Our parents planted this Singapore tree for us

Singaporeans and the early migrants and the pioneering political leaders, not today's, built Singapore into what it is today. True blue Sinkies must not forget this truth. The political leadership today, many were just born yesterday with the exception of a few oldies, do not build the rich and prosperous Singapore but enjoying all the benefits and privileges that came from yesterday's sweat and tears.

Today, we are inviting so many foreign talents to enjoy the fruits of our parents' labour, the labour of yesterday's generation. And these foreign talents are here to replace the children of yesterday's hardworking Sinkies. They are all sitting in high places, earning big bucks and talking rubbish about why we need them and how able and talented they are. And to bring in more foreign talents at our expense.

True blue Singaporeans must not forget that what we are today is a gift from our parents who slogged for it and getting very little in benefits. They planted this big tree for us, not for foreigners. The foreigners did not plant the tree but are here to pluck the fruits.

True blue Singaporeans can be generous and share some of the fruits to others but not to impoverish themselves and their children and future generations to come.  Singapore is what it is today not because of the foreigners that are here today.

My Sunday morning rumbling sermon.

I have received more negative feedbacks on my tongue in cheek post that no car can be quality living. That post had gone viral in a small way, circulating quietly in some circles, disagreeing with what I said as many see car ownership as quality living. I too feel the same. The convenience of a car, to live a lifestyle free from the unsatisfactory public transport and dependency on someone else for your transport needs, is a very desirable item. Let no sycophant con you into believing that the public transport system and taxis can replace the role of owning a car. There are many other factors attached to car ownership, emotional and psychological and a sense of well being and independence, freedom.

The sycophants too will try to talk the people into believing in living in ever smaller homes that are ever more costly as progress. What is the point of reclaiming more land and expanding the social space in the island when they will be filled to the brim by more heads and bodies? Quality living must come with more space for everyone and allowing reasonable car ownership. This is one of the major reasons why people are objecting to the 6.9m population.

The crappy answers that more infrastructure and homes will be built to alleviate the problems that the people are facing now is bull shit. The whole situation will be back to square one, a crammed environment with people everywhere living in close proximity and bluffing each other that it is quality living. Why are people running away for the weekend to the North, or fly away to some islands, weekend escapees?

We need the comfort of space and more space for everyone. Not more heads and bodies to fill up whatever available space in the name of economic growth. Economic growth is to lead to better quality of life and quality living, not to become sardines in a can.

This sickening mindset got to change, got to go. While the elite have their ample private space and freedom to own their many cars, the average Sinkies are deprived from such luxuries and constantly told to make do with what they have and be happy and be grateful, and to believe that that is quality living. The Sinkies are not daft anymore and will not believe in the stupid soothsayers who are really no better than the average Sinkies but happen to be in a privilege position of power or hold a few more pieces of papers.

Walk the talk and ask themselves if they would like to live the way an average Sinkie is living, in a small flat and without the convenience of car ownership? Many young men and women are going to be very disappointed when they step into adulthood, wanting better and finer things in life only to find them unattainable unless they belong to a very exclusive and small group of elite, exceptionable abilities or from very exceptional families with exceptionable inheritance.

Gone were the days when young men of average family background could go swinging around, dating girlfriends in their cars or borrowed family cars. We need to bring back some of the convenience of the good old days, more leisure time and space, more living than working, more pleasure than pressure.

200,000 Sinkies overseas

I heard this number being thrown around at the Hong Lim Rally? What is this 200,000 number about? 200,000 Sinkies, adults and children, working adults, those emigrated, what about Sinkie students overseas? It is still a substantial number of sinkies relative to a core of now 3.3m citizens or about 6% of us. I was thinking of having them back to strengthen the Sinkie core with some carrots. Unfortunately this is going to be futile.

There is no way for these Sinkies to return and make this island their home all over again. The cost of living, the cost of buying a home, buying a car will have made many broke. Even if they have a 3,000 sq ft property in their current place of residence, liquidating the property would not be enough to buy a 4 rm HDB flat and may have nothing left to buy a cheap car. Who would want to trade their kind of lifestyle to come back home? Who would want to come home to a highly competitive and stressful little island? What quality of living? The only thing good about this island now is to make fast money and to migrate to somewhere else for a more leisure pace of life. And that is what the FTs and PRs are doing. And the daft Sinkies will be stuck here for good. Ok, I digress.

As for the young and more mobile set, having studied abroad and working there, the problem facing them would be the same. How to afford to come home? Financially it just does not make sense, or not meaningful to come back to this small place and to pay a fortune for it, in a way, to be robbed of all the savings.

This place has become too expensive for any Sinkie to return. And return for what, for more reservist duties and in camp training?

What do you think?

Singapore will become a slum within a decade - Sg_Boleh

My article on ‘Buy Singapore goods, employ Singaporeans’ has been reposted in TRE and has drawn a comment by a blogger. ‘Sg_Boleh: if we implement redbean’s recommendation, Singapore will become a slum within a decade.’ I am wondering if he is a foreigner incognito or a child that was born only yesterday. He is completely ignorant of the fact that Singapore is today exactly because Singaporeans built it to what it is and becomes very attractive to the foreigners to want to be here to parasite on our success. It is not the other way, that it was built by foreigners. Now, which idiot will tell you that it is the foreigners that are here to help Singaporeans

Many of these foreigners are here because they either could not help in anyway to make their countries better than Singapore, their countries could not offer them a better paying job, could not offer them a better quality living, and are here because we have done it and offering them something better that they would never dream of at home.

Yes, Singaporeans turned this little swamp into a little paradise. It is not a fantasy. The truth is that the foreigners are turning it into a slum, with all their dirty habits, and if nothing is being done to curb their influx, this island will become more like their home countries. It is a great insult to say that Singapore will become a slum if the jobs are filled by Singaporeans.

I will like to offer a challenge to the foreigners to go back and turn their third world countries to what Singapore is today, then I will respect their abilities and talents.

Now who is this idiot Sg_Boleh to insult Singaporeans that we are incapable of running our own country, from Third World to First World? We are now First World, and only now that we are bringing them in to take advantage of us in swarms, like locusts. Singapore will continue to prosper without them. And should the foreigners return to their home countries, their home countries would still be the third world slums they are and will not be able to catch up with Singapore for the several decades to come.

LKY – Declining populations make peaceful neighbours

This is an article purportly written by LKY and published in the ST today and in the March edition of Forbes magazine. His thesis or views in the article is simply that an expanding population is good reason for countries to conduct wars while a declining population will kill the urge to do so. He then went on to quote Japan and Germany in the Second World War when their respective TFRs were 4.1 and 2.6

LKY then concluded that countries like US and Europe, including China with low TFRs would be less likely to go to war for the same reason as the old Japan and Germany, for lebensraum or living space. They wanted more space for a growing population then. Today, Japan and Germany would be less likely to go to war as their TFRs are low, both about 1.4.

The countries that are likely to go to war according to his article would be India and the African countries, all with high TFRs. India has a TFR of 2.6 while the Africans vary from 4 to 7. Africans are highly dangerous!

It is thus glaringly inconsistent and incoherent to use a single factor like TFR to determine the temptation of a country for war. There are definitely more than just the TFR that will push a country to war. The Africans, even if they want more space than the Sahara Desert, would not have the means and ability to do so. War will come to them more because they are weak like in Mali.

In the case of the USA, the most belligerent warring state of modern history, TFR is totally irrelevant. And today’s Japan is likely to go to war with China and North Korea to keep the islands it seized as war booties. Nothing to do with TFR surely.

What about Singapore with a TFR of 1.2, which is definitely a very peaceful country, a good neighbour. But when it pushes its TFR to 2.1 would Singapore then become a warring state, wanting lebensraum for its expanding population? I think if one is to apply this logic, it is safer and better for Singapore to maintain the present 1.2 TFR, maintaining the current population than to go with the White Paper recommendations for 6.9m population and leading to a need for more living space and … how about war? 2.1 is relatively more prone to war than 1.2 right? Logical?

What do you think?