Constructive Politics in Parliament

Last night’s news on Parliament was dominated by a new find in Puthucheary. He came across as the smartest MP in the house. He was on his feet many times, even his speech on healthcare was allowed extra time to expound on his wisdom. The ministers were in awe, mesmerized by his grasp on the issues facing healthcare. He seemed to have all the answers especially on what Gerald Giam had to say. And Gerald Giam was as good as saying nothing but sound bites.
 
Gerald Giam made two points which I thought were very pertinent and should be seriously considered by the MOH instead of being brushed off lightly by some wise cracks. The first point was the American private healthcare system. Gerald told the house that the American govt made it a law for excessive profits from health insurance to be ploughed back to reduce the premiums paid by the insured.
 
This point was hastily dismissed by Puthucheary with no second thought. It was a private insurance scheme and should not be used in our discussion on a public healthcare scheme. Why not? Be it private or public healthcare scheme, excessive profits must be moderated and best returned to the insured. Otherwise the insurance agencies would be raising higher and higher premiums to make more and more profits. I think this is a very important point for our govt and private insurers to take note of and to prevent premiums from running away.
 
The second point by Gerald, actually related to the first, is that the claims made in our public health insurance scheme came to 63% of premiums collected, ie giving a huge surplus of 37% to the insurers. The American private health insurance’s claim was 82% and the American govt was already finding the profit too high.
 
This point was again pooh-poohed by Puthucheary. What is wrong with collecting more premiums and more surplus? What? Who said that? Nothing wrong with collecting unnecessary higher premiums from the masses? Puthucheary’s logic was that there were too many unthinkables and contingencies that could happen and could raise the claims unexpectedly. It was good to have a big cushion of excess premiums. Ya, I know that too, let’s add another 20% to the premium.
 
This kind of thinking I can agree if I am prepared to worry about when the sun would not shine again or when the next epidemic will hit. We must have a lot of extras, a lot of fats, just in case. No wonder the CPF minimum sums keeps going higher and higher. No wonder the nation’s reserves for a rainy day must keep increasing, even if we have 20 trillions will not be enough. No wonder some ministers are saying their salaries are not enough.
 
It is okay to collect more premiums. It is okay to increase the minimum sums to $1m. Who can dispute against such logic? But who is paying? Whose pocket will be hurt?
What is wrong with collecting more money from the people?
 
I am worried when we have so clever people in the govt who wants to worry about everything under heaven, every unknown, and wanting to provide for them and make the people pay for their concerns. I know their hearts are good and in the right place.
Who is indulging in constructive politics and who is indulging in destructive politics?

Kopi Level - Green

Low Thia Khiang’s constructive politics

Low Thia Khiang tried to expand Tony Tan’s call on constructive politics in Parliament yesterday. He made many good points about what destructive politics was all about. What he said made very good sense to me. But to some it would come through like high falutins. And to those who believe that his descriptions of destructive politics are constructive politics, they would not bother one bit to listen to what he was saying. Some may call him idealistic and his version of constructive politics as an aspiration. Politics was not meant to be constructive.
 
Though Tony Tan aspires for politics to be more constructive in his Presidential Address, he could really mean what he said and want it to happen, but how many people would listen to him and actually make politics more constructive? Maybe those who have been indulging in destructive politics believe that they were really constructive.
 
From the tone and emotion of the voices in Parliament yesterday, Tony Tan may need to visit Parliament again to explain what he really meant or his definition of constructive politics. The expression on the faces told all, who were being constructive and who were being destructive. I don’t think the house understood what Tony said or what he wanted. The mood, as usual, exuded contempt and hostility.
 
Low Thia Khiang’s effort to talk about constructive politics is more like 对牛弹琴。

Kopi Level - Green

Salute China for standing up to the bullying by Vietnam and the Philippines

Vietnamese ships have been encircling the Chinese oil rig inside Chinese territory in the South China Sea to harass and ram the rig for several weeks. Chinese coast guards and fishing boats have been defending the oil rig and blocking the aggressive advances of the Vietnamese boats.
 
China finally lost its patience after weeks of persistence harassments by the Vietnamese boats. This also came after the killings of Chinese workers and the burning of Chinese factories in Vietnam. Yesterday, 26 May, one Vietnamese fishing boat attempted to break the Chinese defence line was rammed and sunk. The Vietnamese sailors were picked up by other Vietnamese boats in the area.
 
China has to act fast to stem the hostile actions of the Vietnamese. This sinking would also serve as a warning to the Pinoys that China meant business and would take on the Americans if provoked further. China would not yield in the presence of the American naval fleet and would go to war with the Americans if forced to.
 
China has no option and to remain defensive under such adverse provocations would be read as a sign of weakness and would embolden the Vietnamese and the Pinoys and the Americans as well.
 
The sinking of the Vietnamese fishing boat could lead to an escalation of tension in the South China Sea and even open warfare. China must be prepared for this scenario as the two pesky countries would be coming back more aggressively with the support of the Americans. The Americans would be pushing hard for the two belligerent countries to attack China and force China to retaliate. Like it or not, China would have to hit back as the Americans would not allow the Chinese in peace.
 
War is imminent in the South China Sea.

Jonathan Eyal and his western lens

Jonathan Eyal has been given a special place in the ST to expound his western views on Asian affairs and influencing the unthinking minds of his Asian readers. His position is always about American exceptionalism and that the Americans either has the right to continue kicking the asses of Asians or the Americans are so innocent, angelic, and would not do anything mischievous or slimy. The Americans don’t conduct spying activities.
 
His latest article, ‘US China cyber nefarious new face’, on the Americans charging 5 Chinese officials in China for cyberspying in American courts is like the Americans doing the right thing and the Chinese doing the wrong thing as usual. The Americans would not do such a thing, spying on foreign corporations to steal commercial secrets. Neither would Americans be spying on foreign leaders until it was exposed by Edward Snowden. Before the revelations by Snowden, Eyal would likely to swear that the Americans would not indulge in such a dastardly thing, to spy on foreign leaders, listening to their mobiles and private conversations, even the leaders of their allies.
 
This is what Eyal said, ‘While the Snowden revelations raise questions,… none has indicated the existence of a deliberate US programme targeting foreign corporations in order to steal their know how.’ Yeah, before Snowden, there was also no indication of the existence of deliberate US programme targeting foreign leaders too.
 
How old is this Eyal, 3 years old? He is so innocent. Maybe he should consider writing nursery rhymes or fairy tales where the prince will ride into the sunset to live happily ever after with his princess. The gullible Asians would love to read his fairy tales of precocious innocence.
 
Oh, in his concluding paragraph he warns China that the US would launch a cyber attack against China if China does not stop snooping on American corporations. The snooping around of American corporations was started by the Chinese. The nice and innocent Americans would not have started it. CIA stands for Children Intelligence Association and NSA stands for National Students Association.

Kopi Level - Green

Everything is improving

This is the message I got while watching the special programme on Parliament Reopens hosted by Sharon Tong. The panelists included Gerald Giam, Chan Chun Sing, Tan Su Shan and Zulkifli Baharuddin, the latter two, one an NMP and the other ex NMP, more or less agreed that everything was improving. And at the rate they were improving, things would get better by the next GE.
 
The first thing that was improving according to the panelists was property supply and prices. The supply problem has been taken care of after 77,000 units were offered by HDB in the last 2 or 3 years. So, from under building to ramping up building more flats, the shortages immediately improved. What a clever piece of decision making. I never thought it could be solved so easily. How come they never think of it in the first place? They must have found a genius to think of such an ingenious solution. Layman or common people would have great difficulties even trying to think about it.
 
And property prices are coming down by 0.6%! Very encouraging indeed. How much have property prices gone up in the last 10 years? 100%, 200% or 300%? Anyone got any idea? I think, without even looking at statistics, just gut feel, the prices of HDB flats bought direct from HDB and now available in the resale market are easily 2 or 3 times the original sales price. At 0.6% change, how many hundred years would be needed for the price to come down by 50% or 30%?
 
What else is improving? I saw a figure on the issue of Employment Pass. It went down from 80,000 to 40,000 last year. And employment of locals gone up from 40,000 to 80,000. What a miracle. And rightly, logically, by not issuing more EPs, the locals would naturally be employed to fill up the positions. Wait a minute, how many of the locals are citizens? Someohow I got this uneasy feeling that when they lumped everything under ‘locals’ the number of citizens cannot be too many. Just my gut feel. So, things are improving. Ho say leow.
 
Another area of improvement is the number of stoppages of trains. This has gone down from its peak. Since when were there so many incidents of train stoppages? When was the time when train stoppages were a rarity? Is it really improving? What is the reference point? Zero stoppages or high stoppages?
 
I think there was another point mentioned as improving. Oh, income gap is improving, I mean narrowing. Sure what, with the wages of cleaners increased from less than $1000 to $1000, the gap must have closed up a bit. One caveat for this to be true, the top earners must not be earning more, assuming that their income stagnates or not changing. Like that sure the income gap will be narrowing.
 
I must agree that things are getting rosier when the major bugbears are improving. I can’t disagree with the panelists. No wonder they all looked so happy, and so was the minister.

Kopi Level - Green