Crying for leadership

The state and health of the international financial system is so deplorable. Expecting the US to throw out a leader to challenge the scoundrels of Wall Street is like asking for heaven. With Congress being in the pockets of the white collar crooks, there is no possibility of any one of substance to break through the layers of bureaucratic corruption to do what is right and save the financial system. Corruption and mismanagement in the system have been institutionalized and legalized, and copied by many western countries. Period.

While nothing can be done to stop the rot in Wall Street, what other countries could hope for is to stop the rot at their doorstep, to keep the rot out of their national system. The Chinese are defending their infant financial system and are threading very carefully to avoid the pitfalls. But the sexiness and attraction of instant wealth for some are too tempting to resist. When there are so much to gain personally, people become blind to the flaws and the consequences to the country and other people. And if the Americans and the Europeans are doing it, it cannot be too wrong. Or at least they can point the finger to the Americans to justify their crimes. They are putting on the same blinkers not to see the rot. The Chinese are veering towards a tipping point to embrace the failed American financial system of computer and algo trading plus all the derivatives and toxic notes and currency manipulation.

Hongkong is equally cautious. There are brighter people there who could smell a rat and are resisting from falling into the abyss. They are not easily conned by a few westerners who came claiming to know it all and were able to show the way…to oblivion.

At a time like this, when everyone is selling snake oil as the panacea to immortality, it needs a very strong leader with the wisdom to know what is going on to say no. Is there no one out there who is thinking and can see the flaws in the whole financial system? The thinkers, the financial experts, must seriously look at the system and, if things are not right, to say so. Many are so bogged down with their own preoccupation and the money grabbing past time that no one has the time to take the pulse or to diagnose the sickness. There is an urgent need for someone to do this. Someone must have the conviction, and the power to go with, to say the system stinks and needs to be stopped and revamped.

Where is the leadership, the man to call a spade a spade, and want to change and save the system from sliding to self destruct? For the moment the jokers are having a great time, like Nero, fiddling on the roof while Rome burned. There is no one brave enough, knowledgeable enough, to challenge the snake oil salesmen?

High population is good. High property prices are good. High car prices are good. The stock market is in the pink of health. Just believe.

No let up in push for 6m population

Another big convincing article in the ST, and in other news media, telling how precarious the country will be if there is no intake of immigrants. The need for population growth or replacement is a critical issue and without growth or at least replacement it is like we are going to perish. This one track mind on population growth and economic growth will not change and will be the basis for all other policies of the country.

Why must there be population growth to survive? The fact is that if every country goes on this path, the world will come to an end faster. This world, and this island, needs lesser population growth. Lesser population and less growth in economic numbers do not directly lead to lower quality of life. We were 1m and 2m before. We survived very well. Why a need for 6m or 10m? Better economic growth? More people, more demand for goods and services, more jobs, more housing, but lesser space for everyone. And replacing Sinkies with foreigners so that the country can be proud of great economic numbers?

If we have lesser people, if the world has lesser people, there will be lesser demand and pressure for production of goods and services and lesser or slower depletion of the limited resources available. We don’t need to empty the oceans of fishes. There is no need to dig out everything from the earth, no need to burn away fossil fuel at such a rapid rate. They will be more spaces and resources for everyone.

This world and this island need to downsize the population to be sustainable. It is like chasing high property prices and ever increasing salaries but ending like a dog chasing its own tail. It is a circus, a joke. With lesser population, there is no need to build up every little space we got. There will be more people able to own cars and drive around, and living in bigger homes. There is no need for more departmental stores, shopping complexes, more food courts and more housing and more housing. There is a need to rethink this economic growth strategy and ask what is the ultimate objective for all this growth? What kind of life and what quality of life?

We are laughing at the Japanese for no growth and an ageing population. But their quality of life has not gone down despite lower economic growth. And with a smaller population, they will live better and the world will be safer, the whales and tunas will live freer and longer.

Do we really cannot survive without population growth, without more immigrants? Can someone think out of the box please and stop chiding people for not able to think out of the box. This one track mindset is going to destroy our quality of life instead of making it better. The thinkers and policy makers mindset is so fixated and nothing else can do except more people. So what if property prices fall with lesser people and lesser demand? So what if rentals of commercial spaces fall with lesser demand? Who needs to buy so many property and commercial spaces and ended the people being squeezed in every aspect of their lives?

Gintai’s article on Singaporeans being priced out

Gintai wrote an article on how our system benefitted the PRs most in terms of housing. The main point is that the PRs have an option to cash out at the end of the day, carry his pot of gold back to his home country to live like a rich landlord. This is fact!

The poor Sinkies would have to face the ever increasing cost of living, higher property prices, higher car prices, higher everything, and his savings waiting to vanish anytime, not enough to buy a car, not enough to pay for medical, not even to pay for retirement.

Didn’t anyone see this Hobson’s choice for the Sinkies, to be fixed into such a disadvantageous position? Didn’t the policy makers look ahead, plan ahead, and see the problems over the horizon? Maybe this is not a problem. Very likely, given their super talents, they knew what is coming up. But they need the Sinkies to pay for all the expensive and good stuff and good life, and their super salaries. The PRs can go home and downgrade to a landed property in their kampongs. Here we can enjoy our 650 sq ft million dollar flat and live in a first world city with all the convenience that money can afford to pay.

It is all in the plan. The Sinkies are captive customers, no way to run and no way to hike. Just con them with a few good sounding words and they will buy in the story. Singapore is home, the best place to be in, and good things have a price. Be happy and be contented. Why be envious of the PRs? They did not have such a brilliant and caring govt that will look after them from birth to death. And when they cash out, they will downgrade the quality of living. They are returning to stone age.

Count your blessings. Be thankful of what you got. A forumer is so pleased with the way we handled the train breakdown problems that he wrote to the ST to share his admiration. This is so much better than Mumbai. And he is so grateful to be here. He is right to think so. Singapore city is build by the best brains, engineers, architects, civil servants, all so talented, and a disciplined workforce.

But this is changing. There are no longer any talents here. The talents are in Mumbai. Singapore is sending delegations after delegations to Mumbai to recruit the talents to help to make this city better than Mumbai.

Revolution needed in the legal system

With the ridiculously high court fees and legal fees to be paid to lawyers, the system of arbitration needs a rethink to prevent abuses of the legal system. Going to courts today, to be represented by legal counsels, can be a make or break situation where a person can be bankrupted or made to cough out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. As such, where are the safeguards for innocent but poor victims who are hauled to courts by the rich and powerful with their sharp and clever legal counsels paid to do the job?
Though there exists a parallel system now in the form of mediation and small claims tribunal to handle petty litigations, it is still not enough to prevent those with the means to get their way to brutalise the poorer victims by abusing the legal system and making the courts serve their private agenda, in the process, bankrupting a defendant even when the case is ruled in favour of the defendants. Settling out of court or through mediation etc or even winning a case is not good enough as the main purpose of the complainant could be to force the defendant to pay for all the legal fees and court fees and the hassle and the stress of going to court. That itself is a very heavy penalty, an injustice that is legal. The govt cannot allow this to go on without making changes to the legal system to make sure that such abuses are removed from the system of legal and social justice.

The main issue is to make the complainant who made spurious or unwarranted, unjustified complaints to pay dearly to the defendant. Also, the legal counsels representing the unreasonable complainant and filing spurious or unsubstantive charges must be made to pay as well, and not allowed to hide under the pretext of client’s advice or client’s instruction. When a case is unjustified in the name of the law, they must not pursue with the case. If there is no prima facie case they must not forced an issue to bring charges against a defendant. If they think they could get away with such accusations on the ground that it is a 50/50 case, let the judge be the final arbiter to decide if the legal counsel is taking advantage of the legal system, abusing the system, and be made to pay for the cost of wasting the court’s time and the time and stress on the defendant.

Let this be part of the judge’s responsibility to punish errant lawyers and their clients for attempting to make the court and the legal system as their hatchet man. Otherwise the courts will be filled with all kinds of nonsensical and petty suits when one party has an agenda or an axe to grind.

The court of law and its integrity must not be compromised and the institution must be respected especially by the legal community. Anyone who thinks he can pay to use the court and legal system to serve his private agenda and personal grudges must not be allowed to get away with it. And the legal counsel must not be accomplice to such distortion of the justice system.

The wicked Singaporeans

Another case of maid beating appeared in court yesterday. A school teacher thought it was her right to beat up the maid when she made mistakes, pulled her ears till they bled. Making maids clean windows in high rise flats, not giving maids a day off are nothing to crow about. Such wickedness in the mind is common, normal, among Singaporeans. Many of the wicked people are not the illiterates but well schooled and held high positions.

How to eradicate such wickedness in our midst? Should they be given a slap on the wrist and life goes on as normal? Or should a tougher deterrent sentence be imposed on the wicked to make a point? Or is our god bigger than their gods and so we can afford to be wicked to the children of lesser gods?

Maybe it is all relative. To many, such acts could be wicked. To many as well, such acts are normal, just like the recent failures of MRT. It is the new normal and the commuters are expected to live with the new normal, having breakdown every other day is unavoidable, like the flooding of Orchard Road. Learn to accept a lower standard of efficiency and quality.

Or in the case of chasing after the clients of underage prostitute being charged in court, it is part of the job to do what they were doing. To some, from the complaints in cyberspace and other media, such acts amounted to wickedness as well. But some will laugh it off. What’s the big deal? It is all relativity, life will go on.

Then in another realm of existence, there are people who are happily taking away people’s life savings and think it is their own money to decide what to do with them without having to seek the consent of the owners. And the poor owners could only smile when they look at their CPF statements but cry everyday for food and a little niceties in life that they longed for but unable to touch, not that they have no money. But someone else think it is his right to keep the money from the rightful owners and meant good to the owners who had to walk around with empty pockets.

Then there are those who told the people that housing prices are affordable when people have to squeeze a life time of earnings to pay for them. And some even tried to con people that living in mickey mouse flats would not affect their lives.

Some will tell the people it is a good life to earn $800 pm. Some will applaud and encourage the oldies to work till they die as a good thing., full of pride and dignity. On the other hand some will insist that earning less than $50k a month will be a tragedy in their lifestyle.

Are they just as wicked? Difficult to tell as it all depends on who you are, where you are and your value system. What is good or evil is relative. Some will vehemently disagree and insist that these people are wicked. Some will strongly defend the wicked and claim that they are angels. This is the new normal, to live among wickedness. Oops, among goodness.