What kind of Singapore do the Singaporeans want?

We need to know where we are heading and the social economic model that will make life better for Singaporeans. This is our country and we must do everything to favour the Singaporeans, to assist them to lead a good life. There is no point of having a rich and prosperous Singapore but benefiting only a few elite families and foreigners while the rest of the Singaporeans were made to struggle and to downgrade their quality of life. Today, the catchphrase for Singaporeans is all about downgrading except for the few privileged elites and the super rich.

And if you look at the family structure of Singaporeans, even the rich would not last more than one generation. The cost of living is so high that if their next generation of children are going to be mediocre, they would be taking the downgrading road as well and that will be the end of their fortune and their good life. Some may not care since they did not want to have children. They just want to live this good life and call it quits when they turn to ashes.

We need to develop a system that would advantage Singaporeans to sustain their good life, their children and grand children’s good life. We must not have a system that only helps the foreigners to enjoy a better life at the expense of the Singaporeans. We should not be using our public funds to nurture foreigners to have a good life and not our children. We got a lot of table tennis gold medals. So? Anyone feeling excited about it? How is it going to better the children of Singapore?

We are spending millions and millions of public money to bring in foreigners, to hire them at very good pay, but to discard our own just to claim that we have talents. Is this good for Singaporeans? It is not about envy or jealousy. It is about stupidity. If you are talking of a handful of foreigners, fair enough, we need some diversities and some competition. When we go in blindly, and flooded our social economic system with foreigners, instead of supplementing our needs, or as interim measures to train our own, to replace our very own, what the fuck are we thinking? Where are we heading? Where is the future of Singaporeans and our children? I am talking about the children of all Singaporeans.

Do we want to replace our own kind with foreigners simply because they are better? I am not even thinking of fakes and half bakes. As a country and a nation of people, we must protect our own kind, provide all the opportunities for our own kind, provide them the space and avenues to have good jobs, good incomes, good homes. Not telling them to downgrade to be taxi drivers and security guards or cleaners because there is a long queue of foreigners waiting at the door. This is seditious talk..

Am I talking Greek? Or am I talking to dunces? This is your country and you must be the preferred choice for good jobs, good homes, good educations and good of everything. The foreigners can come only as a side show, at our pleasure, not displeasure, to compliment our needs, not to replace ours. We must not commit socio economic suicide by welcoming the foreigners to take over our jobs, our homes and our country, and to rule us. The foreigners must be laughing silly at our stupidity which we bragged to the world as the secret to our success.

And for those who want 6.9m or 10m people in this island, I simply ask, what for? You mean Singapore cannot be a rich and prosperous city state without more population? Is that the only answer? Is this the only trick that the pony knows?

Kopi Level - Yellow

Historical millionaire clubs

The top three pics were of the Chinese Weekly Entertainment Club at Club Street. It is a private millionaire club with a history going back to 1891. Membership is private and confidential and I was not allowed to take any pics of the committee members on the board.  The clock is still telling the time of its glorious days.

The lower two pics were of the Lu Wu Club, also at Club Street a short distance away from Weekly Club. It was empty and appeared to have moved or defunct. A big red no entry sign greeted the visitors at the main entrance. It is now gone, with its stories of the wealthy of the past hidden in the memories of its existing members if they are still around.

10m population – Crossing the line of diminishing return

Liu Thai Ker’s keynote address at a forum organised by the Business Times of SPH in collaboration with Singapore Institute of Building Limited yesterday (31 Jul) is drawing unusual flaks in the social media. He is singing the same sick mantra of growing population for economic growth and wanting more immigrants in the little island. More than 160 comments (in TRE) have been posted in the thread about the 10m population that Liu Thai Ker said was needed for Singapore to be a sustainable country. If this belief is true, Singapore would have perished long ago and all the small countries should not exist.

The netizens were not angry with Liu Thai Ker personally. But for him to repeat this folly is just unbearable. And they are looking for a scapegoat to vent their anger. Liu Thai Ker was in the right place to take the blows. To have 6.9m or 10m or 20m is just a matter of adjusting to a life in a more dense piece of rock. Can, sure can. The people would also become denser or be condensed.

It is not a matter of can or cannot. It is a matter of whether the people want to go down that road. It is not even a matter of being sustainable or not sustainable. There are many schools of thoughts on this and no one is wiser. It is not an absolute solution that we go this way or we will perish. Come on, is there a genius out there that can be sure of this, that there is no other ways?

By the same belief, I would not even grant it the privilege of calling it a logic, the Australians must be dumb to have so few people in a continent bigger than China, India or the USA and with a population of about 20m. The economists for growth will be screaming ‘fools’. The architects and property developers will be shaking their heads for the lost opportunities to build more buildings and fill up the land with more people. Wonder who is crazy?

Why do we want to keep building and building and to add more and more people into this piece of rock? What for? Oh, economic growth!  We have gone pass the law of diminishing return when every extra effort will give smaller and smaller returns. We are in a new level, a level when every extra effort, or increase in population, will lead to an increase in pain. The more people we put into the island, the higher will be the cost of living, the stress on the socio eco system, the infrastructure and the demands on the people. It will lead to more stress and more pain, on the people and on the systems and structures.

Those who are living in the confines of 50,000 sq ft properties would not know or feel that this is happening. Some wise crackpots are even telling the people that living in 600 sq ft flat for a family of 4 or 6 is fine, no drop in the quality of life. We used to have that kind of environment in the 50s and 60s, 8 or 10 people living in a cubicle. That was the quality of life. They escaped the squeeze by spending time outside the cubicles. Today the people are better off with aircon comfort in shopping centres and the great pubs and nightspots.

The people are saying they did not want this kind of squeeze. Why should their lives be screwed by a few people who want to push this belief through, even got it rubber stamped in Parliament? The govt has heard the cries and the felt the anger. But it seems to choose the deaf frog way, not wanting to listen and now we have a line up of snake oil sellers paraded to sell this koyok of more population. Who is the crazy one? The people must decide on this. The people have rejected the PWP. If the govt wants the moral authority to carry this through, it must call for a referendum before destroying this island for the Singaporeans and their children. Turning a deaf ear is not a solution. This is the people’s call, not the call of a handful of individuals, and definitely not the call of snake oil sellers.

Kopi Level - Red again. 

Tastefully offensive

TASTEFULLY OFFENSIVE

                         http://youtu.be/h6uq4OCla2c

View this. It was on America's got talent. They are not so uptight as a people and a society. They know how to have fun.

VEP- Trying to understand the decisions

The VEP and Toll fees hike is turning into another mini crisis or pain among the transport operators and travelers on both sides of the causeway. When one hiked the other party also wants to hike. It can be Singapore first or Malaysia first, doesn’t matter. If Malaysia does it, Singapore’s standard reaction will be, we will match the hike.

For the party who made the first move, one can quite safely deduce that they must have done some homework, some analysis on the numbers and the reasons for hike. Let’s hazard a guess on the reasons why LTA decided on the fee hike. The first point is likely that the govt needs money and someone was told to look for more revenue sources. Can the CPF issue be a factor where some changes will take place to return some money to the people to appease them? A second reason is to relate the cost of driving on our roads with comparatively higher COEs that the Singaporeans are paying. A third reason, too many vehicles on the road and a need to limit foreign vehicles coming in. But this third reason is contrary to the need for economic growth, to have more economic activities, more people and vehicles in the island. Raising fees would definitely lead to lesser vehicles coming here if they could avoid it, lesser Malaysians driving in for leisure, and lesser Malaysians shopping here and thus affecting the Great Singapore Sale. Oh, GSS is over already I think.

A fourth reason, would this affect those Singaporeans buying properties or setting up factories at Iskandar? What kind of impact? Likely to be negative, but is it good or bad for Singapore?

LTA must have played with the different combinations on what would be the desired fee hike and the acceptable consequences. So lesser vehicles, lesser people coming in are acceptable trade offs for the increased in revenue. And if the Malaysians retaliate by raising fees on their side, even lesser vehicles and people coming in, but with a corresponding match in toll fee hike, the increased in revenue is good.

What would be the motivating factors for the Malaysians to do so? The first is political. KNN anyhow raise VEP to make Malaysian vehicles pay more. Must hit back to show them we cannot be makan or bullied. Another reason, well, using the political excuse will be popular with the people, but better still, can raise revenue also. This is like killing two birds with one stone. Can tekan the Singapore govt and appease the Malaysians. Got balls!. The third reason, or haven’t thought of, what if this leads to lesser Singaporeans coming into Malaysia? Would it affect the tourist dollar, would it affect the sales of properties at Iskandar and the bigger plan of turning Iskandar into a shining pearl? What about the ordinary Malaysians crossing over to work and the children taking public transport to schools? This last question going to be susah.

What both sides must have thought through would be the likely effect of choking up the causeway and the second link. People, goods and money will not flow so smoothly through these two links. It would definitely affect the economy the wrong way. It is like throwing a spanner in the works by both sides.

Why would the two govts want to do these things? In Singapore’s case, boh lui is a likely to be a big factor. For the Malaysians, it is like trying to fight a battle only to lose a war.

Kopi Level - Green