11/11/2011

The world watches in silence

After Iraq and Libya, the next target of the Empire is Iran. They are preparing the grounds for it. They have spoken openly of the impending attack to gauge world reactions. Silence. The muslim world is headless and too deep in their own trouble to worry about anything else. Some may be afraid that their country will be next to be invaded and regime changed. Better to dig the head deeper into the sand for safety.

The rest of the world also remains silent as if nothing is happening. Like the proverbial 4 monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing. Don’t count on the western media or the white men’s conscience to denounce the premeditated murder of the Iranians.

Can any country stop this evil Empire from its murderous intent? If the rest of the world is willing to stand behind China or Russia to challenge the evil Empire from committing more genocide, there may be some hope. You need the rest of the world and the two nuclear power countries to keep the evil Empire at bay.

But why should China do anything? The rest of the world believes that China is the evil one, the aggressive one, their enemy, though China has not even lift a little finger to attack any country. It is best for China to stay out of the killing and destruction and let the evil Empire go on to take out one country after another in the name of peace. Any attempt for China to stand up for the weak nations will be immediately condemned by the western media. That is understandable. But the attacks by the western media will be joined by more attacks by the weak nations of Asia and Africa on China. They will immediately point the finger at China as a country willing to use military power to bully smaller nations. They could not see the Americans are doing exactly that.

It is best for China to stay out of the impending nuking of Iran. It is best for China just to look after its own territorial integrity and make sure that no little pesky country would dare to encroach on its territories and make spurious claims on them.

Let the evil Empire teach the weak nations a lesson on goodness and who to trust. It is now fabricating more evidences, like WMD against Saddam Hussein, to attack Iran. It is forcing China to join them against Iran, to impose more sanctions and even support the strike against Iran.

What a peace loving Empire.

MAS is starting to show interests

The MF Global sham must have triggered MAS into action. Or is it Paul Volcker’s recommendation for more regulation than deregulation? Well, MAS is introducing more regulations to prevent more lemons appearing in our financial market, to protect the average investors. Sophisticated instruments, derivatives etc will now be subject to more regulations to prevent innocent, ignorant and unsophisticated investors from being sucked into the quagmire and lose their life savings.

It is a good start, albeit a little too late and a bit too little. The measures taken are still too inadequate to prevent the loss of billions to the big funds which is happening daily. It is not just the derivatives and sophisticated products that are at fault. There are system faults that cannot go on like this.

The derivatives are now seen as dangerous, if not toxic. If they are dangerous, shouldn’t they be taken out of the system completely? Or it is okay to sell poison as long as the buyer knows that it is poison? This is a philosophical question. It can be a matter of right and wrong, a moral issue.

Derivatives are not only dangerous by themselves. The fact that they are derived from the major stocks in the market will also put these stocks at risk to grave manipulations. The intrinsic values of these component stocks will be of no bearing to the speculators whose only interest is profit by pushing the stocks up and down, at high speed.

The more dangerous development is to allow funds to hook up their computers to the stock market system. This is unfair in many counts. They could trade at high speed with the advantage of high speed computers and with the information provided by the system that the average investors are not accessible to. And they could use big muscles, with practically unlimited trading limits to corner stocks, to move stocks at will.

Cornering of stocks, buying and selling without change of ownership are all against the rules and regulations of the stock market. Are the funds doing it, or allow to do it?

For several years, the investors have been brought to the cleaners by the big funds. A report on who are the main winners and who are the losers would tell the story much clearer on how the system is disadvantaging the average investors.

MAS could have done more to ensure that the stock market is a level playing field to all investors, big or small. Funds can play with their sophisticated computers, algos, big war chests, but must not be allowed to hook their computers to the exchange. This is the least that MAS has to do.

Smaller flats do not compromise on quality of life

This is another political truth that Singaporeans are going to make to believe in. Drinking shit water is good. No car will not affect the quality of life. Two working parents too will not affect family life as quality time is more important. HDB flats are affordable, are affordable and stop complaining that it is not.

Singaporeans are not gullible. They are only easily made to believe whatever political truths they are made to believe. Foreign talents are here to help them and not competing with them for jobs or facilities. Foreign talents are better than local talents.

As far as living in small flats or mickey mouse flats are concerned, just compared with Hongkong and Japan and we will feel so blessed. In Hongkong a designer can even turn a 300 sq ft unit into a lifestyle statement. On entering the unit, he says, welcome to my living room. Then he pull down a shelf, without moving from the spot he is standing, he will say, welcome to my kitchen, next by moving a panel, he says, this is my toilet. Then pushing another panel and pulling out a sofa bed, he says here is my bedroom.

All high tech staff, futuristic, with expensively designed furniture and fittings. His life style is definitely not affected. In fact he will show off his cleverly designed flat as a statement of style.

Seriously, what kind of flats, what size is needed for a decent flat to raise a family with two children? Have we forgotten about family and children? Maybe we have accepted that the family shall be small, with one or two children or no children at all. Get use to the smaller flats. There is no contradiction or conflict in policies, definitely.

But having two children still needs a lot of space for growing up, for grandparents or a maid. Oh, we used to have many bodies in a cubicle. Two on the beds, two under the beds, one on the table, one under the table, one in the kitchen and a few more in every corner of the room. How can we complain about smaller flats? We have progressed, like back to the future.

The thing is that why are we squeezing our people into smaller spaces. Or is it to make room for more foreigners, for 10m population? Is a bigger population indispensable, which our progress depends on it and is the quality of our life? If the quality of life is living in smaller and smaller flats that are going to cost more and more, I think this kind of progress can be done without.

Are we serious in wanting parents to have children, to have three tiered families? Sure, it only depends on whether you can afford it. Having more children and three tiered families in a 10,000 sq ft or 20,000 sq ft property should be no problem. When you can’t afford that, live within your means and try clever redesigning, clever use of space like squeezing the maids with the grands or the children or in the store room.

The quality of our life style will definitely not be affected. It is only an issue of affordability and living within your means.

A specialist hospital across the causeway

Peter Lim and the Sultan of Johore are building a specialist hospital just across the causeway to cater for Johoreans and Singaporeans. This is the best joint venture to date coming from Johore. And the involvement of the Sultan will eradicate a lot of petty problems that could be conceived from petty minds.

When I wrote about such an option, my main worry is the use of CPF for medical treatment in the Iskander. You know, it can be something like the ¾ tank rule all over again. Then it is as good as a no go. With the Sultan’s stake in the hospital, we can be sure that this is not going to happen. It will definitely give the hospital a big boost in drawing more Singaporeans over.

On the Malaysian side, the Sultan’s presence can ease many unnecessary troubles. The most obvious is to ensure that crime against Singaporeans using the hospital is not an issue and the police would have to work harder on this. Then without Mahathir in the kitchen, hopefully no UMNO leaders will agitate against Singaporeans using their facilities or jamming their roads, raising cost of living.

I am really looking forward to a successful symbiotic relationship between the two sides that improves the lives of both people. The Johoreans will benefit from a world class hospital and its supporting industries. Singaporeans will not be squeezed by the local hospitals and have a meaningful alternative across the causeway.

It can be a real win win situation and not mere lip service.

11/10/2011

Notable quote from LKY

"If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave
them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society...So what happens?
There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next
generation. That's a problem." - MM Lee in 1983

Someone sent me this quote and after reading it I was a bit puzzle. I can’t figure out ‘less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation.’ I think I got a mental block here. I am intrigue by this quote. Please read it carefully and find the intricate truth it is revealing.