Under building and overbuilding are both troublemakers

The Govt did a marvelous job in solving the housing problems left behind by the colonial masters. It was sheer neglect, disinterest, to build for a growing population after the war. But that was what colonial masters were. They only looked after their own interests, not so much the interests of the colonized people if they could get a way with it.

It was a mammoth task to house a population that was huddled into clusters of attap and zinc roof huts, dilapidated old buildings of cubicles spreaded across the island. The massive rebuilding of the city and country was achieved within a matter of a decade or slightly more. The people were well housed and with a few to spare. One could buy a flat like walking into a departmental store.

Then came the brilliant idea and logic of a super talent. Too many flats not sold meant a lot of assets unused or under used and a heavy cost to the Govt. Get rid of them! And so they did. Then came the next flawed logic. Build only when the demand was firmed. Place the order and pay the deposit first. Only then would the Govt start to acquire the land, do the planning and design and then build. It would take 4 or 5 years. But that was the price for a clinically systematic Govt that prided itself of super efficiency at the expense of the people. There would be no wastage. Every unit of flat built would have an immediate buyer/owner who waited for the last 5 years.

The policy was not to build in advance but to under build. And now we have the gigantic problems of today with housing prices shooting through the roof, with many young people having to wait and wait for their flats. With many marriages delayed, babies delayed and all the consequences of a housing shortage.

Now another new and enlightened wisdom has surfaced. We shall build in advance, we shall over build to provide for future needs. Whoa, like dat oso can. Macam masak masak. Yesterday like that cannot, not like that is the brilliant answer to a wronged policy. Would anyone be crying out loud that a few hundred billions of assets be laid in waiting and costing a lot of money and interests to the Govt? Tiok boh? How can build so many flats in advance and waiting for buyers? Now, who is so clever to come up with such a policy? KNN, I also dunno what is right or wrong, what is good policy or bad policy. Toss a coin to see which one is good or bad.

Is this what super talent is all about? Is this why we have to pay millions for the crème ala crème?

The real test of a Sinkie

There is no need to ask any high brow question about what is a Sinkie. There is no need to know about shared values, culture, experience growing up and all the craps of what not, can speak the language or know the history of the island. The real test comes when there is a crisis and a letter or a public announcement that all adults must register at specified centres for service to the country. This is not necessarily restricted to NSmen. Every Sinkie will answer the call, will go to the reporting centres to sign up. There will be no question ask, no second thoughts. Cause they know that they are Sinkies and this is their country and this is what they have to do.

When a Sinkie has to question himself if he has to sign up, if he wants to sign up, or should he take the next flight out, nationhood has failed. It may have already. How to expect foreigners or new citizens, don’t bother about PRs, to report to the centres when many don’t even want to do NS? A Sinkie is a Sinkie by nature, it is in him or her to serve the country when needed. No erat erat, no reasoning on whether it is good or bad, or what is there for me, they will answer the call of the country.

At least I know that the older generations did just that, before NS came into effect. Being a citizen is a part of the psyche of a citizen, something like falling in love, no need any reasons or justification. I wonder how many of the new citizens, forget about the PRs, will react when there is a crisis and a general mobilization.

Quote by Joey, a blogger in TRE

This is a quote by a blogger in TRE to my article on How much GIC and Temasek have contributed to the public coffer. And I take liberty to modify it a little. This is the original comment, ‘People working harder and harder for lesser and lesser to feed an elite group which is getting fatter and fatter.’

This is my extended version…People working harder and harder for lesser and lesser to buy smaller and smaller flats at higher and higher prices and the elite getting richer and fatter.

How to weaken the Sinkie core?

This is a simple question with many simple solutions. But there is a catch. When one is talking about the core, it reminds me of biology lessons when the core of a cell is the tiny nucleus. That is the core, and the core is meant to be very small though a very important critical mass. Is this the population core that the Govt is talking about, a smaller core is still acceptable, the smaller the stronger, or strengthening by making it smaller?

In conventional logic, to strengthen the population core, it must be increasing the numbers that are making the core. A 70% Sinkie core is definitely a stronger core than a 60% or 50% core. No craps about quality replacing quantity and a core of 30% of super talents is better than a 70% core of the masses. Theoretically this is good on papers but rubbish in reality. No country can have a population of super talents and no average or below average citizens unless the latter are all culled in a screening process, or expelled.

Weakening the Sinkie core is so easily done, by reducing their numbers or percentage in the population. Another way is to dilute them with foreigners as new citizens to hide the truth, that there are now more Sinkies but not really Sinkies as a Sinkie would know.

There are many ways to get rid of Sinkies. Forcing them to emigrate, some left because they find themselves no longer competitive vis a vis foreigners, under pressure by the system, disadvantaged. How about a policy that invites foreign talents to replace local talents? Sounds logical, clinical, practical, functional but totally devoid of the intangibles of country and citizens, of a social contract between govt and its people with share values and a common bond and destiny. It is all so numerical, so calculative and economic. Man is not just an economic animal. A country is not an economic unit.

Nothing can be worst than to replace local talents with fake talents or half baked talents. And that is not strengthening the core but eroding the core, undermining the Sinkie core. It is so easy to weaken the Sinkie core.

North Korean bomb making East Asia a safer place

Contrary to all the hue and cry about the latest detonation of a nuclear bomb by North Korea, this act and the nuclear capability of the North Koreans have in many ways helped to stabilise the East Asia region from going into war. Japan and South Korea will now have more reasons not to provoke the North Koreans or threaten military actions every other day. The consequences of a hostile act by any of these two countries could be devastating. There are now more reasons to want to be nice to the North Koreans and develop more lasting and peaceful economic and diplomatic relations instead of making enemies.

The bigger threat of war in the region, the evil Empire in the US too will have to take cognizance of the North Korean’s ability to deliver the black eye. The Americans cannot afford a nuclear bomb on any of its major cities. Any preventive strike, any hostile act of aggression, any premeditated invasion, threat or provocation, or war games, will have to be very carefully calibrated and restrained. The cowboy’s shoot first talk later cannot work anymore as the price to be extracted by the North Koreans is unacceptable.

And no, the North Koreans, like any nuclear power, will not be trigger happy to fire a nuclear missile at any country any moment. Such an act is assured self destruction of North Korea. The American nuclear arsenal is formidable and unchallenged and cannot be challenged. The nuclear capability is an insurance certificate the North Koreans have bought for themselves against any cowboy president in the US that thinks he could strike with impunity. The North Koreans have secured their country from foreign attacks.

The current spate of fist waving and table thumping are likely to subside and reasons and cool heads will take over. The war rhetoric and war games the Americans and South Koreans conduct regularly near the North Korean’s border would have to be toned down for good measures. Any military intervention for a regime change in North Korea is now out of question. When the bully does not have overwhelming superiority to hit out at a weaker enemy that cannot hit back, the bully would have to talk less aggressively from now on.

The North Koreans have bought peace and avoided the fate of an Iraq or Libya. It is now the turn of the Iranians to do the same to protect themselves against an invasion led by the evil Empire and its proxies. Only then would Iran be safe from the evil Empire and Israel. No country would want to start a war with a nuclear power. For they cannot win and should it come close, the nuclear power will just unleash its nuclear might to end it all.

Strange but it is the hard truth. The world is a safer place with the acquisition of nuclear power by small nations to protect themselves against aggressive and belligerent evil Empires and their proxies that believe in might is right.