Bloggers and netizens unite

All of us should now be familiar with the case of Leslie Chew, the cartoonist of Demoncratic, being sued for contempt of the judiciary. TRE has posted a couple of articles on this and a call for donation to Leslie Chew to pay for his legal fees. There are many reasons offered on why everyone should support Leslie Chew and also why is this very necessary. Some even suggested turning this into a fund for future use exactly for such cases when bloggers are sued for engaging in such ‘nefarious’ activities like blogging on social and political issues that are important to every citizen of this City.

It is only prudent to expect seeing more of Sue and more bloggers needing funds to defend themselves when Sue is now the number one darling of people who are unhappy with what appears in the social media.

Bloggers and netizens must close rank, be united as a people. Only then will they remain strong and can withstand the strongest typhoons coming their way. For those who can, contribute whatever you can to the Leslie Chew’s fund. His POSB Savings Account is 121-32104-1 as posted in TRE. A few dollars from everyone can come to a significant sum to help this unfortunate cartoonist who is also a blogger and a netizen. This is not an issue of legally right or legally wrong. It is just to help another citizen in distress.

Stay united as a people, a country, a nation, only then can the people be strong to face whatever storm and adversities thrown at them. Stay divided, one by one will be taken down in due course. This is a test of the unity of the people, a test whether they share the same values, beliefs and principles, and a test if they are one people, one nation, the people of a nation coming together, standing united to help and support one another in good and bad times.

The successful conditioning of the daft Sinkie mind

Just put your ears to the ground and listen to the Sinkies talking and what they have come to accept as the truth, the realities that they have to live with, simply amazing. Aliens setting foot on this island would be so amused and aghast at the things that the Sinkies are made to believe and accept as part of their lives.

Let me just list a few of the Sinkie truths that will not be accepted in other developed countries with thinking citizens.

Sinkies are made to believe that they have the most talented Sinkies in politics and they deserved to be paid the millions or they would walk into another betterer paying job in the private sector.

Sinkies are made to believe that the only solution to corruption is to pay the public officers and appointees the millions and they will not be corrupt anymore.

Sinkies are made to believe that foreigners are more talented than Sinkies.

Sinkies are made to believe that they need foreigners to come here to create jobs for them. The truth is that we are creating all the jobs for the foreigners. Tio boh?And the best part is that the foreigners now believe that Sinkies are really daft and they are superior to Sinkies even if they come from third world countries that could not give them the jobs they have here nor pay them the salaries.

Sinkies are made to believe that their flats are affordable and worth the money they paid for. And that living in 900 sq ft flats is quality living.

Sinkies also believe that cars are unnecessary and they should not clamour for such luxuries. Taking public transport is good enough or even shiok. It is gracious living squeezing in the buses and trains packed with commuters.

Sinkies are made to believe that it is reasonable to pay $70k for a certificate to buy a car, on top of other taxes, and that it can be used only for 10 years.

Sinkies are made to believe that only the present political party can run this country and no other parties can do so. And they are so frighten of voting another party into power for fear that the country will go under.

Sinkies are made to believe that taxing the people through GST, especially the poorer ones, is to help the poorer Sinkies.

Sinkies are made to believe that the right to decide when and how much they can withdraw from their lifelong savings in the CPF is the right of the Govt. My God, the Sinkies accept this obediently.

Sinkies also believe that it is okay to increase the population to 6.9m and maybe after this number is reached, everything will be frozen and the population will remain at 6.9m.

Sinkies also believe that they have unlimited resources and land to keep growing the population.

And this one is classic. Sinkies are made to believe that the core of Sinkie population is strengthen when their number is reduced vis a vis non citizens and new citizens.

What else can one tell the Sinkies to believe? Sinkies are the chosen children of God and will be blessed forever. They are so rich that they cannot afford to retire and many are working as cleaners in their 70s and many will be bankrupt when they are admitted to a hospital.

There are many other beliefs, but just one last belief. Sinkies are made to believe that their 99 year leasehold properties will appreciate in price forever and ever.

Assault on Social Media continues

There is another article by Tessa Wong in the ST today on social media with the central theme that social media is unreliable and people are warned to read it with a big pinch of salt. And she quoted one reader thinking so after reading social media and getting more doubtful about its credibility. She continued to quote several more questionable postings in social media that were more of rumour mongering or untruths. The only instance that social media was praised was for saying the right thing, about the Yaw affair in Hougang. Here social media scored brilliantly.

Nothing was mentioned about the key role that social media has contributed on the AIM saga, the Brompton Bike saga, the hawker cleaning saga, the plight and unhappiness of the people on the influx of foreigners, plight of PMETs and job discriminations and high cost of living and the housing bubble. The contributions by the social media and independent bloggers digging for the truths, making investigations without being paid, and revealing many things that were not reported in the main media, not the right things maybe, are simply remarkable and as honest as it can be. And definitely more worthy of news reporting, more professional and important to be reported to give a balance picture of an affair.

Tessa Wong went on to talk about a survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies(IPS) which found ‘that on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is most untrustworthy and 5 is very trustworthy, the Internet received 2.82 on the average while television scored 3.55 and newspapers 3.58’.

She qualified that half of the respondents felt that there is too much govt control over the main media and that the newspapers and main media are biased in the political reporting. She further commented that ‘Such findings show that credibility is a complex creature’.

Allow me to add a few points. The main media is about a whole lot of other news other than social and political news. The social media is mainly about the latter. The second point I would like to make is that when the main media has too much govt control and is biased, how would it affect the honesty of the reports? Would too much control leading to being biased be another way of saying that the main media is not credible also, not telling the whole truth? How can a control media with the intention of reporting what it wants to report and reporting it in a biased manner be reliable and credible? You think and you find your own answer to that.

Perhaps a better comparison or survey will be to compare the reports and commentaries in social and main media on social and political issues. It is a given fact that 99.9% of non social and political news are factual and unlikely to be misleading or false. Some business and economic news could be misleading as they affect the companies and the stock market.

Also, the sample of a survey can easily be biased by the choice of the respondents and what kind of questions were being asked or cooked. This can be easily proven if I would to conduct a similar survey here on the reliability and credibility of the social media and main media just on social and political issues. I beg the findings can be shocking and contrary to what IPS found.

Shall I do it just to prove how biased even a survey can be and how biased a commentary on the credibility and reliability of social versus main media can be, as said, the issue is more complex than a survey can designed to cover the vital parts.

When the housing bubble bursts

All the signs are there that we are having a housing bubble, and a very big one. It is only a matter of when it will burst. There is no such thing as a bubble will not burst. We are not so exceptional that it will not happen. And given the high percentage of speculators and foreigners in the market, all it needs is for someone to decide to take profit and run. This will lead to more and more trying to get out before the next person and a trickle will lead to a stampede.

The point is that who will pay or suffer the most? No tears or sympathy for the speculators and the foreigners. What is undesirable is the number of young Singaporeans that will be hurt, the genuine buyers who have been pushed to grab that property fearing that they will not be able to buy it if the prices keep going up.

The fear of not being able to buy made them plunged down a few hundred thousands for a public flat or more than a million for private properties. How many will end up with negative assets and a big debt to service? But as long as they are able to service the loan, maybe in the long term things could still work out. What is troubling is that if they are unable to service the debt and are forced to sell their over priced properties at a big loss.

The high cost of living and prices of big ticket items are supported by a high income. Many of the yuppies or high living professionals are living on their salaries and the moment the salaries go, the balloon will go poop and all the nice things will become unaffordable. The house and the fine cars will have to be returned as they are still under mortgage or loans. The debt, as we all know, is just too big to stomach without a big income to service.

Things will not be pleasant. Pray the clock keeps on ticking and will not stop.

Boon Heng the right person for Chairman of Temasek

Why are there so many complains and criticisms on Boon Heng’s promotion to Chairman of Temasek Holdings? The barrage of attacks were quite uncalled for and getting a bit rowdy and rude sometimes. I want to suggest that everyone should look at the positive side of this appointment. Put it this way, Boon Heng has the breath of experience that is incomparable and unmatched by anyone or any standard. No Singaporean has the kind of experience that Boon Heng has.

From all his portfolios, I think the two most relevant appointments to his new appointment must be the NTUC Secretary General and his special assignment to find ways to look after the welfare of the oldies. He was even sent to Japan with a team of high caliber officials to learn how to improve the welfare of old Singaporeans. These two appointments are related in one area, welfare of workers and the oldies.

Let’s see what Boon Heng can do for these groups of people with the huge funds under his charge in Temasek. This is a good opportunity for him to show that he cares for the common people, the workers and the oldies. Maybe they can look forward to more and bigger hongpaos. Maybe Temasek can fund more projects or schemes to benefit the oldies. Maybe this is exactly the intent of the Govt, put him through the training, send him to Japan to learn what can be done to better the lives of the oldies and workers. And now the Govt says, ‘Here is the money, go and do what is good for the people’. Everything seems to fit in nicely.

This is called planning and development for top level management.