MOE thinking frugal

Front page news in the ST, ‘Funding cuts of top independent schools in Spore’. The MOE is cutting funds to the top 6 independent schools and on top of that it is telling them to moderate fund raising activities for campus upgrading. The schools have been told to switch classroom ventilation from air conditioners to fans.
 
This is definitely a costing cutting measure. The question is why? Not enough funds or curbing on excessive expenditure on perks and luxuries? Many parents see this as a good move, to stop schools from going wild with money and what money can buy for comfort and the non essentials.
 
While the MOE is cutting such funding, presumably to curb waste, hopefully the savings would not be diverted to provide more scholarships and assistance to foreign students here. And hopefully there will also be substantive cuts on funding for foreign students and divert the money saved to assist the children of citizens. I said children of citizens, not children of locals. Must make this doubly clear.
 
So, what’s up MOE?
 
PS. I must acknowledge that we have the finest and most modern infrastructure for our schools. Not very sure about the software, which so far has proven to be quite shitty as we are producing duds that cannot compete with 3rd World talents who comfortably came here to replace our local talents from our education system in top jobs. What kind of shit is happening? Don’t ask me for answers.

Kopi level - Yellow

Is CPF taking advantage of senior citizens?

I am a senior citizen. By right I should be getting all my CPF savings when I reached 55. But they changed the rules and created a Retirement Account and forcibly transferred some of my savings into this Account. I am angry but kept quiet since there is nothing I can do. They wrote the laws and approved whatever laws they decided. Dunno which turkey decided on this. So far no one dares to admit it. Was it discussed and approve in Parliament?
 
Now they created another account called Medisave Minimum Sum Account. And they forcibly transferred some of my savings into this account. Very unhappy but cannot do anything. The people elected them so they think they can do anything they want.
 
Now I am getting angrier. If my savings are kept in the Retirement Account, I shall be getting 4% interest rate. I just found out that my savings in the Medisave Minimum Sum only get 2.5% interest. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is in my CPF statement.
 
Why am I being paid of 1.5% of interest lesser? The CPF suka suka changed the rules and suka suka fixed the interest rates. What, senior citizens all ‘boh tak cheh’ and you can do anything you want ya?
 
Tell me if this is fair? Letting you keep my savings for as long as you want is already damn ‘pek chek’. Now you created new accounts and pay me lesser interest. You want to bully senior citizens is it?
 
All my plans to be emperor in Batam or Lijiang got screwed because you refused to return my savings as contracted when I became a member more than 40 years ago. Do I have the right be angry?

Kopi level - Yellow 

PS:

I have discovered the discrepancies in the computation of my Medisave and Retirement Accts. One is paid annually and the other bi annually.

When I saw the two amounts of interests side by side, the numbers obviously did not tally.

After going through the whole year's statement, I found another payment in July. The interest paid for Medisave is 4% while Retirement is 4 + 1%.

Why would they be computing interest payments differently, I dunno. My concern has been cleared and the payment is correct.

February 08, 2014 10:08 am

 

Baey Yam Keng - a startling revelation

Was it a Freudian slip or was it a well crafted revelation to serve a specific agenda, this was what Baey said at the Young Guns forum on 29 Jan 14. ‘I am 100 per cent sure that not everyone is a PAP member. I’m very sure there are people who voted for opposition. And you have to take my word for that because I know more than you on CCC.
 
What a revelation! What was the intent and purpose for saying this? Was Baey trying to say he is very well informed, or was he bragging that he knows a lot of things? Or was it just a slip of the moment that he got carried away and said something he shouldn’t be saying?
 
Did Baey revealed anything? How was he to know that CCC members voted for the opposition? The vote is a secret right? I think I know the answer. The CCC members who voted for the opposition told him personally. Or maybe the CCC members told other CCC members and they told Baey. It must be like that. There is no other official means to know who voted for the opposition, unless there are things that I dunno as a layman. Layman does not know many things, they are simple minded people and will take everything at face value. Tiok boh?

Japan is up to mischief again

After being defeated in WW2 and suffering from two Atomic bombs for its aggressive invasion of its neighbours and trying to conquer and rule South East Asia, Japan has not learnt its lessons on wars. It is stirring up tension and trying to create misgivings among the countries in the region with misinformation. In its latest attempt it falsely reported that China was trying to introduce another ADIZ in the South China Sea. By saying so, it is sowing discord between China and the South East Asian neighbours.
 
What the Japanese are doing today is more dangerous than in the Second World War. Then it was more or less fighting the war alone after dividing the world and areas of control with the Nazis in Germany. It was ambitious enough to want to rule the whole of East Asia and South East Asia. Today it is joining forces with the Americans in its renewed attempt to be the top regional power of the region. And in this announcement the Americans are happily joining in to warn China of declaring an ADIZ in the region. The arrogant Americans take pleasure to warn every country they so choose as their right as the evil Empire. The Americans knew that it was a lie fabricated by the Japanese but jumped on it as an excuse to threaten China. An upmanship to tell the world it can still do so to any country and with the implied threat of a military attack.
 
China is not going to accept being bullied by the Americans any more. It could use the opportunity to defy the Americans and impose an ADIZ and see what the Americans are going to do about it. However, China has a bigger interest in forging a closer relation with the South East Asian countries and would not want to make such a move to give the Japanese and the Americans an advantage in crying wolf.
 
The East China Sea ADIZ is a necessary move as Japan and the Americans posed an immediate danger to China’s security and a threat of an air strike. Japan also has an ADIZ stretching to the Chinese coast. It was thus a tit for tat move directed against the Japanese. The South East Asian countries do not pose any threat to China except a few irritations from the Philippines and Vietnam. Both can easily be dealt with by a cane. And both would behave without the American gangsters provoking them from behind.
 
Japan is raring its hostile intent all over again and is reckless, without a care on the consequences of inciting a war with China. They have no regards to how destructive a war today would be, with Japan’s major cities flatten and gone up in smokes should it escalate into a nuclear war. This is how preposterous and crazy the Japanese are in the pursuit of their wild imperialist ambition, to be the Number One military power in the region.
 
Japan is willing to risk the total annihilation of its country and people. The right wing militant group is simply mad to think that war with China is an option, a tea party.
China rightfully replied sternly that it would “‘respond effectively to any provocation’ that risked disrupting order in East Asia.” China must make it very clear that it would go to war with Japan and the Americans if provoked in order to keep them away from adventurism. The two gangsters are very trigger happy and the use of military force to advance their national goals is in their blood.
 
The countries of the world, particularly in South East Asia, should not be a party to this madness. They only have to lose, to be dragged into a very destructive war, and nothing to gain from an open military conflict.
 
The wild military ambition of the mad Japanese must be stopped in its path now. America must be told off to stop agitating and inciting war in the region.

Low cost engineering the way to go

We need more top academics to endorse the virtues of low cost engineering to restructure our universities and economic strategies for growth. Recently there was a professor from NTU making very positive views on the superiority of India in low cost engineering. And reading between the lines, NTU may be considering introducing low cost engineering courses to produce engineers that are experts in this area.

With Singapore unable or finding it challenging to compete in anything of substance and quality, low cost engineering may be the way to go. We could tap into India’s low cost labour and production methods in low cost engineering to produce goods that can be marketed with a price advantage. The Tata Nano is an excellent car for our market given the smallness in size. There is really no need for super cars with super price tags as they would run out of roads by the time they squeezed into third gear. A cheap Nano is exactly what we need for a small city and buzzing from the HDB flats to the market or neighbourhood shops.

A Nano cost only US$8K. With the high COE prices, a Nano could still be priced below $90K. Quality should not be an issue. The reports by BBC that ‘Five of India's most popular small cars have failed crash tests conducted by a UK-based car safety watchdog’ should be no cost for alarm. The cars tested included models made in India by Ford, Volkswagen and Hyundai. For the price you can’t be expecting German quality right?
 
The cars could only be made cheaply by some cost cutting like stripping some safety features. There is a price for everything, A good quality car cannot be cheap. One cannot be dreaming of all the safety features and quality parts when one is buying low cost cars manufactured using low cost engineering and labour. There is a market for such low cost products. Not everyone can afford a few hundred thousands for an European or Japanese or even Korean made cars.
 
It is all about practicality and being realistic in the consumers’ expectation. Low cost engineering, low cost labour and low cost products can find its low niche even in an expensive first world city. We only need to have quality products and services in politics and govts. The rest of the industries can offer a range, from the best to the lowest cost products.
 
The only consideration is whether Singaporeans could cope with the income if they are trained in low cost engineering, producing low cost products and drawing low cost salary. For the super talents, there are many, some are thumping their chests to open up the economy to foreigners as they feel confident enough to take on the best in the world, they can continue to compete in the higher end jobs. Many would not even mind competing with fakes as they know that they are really good and fakes or foreign talents are no match for them. They will survive under all circumstances even outperforming cheats and fakes.
 
For the normal average Sinkies, they should lower their expectations and embrace low cost engineering as a new opportunity. With CECA they can become expats in India and compete with the brilliant Indian low cost engineers for jobs there. India is a continent and there should be no problem finding a job there.
 
We have been encouraging our people to downgrade, from housing, jobs and homes. So it is normal to downgrade our pursuit of knowledge from high tech to low cost engineering, from producing high quality goods and services to low quality engineering stuff. Never mind if we move from 1st World to 3rd World. We are nearly there. A low cost manufacturing hub.

Kopi level - Yellow