Slash and burn for a better tomorrow

The haze seems to have subsided. Is it because there were less slash and burn activities or because of wind and rain? Slash and burn is a very cheap way of clearing away unwanted stuff. No need much planning, no need heavy capital expenditure. Just look at the weather, wind direction, and light a match, and a whole jungle can go in no time. And new crops or towns can be built over them, looking modern instead of wasteful vegetation.

I was listening to Boon Wan in Parliament last night. He was talking about the future new towns, all nicer and modern, to be built over the old towns. Old towns will give way to new towns, and better Punggols will take their places. This is like a different variation of the slash and burn method of farming.

The way we scrap a half a million dollar Mercedes after 10 years and replace it with another $1 million brand new Mercedes is also another form of slash and burn. Get rid of the old and pay for a better new. Only one condition must be satisfied for this modern Sinkie slash and burn economy, money. The people and govt must have all the money to get rid of good working condition cars and houses and pay for new ones every 10 years for cars and maybe 40 years for housing. For a super rich and affluent country where money just flows in naturally, this is never an issue. The people need not even have to work as long as they have the money to churn properties.

Some told me that this slash and burn policy is also applicable to population. The old that are no longer contributing to the economy should make way for the new, from overseas. Every inch of land in this little island is worth its weight in gold and you cannot have unproductive people sitting on them. Too wasteful. This utilitarian approach to all things has served the island well and has turned it into the richest country in the world on a per capita income basis. Just ignore the existence of the oldies.

Old and oldies have no value to a strictly utilitarian state that sees progress in terms of monetary value. It is time that they bulldoze away that piece of real estate called Chinatown and build a new city for another million people.

Asia will resist U.S. efforts to contain China, says Singapore diplomat

By Ashish Kumar Sen
The Washington Times

Sunday, October 14, 2012
“We don’t want another Cold War. The United States should not ask

Asian nations will resist any U.S. attempts to block the rise of China, as Washington pursues a new strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Singapore’s former ambassador in Washington.

“I think if the United States re-engages Asia to contain China it won’t work because countries in Asia won’t sign on to containment,” Chan Heng Chee said in a phone interview from Singapore.

“We don’t want another Cold War. The United States should not ask Asian countries to choose. You may not like the results if you ask countries to choose.”

Ms. Chan returned to Singapore in July after 16 years as Singapore’s ambassador to the U.S….President Obama has adopted a rebalancing stance toward the Asia-Pacific region…Much of the commentary in Washington has described this policy as a “pivot” and framed it in the context of a military containment of China.



The above article is more than meets the eyes. It is unusual for an ambassador to speak so frankly about the USA and its intent and policies towards another country. While the official US position is all about peace, about anything except containment of China, and so many countries and observers have wool pulled over their eyes that this is a benign power, full of peaceful intent and purposes, the truth is not usually spoken publicly. And Chan Heng Chee has spoken the unpleasant truth.

In her long association with American policy makers and the intrigues behind the façade of civility and pompous feel good motherhood statements, the US must be peddling its schemes and plots to contain China to her allies. While in the US, Chan Heng Chee would have to be polite not to spill the naked truth, but now that she is an ambassador at large, it is opportune for her to tell things as they are with respect to the real USA. And this has to be done to prevent the innocent and naïve to think otherwise and not to be coerced by the Americans to tow the line and be lined up on one side against another superpower.

It is in Asia’s interest not to be pawns in another cold war when they have nothing to gain and risk an open conflict in the region. The US has thus been told, as direct as it can be, not to fool the Asian countries into doing its dirty work and be embroiled in its devious schemes to contain and destabilize China.

The Ambassador must have many first hand experience of what the true Americans are and what they are trying to do in this so called pivot to Asia.

The Americans cannot go on to deceive the world that they are all angels. Time to look at the devil as it is.

Home sales soar! See it coming?

When I read the papers today about the climbing sales of properties, private and public, and the rising prices, I thought of asking whether the govt has seen it coming? I can’t blame Boon Wan as he is still new on the job. The pent up demand is not just due to the Ghosts in the seventh moon. The demand has been brewing and kept under pressurized lid to prevent it from exploding for too long. All the ramping up of building public housing would still be not enough.

Then I read another headline, ‘Govt ready to stabilize market if needed: Khaw’. Read this carefully, between the lines, it would appear that the govt is pretty comfortable with what is happening, with the situation as it is now. Apparently there is no need to stabilize the market now and not needed. So things will just go on as it is.

Boon Wan also said that the market should be stabilizing. This means that once the market stabilized, the people should expect that this is the normal state of affair, the high prices are normal though demand could be lowered if not because of this new doctrine that the govt has to build homes for the singles as well.

So that’s it. The govt saw it coming and this is what it is to be, acceptable, bearable, sustainable....and definitely affordable!

The people did not understand Natcon

This is about what Grace Foo was saying. The Natcon is to talk about the future, about how Sinkies want this paradise to be, with millionaires and a great cosmopolitan city with gracious living for all. Instead, the people have totally misunderstood the conversation and went complaining about bread and butter issues, about big population, about foreign talents, about job losses, high cost of living etc etc. These things are non issues and are not about the future we want.

Let’s talk about our dreams, about beautiful dreams we can built for our children in 20 years time. The problems of today, put them aside. These are unpleasant things and would only make everyone work up and feeling angry. No wonder the ministers are not listening to what the people were talking about and neither the people understood what the ministers were talking about.

Can we restart by redefining the agenda so that our aunties and uncles in the markets and hawker centres know what to say and to express their dreams of the kind of Singapore they want in 20 years time? I am very sure if this is explained to them they will come up with a decent blue print of the future Singapore, Made by Uncles and Aunties from the Hawker Centres and Void Decks. And Parliament can then debate over it and put it into action like the new Punggol Town of the future.

In the meantime please be patient as the uncles and aunties are not super talents and it may take them a little longer to gaze at their crystal balls on how to plan for a futuristic city. Many may not even have gone pass O level. So the task must be pretty daunting on them.

Natcon fizzling out or taken a new life

I was thinking of revisiting the issue of reinstating estate duty as it is now a major cause of high property prices with the rich, both local and foreign, finding this as a way of tax evasion. And with the rich amassing more and more properties, knowing that it is very safe, it will only add to the mounting pressure on sky high property prices. But it is also a sad reality that the rich would have vested interest not to change this situation at all. I thought one or two properties of unlimited value would be very generous to the dead.

So far this subject has not been brooded anywhere, and not in the Natcon. But where is the Natcon heading? Things are getting clearer now, that the Natcon is just a conversation. It is a dialogue of sort. You talk I talk. The people talk, the govt talks.

When grave issues of immigration and population were raised by the angry citizens, when high property prices elicited serious concerns by the average sinkies, they were just that. Just raised and nothing seems to be done to ameliorate the Sinkies’ worries.

The govt will continue to sing its song of praises for high population, more immigrants and high property prices. Things will just be the same. The people will talk, the govt will talk, but both not listening. Both talk and talk. This is about sums up what Natcon is all about. Happy Natconning, or happy talking.