The Govt cannot build more flats( part 2)

Even if there is genuine demand for more flats, the Govt, according to Boon Wan, will not build more flats as this will affect some 80,000 owners who are living on rental income. Is this an important reason not to build flats for those who need them? Another possible reason, build more flats will bring down prices. Is this also another reason not to build enough flats to meet the demand?

What is the mission of HDB? To build flats to provide an income to the owners? To build flats and to ensure the prices will not fall? Or to build flats so that the citizens will have a roof over their heads?

But the Govt will build more flats for more people that are going to be imported to increase the population to 6.9m. And it is going to build several hundred thousand units for this purpose. So opposition better don’t speak up against having more foreign workers to build these flats.

Is Boon Wan meddling with the supply and demand of flats and the market forces? Is it not the Govt’s top priority to build flats for its citizens to live in, have babies, to bring up a family? The rental income cannot be a major concern, and some price fluctuation due to market forces must be a natural order of things. Why is this preoccupation to support and prop up property prices to disadvantage and victimize genuine home buyers? The current property prices are abnormally high and need to be lowered by balancing the supply and demand and definitely not by curtailing its supply.

What kind of logic is this? The interests of the young home buyers and genuine home owners are expendable so that others can get higher rental income or be happy cause their property prices remain high on paper?

What do you think?

A monumental change in the making in the Singapore polity

I thought I sense something big is happening in the politics of this island. But I rule them out as voices from the lunatic fringe, congregating mostly in blogosphere. The anger and spitefulness cannot be missed and growing daily. Then, blogosphere is the equivalent of Liang Shan or Mt Liang in the classic Water Margin, where the heroes or victims of the establishment called home. So, I can only take the grumbling as a little disturbance and would come to nothing eventually. It is too small a group of people kpkb daily and awaiting for doomsday or a political judgement day.

Other than netizens in cyberspace, uneasiness and a sense of despair and helpless also pervade in casual discussions. The mood is that the ruling party has lost is support and trust from the people. The Presidential Election and the two by elections were seen as the harbingers of more of the same to come. The little crowd in Hong Lim too was read by many that it is not as small as it looked and the unhappiness is more widespread than thought.

Seah Chiang Nee, the ex ST editor, also wrote about the increasing vocal elite that were once part of the establishment and expressing their misgivings and disagreement quite openly. Then yesterday I read Catherine Lim, a doyen of govt critics, in an article about the PAP losing it. The party has lost its long taken for granted trust and support of the people. The people are cynical, and questioning, and doubtful of the direction going forward as plotted by the Govt.

In Catherine Lim’s view, all is not lost. The PAP only needs to cleanse its past by embracing the ex political dissidents that were forced out of the country, some released from political detention, and bows for forgiveness. That would show some sincerity and humility of the unpleasant past, and to emerge from the dark side in sparkling white once again.

I am less sanguine about this assessment and less optimistic that the problem is just about a dark chapter of our political history. I think the problems are more basic, bread and butter issues, jobs, cost of living and the increasing tension brought about by a misplaced foreign talent group that have proven to be more a pain in the arse than people deserving to be welcomed as new partners in our economic and social development. Many citizens are feeling cheated by Govt policies and a future of a highly intense society, of having to pay more for less, smaller homes, no cars, bank breaking hospital fees, and having to compete unfairly with foreign mobs that are haughty, cocky, unworthy and untrustworthy while feasting on our hospitality and taking away good jobs from the locals.

The PAP is losing its grip on the voters in more ways than could be envisaged. I don’t see any hope of them regaining the trust and support of the people like in the past. It is a slippery downward slide to oblivion. I qualify to say that my readings are one sided. Then again, the truth will surface very soon when grassroots leaders are also getting ambivalent about what is installed for them in the next GE.

Things are not looking pretty for the PAP. Feel free to disagree with my diagnosis. I am just a political watcher and commentator and I am looking at the scenario through tinted lens.

Norwegian Oil SWF gains 13.4% in 2012

‘(10 Mar) – Norway’s oil fund, one of the biggest investors in the world, rose in value by 13.4% last year, its second-best performance ever.

The central bank said the fund’s investments in shares jumped by 18.1% in 2012, boosted by soaring equity indexes around the world.

It is now worth 3.8tn krone (£450bn; $670bn), up from 3.3tn krone in 2011….’

This is a snippet that I read posted in TRE. How much did our SWFs made last year? The Norwegians seemed to be doing very well at face value from this report. If the Norwegians are doing so much better than our SWFs, maybe it will be a good thing to learn from them, their strategies, who are their fund managers and where did they invest their funds.

There must be something that the Norwegians are doing right. But numbers are numbers and they can mean all kinds of things and also dependent on accounting practices. At 13.4%, it is still a good number in any count.

Can we borrow some of their fund managers?

The Govt cannot continue to build more flats

‘For instance, the Govt cannot continue to build more flats to meet new housing demand as this would mean “hurting the many home owners who can now rent out their properties.”’ Khaw Boon Wan.

The above is quoted in the main media. So, can the govt continue to build another few hundred thousand units for the 6.9m population?

What do you think? Controlling the supply? Can continue to bring in more migrants?

Managing faked or unrecognised degrees

I can only hope and pray that this problem plaguing the country and disadvantaging Singaporean PMETs is a small one that doesn’t need much bother from the Govt. If in reality it is an iceberg waiting to sink the Singapore Titantic, woe will befall the citizens of this island when the ship and the iceberg collide.

Tan Chuan Jin and his Tafep are trying to do something about it. Just wondering how serious is this call or would it just be a passing remark to be forgotten the next morning? The implications of foreign PMETs replacing local PMETs are serious, wide ranging and unacceptable, from stealing the jobs from the locals, discrimination of locals, cheating and victimising the locals, depriving the local PMETs from acquiring skills and experience, and the larger implications are social unrest when locals are out of jobs, unable to feed themselves and families and servicing heavy housing mortgages. Worst case scenario, it is like an invasion of foreigners that will become PRs and citizens to oust the true blue citizens from eking a low down existence in their own country. The natives will find it hard to live in this expensive place without a job while foreigners are taking their jobs and living happily here at the local’s expense. How can this be?

The humiliating part is for the fake talents or half baked talents to think that they can screw the better local talents, screw their jobs, boss around with them and kick them around, with unrecognised degrees, no degrees or fake papers. It is amazing that a first world sophisticated city can fall victim to third world swindlers and con men and women, and very happy going about it without a care.

While the problem has surface and the Govt looking like looking into it, there are two aspects that need to be addressed immediately. One is the number of foreign PMETs that can be employed in any company or institution. A quota like those for foreign workers will be more palatable to the citizens that have lost their jobs to these PMETs, and their children will eventually also be victims to the scam that can be treason in nature.

The second part is to eradicate faked or half past six degrees from God knows where. This is a mammoth task that requires a big number in manpower to investigate. The MOM is unlikely to be able to deal with it even with the recruitment of a few battalions of officers. It may take more than 500 man years to cleanse this shit hole. What could be an alternative is to get these foreigners to have their qualifications certified and guaranteed by institutions, preferably foreign banks or financial institutions or their employers, that can be fined when the qualifications were found to be faked. Don’t ask a local institution to be the guarantor as it would end up paying for the frauds of foreigners. Such institutions could turn this into another business and would have the spread of manpower and expertise to do the job without the Govt carrying the burden and cost to police the fake degrees.

The Govt could conduct spot checks in a more targeted manner and get the guarantors to pay for the slips. This part is crucial or else the whole scheme could be another bigger scam. Bounty hunters can be hire to check on such violations which will be quite effective too. There are obvious problems as the guarantors will have to be reliable and be able and willing to do the due diligence and be able to pay the fines and repatriation costs.

A guarantor system is not the only way to tackle this shit situation and there must be many better and more efficient ideas that the talents in the MOM could come up with. The important part is to kill this problem fast for the sake of Singaporeans and the country.