Raising children is a losing economic proposition

The cost of raising children here is easily half a million by the time the child graduated from university, and that is a local university. A foreign university could add a couple of hundred thousands more, depending on the type of courses and which country he went to. Just talk economics, as a digit in the GDP number game, the returns must be profitable for the whole process, minus all the emotional and other considerations.

For an outlay of half a million, the child must at least bring in an income of the same amount just to break even. Then include the cost he/she would need to incur, excluding his personal expenses to keep him alive, say housing and car, both items would cost him easily two to three millions more. Simply, the child must bring in an income of $2 ½ or $3 million to make the whole effort worthwhile.

Assuming a productive life is 30 years and additional work years are for retirement expenses, one would need an income of $100k on the average. Anyone earning less than this amount is a losing proposition, a losing investment. And not having a child, a couple could save a million or two for their own. Would that be a better option than to bring up a child or two? If one just thinks economic, the answer is obvious.

Kishore Mahbubani - Asia West divide disappearing

In his latest book, Kishore is saying that the Asia West divide, or the poor Asia and rich West divide is diminishing with more Asians joining the ranks of middle class. The dominance of the West will fade and they will have to accept the rise of the East to meet somewhere in the middle, a convergence of sort, so he said.

During a launch of his book in Shangri La he took questions on his book. One question stood out and deemed important enough to be quoted in the ST. NUS Law Dean, Simon Chesterman, wondered why Kishore ‘seemed’ to be ‘too soft’ on the East but ‘approriately harsh’ on the West’s foibles. It was a common and accepted position that it should be the other way. And I like Kishore’s reply. ‘That’s because there is still no level playing field,… and unless you get into the West’s face, you will not be heard.’

The question and the answer told a lot about the biases of the two men, one basically a westerner who still sees the world with the West as the dominant partner and another wanting to tell the West that this cannot be anymore. The West has been talking down to the Asians, lecturing them with their biased version of the truth or what is reality. If you read what is being churned out by the western media, you cannot get away from this simplistic mindset that the Asians are all dull, stupid, belligerent, corrupt, naïve and incapable of looking after themselves and needing the West to save them. And the West will be the master to tell the Asians who is the good guy, who is the bad guy and these will be confirmed by the thrash they printed through their media agencies as intelligent stuff from intelligent or intellectual jokers, a lot from the academia as well.

Kishore said it right. The Asians would have to crawl their fingers through the weaterner’s faces to open their eyes and ears to listen to the Asian’s point of view. They have been drowning out the voices of Asians for too long and thinking that all their rubbish would still be swallowed, hook, line and sinkers. Unfortunately they are still allowed to do so in our media.

Also unfortunately, there are not enough of Asians like Kishore to fill our academia and we are still importing a lot of pseudo western intellectuals and booting out Asians as NG. And we are using taxpayers’ money to pay them generously while our local academics ended up driving taxis. And also unfortunately the realities in the way we pay the western talents as if they are the only talents in this world negates whatever Kishore is writing in his book. The Asia West divide is still there and it is the silly Asians that is making this divide happening by worshipping the Great White Gods. Don’t blame the West, and not so fast, the Asians are still inferior in their thinking and thinking that they are inferior to the West and are happily sucking up to the West. Only one Asian, other than Kishore, would dare to lecture to the West. Also unfortunately he often sees the world like he is a westerner with western world view and interests as the basis for what is good or bad.

Sorry Kishore, your book is a bit ahead of time.

Singaporeans are racists, xenophobic!

I think it will be good to keep hammering the Singaporeans as racists and xenophobic. I do not know who started branding Singaporeans as such and what is their motive? All I know is that Singaporeans just ‘lan lan’ when attacked and be accused of being racists and xenophobic. And they feel guilty about it, like they are really racists and xenophobic.

If this message keeps going for a while, soon many Singaporeans will be hiding in their toilets to avoid being called racists. Soon they will be very apologetic to foreigners. Soon they will invite foreigners to their homes, pull chairs for them, open doors for them and buy them drinks, so that they would not feel guilty about it.

The Sinkies are simply daft. Sorry, I tried very hard not to call them Sinkies but they are so deserving of such a tag. They allowed the racists to hang a label on them and they unashamedly wear it as if it is the right thing to do. Do they think, are they capable of thinking? Are they capable of defending themselves when they are wronged?

Fortunately there were some brave Singaporeans who stood up and blasted the racists for trying to tag Singaporeans as racists and xenophobic. Think what, if this silly and mischievous tag is not removed, people will think Singaporeans are really racists. And after a while the Sinkies will also believe so.

Who are the defenders of Singaporeans? Who are accusing Singaporeans of being racists and xenophobic?

China fires at Vietnamese vessel

It was reported that Chinese ships fired and chased away Vietnamese fishing boats in the Paracel Islands. This is exactly what a super power should do when little countries tried to be mischievous and to infringe on its territories. The Americans will do so, the European powers will do so, the Indians too will do so. It is a simple and clear message to Vietnam and little countries like the Philippines that China would not tolerate their nonsense and stupid claims against its territories.

China cannot continue not to act in the face of repeated challenges, incursions and violations by these little pesky countries. The more it tries to appease them and restrain itself, the bolder will these countries be and the more incursions will take place. A tight slap is all it takes to put them in their right place. Not doing anything will be seen as a sign of weakness and the Americans and its proxies will say, see, the Chinese are weak, keep going at them.

Big powers must behave like big powers to be respected, if not, to be feared. Only then would China have peace in its islands in the East and South China Sea.

Occupy Singapore Operations Plan

What I am writing is fully fictional, bordering on the side of insanity. So please read with care, better with Parental Guidance, and have a sanity check once in a while before reading on. Some of the ideas were borrowed from the Japanese Imperial Army in the early 20th Century when they formulated the East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere, ie, conquering the whole of East Asia under Japanese rule. But this plan is small in scale and only applicable to small countries or islands. The occupation plan is to take over a small country peacefully, without firing a bullet or a drop of blood.

Let me elaborate. Immigration is the first step. Take advantage of the loose immigration climate and the falutin theory of a borderless world when cross national emigration is encouraged. This is particularly easy when there are countries coveting for other country’s talents instead of developing and nurturing their own. So, encourage your people to work in the targeted country as workers or anything, just get them into the country like claiming a beach head to prepare for the landing of the main force.

When there is critical mass, get the more able to capture top positions in the industries, starting with MNCs. MNCs are easier to infiltrate than national companies. Seize the CEO positions and the HR Dept and start to recruit your own people to fill up top management positions, especially division and dept heads. When these are in place, it will be a systematic replacement of the locals with your own people, but make sure some locals are still around so as not to frighten them and reveal the plan. Ease them out slowly.

After seizing the MNCs, go for the big local or national institutions. These are the choice organizations as they are closely linked to the Govt of the day. Controlling them is like controlling the Govt or at least be accepted as part of the Govt. Take up citizenship if necessary to give the impression that it is another Singaporean taking over the jobs.

On the ground, seize territories by buying up properties, as many as possible. Buy up whole condominiums and streets of houses, form your own enclaves and community networks to self support each other.

Build your own schools to educate your own children so that their national identity will not be diluted by the locals. Send some to the local schools to blend with the locals as one people, to be accepted or integrated.

The final stage is to take over the govt and govt agencies. This one will need more of your people to take up citizenships and claim to be a local, a citizen. When this stage is reached, the take over is complete and the constitution and other govt policies can gradually be amended to turn the country into one’s own country. By then most of the locals will know that it is too late, they have lost their country and will reluctantly emigrate to make way for the new owner.

The plan looks very simple and easy to execute. But two conditions must be present. The first is a daft population that does not think much about ownership of their country and willing to let foreigners in without complaints. A country of migrant origins is very conducive for such thinking. They think they are still migrants and have a soft spot for migrants. Another, the most important, is for a willing govt to collaborate and assist in the takeover. This is possible when the govt thinks that giving foreigners citizenship is as good as the foreigners becoming one of them. They could not see the difference between their own people and the foreigners. All they could recognize and believe is a piece of paper called citizenship. So whether the citizens are new, foreigners or locals, natives, it does not matter. With such govt in place and such mindset, taking over such little countries is a piece of cake.

The whole process can be over in one generation or 20 to 30 years at most. And the local military whose role is to defend the country from being taken over would not even know the difference as the enemy looks exactly like one of them. And the enemy was invited in happily and even integrated with all the assistance and encouragement of the govt of the day.

Of course this is fictional, too easy, and would not happen and definitely would not happen to a well governed country like Singapore when the people have been taught to sing ‘This is my country, this is my home’, and also to pledge to defend the country.

I quote PM Lee Hsien Loong, ‘From time to time, we hear reports of terrorists in our region wanting to attack Singapore…We must never let our guard down.’ With such assurance, Singaporeans can sleep in peace, that their paradise island will never be taken over by a foreign country.