What is $57,200?

When $600,000 was dismissed off as peanuts, why are netizens screaming over $57,200? The amount was spent on 26 foldable Brompton bikes that NParks had purchased. Many felt that it was excessive and unnecessary when a $500 bike is already a damn good one and a $1,000 bike is a luxury. A $2,000 bike is just inexplicable for a govt organization to splurge using public money. And poor Khaw Boon Wan now had came out to defend this purchase as reasonable. And this is going to cause more ire among the bikers who knew the value and quality of bikes. Best advice is not to explain.

But spending $57,200 is really nothing, not even a drop in the ocean. Not even half a month’s pay to many. Why the who ha? Personally, as a low wage worker, $500 for a bike is definitely too much for me to pay. Then it is all relative isn’t it? What is a lot to the losers is, yes, nothing to those who are used to spend millions and hundreds of millions.

The netizens are also complaining why a tender for 26 bikes only attracted one bid. Is it that the tender contract was too small, no supplier was interested, no one could meet the stringent specifications, or no one knew about the tender except for one? Many questions are being raised on this peculiar incident, just like the designer chairs for, was it MOM or NTU? Such small matters and small amount of money could not register in the memory of most people, not even my elephant memory. Of course dementia is starting to gnaw throw the thick skull.

My conclusion, the amount is just too small, too petty for any suppliers of foldable bikes to be bothered to submit their tenders. So it ended up with only one hungry tender, and according to civil service procedures, since there was only one tender, it was proper to accept the tender. Case closed. Let’s move on.

For those suppliers who were sleeping and did not know that there was such a tender, it is their fault. Then again, it must be the small sum that kept them away. In an exceedingly rich country when every mention of money is in the millions, when people conveniently asked, ‘What is $10m?’, what is $57,200? No case lah. Such a small matter is like making a mountain out of a mole hill. There are more important things to worry about.

God’s money

The believers donated happily, willingly, though painfully, to God, with the hope of 30 fold, 60 fold and 100 fold returns. What is wrong with that? Nothing really! It is willing giver willing taker. It is caveat emptor. Why the big fuss? The only thing that I cannot fathom is the round tripping. Maybe this one got some accounting peculiarities that offended the law.

Putting this aside, money willingly given to God must be God’s money. There is no compulsion, like taxes or CPF. There is no law against anyone giving money to God. Calling it charity is also wrong. God does not need charity. Who the heck called these as donation to charity?

Anyway, once the money if for God, how the money is used by God’s servants to serve God is no one else business. If the servants think that singing and cutting albums in the US is to serve God, then let it be so. If the intent is good, good for the contributors, what is the problem? Even if it is pornography or insurance schemes or whatever schemes, if it is for the good of God, that is good enough.

It is also reported that 40 companies were set up by CHC or the pastors and the senior pastors. If the monies are theirs, it is personal and private matter. If the money is God’s money, then one needs to ask what is the purpose of these investments. If the investment is to grow God’s money to serve God, it is perfectly legal and logical. Sovereign funds were also set up in same kind of reasoning, investing the funds to serve god’s interests. Oops, I meant the sovereign’s interests.

See, all can be explained. It is the intention that counts. If the intention is not to cheat, which no one will admit or own up, and if it is explicitly said that it is to invest for the long term for God’s sake, it cannot be faulted. Or can it?

Bankers Fleeing Europe Crisis Head to Singapore

The Europeans have started to take them down, one by one. The crooks and robbers in high places, wearing designer suits and an air of superiority, in the financial industry of the west, will hit the dust as their ill doings are being exposed. More will see their light being snuffed out as the financial industry with its unregulated mischievious products and practices revealed themselves as purely toxic and worthless waste. After wrecking the world economy in the late 1990s, nothing seems to change as they continue to revive and indulge in their old ways, and aggrandizing themselves with more dirty money from their ‘sophisticated’ but daft high net worth clients.

As the curtain is coming down, many are scrambling to the ignorant and naïve Asian countries that would open their doors and arms to embrace these financial rogues and their scam practices thinking that they were the god sent angels to boost up their financial systems and profits. If only they think a little and ask if these were really so talented, if their practices were so supreme, they would not be running away from the western paradise. And the top crooks and robbers would not be taken down, the big banks and financial institutions would not be in ruins.

But never mind, the Asians are always willing suckers to the west. Below is a compressed post on the great talents and their exodus to Asia. Sinkieland will be waiting in glee for these great talents. The first financial centre in Asia that will be in ruins will be Sinkieland if it blindly allowed all the rogues and their rotten products and systems into the island. Just watch the stock market and the signs of its demise.

Posted By: Rajeshni Naidu-Ghelani
Assistant Producer, CNBC

29 Jun 2012

A 37-year-old Paris-based French investment banker, who’s worked in London and New York, has been looking for a job in one of Asia's financial hubs, Singapore, for the past six months.

A director at an asset management firm owned by one of France’s big banks, she asked to stay anonymous, but told CNBC that even her husband, a portfolio manager, was on the lookout for work in Singapore. She added that they would move to the city-state with their two children as soon as one of them lands a job….

The French investment banker is one among a growing number of bankers looking to leave Europe as deteriorating economic conditions together with tougher regulations have slowed business and led to job cuts…. “It’s very, very slow here [in Europe]. On top of that, there are a lot of regulations adding up on each other, so it makes things a bit difficult,” she said.

Several global recruitment firms have told CNBC they’ve seen a significant increase recently in the number of European bankers wanting to relocate to the Southeast Asian city-state….The slowness in European and U.S. markets is also leading to more Asian-born bankers returning home to work, according to Norton….Malaysian-born Wai Keng Kwok, 33, is one Asian-born banker looking to make a fresh start in Singapore. Kwok moved to the island-nation in February,

after working for Morgan Stanley in New York for five years, to take up the role of chief operating officer at a local hedge fund started by a friend.

Another white mice story

58 year old taxi driver got punched by 47 year old airline pilot twice his size. Taxi driver’s story, airline pilot ‘walked towards him in an aggressive manner and accused him of being a gangster…then punched him and his dentures fell out of his mouth.’ Airline pilot claimed taxi driver who was in a coffee shop, drunk, lost balance, hit his cheek on the shoulder of a friend seated in the same table.

It was reported that there was bad blood between the two neighbours over the taxi driver burning joss sticks outside his door. The pilot was fined $1000. Obviously the judge did not believe that the taxi driver was drunk and lost his balance.

Is this a case of a foreign talent or new talent unable to integrate to the local way of life and incensed by the incense being burnt by his neighbour? The little 58 year old man was easy meat to this burly pilot to take on. One is so small and so old, the older so big and so young.

Anyway, the taxi driver should know his station in life and should not have antagonized the airline pilot. He should burn the joss sticks when the pilot is not at home. Then there will be no problem and he would not have got drunk, fell and his dentures fell out of his mouth.

Learning to eat shit blindly

One of the most outstanding characteristics of Sinkieland is learning to eat American shit without thinking. When they said big is good, we went ahead blindly to force merge our local banks into three, with the intent to probably end up with only two, only for the Americans to curse the too big to fail syndrome. The financial crisis brought not only the too big to fail banks to their knees, it also meant that the poor tax payers would have to pay for the crooked ways of the big bank robbers.

Then we went in blindly to sell toxic notes and bonds without knowing that they were more than snake oil, but poison. And the blame was on the ignorant and innocent investors for not doing their homework. Wonder if NTUC sold some poisoned foodstuff and the blame would be put to the people or the AVA?

And the bigger Lehman bond is going to blow in the face of all investors and the finance industry when the stock market goes into a limp when the Viagra used to boost trading activities turns out to be fake, Made in USA. Many investors have lost a fortune and many people in the industry will be losing their jobs and their ability to service the big home mortgages.

The latest, the auntie pattern army uniforms, was copied from the Americans. Whatever the Americans do, we copied. Now, even before every soldier is issued with the uniforms, the US realized their stupidity and is abandoning the pixelised uniforms for a more relevant pattern, which is another farce really. It is not very much different from the one that was replaced earlier. The victims will be the taxpayers for the billions of dollars spent to switch and switch. But that can be expected from the Americans as it is big business interests involved.

Now we will end up with this stupidity and trying to justify that it is the right thing. To me it looks sissy, and nothing like the jungle. It may fit into the wet market or the new botanic garden. And changing it will cost another bomb and another big logistic nightmare.