Ang Hin Kee – Don’t blame external factors…

And Hin Kee, MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, said, ‘ I have been to crowded places and seen how people accommodate one another. You have a choice. Don’t blame external factors for our behavior.’ Ang was referring to the anti social behavior of the hooligan who spat at the two female commuters and threatening to hit one of them if not stopped by a SMRT staff.  Ang should experience the rush hour crowds at MRT interchange and then ask if the commuters have a choice not to be there.

I would like Ang Hin Kee to read the study on how white rats behaved when overcrowded and the comments by psychologist Joel Yang, ‘that commuters may become “increasingly angrier” and tend to react negatively to minor annoyances as Singapore’s population density increases.’ Yang also added, ‘It has been widely researched in major, densely populated cities that crowding is linked to anxiety, frustration, aggression, and inappropriate social interaction.’

Do Sinkies have a choice on whether the island should continue to get more crowded and not less? Do Sinkies have a choice on the 6.9m population planning number or the unceasing influx of foreigners here?

Ang Hin Kee said, ‘You have a choice.’ Now what this choice? Can Sinkie stop the 6.9m population from happening? Did anyone give the Sinkies a choice? Who should Sinkies blame for the crowded environment? Yes don’t blame external factors. The foreigners can only come here to flood this place because of internal factors. They are invited to be here like swarms of locusts. And Sinkies have a choice to stop this.

How to turn friends into enemies the American way

Beginning of the week we heard the Saudis were so angry with the Americans that they were reassessing and realigning their security arrangements to distance themselves from them. And to think that the Saudis have been the staunchest American allies among the Arabs in the Middle East, excluding Israel, must be a cause for concern.
 
What happened flowing this episode is more astounding. First the Mexicans, than the Brazilians, then the French, followed closely by the Germans, all blooming mad about the Americans spying on the conversations of their leaders. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had cancelled an official visit to meet Obama. French President Hollande is reconsidering how to respond to his American threat. German Chancellor Merkel was furious and had called Obama direct on the hotline. This is not how to treat your allies, snooping at their conversations like they were enemies. Obama has assured her that the CIA would stop doing it and not to do it in the future. Quite a comforting thought.
 
Thanks to Edward Snowden, all the worms of American treachery and betrayal are crawling all over. The ugly Americans and their disregard and disrespect for their allies are making their allies turning red in embarrassment for being treated so badly and dismissively.
 
No one can destroy the Americans. Only the Americans can do it themselves. The rot and decline have appeared on the surface and looking very ugly. Who else will be next to know that the Americans have been screwing their arses while they were in bed together?

Swee Say - minimum wage is a zero sum game

This is what Swee Say said and I fully agree with him. Setting a minimum wage is a zero sum game. When you have to make sure the low level workers be paid a minimum wage that is higher than what they are getting, it affects the overall payroll. With a cake of fixed size, the rest will have less to share.
 
I dunno if this same logic applies to the high pay and bonuses of top management. Is it also a zero sum game, that when they are paid so much, the low level workers must get less. Zero sum game is like that. The total sum is fixed, and when someone gets more, someone must get less.
 
But there are exceptions. In some circumstances, the top can get as much as they want without affecting the zero sum game formula, because the cake can be blown bigger if the supply of income is unlimited. Talented top management would know how to ensure that the money coming in is always growing and so it is alright if they are paid millions and millions. It would not affect what the low level workers would be paid. Tiok boh? The zero sum game formula thus does not apply.
 
What do you think?

Global war for talent

There is a big conference in Kuala Lumpur to extol the importance of chasing after global talents. This craze for global talents started initially in the banking and finance industry where the crooks went around the world cheating and selling fraudulent products to make huge profits for themselves, and if they made any losses the banks would have to pay for it. Many high net worth people and institutions lost big when the first bubble burst. But the scam continues today as the greed for more easy money by cheating the rich guys who think they are smart enough to make money but did not realize that they were stupid enough to be conned by these global financial talents and losing the money they made themselves.
 
this notion of global talents is spreading into other industries. The hype cannot be stopped as it is painted as the in thing, to compete for that global talents or the organization or country will lose out. It is like keeping up with the Joneses, they bought foreign talents so you too much buy some. They bought a few exotic pets, quickly get some too.
 
How many organizations really need global talents and can benefit from hiring these talents? Take the SMRT as an example, it is a local public transport company. Does it need to hire foreign talents and for what? I think the management is smart enough not to go down that road. There is no need for silly global talents to run a domestic public transport company. In fact you need local talents and local knowledge. I will fall out of my chair if they think it is necessary to put up an angmoh face to front their PR office. So far so good, that the top management are locals.
 
Even for organizations that need to compete in the international market, how many jobs really need to be filled by global talents and can benefit from their knowledge of the international scene?
 
Say for companies that operate internationally, like SIA or PSA, how many foreign talents are needed? Oh, may be the CEO needs an international team to work with him. So? Should the CEO and his top management team be forever filled by global talents? And how are the global talents made and how come global talents are always from overseas and we cannot produce our own global talents? The danger of a foreign CEO and his foreign team of top management is a recipe for disaster and forever dependent on this team. They will be entrenched and cannot be removed. Only silly shareholders will allow such a development to take place, when foreigners took the plum jobs and weed out the locals who would never be able to replace them.
 
Would our civil service and ministries benefit from having more global talents? Seriously I doubt so except to pay through their noses for talents and skills that are not needed but good to have. You want a Greek god to sit at the reception to impress the women? The other part is to deprive good jobs that should go to Sinkies. Why is there not a need to consider global talents for political office? It would be the most stupid thing to do. Only morons will flirt with such a thought and to consider having foreign talents as our national leaders, even if they are given pink ICs at the last minute to claim that they are citizens.
 
There are many GLCs that do not need foreign or global talents when the services and their products are domestic. As for the marketing of townships, do we really need global talents when most of the skills and knowledge were developed by our very own locals?
 
Oh yes, we need foreign talents for sports, for all the trophies and glories. Well, as long as we have all the more to splurge and the daft Sinkies do not protest for throwing good money for fake glories, let it be.
 
We are not what we are today because of flooding the island with foreigners. The present day foreigners are mercenaries that are here to pluck the fruits that our forefathers planted. We were selective in the past in our choice and numbers of foreigners needed. We were not so daft to take in all and sundry, fake and half baked, as our saviours. Who is the daft one?

No country, no govt, no citizen – bo cheng hu

The pathetic incident of this guy spitting at two young women at Woodlands Interchange, grabbing one of them and harassing them, is what this country has turned into, bo cheng hu. This guy went spitting at one woman after another several times each and everyone, including SMRT staff could only watch like a despicable circus act. No one could or would stand up to stop the abuse and humiliation of two women in broad daylight, in a crowded place.
 
How could such a thing happen in a first world city? I can offer only a few reasons. Everyone was so civilized except the guy who spitted at women, or everyone was so selfish, so afraid or did not know what to do or whatever. Chivalry is dead. Manhood is dead.
 
What happened could be like this. The guy could be fierce, but from the video, any medium built guy could knock him down. He was no big hunk, more like a grown up boy. Anyway, the women could also be foreigners. The people watching also could be foreigners, or most of them. Any Sinkie there, maybe a few. Even the SMRT staff in uniform could be foreigners.
 
So you have a group of foreigners in a little corner of this island watching something unpleasant happening. What to expect them to do? They are foreigners, no ownership. This is not their country, it is not their business to get involved. Why should they? And as for the Sinkies, the women could be foreigners too, so why should they bother?
 
The point is that there is no ownership. This island has so many foreigners that every other person is likely to be a foreigner. And at an interchange, the likelihood that the majority are foreigners is even higher. It is a situation of no country, no govt, no citizens. Anything can happen, who cares? No one will step forward to help anyone in distress, to defend or protect lives or properties. It is nobody’s business.
 
When there is a country, a citizenship, ownership, an identity, belonging, then there will be kampong spirit, to help each other, because we are a family, the people of a country. In a rojak situation when everyone is likely to be a foreigner, when none can identify with anyone or anything, this is what could happen. Apathy, alienation, distinterest, not my business, nothing to do with me. No one people one nation, no stand up for Singapore. This is the same as the foreigner cyclist threatening the Sinkie driver in the middle of road. In a country when the national identity is strong, the cyclist would not be seen walking or cycling again if he dared be so rude and aggressive to the citizens. In some countries they would mow him down and it would be his fault for being there. He was not supposed to be there. He did not belong there.
 
We are looking every bit like a failed nation. Yes we are just a city with no identity, not a country or a nation. Nobody cares for anyone except when their interests are directly affected.