PWP’s last stand at Hong Lim

The turnout at Hong Lim for the Population White Paper protest was deserving of a report in the Sunday Times today. It was 500 strong, much lesser than the first and second protest that saw thousands thronging the field of Hong Lim. Should this be expected? The initial anger aroused by the 6.9m people that will populate this little piece of rock has fizzled out as usual. The internet and the two protests have done their job for allowing the Sinkies to air their frustration. Once that is out of the way, life will go on as normal. No need to say ‘Let’s move on’. It is a natural course of events here.

The Sinkies will be unhappy but just for a while. Once they know that protest will be in vain, they will get on with their lives and there are better things to do, like making more money and churning the property market and aiming for that red Ferrari. The govt can now do what they know best and according to plans. The Sinkies have spoken and all is well. 6.9m it will be.

It must be very assuring and comforting for the govt to know that protest in Singapore is just like that. It is just an expression, nothing more nothing less. No need to send in the troops to quell the 500 people or 5000 people at Hong Lim. Let them enjoy their little moments of feeling important. All protests will die a natural way. Look at the empty ballot boxes case? Forgotten, history! Anyone aiming at anything? Hawker centre cleaning or Rolls Royce bicycles? All forgotten.

Now that this trend is confirmed, I think the govt will be encouraged to loosen the lease and allow it a few feet longer. Let them protest and say what they like. It is healthy. The people will want to protest and the govt will want to do what is right. They may appear to be heading for a collision course, but nay, it is just a public airing, a show of a little unhappiness, like a little sulking.

The govt need not sweat the small stuff the next time Gilbert and his friends apply for another protest at Hong Lim. The govt can even be generous and throw in some freebies like chicken rice to make the protesters happier. Long live the protest spirit in Sin.

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.