Containment of Japan

There have always been talks about the containment of Communism and China as if this is something only the Empire and its allies can do. Why don’t the Russians and Chinese do the same and starting with the containment of Japan? Russia, China, Taiwan, Honkong and Korea, all have problems with Japan and were victims of Japanese aggression in the past.

The above countries are not dependent on Japan anymore and can do away with trades with Japan. All they need is to cut down on their trading activities with the Japanese, boycott or sanction Japanese goods etc to strangle the Japanese to go on their knees.

Crippling of the Japanese economy will force the Americans to extend its helping hands, but being a bankrupt country there is really nothing the Americans can offer except its military might. Neither can Europe be of any help. If there is anything that the East Asian countries want to do against Japan, this is the moment.

The combined forces of China and Russia, plus Korea and Taiwan would be something to keep the Americans wary and not to do anything foolish.

Hey, the containment game can be play by other parties too.

Survey results on the future of Sin

A sociologist conducted a survey on a group of Sinkies on their views of the future of Sin. This was done through questionnaires and interviews with the participants. Below are some of the findings.

1. They would like to see a population of 20 million for growth and prosperity.

2. They wanted their HDB flats to fetch $3m and landed properties $100m each.

3. They didn’t mind paying $200k for a COE.

4. They were looking forward to having $1m in their minimum sums account in the CPF.

5. They thought congestion is a sign of prosperity.

6. They believed the future would be very good for the young of today.

7. They believed that only through population growth could there be economic growth.

The sociologist concluded that given the participants’ character traits, the findings were reasonable, understandable and expected. It was not easy to remove the madness in the participants that were from a mental hospital. Their vision of what was good was peculiar to their own insanity and hardened beliefs. The survey simply confirmed that madness could be a serious sickness as the participants did not know of their conditions. So what they perceived as good was as good only with respect to their mental condition and conditioned views of things using their own coloured lenses.

And they sincerely believed that their views were the only right views. And there was no other alternatives available, as, in their madness, they thought they were the best and no one could thus come up with a better solution. Of course this survey is simply fictitious. But it is good to know how mentally deranged people perceived things and their one track thinking process. Don’t expect them to think out of the box.

Do it and think/plan later

The title is about summed up the philosophy of this govt. This is what Lim Hng Kiang had to say regarding seizing the opportunity even when we are not ready, don’t have the capability or trained manpower to do the job. Just grab the job and import the labour. "If you train Singaporeans to fill up the sector before you launch the sector, you may lose the opportunity, and you take too long," he said.

Singapore is adopting the strategy of bringing the sector in and allowing the companies to hire foreign talent and workers while it train Singaporean workers to fill up the jobs.

"If you tell Rolls Royce, wait until we train all the workers and technicians, I think we would have missed the investments," …”

It sounds very aggressive and very positive. But it means taking very high risk and opening up unnecessarily by grabbing anything that moves and that can fill our immediate needs. As a private enterprise, entrepreneurs taking high risk with his own money and willing to gamble with anything, and with not a care of how it would impact the people and country, well, by all means. Cowboy antics can be good at times.

Does a govt need to make this kind of decision and take this kind of risk? Is this the reason why the SWFs are so afraid of missing opportunities and hurriedly jumped into any bankrupt company or fire sales that nobody dares to touch or willing to risk their good money, all because we are so frighten that others will move ahead of us to grab the shit?

Our SWFs have been burnt many times and losing hundreds of billions by not waiting and not wanting to miss opportunities even when they are not ready. When successful, it will be back slapping and congratulations all round. But if it fails, it is OPM. Never mind, wait for another golden opportunity to grab before other’s grab it.

Would companies like Rolls Royce just jump into bed with any beggars or incompetents? If we are not ready, could there be anyone that is ready in such a high tech venture in the region? Is it really sound to jump to bed whenever there is an urge or when a fair lady passes by?

Are we rubbing off too much from the two casinos to think and behave this way? Look at the infrastructure and housing mess that the people are facing? Eat, shit, and clean up later. Or let others face the shit.

I always think that our govt is very conservative, calculative and careful in deliberation before making a big decision involving high risk and a lot of money. Looks like our govt is really very entrepreneur and a high risk taker. We now have many mavericks in charge.

Teo Ser Luck: Singaporeans must accept F1 race as a necessary event

Is this true? No mistake, that Teo Ser Luck said this. Singaporeans must accept F1 as a necessary event! Does it mean that if Sinkies do not accept, something bad is going to happen? Our woman folks will become maids or something like that? So the F1 is being raised to the same status as foreign immigrants. Sinkies must accept more immigrants as a necessary thing or there will be no economic growth?

So the future well being of Sinkies is now dependent not only on foreign immigrants to increase our population, but also F1, another savior. Would the F1 organisers and drivers now also can thump down Sinkies as without them, like without the casinos and foreigners, our economy would go on a downward spin?

What else are necessary and Sinkies must accept other than the super talented govt? Keep more money in the CPF that is untouchable? I think this one is also something Sinkies must accept as necessary. High property prices must also be one. High cost of living nothing to say. And congestion, crams and jams everywhere, and not being able to afford a car are the few unnecessary things Sinkies must accept to live with as quality living.

And Sinkies got to be very grateful. With a house full of super talents, only a few things are necessary and must be accepted. If the house is not filled with super talents, Sinkies would have more things to accept as necessary, like cleaning toilets or working as foreign workers or foreign maids, with a degree from one of the world’s best universities.

Be grateful, be very grateful.

Solving the education dilemma by a farcical solution

What is the problem of education today anyway? Pressure, parents under pressure because children could not get to the best schools, not because children not doing well. Children also feel the pressure if they failed to get into the school their parents desired though they have done reasonably well. I think this is the real problem rather than the perceived problem of students not doing well. Those not doing well can be helped up to a certain extent. Those doing well need little help but would still be under severe pressure because they did not get to the schools they wanted.

Scrapping bandings, scrapping PSLE, do away with exam, lesser the work load etc are in some way superficial and could undermine the whole education system. What all parents and students want is to get into RI or one of the top schools. Get them there and all will be happy. But there is only one RI or a few top schools. And the task now is to make parents and children happy, to remove any social stigma of being in less desirable schools, the answer is to put all of them into good schools. And the solution is not so difficult. Really!

ACS has done it but many failed to see it. Establish many ACS schools, independent, international, non independent, afternoon session, etc etc. As long as the students are in ACS, problem solved. Everyone is happy.

The trick is thus very simple. All schools will henceforth be renamed to take on the top schools’ namesake. We can have RI Independent, RI Normal, RI Sports, RI Vocational, RI Wild Cards etc etc. A variation could be RI Bishan, RI East Coast, RI Jurong.... And the same formula can be duplicated for Hwa Chong, Victoria, SGS, Methodist, etc etc. There shall not be more than ten different school names and the subtle difference will be the courses the students are pursuing and their field of studies or interests.

In so doing, no need to scrap PSLE and examinations. 10 percent of the cohort will be RI, 10 percent Hwa Chong, 10 percent ACS, MGS, SGS, Victoria and so forth. No funny sounding neighbourhood school names that brings along a ‘yak’ when mentioned, or too embarrassing to even mention.

Now, would this not make everyone happy and less pressurized? Every top school will now have its top academic students, its top sporting talents, top artistic students, and the potential Bill Gates and Steve Jobs from the Wild Cards. And whatever the MOE is doing now can still continue with a little adaptation.

An ingenious education system can easily be created without the need for super talent’s input. The Ah Beng’s are our equivalent of Gates and Jobs in a way. Thinking out of the box for unusual solutions to unusual problems that no super talents can ever solve or think of is the forte of Ah Bengs. The problems facing MOE today are not genuine problems but perception and psychological problems that have no real solutions. Every new Education Minister will have to change something to give the impression that something is done. Imaginery problems must be solved in the realm of creative imaginations.

Thus, the solution cannot be real but appeasing to the unreasonable demands and expectations of fictitious problems in the minds of parents and students. And the standard and quality of the education system need not be compromised in anyway.