect the students as god is more powderful.
Has the Halloween Horror story seen its final chapter?
The PM went golfing on a Sunday morning in Tanah Merah. He drove his tee shot into the centre of the fairway. The sound of a plane roared as it approached for landing. The PM looked up, trying to take a look at the spectacular sight of a Boeing 707 with wheels hanging down. Oops, no luck, view blocked by the casuarina trees. ‘The trees are a bit too high. Otherwise the view would be excellent.’ Said the PM as he went on for his second shot.
The next Sunday he was at the same hole and drove the same ball into the fairway. There was a gust of wind and the ball swerved into OB. A bit annoyed, he looked up. ‘Where are the trees?’ Apparently someone took his comment very seriously, and the trees were cut to waist height, contributing to a more gusty course.
It was an old story and no one will ascertain if it is a true story. The morale of the story is that people at high places should be careful with their words. People react irrationally, taken every word, comma and full stop very seriously too. Some may even over react, for good or bad reasons, for their rice bowl, fear, or to angkat, to please the lord.
And many people suffered as a result. Resources, time, energy and even money were spent that needed not be. How many workers were involved in cutting down the trees? How much was paid to the contractor. The saddest part, the trees suffered a tragic fate all because of an innocent statement. But who cares for the trees anyway?
In the Halloween Horror case, the victims are the poor students, full of enthusiasm, doing their best to score an A for their projects. It would go into their CVs as a shining star when the time comes for sending out job application letters. It probably came to nought. How many people were involved and supported the project and the students, guiding and encouraging them in this endeavour? The lecturers, the principal, the staff of WRS, their friends and relatives, the customers who were willing to pay for the show, never see anything wrong with the event. They were all rebuffed.
How many people’s negative comments were needed to cancel such a project?
What can be worst, not happening yet, and I hope not, will be an asshole to fail the students. The reasoning, the students should know that WRS is a family oriented organization, for wholesome family activities. Choosing something like Halloween Horror and holding it as a WRS event is simply poor understanding, planning and foresight. The students failed to think through the project carefully and thus ended with an abandoned project.
I am just speculating. But knowing the ethos of the day, scoring points, trying to read the minds of those that matters, and taking a stand to please the ‘boss’, angkat angkat a bit, and you can have hell for the students. And don’t expect the devil to protect the students as god is more powderful.
Has the Halloween Horror story seen its final chapter?
More land needed for private developers
Those who think that the private developers are worried that their properties will not be sold or property prices will fall will be disappointed. Boon Wan would have to release more land for the private property developers to build more private properties for sale. While the locals are complaining about outrageous property prices, the millionaires in China, India, Indonesia and overseas are finding the properties here a bargain.
And it was reported China alone has at least one million millionaires and all wanting to invest in properties. The property developers are laying down the red carpet to invite these new rich to buy properties here. And the take up rate is very high. All the big developers like Far East and Capitaland are in China luring the investors with perks, free air tickets and seafood dinners, all to buy properties here.
If the one million Chinese millionaires were to buy one unit each, that will be one million units short. To be more realistic, if ten per cent of the millionaires were to buy, that is already a cool 100k units. Nothing left and not enough to go round. Then the Indians, Indonesians and Westerners, we need to reclaim more land and islands to build properties.
Alternatively Singaporeans can start to sell out their million dollar properties and move off to JB, Batam and Bintang. One thing for sure, property prices will keep going up. Singapore is going to experience another bigger property boom, and there will be prosperity all round. The more properties one owns, the richer one will become.
Happy days are back again! The long queues in new launches will be back. Banks will be able to offer more attractive mortgages packages. The craze will be on and property speculators will be laughing all the way to the banks.
And it was reported China alone has at least one million millionaires and all wanting to invest in properties. The property developers are laying down the red carpet to invite these new rich to buy properties here. And the take up rate is very high. All the big developers like Far East and Capitaland are in China luring the investors with perks, free air tickets and seafood dinners, all to buy properties here.
If the one million Chinese millionaires were to buy one unit each, that will be one million units short. To be more realistic, if ten per cent of the millionaires were to buy, that is already a cool 100k units. Nothing left and not enough to go round. Then the Indians, Indonesians and Westerners, we need to reclaim more land and islands to build properties.
Alternatively Singaporeans can start to sell out their million dollar properties and move off to JB, Batam and Bintang. One thing for sure, property prices will keep going up. Singapore is going to experience another bigger property boom, and there will be prosperity all round. The more properties one owns, the richer one will become.
Happy days are back again! The long queues in new launches will be back. Banks will be able to offer more attractive mortgages packages. The craze will be on and property speculators will be laughing all the way to the banks.
9/28/2011
False CVs on the rise in Asia
By Dolly Chia
MORE job applicants are lying about their employment history, with those in the IT as well as banking and financial services among the biggest culprits.
According to First Advantage, a provider of employment screening solutions, the proportion of employees misrepresenting their qualifications on their resume in Asia-Pacific rose to 4.4 per cent this year from 3.2 per cent last year....Reported in a local media.
What do the 4.4 percentage points mean? It means that if we have 100,000 Employment Pass holders, 4,400 of them have false CVs. If the number is 300,000, probably the size of our EP, just my guesstimate, the number of false CVs working and living with us is a staggering 13,200. And it could be much more as many are still undetected.
What is unacceptable, not that they are laughing at our stupidity, is that these jobs could have gone to our pressure cooking products of our world best education system. Unfortunately they have been replaced by fakes.
The problem is serious and the govt needs to set up a body to investigate the CVs of all foreign talents coming in. We don’t want to have CEOs who attended a 2 week course in Harvard to claim to be a Harvard alumni. We don’t want a fake to be ordering our local talents around and being paid more for doing it. We don’t want a fake to be managing our local talents and depriving them of that job. We don’t want fakes to take our naivity and innocence for granted.
First world talents duped by third world non talents! Can you beat it?
MORE job applicants are lying about their employment history, with those in the IT as well as banking and financial services among the biggest culprits.
According to First Advantage, a provider of employment screening solutions, the proportion of employees misrepresenting their qualifications on their resume in Asia-Pacific rose to 4.4 per cent this year from 3.2 per cent last year....Reported in a local media.
What do the 4.4 percentage points mean? It means that if we have 100,000 Employment Pass holders, 4,400 of them have false CVs. If the number is 300,000, probably the size of our EP, just my guesstimate, the number of false CVs working and living with us is a staggering 13,200. And it could be much more as many are still undetected.
What is unacceptable, not that they are laughing at our stupidity, is that these jobs could have gone to our pressure cooking products of our world best education system. Unfortunately they have been replaced by fakes.
The problem is serious and the govt needs to set up a body to investigate the CVs of all foreign talents coming in. We don’t want to have CEOs who attended a 2 week course in Harvard to claim to be a Harvard alumni. We don’t want a fake to be ordering our local talents around and being paid more for doing it. We don’t want a fake to be managing our local talents and depriving them of that job. We don’t want fakes to take our naivity and innocence for granted.
First world talents duped by third world non talents! Can you beat it?
Two party system, who decides?
After the last GE, the prospect for a two party or multi party political system appears to be brighter. The invincibility of the ruling party had taken a sharp knock and is not like what it was before. It is looking very fragile and breakable. What it means is that more alternative parties could gain a foot hold in the future Parliament. The electorate are getting very uncomfortable with the political system and are showing signs of adventurism, that alternative parties could be the solution to the shit hole that many are stuck in and claimed to be the best there is.
What is telling is that the electorate should never ever flirt with the temptation of alternative parties. The ruling party will decide if the political system will evolve into a two party or multi party system. The message is distinctly clear that the outcome of what the political system will evolve is not for the people to decide.
So, how would the ruling party decide if there should be a multi party system? Simple, the new WP members in Parliament will be watched very carefully. How they perform will decide the fate of the future political system. Simply, they need to play ball with the ruling party, to win its confidence, that they are not out to destroy the party or the country.
Does it make sense? I think the message is that they must not ask funny questions that make the ruling party and the leaders look funny. Better still, try to make them look good, make them feel comfortable, then maybe more alternative party MPs will be able to get into Parliament. And they may even be invited to be grassroots advisors. If the WP’s MPs did not play ball and are contemptuous, and persist in asking embarrassing questions, then the fate of a multi party system will be sealed, be gone forever.
If this is the case, that the future of a multi party system is decided by the ruling party and not the electorate, then my advice to the WP MPs is to play ball, be nice. Then maybe in 2016, more alternative MPs will be allowed into Parliament.
What is telling is that the electorate should never ever flirt with the temptation of alternative parties. The ruling party will decide if the political system will evolve into a two party or multi party system. The message is distinctly clear that the outcome of what the political system will evolve is not for the people to decide.
So, how would the ruling party decide if there should be a multi party system? Simple, the new WP members in Parliament will be watched very carefully. How they perform will decide the fate of the future political system. Simply, they need to play ball with the ruling party, to win its confidence, that they are not out to destroy the party or the country.
Does it make sense? I think the message is that they must not ask funny questions that make the ruling party and the leaders look funny. Better still, try to make them look good, make them feel comfortable, then maybe more alternative party MPs will be able to get into Parliament. And they may even be invited to be grassroots advisors. If the WP’s MPs did not play ball and are contemptuous, and persist in asking embarrassing questions, then the fate of a multi party system will be sealed, be gone forever.
If this is the case, that the future of a multi party system is decided by the ruling party and not the electorate, then my advice to the WP MPs is to play ball, be nice. Then maybe in 2016, more alternative MPs will be allowed into Parliament.
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