Khaw Boon Wan at his brilliant best

While Ignatious Lourdesamy replied to a letter by a Tan Siow Teng, repeating that HDB flats are sold at subsidized prices, which is HDB’s version of the subsidised truth, Boon Wan was holding court to take questions in a public forum on housing matters. And he was simply brilliant in his answers.

To a point raised by the audience that HDB flats have shrunk in size, which is a truth that no one needs to bring a measuring tape to confirm, Boon Wan’s answer was that HDB flat had not shrunk in size in recent years. And of course he was correct. He was referring to flats built now and those built in the 1990s. How to beat such clever answer? It would be even easier if he said that HDB flats had never shrunk in size since he took over.

And he confirmed that the space available to a flat dweller was getting bigger as there were lesser people in a flat due to shrinking family size. This is a way Sinkies can improve the quality of their lives, by ensuring that they keep their family small. Don’t worry about having more babies if one wants more spaces and a better quality of life.

Boon Wan also agreed that the quality of life will be affected if we go the Hongkong way of mickey mouse flats. He said public housing will not go that way. So Singaporeans have two ways to improve the quality of lives, by finding a job that pays more or by reducing family size. Maybe a third way is still possible. Take more weight reducing pills or size reducing pills to avoid growing too big, then the flat will definitely look bigger.

And more flats will be built over the next 5 years, even up to 100,000 units if needed. I hope his computation takes into consideration the 20k or 25k new migrants on the way here every year. If not, then there will be shortage of flats again and his assurance that flat prices will not shoot up again will not hold water. The new immigrants are adults, families and would need housing unlike the babies that will be produced by the locals.

The same Western shit in the media

China is heading for a hard landing. The housing bubble is going to burst, the banks are going bankrupt, the wasteful squandering of money on infrastructure, etc etc will bring China down on its knee. Don’t worry about the mismanagement and recession in the West. The problem in China is much bigger.

And the North Koreans, they are living a very miserable life, abject poverty, the people are starving. What else is new?

Would our reputable and Asian based CNA send some of their objective reporters to the two countries and write some first hand reports on these two countries? Oh, I think the CNA was invited and did send some reporters there. I am sure their feel on the ground would be more credible than those dumb academics that have not set foot in North Korea. Or they are afraid to say anything that differs from the enlightened Western academics, or they don’t believe what they saw. Ya, all propaganda, on see what they are allowed to see.

Just look at their infrastructure, the dressing of the people, the fat on their faces and please don’t print those skin and bone pictures of the 1950s. China also have plenty of those pictures of the 30s or 50s. Singapore also have some real poverty pictures if one cares to find them. One thing for sure, North Korea is no third world country that is barren with streets filled with hungry and sick people. There are not living in abject poverty. Their homes may cost $10,000 but are landed and much bigger than the mickey mouse flats that we called home and paid hundreds of thousands or millions for it.

When will Asian media gain some pride in reporting Asian truths instead of fabricated half truths from the West with western agenda? Every dunce from the West is uttering words like abject poverty, starving etc etc. Do they know what they are saying? Do they really know what the shit is happening in North Korea, or in China?

It is quite sick and insulting to feed readers with such biased thrash practically daily. Is there an agenda or the blind telling the blind?

Help, help, monkeys everywhere!

When you pay peanuts you will get monkeys. Now we must be having monkeys everywhere except the ministers and admin service. These are the two places in public service that are not paid in peanuts. And in the private sector, the workers, hmmm, are they being paid peanuts also?

Monkeys are in every corner of the world. In fact all the state leaders and civil servants across the world are all paid like monkeys. Not many are paid anything decent enough or better than peanuts.

Eeek, there are so many monkeys around.

Wage hike = inflation, salary increment no inflation

The workers are scratching their heads again. Why wage hike will lead to inflation and salary increment will not? Very simple. The answer was given in the ST a few days ago. Singapore’s inflation rate hit a high of 5.2%. But this inflation rate will not affect the workers because hor, it only affects the rich who buy expensive cars and pay high COEs or expensive multi million properties. The inflation is only at the high end. There is no inflation at the low end as workers did not buy these big ticket items, or at least workers are not affected. Heng ah!

But when there is a wage hike, all the workers will be having a spending spree at their favourite food courts or hawker centres, and the prices of food will shoot up, leading to high inflation. Some will spend like a king in Batam, Bintan and JB. Now I am scratching my head also. This logic sounds right or not?

Workers say no to wage hike

While the workers of the world rose in protest over their low wages, the workers here were celebrating their good fortune. All of them looked so happy, and so rich. And they expectedly rejected the shock therapy of Lim Chong Yah that offered them a 50% pay rise in 3 years. Unbelieveable!

I think the workers are reading Lim Chong Yah’s therapy selectively. For one, Lim Chong Yah is no ordinary academic and he is definitely Not mad. How could an eminent economics professor make a recommendation that the workers and the super talents all objected in unison as if it is flawed? How could they counter with the argument that the rising cost of production due to higher wages would make the companies not competitive? It cannot be. The money paid to the workers must come from somewhere to balance it. And this is the part that no one wants to talk about. Where is the money coming from?

What Lim Chong Yah did not say directly is that the fat cows are too fat and can afford not to stuff in more food for the next three years. With their current intake, they could continue to be fat cows. The real objection to Lim Chong Yah’s proposal is likely to be this, that the fat cows want to eat more and more and their current intake is not enough. That is why if raising the worker’s wages did not come with a salary freeze at the top it will spell disaster. And that is right. But Lim Chong Yah did not ask for this disaster. He is asking the fat cows to take a break and stop taking more for a while.

When rejecting Lim Chong Yah, one must look at his full recommendations, not just raising worker’s wages alone. But workers are workers, just lead them and they will follow happily.