A different kind of World Cup

Not too long ago Singapore was aspiring to be in the World Cup by buying foreigners to play football for the country. It was a wet dream that was best forgotten. Now Singapore is in the World Cup of a different kind. NUS is ranked number Two best university in Asia after Tokyo Unversity and 29th in the whole wide world.

This is indeed something to cheer about. Maybe next year Singapore will be number One in Asia and up from the 29th in the world. It is a mean feat, a great achievement. So, how is Singapore going to benefit from this ranking? Is NUS now recognised as a great academic institution of higher learning? Must be. Is NUS producing some great intellectual minds to do Singaporeans proud? Must be. And there must be a lot of great professors in NUS to give it the ballast it needs to be recognised as one of the best in the world. No need to ask if the great minds there are Singaporeans or foreigners. NUS is even better than Tsinghua and Peking University.

Maybe in 30 years time we will hear and read about great names like Emeritus Professor Tan Khee Giap, or Emeritus Professor Eugene Tan, or Emeritus Professor Yaacob Ibrahim, or Emeritus Professor Kishore Mahbubani. Never mind if the renowned professors now have foreign names and credentials. We will make it there, in 30 or 50 years.

And also we could look forward to some Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Engineering, Medicine or Humanities. Hope they will be Singaporeans. New citizens also can. That is what great universities are for. I dunno how much have been spent to acquire such a brand and how much more to produce more world renowned local professors and Nobel laureates. It is money well spend, every cent of it.

And don’t forget, we have two think tank schools in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies staffed by some of the best brains money can buy. Together, Singapore will become famous as an intellectual centre where great minds meet to talk about great stuff. We can forget about being the top casino centre in Asia. This is the Singapore Renaissance. We have the best universities, the best intellectuals all in this island. The only reservation, an unthinking population that needs the help of Third World talents to help it to progress or it will return to Third World very soon. We are still dependent on Third World talents to provide the talents for our economy and industries.

Thus, despite the high rankings of NUS, I remember making a suggestion that Singapore students should enrol in Indian Universities if they intend to seek employment in Singapore. The Indian Universities may have rankings far lower than NUS but they have the right formula and their graduates are in great demand here, and institutions and big companies have greater preference for their graduates than local graduates, or at least the head hunting companies. The general comments are that our local graduates are only good in grades but daft and lack motivation and EQ. Now I am not sure if my suggestion is the right thing. Perhaps with this high ranking, the employers will now look more favourably at graduates of NUS in preference of graduates from Third World countries. I really hope so, I really hope the ranking makes a difference, a meaningful ranking.

But never mind, when NUS becomes number One in Asia, we should have a national holiday declared and street celebrations in town. Looks like China’s and India’s universities would have to start spending more money to employ western professors if they think they want to beat Singapore’s universities in ranking. Money is all it takes to up the ranking.

A piece of RAR Art - untitled

A series of RAR Art with primary colours in red, white and black. A painting by Mother Nature.

911 Revisited - The truth by Emeritus Professor Morgan Reynolds

Are you ready for the truth? Or have you been sold a fabricated truth by the American Administration? Listen to this Sunday sermon and be your own judge. Don't let anyone plant any 'truth' in your head.

Morgan O. Reynolds was a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.
He served as chief economist for the United States Department of Labor during 2001--2002, George W. Bush's first term. In 2005, he gained public attention as the first prominent government official to publicly claim that 9/11 was an inside job, and is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Reminiscence of the good old days

Just a generation ago, the 70s and 80s, which was not too long ago, the average citizens were not rich and so was the country. I am not looking at the 60s as those were the formative years of our nation, rough and tough and life was very basic.

In the 70s and 80s, though the average income was not that great, when the average white collar worker took great pride in earning a four figure salary, below $2000, life could be good. With that income, many could lead quite a decent lifestyle, own a car and a 3 or 4rm flat. Those with double income could afford landed properties, semi Ds, at worst 5rm HDB flats. And they had very little financial worry as debt to income ratio was small.

We progressed, the country progressed, bigger and better housing, better quality of life till the 90s. Today we are still progressing and people are getting richer in their income, 5 figure salaries or more, and some are getting extremely rich. But the signs of strain and pressure are showing among the average Singaporeans. Many are high in debt because of mortgages and housing loans and study loans for their children. And the axe over their heads, a big medical bill waiting to drop on them. Superficially, things are still looking very good.

The question is whether this life style and the cost of living are sustainable? Are the lives of the average people getting better or going down? The salaries are much bigger, the quality of housing are better, but people are starting to buy into smaller and smaller homes. Car ownership is getting to be extremely expensive. Quietly the govt is starting to sell the message that life without a car is good. Smaller flat is good.

Should not progress comes along with better quality of everything, that the higher income should be better, bigger housing and easier to own cars and better cars, and lesser financial worries? The growth formula for the country looks right, but the quality of life formula for the average Singaporeans is starting to look wrong.

Could the rapid growth be slower, smaller population, lower cost and better quality housing and easier car ownership be part of the growth formula instead? Can the economic growth formula be tweaked to enable the average Singaporeans to live in bigger and better housing, with smaller debt and many more be able to own their cars and with less financial worries about bring up children and making ends meet? With so much growth to show, so much wealth in display, with so much good things in the offering, why are people finding it difficult to give themselves better homes and to be able to travel in the comfort of their own cars? Aren’t these good things a part of progress and contribute to the well being of the people? Good homes and cars are the things that the people desire and aspire for. Depriving them of good homes and car ownership cannot be progress, cannot be a better thing.

Have the growth formula with unacceptable large population on limited land over extended itself and the flaws starting to show, and the benefits become marginal if not negative? What is the point of growth when the good things in life are no longer available or in smaller portion? And the mantra is still to pursue blindly for more people in the island. Can the policy makers really believe that this is the only way forward, progress and a better quality of life?

Robbing the young rich to pay the old poor

The legend of Robin Hood and how he robbed the rich to pay the poor and always fighting against the Sheriff of Nottingham who only knew how to protect the rich, was a favourite and must read comics of our generation. I don’t think the Y generation onwards bother with such wholesome righteousness. But the Govt still does, as many of them were of my generation or close to it. They are brought up with the same righteousness, of robbing the rich to pay the poor, not robbing to pay themselves for sure.

Housing is still a big pain to many Singaporeans, and the right to buy a public flat from the Govt is like striking lottery to some, or a big savings to many. Every Singaporean given the opportunity will want to buy directly from the Govt to save a few hundred thousand bucks of their hard earned money. With a monopolistic public housing scheme, the Govt knows how vital its role is and how they could make life easier or meaner to the Singaporean home buyers. By tweaking the demand and supply, by formulating rules and regulations, some will be cut out from the public housing schemes and be left at the mercy of the free market and the private property developers.

Many groups of Singaporeans have been deprived from the public housing scheme while the ‘Ginny come lately’ new citizens were graciously allowed to buy public housing freely. One of the groups that have been deprived from public housing is the young high income earners, ie those earning above $12,000. To the Govt and to many Singaporeans, this group is very rich and must not be allowed to buy public housing. So the Govt has in place an income ceiling to keep these rich young people from public housing.

What the Govt has done is like what Robin Hood had done in the past, robbing these rich young people to pay the poor. By not allowing them to buy direct from the Govt, these young people have no choice but to buy from the resale market or buy private properties. The effect is a transfer of their savings to those who are selling their public housing in the resale market. The difference in price can be a few hundred thousand dollars. Effectively the Govt is forcing these young people to hand their money to the HDB owners who bought their flats direct from HDB. This must be a well thought out scheme of the Govt, to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth among the average Singaporeans. The young and abler Singaporeans must share their wealth with the less able and older Singaporeans. Who can fault such a benevolent design?

If these young people refuse to share their savings with the HDB dwellers, they can share them with the private property developers and pay even more. In the latter case it will not be robbing the rich to pay the poor. It will be robbing the not so rich young people to pay the rich developers and rich speculators.

Whatever way you look at it, it is a good thing. The young people have the money and it is only right that they should share their hard earned money with those who are less able. Not sure if one agrees that they should share with the rich developers and speculators. The Govt is doing a righteous thing, a moral thing, a good thing, like modern day Robin Hood. We have a very caring Govt that cares for the poor.

The Govt should not remove the ceiling, for by doing so they would not be able to rob the young rich to pay the poor old. The moral of the story is that it is ok to rob the rich and pay the poor. But don’t touch the super rich. Their wealth must be protected at all cost and to grow and grow. Make the young rich buy properties from the super rich, who incidentally, many have bought many properties and waiting for the young rich to hand over their hard earned money for them. We have a good system in place. Don’t rock the boat. Be thankful and be grateful.

PS. I wrote this piece with my eyes wide shut.