Foreigners create jobs for Sinkies

Is this a myth or a truth? Why is it that whenever this is spoken, everyone is giving it a dirty look? The polite ones will give a cynical smile. The not so polite ones will show their middle finger. Sure, if a foreign company operates here with 100 of its own people and employs 10 Sinkies it is still creating jobs for Sinkies. On the other hand how many jobs are Sinkie companies and organizations, including govt and GLCs, creating for the foreigners instead? And is the equation beneficial to the Sinkies overall?
 
Leong Sze Hian and his expertise could be put to good use to show some real figures on how many jobs that the foreigners have created for us and how many we have created for them and put the numbers on a balancing scale. We need to know whether this is true or false and whether this is good or bad. And are we creating good value jobs for foreigners and foreigners creating low value jobs for Sinkies?
 
So far we only hear people repeating this myth like a golden truth. Leong Sze Hian, if you are reading, I would suggest a few tables like foreign company hires. Look at the PME levels will do. The lower levels are not too significant as many of the jobs are not lucrative enough for Sinkies. And don’t waste time on construction workers and manual labour. Only people who want to change the subject will be talking about foreign workers when the crux of the matter is the PME category.
 
A list of companies showing how many foreigners, PRs and citizens will be good. And do not lump PRs and citizens together as locals. I know Leong Sze Hian will not do that. Also a list of the GLCs including the universities and some high profile institutions with many foreign hires to show the pattern of distribution. We need to know the truth and not allow a repeated myth to become a truth.
 
Heard that the some local universities have more foreigners than locals in their academic staff. Not very sure if this is true. What about the big institutions with the high percentages of foreigners.
 
We need to see real data to dispel this myth. To allow the myth to continue to spread and shaft down our throats only makes us more daft.

Kopi Level - Green

True Lies about Universities Rankings

True Lies about Universities Rankings - Michael Heng

The London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Universities Ranking has been called “a Fraud on the public.” Another Eminent Professor said: “QS simply doesn’t do as good a job as the other rankers that are using multiple indicators”. 

Singapore University NTU has secured top placing as the world's best young universities, according to QS Ranking, one of three major international university ranking systems.

The United Nations Education agency, UNESCO, has challenged the validity and reliability of University Rankings such as QS Ranking:

“Global university rankings fail to capture either the meaning or driverse qualities of a university or the characteristics of universities in a way that values and respects their educational and social purposes, missions and goals. At present, these rankings are of dubious value, are underpinned by questionable social science, arbitrarily privilege particular indicators, and use shallow proxies as correlates of quality.”

It is highly questionable whether the 5 Criteria of QS Ranking actually indicate or measure University Excellence to any extent. No study on their validity and reliability has been produced by the Ranking organisations themselves.  At best, these Criteria are just “popular” notions imagined by the Rankers themselves and have no true bearings on University learning impact on their students.

Too much time has been obsessively invested by NTU and NUS in collecting and using data and statistics in order to improve their ranking performance on a bogus ranking standard of dubious excellence. Universities should be more concerned about innovative ways to enhance our universities’ contributions to society through their students. This is the Real payback for the millions of public fund spent on our Universities.  

Kopi Level - Green

Read More here:

True Lies about World Universities Ranking     

Singapore NTU is Number 1 University

The American system you don’t know

Below is an extract of a BBC report ‘Secret tapes pull back curtain on Goldman Sachs’ By Anthony Zurcher Editor, Echo Chambers. It dealt with the wrongful dismissal of a Fed employee assigned to audit the accounts of Goldman Sach and why she was fired for wanting to tell the truth. The full report is available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-29388019
 
The main point in the report is not the wrongful dismissal of a Fed employee but the revelation of the irregularities and malpractices of the Fed and big businesses. They seemed to be in cahoot, working hand in hand to deceive the public that everything was fair and above board but was otherwise. The big businesses were above the law and can violate the laws with impunity or at least with the approval of the Fed. How outrageous can this be? The big businesses can actually commit crimes against the small players and operate under a different set of laws. And this is the US of America, the Federal Reserves Bank of New York.
 
Can’t imagine how many innocent people have been duped and cheated by the big businesses and lost their pants. It is criminal! How relevant is this state of affair to our system as it is more like a carbon copy of the American system?
 
Here is an extract of the first part of the BBC report dated 29 Sep 2014.
 
In 2009 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York set out to investigate why US government officials were so blind to the Wall Street crash of 2008. Why were they unable to forecast the oncoming financial crisis? Why did the economic contagion nearly topple the whole global financial system?
 
The fault, according to an independent review by Columbia University Prof David Beim, was that the government regulators were too deferential to the banks they were supposed to oversee. Within the New York Fed, employees were urged by their supervisors to look the other way when they found violations and to temper critical reports.
Continue reading the main story
 
“Start Quote
Even the best set of rules is totally insufficient if paired with an enforcement system that applies them inconsistently or not at all”
End Quote Dylan Matthews Vox
 
For many this isn't exactly news. What would be news, however, is evidence that shows that even after the financial collapse, and even after congressional attempts to institute more stringent oversight, nothing has changed. And there are secret recordings - made by a former New York Fed employee - that many are claiming provide first-hand evidence of continued government neglect.
 
These allegations are contained in an investigative report published on Friday by ProPublica in partnership with the radio programme This American Life. The author, Pulitzer Prize winner Jake Bernstein, spoke with former New York Fed employee Carmen Segarra, who was originally hired to boost oversight efforts following the 2008 collapse.
 
She was fired seven months later after clashes with her supervisors - but not before she secretly recorded more than 46 hours of meetings to support her claims that she was terminated because she wouldn't tone down her criticism of Goldman practices.
 
She sued the New York Fed alleging wrongful termination, but a judge dismissed her case in April. She is currently appealing the decision.
 
Michael Lewis says that Wall Street regulators are too deferential to the banks they oversee
In her recordings a Goldman employee says that "consumer laws don't apply" to their wealthiest clients, for instance, and that she should pretend she didn't hear incriminating statements.
 
Bernstein recounts one of the recorded confrontations with a supervisor, Kim, which he cites as evidence that Ms Segarra was told to back down from sharp criticism of her Goldman colleagues:

Kopi Level - Green

Hong Kong is never about Democracy

Historically, Hong Kong is never about Democracy. It is about a refuge, a haven for industrious people to engage in business and enterprise to live well. No politics.  Under the British rule for 150 years, the Hong Kong population was disinterested in the politics of the island colony as long as they were free to do business and look after themselves. The govt of the day could be corrupt or whatever, the people could be second class citizens, but as long as they were left alone, both could coexist under a system of non interference. So what if the Hong Kong people were subjects of the British Empire, bowed to the King and Queen of England? They would bow to anyone as long as they can have a good life. Hong Kong people are practical people, non political but economic animals, at least until the farcical democracy shafted down their throats by Patten, the last British governor of the island in its dying years.

When China took over Hong Kong, it wanted to let the Hong Kong people continue to do what they want, continue to prosper and live well. They thought this was good for the Hong Kong people and for China as long as Chinese sovereignty is recognised. China even pumped in money and resources to make it happen and Hong Kong is better and richer than before.

The recent Occupy Central has changed the political landscape. The Hong Kong people now want not only economic prosperity but independence from China. They do not regard themselves as Chinese, at least those at the demonstration and those supporting them from a distance, but as Hong Kongers. They want independence from China.

The economic animal has morphed into a political animal. This is inconceiveable and intolerable as far as Beijing is concerned. This is worse than the positions taken by Taiwan and Tibet. Both accepted that they were part of China and only demanded for autonomy. Are the students and their backers real in pushing for an independent Hong Kong? Remember what Chen Sui Bian and Lee Teng Hui tried and how closed they were to a war with China.

In the case of Hong Kong, there is no justification whatsoever to talk about independence. Are the Hong Kong people really wanting to trade their economic freedom and good life for this thing called Democracy and independence from China? Nothing is impossible, so they said. But in this case, this is Impossible.

Do the students and their supporters believe that they could hold China to a ransom with Western govts and media egging them on? How foolish! China would do another Tiananmen if they dared to push the independence boundary. Another Tiananmen Square would not be too many when the risk is a broken up China and a people that would be oppressed by foreigners, ridiculed by foreigners and becoming the Sick Man of Asia once again.

The stake is too high and Hong Kong is too insignificant to China’s game plan. Hong Kong can be sacrificed and China has many options other than Tiananmen to deal with the protesters. Youthful idealism is one thing, old wolves in sheep clothings must be sensible enough to know that this is not a game they can win, and the consequences are too severe and would go only one way. They have no cards to play. There is no end game. China would just switch off the power supply.

The Hong Kong people would not only lose their democracy, they would lose their economic freedom and good life. Hong Kong would be shut down and turn into a reservation for the Red Indians similar to those in the US. It will no longer be a haven for free wheeling enterprises, an economic marvel, a jewel of rich capitalism.

Businesses will collapse, property prices will collapse. People will want to flee the island when the doors are shut. What are the students and their behind the scene supporters fighting for? Political power and control? They have all the economic freedom that they want and many democratic rights that the mainlanders did not have. What more do they want? Poverty and ruins? Do they know what they are risking?

This is not about Hong Kong but about the well being of China and the Chinese people.

 Kopi Level - Red

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