SG 50 – Red Dot to party all year round

Singapore has really arrived. It is truly a very rich country and the mood is all about celebration. Now, who is talking about poor people? Next year is our 50^th Anniversary as an independent country and a very successful one. It deserves a year of celebration. I dunno what is the budget for this big bang but there will also be budget for the people to organise functions of their own to celebrate a City State growing up and with so much money to party and to throw. We no longer need to be prudent and thrifty like our first generation leaders. We need not think or plan carefully for each dollar we spent and where it will come from, or how to invest it wisely. We only need to be happy spending and partying. We have so much money to spend.

Lawrence Wong has called on the people to put up suggestions for the celebration. This gives me an idea about inclusiveness and the big number of foreigners here contributing to our progress and creating jobs for Sinkies. And lately Sinkies have been rebuked for not being kind to them.

I would like to propose that all Sinkies invite foreigners to spend a day in their homes, or more if they like, prepare a good meal for them, and show them how kind Sinkies are. We need to integrate them to our way of life so that they down bring us down to their normal. And we need to if we want them to treat us kindly.

For this effort, for every foreigner brought into the homes of a Sinkie, the govt shall pay the Sinkie $100 for the expenses and inconvenience caused. Oh, for those with big mansions and would like to invite big and successful foreigners driving sports cars and not comfortable with the stench in HDB flats, they should be paid $1000 per head so that such foreigners would have a good time and not to think Sinkies are poor. Throw in a few SPGs to show them some kindness as well.

This is the time to show the world we are rich. I got a bigger celebration to propose. See, my whole faculty is only thinking of having parties and spending the money we have made. This is like 1997 in Hongkong or in the early 70s when the British were pulling out. It was party time and time to spend all the money saved before the curtain closed.

Oh, 2019 is a very important year. Think 1819. See, you remember. We can celebrate together with our colonial masters in London all year round. We can have road shows and all kinds of shows in both countries. Our ministers and head of state and head of govt can visit each other and dance the night away. Money is no issue. It is OPM mah.

What is important is for us to show the world how rich we are and how much money we have to have a good time. We can even throw a few billions to buy a few toys that nobody wants to show that we can really afford it.

The Tourist Board can then promote this as a City that parties all year round. And when other people make surveys on the mood of the people, the conclusion will be a very happy people that only think of parties and nothing else. No need a million smiles campaign anymore when everyone is so happy party like no tomorrow.

Mid term report card

2 and half years passed since the last GE and it is about time to do an assessment on how the govt had been doing. The massive housing problem has started to show some result. The backlog of housing needed has temporarily been transferred to the waiting list of units under construction. I won’t give credit to this as it was a self created problem due to bad management. In fact the govt should apologise to all the home buyers who ended up paying very unreasonable high prices. The fear of a runaway housing price has been removed. But the price is still high as it is still hovering at near its peak after more than doubling or tripling in the last decade.

The train continues its routine breakdown and disruption of services like a new normal of the 3^rd World. Maybe we are having too many foreign engineers running it and so this is the standard to be accepted.

The huge influx of foreigners is still in the country and still growing. The number of cheats caught was more like a token, like they said, a little wayang. The FCF and paying an Indian company to check on Indian certificates is looking more like jokes.

Medical cost is continuing to rise, shortages of doctors and hospital beds have reached an epidemic proportion to some critics. University places are still going to foreigners, including millions of dollars being thrown at them when the money could go to our children and saved their parents from selling properties to finance their overseas education. The wastage of our top students going into medicine and replacing them with questionable medical professionals from questionable institutions will show its ugly consequences as a matter of time.

Has anything changed? Some ministers were seen working very hard with some results. Some were working very hard with no results. Some dunno what they were busy with. Some were all noise and no substance and attracting ridicules. Some were looking after dogs and pets and foreigners rather than citizens. Some were chasing after pampers. Some disappeared, never seen nor heard even in Parliament.

How should the report card be written? The apologists will give it a big A to be accompanied by the big bonuses to be shared. It will be a matter of who would get more rather than who would get less? Unfortunately this will be a well kept secret and no one will be wiser. One thing for sure, the public courts of justice will pass their judgement comes 2016 using their own criteria of measurement.

Thailand – an unspoken perspective

Suthep and his protesters are still reported by the main media as the game changer, fully in charge and in control and like a sure thing to topple the Yingluck govt. Many govt agencies and Bangkok elite are also singing the same tune. The truth is that Suthep is looking more like a legalized thug, and a foolish one at it.
 
The Bangkok elite of royalists, the military and the residents and academics are convincing themselves that the Yingluck govt is corrupt and must be removed and will be removed. The police have been castrated and cannot do anything. Any move by the police will allow the army to stage a coup immediately.
 
One of the assumptions in this scenario is that Thailand consists of only the Yellow Shirts from Bangkok and they can ignore the 65 mil rural Thais. The 5 mil Yellow Shirts can decide for the 65 mil Thais who should rule Thailand. This arrogance and disrespect of the majority of the Thais will not go down well with the Red Shirts. And they are not going to take it quietly. The rural Thais are politicized and no longer the ignorant masses to be manipulated by the city elite. They will not allow the Yingluck govt to fall and not do anything.
 
The army is also very careful of their options and the bigger picture. They are not as united as they appeared to be and know that the regional commanders may have different ideas. An attempt to stage a coup in Bangkok could ignite a bigger coup in the north and northeast regions, maybe more. The army not only has to contend with a pro govt police but also the factions within. A coup in Bangkok would lead to an array of events that would run out of control.
 
The division in the army is likely due to the imminent fall of the big tree. When the tree falls, there will be a regrouping of forces within the monarchy, if it is still intact. Backing the wrong horse now could be very costly and could join Suthep and his followers behind bars when the dice falls on the wrong side. Many of the army commanders must be wavering at the prospect of a royal change and a new royalty may have different ideas.
 
Playing safe and playing the cards close to their chests will be to the interest of all the military commanders. What they are very sure is the tree falling and a New Order. The old elite and old royalists could be in for a severe rubbing. Playing the game wrongly could see Thailand transforming into a republic when the people’s power shall rule, which also means the Red Shirts shall call the shot.
 
It is a complex political game at the moment and what is reported in the main media is only one side of the story and ignoring the will of the majority of the Thai people. Bangkok is not Thailand.

Anton Casey, Paradise found and lost

Anton Casey was invited into paradise, got a high paying job waiting for him by a big bank. His income was so good that he could live in top end condominium that cost a bomb and a flashy sports car that cost half a million to go with it. He was living it up, mixing with the elite and moving in the right circle of the who’s who in the island paradise. He was rewarded further with a local native beauty queen as his wife. And she gave him a beautiful son.
 
Life was a bliss like living in paradise on earth. Hardship and poverty were words that he could not see or hear in his high living of beautiful people and flashy material comfort that are dreams to many of the natives. His first encounter with the poor natives came when his car was sent for servicing. He took the train with his son, a transport mode that the locals are very proud of as they could not afford the cars that are priced the highest in the world. To own a car, one has to buy a certificate that cost more than the price of a medium size car. Anton was uncomfortable with the poverty around him in the train. It was a different and unfamiliar environment. He went home and wrote in his facebook about the need to get rid of the stench that stuck on him from the train.
 
Someone found it amusing to forward what he wrote and it went viral. The natives were not amused. They were angry for the first time against a foreigner that came to take their good paying jobs and their beautiful women and instead of being grateful for the good fortune and blessing, he literally shitted on their face. It created a violent tropical storm never seen before in his life. He quickly apologized but was a bit too late and too little. The natives are calling for his blood.
 
Anton Casey’s paradise collapsed overnight and went into hiding with his beautiful wife and son. His company is investigating the incident and under pressure to remove him. The govt is not amused either and also under pressure to cancel his employment pass. Not sure if his local native clients are happy with his remarks and would continue to do business with him. Not should if the anger of the natives will spread to affect the whole high living foreign community.
 
This is a case of paradise found and lost. In two years’ time I may be writing about paradise inherited and lost. The cause for losing it would be quite similar, snubbing the citizens, selling out the citizens and offering their paradise to foreigners. At the moment this is only the outline of the plot but with signs that it will happen in 2016. Just wondering would this story become a reality then.

Breaking in, breaking out, any difference?

The security breaches by a Malaysian woman, Nurul Ruhana bte Ishak, are getting more attention as the day goes by. More and more criticism, some getting stronger, is appearing in the internet. “If this ‘lapse’ is not symptomatic of some kind of systems breakdown, then I don’t know what is,… It would be ironic if our law enforcement agencies and their officers are taking peace and security for granted.” Bertha Henson wrote on her blog.

Red faces everywhere? Better to point the fingers at someone else before people point it at you is a good strategy. Some critics are yelling for blood or heads to roll. Who is responsible? Like the Mas Selamat’s breakout from his detention centre, this breaking in into Singapore, through our very complex and highly secured checkpoints, is unparalleled. This is more perplexing than the breakout by Took Leng How who simply walked into JB. At least Mas Selamat was more ingenious, with him tying plastic bottles all over his body to float across the Straits of Johore in total darkness and evading patrol boats.

In terms of dare devil stance, this case is simply a mind game, an open challenge to the security officers and systems, in broad daylight and repeating it again all the way into the MFA compound. It must set many people wandering what was this Nurul Ruhana trying to do and to prove. She drove all the way from Kedah in the northern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula just to shake up everyone in this little island like a bolt of lightning.

No need to worry, this is another once in 50 years happening. Just hold a BOI and the truth will all be out and the system will be improved and nothing like this will happen again. The police should thank Mas Selamat and Nurul Ruhana for testing the systems and improving on it. After the vandalised paintings on the MRT trains, the system was also improved and nothing of similar nature has happened again. So is the case of Little India riot.

In the meantime, more BOIs should be on standby so that when more of such incidents happen again, BOIs can jump in straight away to review them. Those critics of security lapses, please hold your fire. Let the BOI do the job to polish up the lapses.

Now, who’s head will roll? Ask Mas Selamat.

Kopi level - Green