A piece of bad meat in a broth will turn everything in the pot bad. The Sun Xu incident is gonna turn the batch of scholars around him feeling sour despite the scholarship and opportunities given to them for a good foreign education in a world class university in a world class country.
Sun Xu is unlikely to feel good about the experience. He has shown to be quite an ingrate to rubbish the people of a country over a few stares by a few rude oldies, probably the illiterate type. His close scholar friends would likely be rubbed the wrong way and feeling uncomfortable with the whole issue. And so would other scholars who empathize with his plight.
The broth and meat have to be thrown away, including the millions spent on the whole batch of scholars. One bad apple is enough to affect the whole basket of apples. What a waste of money.
2/23/2012
CPF Poll - If you have a choice
I have added a poll on what the people would like to do with their CPF savings. Poll is at top right corner of page.
CPF’s shifting goal posts
While the govt keeps shifting the goal posts, the daft Sinkies, would you believe it, are resigned to the fate that their CPF savings are as good as gone, a given thing, a fait accompli sanctioned by new regulations!
Everyone enters the CPF scheme at a specific time with a list of accepted and agreed conditions and state regulations. The govt must honour them, or can it suka suka introduce new laws and apply them retrospectively like some unpredictable third world countries? The contractual and legal terms existing must continue to be applicable to the original parties. Any new rules, legislation should only be applicable to subsequent parties coming into the scheme. Failing to do so is unfair and unjust to the affected parties.
Of course the govt has all the power, laws and machinery to do as it pleases. It can introduce anything in Parliament and make them effective with little regards to the interests and feelings of the affected parties. The govt is the law. And this is democracy. The people elect the govt to rule over them and do whatever the govt claims to be good for the people. And the people cannot do anything or blame the govt for it. The people ask for it by voting the govt to be their masters and deserve everything they get from the govt.
Having said that, the human beans, no matter how daft, know that there are things called justice and fairness. What is yours must be yours and not belong to other people. No govt can cheat all the people all the time. Thinking that the people are daft and can be taken for granted will only last for a while and the people will wise up to know what is good or bad for them. A good govt will always have the people behind it. A bad govt will be sent away in due course.
What were the original agreements in the CPF Scheme?
1. It is the people’s savings and the money belongs to the contributors
2. There is a fixed date for complete withdrawal
3. There is a regulated interest rate to be paid
4. There are some rules and guidelines on how the savings can be used.
Changing these rules without the people’s consent is a breach of faith, is it not?. Sure, the people cannot do anything about it except to feel pissed off and pui pui all the time. And they will continue to vote the govt to power, trusting the govt to do good, even changing all the rules regarding their life savings and planning when they can or cannot use them.
And this will not change comes 2016. The people will continue to support the govt as they believe the govt is doing everything that is good for them, except for some who will continue to pui pui. And the people are so happy looking at how their savings are growing day by day. They can also bring their CPF statements with them one day, and rest in peace.
Does the govt really think that it can go on and on messing the people’s savings as it like and the people will continue to vote the govt into power to repeat the story forever?
Everyone enters the CPF scheme at a specific time with a list of accepted and agreed conditions and state regulations. The govt must honour them, or can it suka suka introduce new laws and apply them retrospectively like some unpredictable third world countries? The contractual and legal terms existing must continue to be applicable to the original parties. Any new rules, legislation should only be applicable to subsequent parties coming into the scheme. Failing to do so is unfair and unjust to the affected parties.
Of course the govt has all the power, laws and machinery to do as it pleases. It can introduce anything in Parliament and make them effective with little regards to the interests and feelings of the affected parties. The govt is the law. And this is democracy. The people elect the govt to rule over them and do whatever the govt claims to be good for the people. And the people cannot do anything or blame the govt for it. The people ask for it by voting the govt to be their masters and deserve everything they get from the govt.
Having said that, the human beans, no matter how daft, know that there are things called justice and fairness. What is yours must be yours and not belong to other people. No govt can cheat all the people all the time. Thinking that the people are daft and can be taken for granted will only last for a while and the people will wise up to know what is good or bad for them. A good govt will always have the people behind it. A bad govt will be sent away in due course.
What were the original agreements in the CPF Scheme?
1. It is the people’s savings and the money belongs to the contributors
2. There is a fixed date for complete withdrawal
3. There is a regulated interest rate to be paid
4. There are some rules and guidelines on how the savings can be used.
Changing these rules without the people’s consent is a breach of faith, is it not?. Sure, the people cannot do anything about it except to feel pissed off and pui pui all the time. And they will continue to vote the govt to power, trusting the govt to do good, even changing all the rules regarding their life savings and planning when they can or cannot use them.
And this will not change comes 2016. The people will continue to support the govt as they believe the govt is doing everything that is good for them, except for some who will continue to pui pui. And the people are so happy looking at how their savings are growing day by day. They can also bring their CPF statements with them one day, and rest in peace.
Does the govt really think that it can go on and on messing the people’s savings as it like and the people will continue to vote the govt into power to repeat the story forever?
2/22/2012
Govt funding of public transport
550 buses plus operating costs and salaries of bus drivers for 10 years will be provided by the govt amounting to $1.1b. It is a significant sum to a public listed company, though originally a govt owned business started with tax payer’s money. It was also reported that nearly $70b have so far been doled out to the train operators in infrastructure cost and rolling stocks as well.
And the operators cried shareholder’s interest to see good profits. No doubt the majority shareholder is the govt or govt linked companies, many of the other shareholders are also feeding on the gravy train built with taxpayer’s money and demanding more and more profits.
It can’t be helped for the commuters to be pissed off when the bulk of the capital was taxpayer’s or their money in the first place, and now they have to keep feeding the organizations to feed the shareholders and big bonuses for the top management.
It is high time the govt reclaims the public transport companies and run them as they should be, state owned companies, for the country, people and supporting the rest of the economy. Price it as low as possible, (please assholes, I am not saying that it must be run at a loss) a national service to the people and country. The whole economy also needs an efficient and lowly priced transport system. High transportation cost will spiral into other operating costs and salaries of workers. It will affect the social activities and life of the people as well.
The mission of public transportation has to be relooked at and reformulated to serve the people and country, not just the shareholders.
And the operators cried shareholder’s interest to see good profits. No doubt the majority shareholder is the govt or govt linked companies, many of the other shareholders are also feeding on the gravy train built with taxpayer’s money and demanding more and more profits.
It can’t be helped for the commuters to be pissed off when the bulk of the capital was taxpayer’s or their money in the first place, and now they have to keep feeding the organizations to feed the shareholders and big bonuses for the top management.
It is high time the govt reclaims the public transport companies and run them as they should be, state owned companies, for the country, people and supporting the rest of the economy. Price it as low as possible, (please assholes, I am not saying that it must be run at a loss) a national service to the people and country. The whole economy also needs an efficient and lowly priced transport system. High transportation cost will spiral into other operating costs and salaries of workers. It will affect the social activities and life of the people as well.
The mission of public transportation has to be relooked at and reformulated to serve the people and country, not just the shareholders.
The dismal academic performance of Singaporean scholars
Sim Ann reported that 45% of foreign scholars got second upper or better degrees while Singaporean scholars only managed 32%. Is this proof and justification that the money spent on foreign scholars is the correct one? I am not going to dwell on the merits and advantages of spending millions of public money on so many foreign students instead of spending on our own children. I am not going to whine about spending money on other people’s children than our own.
What I am questioning is the quality of our local scholars? Are they really that bad? From past records, all local scholars are the cream of their cohorts and each would have a string of straight As in O and A levels. Some were even so good that they were allowed to skip the O level. And only 32% made it to second upper? Our straight A students, 68% could not get a second upper? Is there something wrong?
Who are these scholars that made up these statistics? Are they the same equivalent of the foreign scholars, with full scholarship as the foreign students? We need to know the make up of the statistics. If the quality of our local scholars is so bad, then their O and A level results is suspect, or the university grading is suspect. There can be some deviations from the norms, with some scholars getting themselves into problems or losing interests in their studies. But these are extremely good students to be awarded the scholarships and most of them are expected to do better at least a second upper.
68% getting less than second upper is unacceptable. A 20% or at most 30% getting less than second upper may be more reasonable. So, what is wrong with the statistics or with our education system? Can we have more information on what the data is made up of? And I am not even querying on the statistics to include our overseas scholars. It is reasonable to compare our scholars in our local universities and those foreign scholars here. I am not comfortable with such pathetic results of our local scholars. If scholars, I mean full scholarship offered by the govt or GLCs, could not even get a second upper, then something is drastically wrong. What kind of straight As or near straight A students are we having when they turned out to be less than second upper material?
The govt should save the money if the scholars are unable to perform. But it doesn’t mean that we should throw our money to train other people’s children and say money well spent. We need to know more about the statistics to get a better picture of the truth.
What I am questioning is the quality of our local scholars? Are they really that bad? From past records, all local scholars are the cream of their cohorts and each would have a string of straight As in O and A levels. Some were even so good that they were allowed to skip the O level. And only 32% made it to second upper? Our straight A students, 68% could not get a second upper? Is there something wrong?
Who are these scholars that made up these statistics? Are they the same equivalent of the foreign scholars, with full scholarship as the foreign students? We need to know the make up of the statistics. If the quality of our local scholars is so bad, then their O and A level results is suspect, or the university grading is suspect. There can be some deviations from the norms, with some scholars getting themselves into problems or losing interests in their studies. But these are extremely good students to be awarded the scholarships and most of them are expected to do better at least a second upper.
68% getting less than second upper is unacceptable. A 20% or at most 30% getting less than second upper may be more reasonable. So, what is wrong with the statistics or with our education system? Can we have more information on what the data is made up of? And I am not even querying on the statistics to include our overseas scholars. It is reasonable to compare our scholars in our local universities and those foreign scholars here. I am not comfortable with such pathetic results of our local scholars. If scholars, I mean full scholarship offered by the govt or GLCs, could not even get a second upper, then something is drastically wrong. What kind of straight As or near straight A students are we having when they turned out to be less than second upper material?
The govt should save the money if the scholars are unable to perform. But it doesn’t mean that we should throw our money to train other people’s children and say money well spent. We need to know more about the statistics to get a better picture of the truth.
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