A country gone money mad - $29b fine for lung cancer victim

A Florida court ordered RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company to pay compensation amounting to US$23.6b or S$29b to the wife of a smoker that died of lung cancer. What kind of judgement is that? How did the judges come to decide on such a huge sum of money as compensation? I know, life is priceless. No amount of money is good enough. The next case could be US$1 trillion!
 
I hope such madness would not be copied here. We are the wide eyed fans of the US system and many people would be rubbing their hands in glee, that such a sum of money as compensation can be used as a precedent, as a reference point for awards here. They would say the American courts have awarded S$29b, so awarding $1b or $500m would be peanuts.
 
We are excellent students of following the Americans. Whatever the Americans are doing, we will eagerly embrace with open arms as the right thing to do, the way forward.
 
Ok, lung cancer patients can now hope to strike it rich, by consuming more cigarettes. This is like a new way of striking it very very rich. Would it become the new normal here? This is definitely better than jumping into Bedok Reservoir or from a high rise flat to get their hands on their CPF savings.
 
What do you think?

Kopi Level - Green

Time to get rid of the prostitute mentality

Our immigration policy is not much different from what is happening in Geylang. Anyone can walk through the door, pay a fee, have fun and then walk away. And if one has a bit more money, can double his fun and stay longer. Anyone, regardless of nationality, can walk into a whore house and be treated very well, like a good customer, a value customer.
 
We have foreigners turning new citizens to be appointed in top jobs, in parliament as MPs and ministers. We have foreigners turning new citizens and instantly qualified to buy public flats at below market value, enjoyed medical and education subsidies, entitled to national bonuses etc etc.
 
Are we being generous, unthinking or being silly? We were once a country of immigrants, a colony of the British who did not care a damn what citizenship meant as long as it served their interests in the short term. Our forefathers were immigrants squatting in a country that was yet to be a nation, a colony actually.
 
We are now an independent state, a nation, NOT a city state still work in progress to be a nation. We cannot allow people to treat this as a non country or non nation. We are citizens of this country and we own this place as a collective people. The foreigners are outsiders. If they want to be one of us, they have to pay a price. A prostitute also demands a price. We don’t have to offer ourselves for free or worse, to give foreigners an incentive, subsidized housing, subsidies and bonuses to be one of us. Unless we are just a pariah state that no one wants to be here. Or simply a cheap prostitute.
 
Hey, we are first world, a country with a lot of jobs and well paying jobs that made many foreigners very rich. There is a long queue waiting to come in, some paying to snake heads to be smuggled in. Why are we so silly to pay them to come in, to beg them to be nice to our people, and even deprecating ourselves to tell the foreigners they are here to help us when many are shits or beggars begging for a job?
 
It is time that we put rules and regulations on foreigners wanting to be one of us. NS is a must, if we are good enough and they are desperate enough to want to come in. No subsidies for the first 5 years or so. No public office like MPs for new citizens, only for those born here. No sensitive appointments. No top jobs unless the person is so damn good that no daft Sinkie talent is good enough to fill the job. Are there really such people around that no Sinkie is better?
 
We have seen many fakes and mediocres everywhere being carried on the shoulders as talents. What a joke? Actually the joke is on ourselves for being so silly to praise the fakes and bow before them.
Maybe everything here is fake. We are a 3rd World city in a mess. Our people are all daft and need to be helped. The foreigners are here to create jobs for us. We need to worship the foreigners like Gods.
 
Go watch the Patriot, Yue Fei showing in Channel 8. It is about an emperor that thought he was doing all for the good of the people, but actually to protect his self interest, his throne. And he was willing to kneel to the foreigners wanting to occupy his country to protect his rule.

Kopi - Level - Green

Mary Jo White – A stupid woman?

‘Mary Jo White, the SEC chairman, said on June 5 when
announcing initiatives that would increase supervision of electronic traders and dark pools that the stock market is neither broken nor rigged. Individuals are “doing better” now than they did when trading was manual, she said at a conference sponsored by Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP.’ – Bloomberg
 
If you want to know what is a stupid woman, this is one, unless of course she was saying all the above under a different agenda. Obviously she knew what she was saying was stupid but she just had to say it or else…. Dark pools and high frequency trading are under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York attorney general. Is this woman saying that these agencies are stupid and doing the unnecessary, wasting their time and there is nothing to investigate. What is her agenda?
 
In the same Bloomberg report, ‘“It’s not an open market,” said Sriram Srinivasan, chief executive officer of Wall Street Investment Management in Chantilly, Virginia, and a poll respondent. “People that do not have access to the dark pools are going to lose. And it is nine out of 10 investors that are losing.”’
 
Those who are benefitting from this unfair practice and a rigged market would say they are ‘misunderstood and a target of demagoguery’. What is there to misunderstand when there are unfair advantages and lack of transparency in the way high frequency trading and dark pools are operating?
 
Unfair trading practices, lack of transparency and differential access to information are all forbidden by market rules and regulations. The SEC must provide a fair and level trading field. Traders can be charged for violation of the exchange’s rules and regulations.
 
Why are the Americans so polite and refused to call a spade a spade, a crime a crime? And why is the SEC Chairman still professing that there is nothing wrong with the two practices? The market is not rigged? Of course she is not stupid. The issue is, why is she pretending that something that is not right is right? Would she be renaming the SEC as New York’s Stock Exchange and Casino? The decadence of the American system has reached a state when regulators are prepared to allow people to cheat the system and look the other way. And many silly Asian exchanges are blindly following what the SEC is doing. It is fine for the Americans, it must be fine for us.
 
Heheh, it is fine for all the airlines to fly over Ukraine. The ICAO said so. It should be alright for us to fly there as well.

Kopi Level - Green

The most evil form of taxes

I have not seen a hospital bill for a long time. I am still wondering whether these bills are subject to GST. Anyone got any idea on this? I can’t imagine that people who are sick, some dying and seeking medical treatments would have to pay GST. I hope I am wrong, being taxed when one is sick and suffering from terminal illnesses. Such bills are often in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 7% GST on $100k is $7,000!
 
What about those suffering from diabetes and kidney problems that need regular dialysis? Are they paying GST as well on their bills?
 
And with the push and pleading by the govt for more baby makings, and with a tin of baby milk powder costing $50 or more, would anyone think it is timely to remove GST from baby food at the very least.
If medical bills and baby food are still being taxed, would the prudent govt start to have a change of heart and reconsider if such life and death items be taxed exempted? Too troublesome and difficult to work out and need 56 man years?

Kopi Level - Green

Healthcare: I’m thankful we have a prudent SG govt

“No matter how much the government raises taxes, there is no consolidating the budget unless social welfare spending is curbed,” said Robert Feldman, head of Japan economic research at Morgan Stanley MUFG in Tokyo. “If the government continues to let the spending swell, it will get out of control.”….
National budget outlays on social welfare spanning health care to pensions climbed 23 percent over the five fiscal years through March 2015. Medical-related spending, which accounted for 32 percent of social welfare outlays in fiscal 2012, is forecast to soar 54 percent to 54 trillion yen in fiscal 2025, according to the welfare ministry.
Abe needs to put more priority on social-welfare reform to prevent the system from becoming unsustainable, said Hitoshi Suzuki, a senior researcher of Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo….
I am thankful that we have a very prudent govt in Singapore. You should all be thankful too. Our govt spend prudently and ensure that basic healthcare services are provided without burdening the whole system.

By Concerned Citizen on unfettered bashing of our govt

This Concerned Citizen wrote an article posted in the TRE with the above heading on the excessive healthcare spending by the Japanese govt. He quoted a Washington Post/Bloomberg post with the above comments. The gist is that Japan was overspending on healthcare and this is becoming unsustainable even if taxes continue to go up. And this is the reason why this Concerned Citizen felt so appreciative of our Govt for not overspending in healthcare. He is very concerned that our Govt will go down the road of welfarism.

I can share his concern and agree with him that we have such a prudent govt that did not spend excessively in healthcare. But he is only right in knowing a little of the truth. Our Govt had sent two study missions to Japan led by Boon Heng and Gan Kim Yong, one to study how to solve the ageing problem and the other about healthcare. From the dearth of information on these two trips after their returns, I can only hazard a guess that they found that there was nothing much that we could learn from the Japanese.

The revelation by Concerned Citizen and the Bloomberg report confirmed that the Japanese experience was nothing useful and maybe irrelevant to our case. If the report is true, then Japan is facing a crisis that would get graver by the days. We must not go along that path. And we don’t have to. We are in a very superior position financially as we did not spend much in healthcare. The people are paying their own medical bills. Now the Medishield Life Scheme will make sure that the people would foot their own bills without burdening the Govt.

The end result is that the Govt would have a lot of money for other pursuits from the savings in healthcare. We are so comfortable that we could use the money to party and party like there is no tomorrow. Next year we could see the country partying the whole year round, with big budgets for celebrations within the country and with countries around the world. We can invite foreign dignitaries here to party and they will invite us over to party in their countries.

We are very rich. We have so much money to spend on happy things. We could spend billions and billions on mega projects that would require hundreds of millions of dollars for annual maintenance. We bought top universities almost lock, stock and barrel. We owned think tank schools with scholars from the world, paid by us handsomely of course, to come here to think.

Notice that I use the word, ‘We’? Yes, we the people are paying for it. See how comfortable we are? We could have such a good healthcare scheme and with so much money to spend in other good to have glorious and fun stuff. Wait for the next National Day when we parade the F35s and our aircraft carriers.

By being prudent in healthcare spending, we can afford not to be prudent in other areas. Don’t worry, be happy. Money is not an issue. Prudence? When we have so much money to spend, there is no need to be prudent. We only have to be prudent in healthcare.

Kopi Level - Green