Essential services and jobs must be in the hands of Sinkies

The military, the police and other uniformed services are vital organisations that protect the country and people. Jobs in these services have traditionally been filled by citizens and their appointments to key positions are highly guarded. Today it seems that anyone can join these services and many are demanding that PRs must don uniforms, serve in the military as well without any concern about compromising the sensitivity and security of these organisations when non citizens are exposed to them. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore as PRs are in many ways regarded as locals, another term for being one of us. Or maybe the leaders have thought through this and are confident that it is safe to do so.

There are other essential services like power plants and water supplies. Control of these organisations is a serious matter and leaving them to foreigners would have serious implications. Letting PRs control them should be ok as PRs are locals, one of us? Why not when power plants can be sold and managed by foreigners. Maybe security of these services is no longer an issue. All is safe and sound.

I am wondering what services or industry in the private sector would be regarded as essential services that must not be controlled and managed by foreigners. Again citizens, new or old, definitely do not matter. One given a pink IC, they are safe, one of us. And definitely PR is not an issue either.

Over the last few years, many foreigners have taken over the banking and finance industry, and also the IT industry. Some are PRs and some are still foreigners, and some given the pink IC. How pervasive is the presence of foreigners in these two industries/professions today that should they decide to walk out, go home, the banking/finance and IT support could simply go kaput? Maybe such a thing will not happen no matter what. There is nothing to worry about, just like the Fukushima meltdown would never have happened, but it did happened.

Have the banking/finance and IT professions reached a critical point that foreigners are in effective control, domination and could hold the country at ransom, that they are indispensable as there are not enough qualified and trained Sinkies to fill the vacuum if they decide to leave for any weird reason? For that matter, how exposed and dependent are GIC and Temasek Holdings to foreigners that could cost havoc if they quit? How much of highly sensitive information are now in the hands of trustworthy and dependable foreigners? We nearly have more Goodyears.

The lack of succession plans to ensure that Sinkies can fill up the top banking positions is obvious. After so many years, the industry still has to depend on foreigners to fill the top jobs. And looks like the situation is getting worse by the days when more foreigners are recruited to fill the top management grade positions and being groomed or in place to take over the top jobs instead of Sinkies.

Maybe I am unduly worried as everything is in control and what is the problem when PRs are one of us? There are plentiful of PRs that will be most willing to fill the positions and do the bidding. And a little carrot would be enough to see them turning pink. It is precarious to think that two vital services/professions are dominated by foreigners and with Sinkies either fleeing or not given the chance or being kicked aside.

A little foresight or 20/20 vision is good I supposed, to prevent such dire situation to even exist at the peril of the professions and industries. When is the long term planning for such strategic human assets? 

I heard a fart. C'mon, this is no farting matter.

American Dream crumbling, what about the Singapore Dream?

One of the key features of the American Dream is to own a home with a little white fencing around it. This is becoming elusive to many Americans. To make matters worse, they are ‘more than a quarter of all home owners owing more on their mortgages than their properties are worth,’ according to an article in the ST today.

Many Sinkies are smiling, our Singapore Dream is still ok. Many are home owners, never mind that it does not sit on a piece of land or has a white fencing running around it. It is still home in the air. During the last financial crisis, quite a number of Sinkies ended up in the same fate as the quarter of American home owners, with negative assets, ie owing more than the value of the properties they owned.

Is the situation better now? The first fallacy is that the Sinkies think they are home owners when they have a 30 year mortgage to service and all they paid was 10% or 20% of the property. Wise up, get real, you only become a home owner when you fully paid up the mortgage, or for those who have the ability to pay all, or on the last few years of their mortgages, the Singapore Dream of homeownership is there or nearly there. Many are just servicing their mortgages while the ownership of their properties is with the lenders, the banks.

The next fallacy which many take for granted is that it is a lease. Even after paying up the mortgages, the lease would only have a remaining life of 69 years and getting shorter every year. Homeownership of a 99 year lease is a temporary ownership, a lease is a lease.

In another 50 years or so, the first batch of lease owners of 99 year flats will no longer be homeowners. And the pace of disowning their homes will pick up after that when we will see many Sinkies losing their homes unless they can afford to buy another lease at $2m or $3m for a 3 rm public flat.

Other than those living in freehold properties, the Singapore Dream of homeownership is, yes, a dream. It is a 99 year dream and who ever ends up living in the dying years of this dream will have to wake up to face reality.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi – Did we learn anything from her visit?

She came and gone and left her fragrance behind. Some may find it a breath of fresh air, some may find it a little pungent, a little uncomfortable after taste. While she was here she must have learnt quite a fair bit of this little jewel city, with another jewel coming up at Changi Airport soon, a gleaming oasis of modern skyscrapers and facilities, the beautiful gardens and the F1 that she was shown and expected to be in awe. From her statements we all know what she had learnt and would pick up only the right or relevant things for her country.
 
Have we learnt anything from her visit? Learnt what? Are we supposed to learn from her, a third world country? No, she was here to learn, and we were there to teach her, to show her the way to a modern first world country, oops, I mean city.
 
I don’t think Singapore learnt anything from Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit. Our mindset was that we have it all and everything that Myanmar wanted. And we were so willing and eager to please her by offering our helping hand. We were so helpful. Shit, she did not seem to appreciate what we can do for her country.
 
But some Sinkies did learn a bit. Some are questioning whether this mad race to make more money to buy more things, to have more money in the bank accounts are all there is to life and living. Could we seek some balance in our life and live a little, smell the flowers, and sit on the sand along the beach, watch the sunset, play with the children. What is living all about?
 
Yes we all feel very rich, with all the modern convenience around us. Material life is good definitely. So?

Upheaval in the stock market

Spectacular rises lead to spectacular falls. Over the last 3 months the stock market saw some phenomenon activities in a few select stocks. These stocks were penny stocks in the July/August period and saw a meteoric rise to above two dollars. And every day there would be a couple of surprises where out of the blue some penny stocks would double in values or increase by more than 50% in value.
 
This morning the stock market scene took a turn. Three stocks went tumbling down. Asiason was only 95c in August and hit a high $2.90 recently. This morning it crashed to $1.04, losing $1.66 within a couple of hours. Blumont was 85c in August and rose to $2.54. It fell to 88c, losing $1.14. LionGold was $1.15 in July and hit a high of $1.76. This morning it fell 87.5c to 63.5c before it was suspended from trading. Asiason and Blumont were also suspended.
 
Some stock markets have a built in limit mechanism to suspend stocks or the market when the change in prices is more than 15%. Apparently we did not have such a mechanism to stop the trading of these stocks and the falls were allowed to continue before they were suspended by a human decision.
 
The above changes could see hundreds of millions of dollars or billions wiped out within a couple of hours. The two casinos could not match the amount of money changing hands at this pace in the stock exchange. Fortunes were made and fortunes were lost in a matter of hours.
 
Welcome to the biggest casino in Sin City.

China, the bogeyman returns to Indonesia

After living through half a century of misinformation and lies, the Indonesians are now receiving China’s President Xi Jinping as a friend. In the 1950s, China was one of the closest friends of Indonesia under Sukarno. They were leaders of the non aligned movement culminating in a non aligned conference in Bandung in 1955. Indonesia under Sukarno was a leader of the Third World.
 
Unfortunately the close Sino Indonesian ties were sabotaged by the Americans. With the American dubious scheme of regime change, Sukarno and many Indonesian military commanders and elite were murdered by Suharto in a framed up charge of a communist coup. The reality was an American sponsored military coup that led to the biggest bloodshed in Indonesian history, with Indonesians killing Indonesians and putting the blame on China and communism.
 
To live with the lie, China was branded as enemy Number One and official relationship was cut off for more than 40 years. On the other hand, the bloodied hands of the murderers of several hundred thousand Indonesians were smiling quietly in Washington. Is communism more frightening or American exceptionalism? Who have been bullying Indonesian and who were there to squeeze the balls of the Indonesian President Suharto during the Asian financial crisis.
 
When would Indonesians rewrite the darkest chapters of their history and to name the devils that caused the death of so many of their elite and the downfall of their popular President Sukarno?
 
Would Indonesia and China resume their close ties once again to the level of the Bandung era and higher? They did not have real problems with each other but suffered under a western lie. With a combined population of 1.6b people, the two countries are home to one quarter of the world’s population. China is offering to work jointly with Indonesia in many economic, social and infrastructure projects, to build a comprehensive strategic partnership. This is a huge departure from the standard signing of defence and military pacts that the Americans are offering to Asean countries. The few things the American can offer are military hardware and their war machine for war, to go to war.
 
While China and Indonesia are keen to rebuild bilateral relationship and take it to a higher level, would another coup and regime change take place and ties be broken once again between the two countries? The American pivot is in the region and poised to do damage at the most opportune moment. While China and Indonesia are signing trade pacts, the Americans and the Japanese are signing military pacts.