4/22/2014

Piling on the accolades for Sinkies

The Sinkies are earning more medals or titles for themselves. An event like the Pinoy Independence Day has heaped on several more titles or tags onto them. Other than the infamous daft and xenophobic titles, the new tags for the Sinkies are disgraceful, bigots and embarrassment.

This will bring the tally to 5. I may have missed out on a few more. While the Sinkies are earning new titles, at the same time many old titles were lost or forgotten. No longer were tags like hardworking, disciplined, well trained, knowledgeable, honest, etc etc be associated with the Sinkies. Oh, now I remember another new medal, lazy, to make it 6. This is a strange tag pinned on a very vigorous people, yes, vigorous, is no longer a virtue of Sinkies. Sinkies are simply lazy, and choosy for jobs.
 

But when I asked the PMEs, many said they are not choosy at all. They would do any job even with a huge pay cut. And come to the worse they would become taxi drivers, picking up ladies of the nights and drunkards and smelly and unruly passengers as part and parcel of their job. For this they can’t be choosy I am sure.
 

As for the tag of laziness, I think this only applies after their formal education as many of them are straight A students, so cannot be lazy right? Or unless they bought their papers from the street vendors. I have not walked the streets, can anyone tell me if Sin City has started to indulge in this lucrative trade as well?
 

Other than these two tags, I think the rest must be true. So welcome to this global city of daft, xenophobic, disgraceful, and embarrassing bigots, and very lazy Sinkies.

Pinoy Independence Day – An opportunity for the Little India COI

With 200,000 Pinoys living here and all very patriotic and wanting to celebrate their Independence Day, a public place is only a natural choice as the turnout would be big, like our National Day Celebration. And this one would not only be celebrated by the Pinoys but also by their friends here, the Sinkies and most of all the India Indians and Bangladeshis. Many Pinays have boyfriends here who are foreign workers. Now, with 200,000 Pinoys and 500,000 Indians/Bangladeshis, actually more, the crowd at Ngee Ann would flow into the streets. It may be a better idea to close down Orchard Road on that day to accommodate the crowd. I am sure there will be a joyous celebration for all the participants.
 

Just a little word of caution, with so many bad vibes spreading in the net, there could be a little staring incidents happening, or some loudmouths may spew some unacceptable vulgarities, or some guys, from anywhere, could be ogling at the Pinays and annoyed the boyfriends. What I am saying is that when there is such a huge crowd of foreigners first time celebrating in a public space, just be prepared for some rowdy incidents and be prepared to nip them in the bud before they escalated into a riot like Little India.
 

Here the COI of Little India riot could come in handy. There were differences in opinions as to how the Police handled that situation and actually caused the riots to escalate. There were many suggestions by the COI that if the Police were to react in certain ways, more forceful, more authoritative, more assertive, firing warning shots, charging at the crowd to arrest the leaders, there would be no riots in Little India.
 

This Pinoy Independence Day actually presents an unique opportunity for a possible mob incident to happen. While Little India riot cannot be repeated, in this case the COI could test the Police to put their recommendations on how to deal with a mob into action. Get the Police fully prepared as to what the COI thinks would be an effective way to handle a mob and to kill a riot before it flares up. It is rare that such an opportunity can be present to make a rerun of a real event. Not that there will be a mob rioting. But the Police can be prepared to deal with the situation in the best way possible, the COI way.
 

This will be an exercise to test and prove the effectiveness of a strong and assertive Police in the handling of a riot, if the opportunity presents itself. It will also settle once and for all the two opposing doctrines of the Police and the COI on the best and most effective way to handle a mob.
 

What do you think?

Kopi Level -Green

4/21/2014

The formula is just not right

The cost of bringing up a child in the neighbouring countries is so much cheaper than in Sin City. We are talking about anything from $500k to a million from cradle to adulthood. How much would it take to bring up a Chinaman, and India Indian, a Viet or a Pinoy? A fraction. How much would a university education cost in these countries compare to an education in school? Incomparable.
 

When a graduate from these countries landed a job here, he is going to earn real Singapore dollars. And for every 10 years spent working here, he would have earned enough to last him 30 years when he returns home. I think I have to exclude China from the formula as their city living makes working here no longer meaningful.
 

In the case of a Sinkie, he would need to work at least 10 to 15 years to cover the cost of his upbringing. And he would be left with another 15 years or so to work before he is relegated to the underemployed PME brigade. By then he would be in his 50s and no longer employable except being self employed if he is lucky.
 

The big problem is that he is going to live another 20 or 30 years and have to cope with the high cost of living and medical expenses during his last remaining economically unproductive years. What does this mean? It says that during a Sinkie’s last 15 years of economically active years he must earn enough to support himself for 15 + 20/30 years, or simply he must earn 2 or 3 times his needs in this short span of time.
 

In the case of a FT who came to work here, his income will allow him to live for 3 times the duration, or to enjoy a full retirement. In the case of a Sinkie he needs to earn 3 times his income before he loses his jobs if he is to enjoy his retirement.
 

The formula really works against the Sinkies. Exceptionally high cost of growing up, but relatively low income, inadequate to see him through his retirement. In the FT case, low cost of growing up but needing only to work one third of his life in Sin City and will have enough to enjoy the remaining two third of his life in retirement.
 

Did they say the cards are stacked against the Sinkies? Everything he earns is just enough from hand to mouth except for the top earners. And where got enough to set aside to last his remaining life in the supposedly retirement phase? Most Sinkies will never earn enough or save enough for retirement unlike the foreigners.

Pinoy Independence Day, a demand for more space

With 200,000 Pinoys working in this city, their demand for more space for social and leisure activities is only natural and expected just like the increase in population from 3.3m to 5.4m and the coming 6.9m. No one can fault the Pinoys for wanting more space to live and enjoy their stay here. We can’t squeeze them into dog’s kennels right? As a good host, we need to be more gracious and generous and share our space and amenities with them.
 

We have already done this. We are giving a lot of space to the various foreign communities living here, all 2m of them, Race Course Rd/Little India for the Indians and Bangladeshis, Chinatown and Geylang for the PRCs, Golden Miles for the Thais, Peninsula for the Myanmese, Joo Chia for the Vietnamese, and Lucky Plaza/Botanic Gardens for the Pinoys.
 

We must also have foresight, to be able to project their needs into the future. The more they grew, the more space they will need. And this will apply to the other nationalities. By the time our population hits 6.9m, the foreigners would definitely need more space to live comfortably. We cannot be so selfish to deprive them from having more space. The current demand for a place to celebrate the Pinoy Independence Day is only to be expected.
 

And why not, our Sinkie population will shrink further, so we don’t need so much space for ourselves in the future. Let’s be mentality prepared to cede more space to make our guests feel they are welcomed, and it will reflect very well on us.
 

The need for more space is only a small step forward. There will be more social and otherliving needs, like a TV channel for their native programmes, newspapers, and maybe more signages on the streets in their languages. They may need to be represented in Parliament in some ways so that their interests will be protected. We can either have NMPs or MPs specially tasked to protect them.
 

Oh, I think they are already being encouraged to integrate with us and joining RC activities and may even become RC members. With such a huge presence, they cannot be ignored. Their interests cannot be ignored. As their presence is proportionally increased, more resources would have to be diverted to meet their needs. And as our presence is proportionally decreased, lesser resources are needed for our citizens. There will be a new balance and a new status quo developing natural and everyone will be happy, to each according to his needs. In politics they termed this as proportional representation. Caveat, in most countries, proportional representation formula applies only to citizens of a country. In our case, we are no longer a country or just a country in the making, and foreigners are already regarded as locals, so citizenship is no longer a criteria to demand for more space and representation.
 

What do you think be you a gracious Sinkie or xenophobic Sinkie?

Tales of a vigorous people and less vigorous people

In the days of the four Asian Tigers referring to the economic success of South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore, their successes were attributed to having a more vigorous people, a population that was disciplined and with very hardworking ethic genes. It was this gene pool that made the difference between their success and the struggling economies of their neighbouring countries made up of less vigorous people.

Of the four tigers, three are still roaring away. One has outdone the rest by becoming the most vibrant and most expensive city in the world. The only odd thing is that the vigorous people are no longer vigorous anymore. And they have to import less vigorous people from neighbouring countries to sustain their economic growth. It is quite a strange biological phenomenon that the genes of a vigorous people can deteriorated to such a poor state in a generation. Could it be due to bastardisation with less vigorous people? I don’t think so. Bastardisation could bring out the best of the two sets of genes. Of course the recessive genes could become the dominant genes.

The only logical conclusion is that the neighbouring countries suddenly have turned vigorous. Their genes could be genetically modified, I supposed, to become more vigorous than the genes of the Sinkie pool. But if true this is also going to be another biological wonders. Gene pools do not make dramatic changes over a generation. They would evolve gradually with time. Also, the people of the neighbouring countries are still deemed to be less vigorous around the whole world except in Singapore. When competing with the Sinkie gene pool they are now regarded as better.

My conclusion is that it must be both, the degenerating of the Sinkie gene pool and the relative improvement in the neighbouring gene pool relative to the Sinkie gene pool that make the Sinkies less vigorous than them. And I think it would not be difficult to compile some empirical data to prove that this theory is true, that there is a strong case of a vigorous gene pool that turned bad in one generation.

The Sinkies are no longer a vigorous people, or at least they are less vigorous than the people of their neighbouring countries.


Kopi Level - Green