The good life shifting further away

The latest COE bidding for small cars and big cars were $73.5k and $94.5k. In the mid 90s the number hit $100k but was no sweat as many could afford them. There was a super bull run and money was everywhere. Everyone was making a killing in the stock market and everyone was spending. No one was complaining that COE prices were too high. And they said, it is not how much but whether the buyers could afford it. It was like the Fed pumping money to encourage spending.

The price of COEs today is going to be very painful for those who want to own a car or who need to own a car. There is no bull market to make easy money. Someone has intentionally killed the market. The market is as good as dead, like Bidadari or  Bukit Brown. And some jokers were crowing how clever they were to bring down the cost of trading equities. Bloody fools. The few dollars of commission were the least of concerns to the retail traders when they were making handsome profits. It is when there are losing their pants that a few dollars became an issue. The cutting down of trading cost only benefited the big funds and their high speed computer trading when they muscle in to kill the small traders. They need the little advantage to generate huge volumes to disadvantage the small traders.

The liquidity in the market is gone. The average Sinkie is quite hard pressed to move around a hundred thousand for that car. Many are tied down by high mortgages to service. Ok, exclude the politicians, civil servants and children of the rich. And exclude the few exceptions that are doing well on their own. Let’s talk about the average Sinkie, the heartlanders.

What is so wrong to want to own a car or live in a better and bigger home? Now the spin doctors are saying the quality of life is better, in having no cars and living in shoe box apartments or 3 or 4 rm public flats. Is this progress? Who is kidding? Why are people now unable to own cars and have to live in smaller apartments?

What happens to the great inclusive growth in the economy? Why are the people (I qualify, people means heartlanders. I used to call them hardlanders) told to lower their expectations and live within their means? I know of families owning a few Ferraris and Lambos and some asses would say you work harder and you can have them too. They are having a good time. But why can’t the well educated average Sinkies be looking to live in better housing like their uneducated or lowly educated parents, and own a simple car like their poorer parents?

What is happening? Aren’t we progressing? Aren’t everything getting better, life gets better? And we have so much help from so many foreigners that our parents did not have the privilege to.

What have gone wrong? Nothing gone wrong? Everything is fine? The people are told to live better and to live well they must expect less. The people are told to buy smaller flats and go without their cars. The inability to own a car may seem a non issue, like the inability to buy a better home. When the reality sinks in, the people are going to rise and protest for being short changed.

When the govt can’t even provide the average Sinkie with a decent home that is better than their poorer parents without paying an arm or a leg, and can’t even own a simple car, it is not acceptable. This is not the good life that the people want. Many are still holding on to their present car. The pain will come when they have to give it up and could not afford another one. The withdrawal symptom is going to be very painful. The bigger pain will also come in the form of unaffordable housing. The next generation is growing up and many heartlanders don’t have that kind of money to buy a $500k home. And many can forget about owning private properties though private properties were quite easily attainable in their parent’s generation.

The lousy formula of a good life is going to be torn apart as it is simply a poor alternative for working so hard, getting better educated, for wanting a better life. Where did it go wrong? Dunno leh. The govt is still so happy about this great formula, which is the govt’s version of Swiss standard of living or its equivalent.

Just wait and see how the threshold of pain and tolerance is breached. The govt still have not a clue that it has shattered the dreams of the new generation. They think that they are creating a great life for the next generation. The COE is saying this is the end of the road unless your parents happened to be politicians or very rich. The good life is not a small little flat and taking public transport everywhere.

PS. I speaking from the viewpoint of the average heartlanders.

Brief history of the Evil Empire's ( USA ) war of aggression worldwide

The Evil Empire, USA takes its intense aggressive spirit of imperialism of war of aggression from its European forebears especially from imperial Britain where it broke away violently to found its independent state of USA which originally comprised of only thirteen provinces of a total land area of less than five hundred thousand square miles. Having founded its independence violently, USA has never stopped in its violent way of life especially in its imperial war of aggression against other states or countries. So far it has got away scot free and unscarce in all its aggression and so it thinks it can continue non stop in the same path of conducting evil wars of aggression against other countries big or small.

From the very first year of its independence from Britain, the Evil Empire ,USA conducted a systematic programme of destroying the several self governing native American Indian states . It began by sowing suspicion and dissension among the several native American Indian states and goading them to fight against each other in their internecine strive. When the native Indian states were thus badly weakened the Evil Empire, USA would step in take control over all the native states. The natives realized too late the evil scheming of the Evil Empire and when they resisted the Evil Empire's encroachment and hegemony they were brutally put down . Just like its predecessors , imperial Britain, France, Spain and Potugal, USA firmly believed that the natives of the two American continents were of inferior race and did not deserve the rich lands of the new world which they claimed that their Christian God had rightly reserved for White men. After conquering all the self governing native states the Evil Empire went on a massive programme of wanton killing and genocide of the natives , claiming it was sanctified by their Christian God and their Christian religious leaders . The native population was almost entirely decimated when about ninety-eight per cent or eighty million native Americans were killed . The only sin of the native Americans was being an inferior non-white racial stock and non Christian and so they had to be killed to make place for the good and godly white men of the militant Christian faith. Subsequently the Evil Empire flooded USA with millions and millions of white immigrants from imperfial Christian Europe.

The Evil Empire did not stop its war of aggression after conquering all the self governing native American states. From 1840s to 1870s it carried out a programme of war of aggression against Mexico. Here it used a different plot and strategy. The Evil Empire purposely encroached on Mexican lands and when Mexico resisted it was accused of aggression and thus Mexico was unsuspiciously lured into a fight. When Mexico lost the war started by the Evil Empire, it was forced to surrender not less t one million six hundred thousand square miles of land comprising the present states of Florida, Texas,Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and California.

The Evil Empire's crave for other countries' lands and thirst for more conquest had not yet been satiated. It took its wars of aggression across the Pacific Ocean to attack the defenseless island kingdoms that dotted the ocean. It attacked Hawaii in 1895 and deposed its queen . After occupying Hawaii, it went on a free spree of killing the native Hawaiians for many years until the native population now comprise not more than ten or twenty percent. Finally it annexed Hawaii in the late 1950s and made it the fiftieth state of the Evil Empire. Similarly it attacked the island kingdom of Guam and after deposing its native rulers , it grabbed full control of the island. Now both Hawaii and Guam are strongly armed US military bases which will serve as a spring board for US further aggression. Its next target was the Philippines . In the early 1900s it fought a war against the Spaniards, the first European colonial master of the Philippines. Having defeated the Spaniards it occupied and ruled Philippine for many decades until after the Second World War when they were forced out by the local revolutionaries.

After the Second World War USA continued its wars of aggression against many other countries around the world. In the Americas it used its military might to depose regimes which did not support US policies of aggression and hegemony. In China it interfered in the Chinese Civil War and stationed its strong seventh fleet in the Taiwan Straits to prevent the unification of Taiwan and mainland China. It started the Korean War in 1950 to stop the unification between North and South Korea. After the Second World War, the United Nations Organisation temporarily gave US administrative trusteeship of Liu Chiu Dao ( renamed Okinawa by the Japanese ) which the Japanese took from China in 1890s and Diaoyu Dao with the understanding that the two island group should be returned to China at a later date. However, after the Korean War, the treacherous Evil Empire betrayed the UN trust for instead of returning the islands to China, it gave them to its semi-colony Japan, Thus this sinister US design was to create seeds of future dissension and strive between Japan and China.

In Europe the Evil Empire, USA provoked wars in Yugosalavia and caused the country to be divided into three separate states and eventually all came under US influence and hegemony.

Since the end of the Second World War USA has always been sowing suspicion and seeds of dissension among the Arab states in the Middle East and North Africa. It adopted a policy of divide and rule. The Evil Empire had a total monopoly of the oil business in the Arab countries. It controlled and manipulated the oil prices for many decvades . The Arabs were forced to accept payment for oil only in American dollars. The oil price was held at a ridiculous low price of Five Dollars per barrel for many decades during which time US seized the opportunity to import endless thousands of billions of barrels of cheap oil and stored them at US underground wells as reserve for future use. When Iraq and Libya refused to accept USA dollars as payment their countries were attacked and subjected to regime change. USA is now using pro USA, arab mercenaries to topple President Assad of Syria. The grand design of USA is to hold full control and hegemony of the Middle East through its merfcenaries and Israel. In doing so the Evil Empire intends to deprive its adversaries especially China of access to Middle East oil.

The Evil Empire thinks the whole of the Middle East is now safely under its sway and so it is shifting its warlike attention to East Asia and South East Asia. It is sowing suspicion and seeds of dissension among some ASEAN countries to go against China. It is trying to destabilise the whole region. In fact it has hijacked the ASEAN organisatioon and is sinisterly setting its agenda and direction so as to lead it to a head on confrontation against China. The Evil Empire is cowardly trying to make use of the Vitenamese rats and the Philippino vermins to fight its proxy wars against China. The Evil Empire is also encouraging and goading India to go against China. In the East China Sea it is encouraging its gang member and semi-colony Japan to grab the Chinese islands of Diaoyu Dao. All these Evil Empire's evil designs are geared to contain China and prevent China's peaceful development.

In addition to territorial ambitions the Evil Empire intends to control and manipulate the whole world,s economy and finance . USA is evil and its grand design of bringing the whole world under its control and hegemony should not be allowed to succeed.

The lesson from Stanchart and Barclay

Two giant banks, with world reputations to maintain, were caught with their pants down for playing dirty. And they were not the only two. Stanchart was reputed to have accepted Iran’s money to the tune of $310b when there was a sanction against it. Barclay and many big banks were rigging the Libor that undermined the integrity of the whole banking industry.

Yes, they cheated for the sake of profitability, like drug smugglers cheating with their lives. The latter faced the death sentence if caught, but they kept coming. Nothing is going to deter them from risking their lives to make money. And nothing is going to keep men in high position from their fraudulent and greedy ways to make money.

There is a saying that nobody will go into business to make losses. People will risk their necks and lives just to make money. The stock exchange is claiming how much it has cut trading cost to boost business and equity trading. Cutting cost seems to be their preoccupation and raison d’tre for a blooming stock market. There were some early gains for the exchange, but for how long? Does the cut in trading cost led to a more vibrant market or is it a corollary to the early demise of the stock market? At the rate it is going, the cut in trading cost is immaterial. The vibrancy and participation in the stock market is zilch or nearly there. The volumes reported were mostly clocked by computers. The traders and retail investors have gone into hibernation or dead.

How would cutting of trading cost help in reviving the stock market? Why was it that the market was so vibrant and the industry doing so well when trading cost was so much higher? Is there a correlation? The economists were the champion of liquidity, pumping more money into the economy to keep it growing. Why remove the liquidity in an industry that needs the commission to lubricate and pay for the jobs it supported by cutting cost, cutting the fuel it needs?



From what is happening, the lower trading cost is putting an end to the industry and it is only a matter of time before the sun set on this once lucrative and active industry. The trading cost is not a real issue in a healthy market. The trading cost is only material to those who need to capitalize on small margins and marginal cost to make money at the expense of small retail traders.

Is low trading cost a gimmick or a deadly concoction that will send the stock market to the graveyard? Many traders and retail investors are already there, dead and buried. Obviously the low trading cost did not do them any good. In fact they could be the direct victims of low trading cost.

What do you think? Still sleeping like Rip Van Winkle?

Pang Yingfen - The “heroine” of Henderson Road

‘In June 2010, she helped 13 needy households pay more than S$10,000 in expenses. Now, she has helped 60 needy families pay more than S$30,000 in utility bills, expenses and rent.

One of these families had an outstanding utility bill of S$8,500, and water and power supply have been cut for some time.

The “heroine”, Ms Pang Yingfen, was particularly concerned when she met the family. The golf club membership agent has been actively involved in charity work for the past 20 years, Lianhe Wanbao reported….’ Copied from Insing.com.

Among the families helped was one with 12 children with the oldest aged 14 and the youngest in nursery. The parents are in prison and the utility bill was $8,500. There are people in very tough times and there are very kind people out there who are living angels to those that need help. Pang Yingfen works with a group of helpers who are doing their part to help the less fortunate. Bless the samaritans and the people in need.

A medal of contention

Feng Tianwei and the women table tennis players were battling their guts out at the Olympic Games representing Singapore. Feng has won the much awaiting Olympic medal for the country. No one is denying the effort and hardwork the table tennis players have put into the games for the glory of Singapore. Yes, Feng won and another medal from the team event. It is time for celebration to welcome our Olympic medalists home after a victorious outing.

What is unexpected and uncalled are the vibes, anger and unhappiness expressed by some Sinkies. Some said there was nothing to celebrate, some said they were ashamed of the medals, some even worst.

The medals were to do us proud, and to happen just before the National Day is opportune to be a reason to stimulate more patriotism and pride of being Singaporeans. But this is not going to be, at least in a large section of the population. For those who disagree with this buying of foreigners to win sports medals, hope they should not take it out on the players. They are just sports people, playing their sports, their profession. They are not politicians and only doing their job, to make a living. Spare them the personal attacks and let them enjoy the fruit of their labour.

The key issue is the scheme that led to these contentious medals. Is it worth it, to spend so much to bring about a hard fought medal only to be met with so much criticism and division among the people? Is it something the people wanted or something the govt or a few individuals wanted? Or is it a medal that we can do without?

This National Day may be time for reflection on this national glory and the justification for it. A medal for contention in the Olympics or in the world arena is not really the same as a medal of contention among the citizens of a country. I think it is money not worth spending.

Would there be a rethink as to how to continue down this contentious road of division. No need to say it was a mistake. Just do what Boon Wan did on the housing policies. Keep doing what is right and overturn whatever is wrong. He still has a lot of stones unturned as the damage against the people is severe and the lives of many were aversely affected, including delaying marriages and not giving birth to babies. Shit, who wants to make babies when there is no roof over his head? And when is the price of 99 year lease flat coming down? They cannot go up forever as the lease must surely expire. Is this another gimmick, that the price of a 99 year lease flat will continue to appreciate forever?

By the way, spend that kind of money for the medals, is it prudent and spending within our means? I think with so much money around to splash, it is definitely within our means to do so. What about being prudent?