Sin City the destination for the decadent rich

Everyday we are hit by reports and commentaries of turning this island paradise into a destination for the opulent rich to indulge in the worldly pleasures money can buy. Give them everything they want in exchange for their money. We are almost there. We have F1, casinos, Sentosa, the Durian, Garden by the Bay, 6 stars of everything, and we are going to get the must visit Jewel, and the next attraction, world class jungle paradise minus Tarzan and Jane, but all the animals that they can put into a confined space without the feeling of being caged, freedom for the birds and animals in an imaginary jungle paradise. It will cost a few billions though, just like the Garden by the Bay and the Jewel.

I still think something is missing. The rich and famous may not need all the artificiality of a desert or Antarctica here, or the African savannah or the Amazon jungle. They could simply whisk there for the real stuff at a moment of fancy. Those who would want to visit the imitations would be the peasants that cannot afford the real stuff, and grumble that the imitations are too expensive. The developers may not even recover their cost as the high price may deter the crowd.

A cheaper attraction to create would be a real Sin City in Geylang with all the amorous wants and desire of the flesh and the senses available to those who could afford to splurge without blinking an eyelid. That is where the money is. Turn Geylang into a lavish, grandiose and luxuriant paradise on earth where the super rich could have everything they desire or crave for, to satisfy their every indulgence and extravagance. It would be a real destination to cater for the hedonists with worldly pleasure. How about that as a start? Forget about the cheap foreign workers. They not only could not afford much, their presence is also unsightly for a world class city. They not only don’t fit in, they destroy the image of what this city is all about.

The developers could allow their imaginations to go wild and turn Geylang into a true destination that no one with the money would want to miss, must visit but would not want to leave once they are inside Geylang, the City of Sinful flirtation, exploitations, opulence and of human lust.

And I think it would be cheaper to develop but with unimaginable returns on investment, where the customers would never ask for the price but willingly pay for everything thing they fancy and to be pampered. Why waste money on the Jewel and an imitation jungle when the customers can have their satisfaction on anything of pleasure that they want in Geylang, and when they will be happy and grateful to part with their money, plenty of it?

Now if they really develop Geylang into a City of Sin, would I get any credit for it?

What, outrageous? Nothing can be more real and lucrative, and money well spent and well returned than a City of Sin other than a mini Jurassic Park in one of our islands. Want to spend a few billions watching a few wild boars and deer and antelopes running around?

Huffington Post, Chan Chun Sing and Chee Soon Juan

What is the issue? Is Chan Chun Sing chastising the Huffington Post for giving space to Dr Chee to publish his views? Or is Chan Chun Sing attacking Dr Chee as a person or disagreeing with his views in his papers? Or is Chan Chun Sing saying that he is a successful politician while Dr Chee is a failed politician?
 
What is the issue or what are the issues, I leave it to the readers to make their own conclusions. My question is why is Chan Chun Sing not happy with a foreign paper publishing the works of a Singaporean that as a minister, he has to write to Huffington Post to object to it? And what is the reason for objection? Is it because the points raised in the two papers were flawed and Chan Chun Sing is giving another version of the truth as his right to reply? Or is it because Dr Chee is a failed politician, someone who was charged in court, so he is not good enough to have his article published in Huffington Post?
 
A lot of questions ran through my thoughts. When a newspaper published an article, what is the basis or reason for the editor to decide otherwise? The Straits Times would have its own guidelines on who and what articles it deems fit to publish. Should the Huffington Post also use the same principles and guidelines for its publication or can it used a different set of guidelines?
 
I am wondering what Huffington Post editor would say to Chan Chun Sing’s objection. What do you think they would say? Would they reply?
 
As to the issues that Chan Chun Sing raised about Dr Chee as a person, as a failure, maybe this can be put to a test by the two standing in a single constituency ward to fight it out. Then we would know who is a winner and who is a loser. And the judge as to who is a success or a failure would be the people.
 
How to measure the success or failure of a person in politics? A simple yardstick would be the person in power, who won the election. The winner is allowed to sing his song and write his success story. Chee has lost three elections. Chan Chun Sing won his election? Chan Chun Sing is a success as he is a minister and Chee is not.
 
I think the courts of public opinion will have a field day talking about Chan Chun Sing’s letter to Huffington Post. I find the need to write such a letter a bit bizarre.
 
What do you think?

A new and economically ascendant Southeast Asia

It is heartening to read about the uneasiness of the Malay Malaysian elite and their urgent call to restructure Malaysia for the future instead of being stuck in the past of racial and religious politics. There is a sense of frustration and despair among this Malay elite who wanted to do so much, who knew that Malaysia cannot remained stagnant in economic growth and wasting time and resources in unproductive hackling on religious and racial issues drummed up by the respective leaders. There is a time and place for religion. Leave them to the religious leaders and leave them in their place in the mosques and not to be bucking around with matters of the state. And political leaders must rise above the insidious past of race politics, to think secular and think development. Malaysia can do better given the right leadership, and UMNO and its present batch of leaders are not the one to lead Malaysia forward.

While Malaysia is still bogged down with trying to be more religious and more racist, and a shrinking economic pie, the Indonesians have embarked on a new journey of change. Ever since the Presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur, race politics have been taken out of the equation, or at least kept in the cupboard, hopefully not to reappear. Megawati continued to play down on racial politics and allowed the Indonesians with Chinese ancestry to participate more actively in the economy. Yudhoyono did the same and the Chinese Indonesians expanded their participation in the main stream of Indonesian polity, in business and in politics, culminating in the unprecedented election of Joko Widodo as the new President and Ahok as the governor of Jakarta, both with ethnic Chinese origin.

The path to accept the Chinese Indonesians into the main stream of Indonesian life without discrimination is putting Indonesia on a clean slate to take full advantage of the industries of the Chinese Indonesians to grow its economic pie. Without the legacy of the Suharto regime in its way, Indonesia can embark on any economic model, tap on all the resources of its able citizenry to grow the economic pie. Allowing the Chinese Indonesians an unrestricted role is like starting another engine of growth in a capitalist modelled economy.

Indonesia is now free from its historical baggage of racial politics and political bickering to move forward confidently, to embrace all the positive elements of a secular state, to raise the standard of living of its people, through industrialisation and scientific modernisation. Without harping on the fear of a Chinese minority playing a bigger role than its population, the country could benefit greatly without compromising on the economic well being of its population at large. Indonesia is set to be the next economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia and could leapfrog the rest to stake its rightful claim as the biggest economy and biggest regional power in the region.

Malaysia could do likewise by tapping on the industries of the minority groups to grow at a faster pace. But the shackles of racial and religious politics are not easy to remove especially with the ultras in charge in UMNO. They have no new ideas on how to grow the economic pie other than to constrain the growth of the minority groups in the economy and enterprises just to prove that they are in charge. While Indonesia is tapping on a new growth engine in its ethnic minority, Malaysia under UMNO is preventing this engine of growth from being ignited to grow the economic pie.

What is UMNO afraid of? The dynamic non bumi minorities generating more economic output that put them to same or they could not manage to do likewise? With full control of political and military power, the Malay rights and interests would never be challenged and UMNO would be in a better position to distribute the new wealth generated by the non bumi minorities. Is that bad? Why is UMNO seeking to tie chains and shackles to prevent the non bumi minorities from doing what they could do best for the economy to benefit the country and people? With the non bumi minorities being curtailed in their economic endeavours, Malaysia is as good as firing on two cylinders.

The UMNO leadership is more interested in protecting its power than in the general well being of its populace. Would the new Malay elite be able to strip the UMNO leaders from its pole position in govt and lead Malaysia into a new path of economic growth, prosperity and secularism? Or would it remain locked and restrained by its past unenlightened policies while watching Indonesia run away uncontested and unchallenged to be the richest country in Southeast Asia? Malaysia has squandered away its lead in the economic fields and unlikely to move forward. It is wasting all its potential to be a much richer and prosperous nation, but instead to become a more religious and racist country with one foot in the mud, dragging and compromising on its economic development.

The new Malay elite have a tough road ahead to replace the backward looking UMNO leadership.

When oil runs out in 40 years

This is what the experts said. The mineral oil reserves inside mother earth will run out in 40 years. When it happens, it will, you cannot run away from this date, anything that needs energy will kaput or will cost a bomb. In the next 40 years, some jokers wanted to stuff this island with 10m bodies, all hungry and consuming food and energy but not producing anything. Look around us, what are we producing, what is our economy doing? More shops and more shopping malls, more food courts and eating outlets. We are basically a nation that eats and consumes without producing them.
 
What will happen when oil runs out in 40 years if we have 10m bodies here? Yes, we can house them in smart homes, beautiful homes that depend on electricity and oil to function. Even the shops and food outlets need energy and oil or they will have to close down, as simple as that.
 
The desperadoes were thinking of nuclear energy until their brains got short circuited by Fukushima. You cannot live with a nuclear bomb under your bed. Nuclear energy is out of question now. Can we then hope for a cheap alternative source of energy that may not happen in 40 years while jokers continue to pump more bodies into this island and hoping for the best? The problem by then will be 10m in size, not 5m. Can we live with a 10m problem or do we want to live with a 10m problem when we can avoid it by stopping this crazy rush to the cliff?
 
What is the solution when oil runs out and you have 10m people to feed? They told you it can be done architecturally, but how to oil and lubricate the needs of 10m people?

Kiddy Stock Exchange

Parents should be happy with a stock exchange for the kids where the premium shares cost 5 cents a share and the happy go lucky shares cost 1cent per share. And to make trading cheaper and easier on the pockets of kids, the board lot should be 100 so that 1 board lot of a 1 cent happy go lucky stock will cost $1 and $5 for the premium stocks. The kids would be very happy to play in such a stock exchange.
 
The grandpa and grandma could play fund managers. Premium funds like LOL Fund will comprise of 100 premium stocks at 5 cent value per share. For the adventurous, a FBN Fund can be set up for the 1 cent and below stocks. A BS Fund will be for the ‘in betweens’ 2 cents and 3 cents stocks. Investors can come up with $500 to invest in the premium LOL Fund. You can’t invest in anything cheaper for premium quality stocks. The not so rich mama and papa can invest in the FBN Fund for a $100 minimum outlay. Of course the initial outlay for the BS Fund should be $300.
 
At these affordable initial outlays, the mama and papa can use the angpow money of their children to invest for their future. Imagine after 10 or 20 years the value of the investments could be 10 or 20 times. Actually every grandpa and grandma could be a self appointed fund manager to manage the savings of their grand children. It is so cheap to invest and very low risk some. No commission charges, no fund manager fee too.
 
By the way, FBN Fund stands for Fly By Night Fund. Make your guess for BS
Fund and LOL Fund. But for a Kiddy Stock Exchange, it is all just for a bit of fun. The grandpa and grandma fund managers can call themselves specialist fund managers and print their gold gilded cards to pass around too. Stylo ya.
It is all masak masak lah, kid’s play.