Mysingaporenews Collection – Book launch update

30 copies snapped up in 3 days. I would need to have 300 copies to get this book off the ground unless I can find a sponsor to pay for the printing cost.
Some of the topics to be included in the book would be as follows:
 
1. CPF, your money or OPM
2. Medishield Life – paying for a life time
3. Population White Paper
4. Hong Lim Park Protest Rallies
5. Roy Ngerng and friends in Hong Lim Park
6. Plight of PMEs, taxi drivers
7. Education
8. Gems of Parliament
9. High cost of living
10. The flawed and dying stock market
11. Public housing, appreciating or depreciating asset?
12. Political development and change
13. Disappearing true blue Singaporeans
14. Whither Singapore
 
There will be many other hot topics that are dear to Singaporeans in the book. The crowdfunding will end by 31 Mar. I need more orders to make up the first 300 copies.
 
Thank you.
Redbean

Blind spot in Parliament?

Shanmugam were vicious in tearing down the WP for the lapses in AHPETC. He threw at WP everything he got that could put the WP in a very bad light. And the ST did its best as the prime newspaper to inform the readers of every detail that happened in Parliament, on the TV over and over again. The WP was in defensive mode and was kept really busy to ward off the blows. Where got time to engage in other issues or to talk about other issues or even to prepare for the GE? The election campaigning has started, and in case the opposition parties are still sleeping, the PAP is on a campaign march. Read the ST and the coverage of the ministers and PAP will tell you what is happening.
 
Back to Shanmugam’s performance in Parliament. There were so many things that are worthy to be gems of Parliament and I would take time to cover them. Let me just touch on the set of fees that Shanmugam obtained from the MND to attack the WP. In that chart, the fees payable by residents and commercial units were exactly the same. Sylvia Lim spotted the difference as it is a norm to charge commercial organizations a different rate in practically everything, water, electricity and of course S&CC. The big question, is there a mistake in Shanmugam’s chart?
 
Shanmugam did not think so and it was reported that he had double checked and confirmed there was no mistake. The residents and commercial units were charged the same S&CC in PAP wards in 2014. Please correct me if I am wrong on this with the latest.
 
There are many reasons for me to accept that the data were accurate. First, the MND would not give such an important set of data to be used in Parliament to accuse the WP for mismanagement or over charging to Shanmugam. It would be very embarrassing if untrue and found out to be untrue. A public apology would be needed. And the WP could say the same thing, sorry not enough, please explain.
 
Shanmugam, being a top notch lawyer, would not miss the error and would have corrected them before presenting them to Parliament as a weapon. He would not embarrass himself with a set of wrong data in public, in Parliament.
 
And mind you, so many ministers and MPs must be privy to this chart and it is unbelieveable and unbecoming that no one is diligent or clever enough to spot the huge mistake if there is one. Everyone must know that there was no mistake. It could not be a case that there was a mistake but no one thought a need to tell him and wanting Shanmugam to make a fool of himself in Parliament. It also could not be a case of idolizing Shanmugam and looking gaga when he spoke, assuming that this god like lawyer could not make mistake, everything he said must be carefully thought out.
 
Unless there is any announcement to this, I must presume or assume that the chart must be right. Now who was the person that produced some data and letters claiming that the changes to lower the fees for PAP Town councils, especially the part for commercial units, were done recently? How recent and why? Or was that just another assumption of fabrication to prove Shanmugam wrong? There is no way to prove the chart wrong unless it is wrong. This is factual and no one can lie about it.
 
Is there another truth? Is there a blind spot in Parliament?

Malaysia’s 1MDB crisis

The husband is the PM and the wife is the Chairman of a sovereign fund. They thought having a sovereign fund with a lot of borrowed money must surely make money. They may be doing a copycat operation after visiting the rich southern state with two successful sovereign funds to boot. So the husband and wife team copied the successful formula of their neighbor, to every small detail, to borrow billions to set up 1MDB, after Khazanah, to invest with OPM. With so much money to make money, how to lose, or at least statistically it should make money in the long run. Even if the money is lost, so what when it is OPM?
 
Somehow sovereign funds have the same bad habit of buying high and faced with immediate fall in value and then hoping for a good return in the long long run. This formula never fails. 1MDB is no exception. But no worry, the long term would be ok, and they went investing recklessly, buy all kinds of shit that the snake oil sellers threw at them, even hot air.
 
The PM and his wife are now accused of corruption openly. Everyone is talking about it, from the kampong folks to the lawmakers. And they did not mince their words and were very generous in the use of the fear term, ‘corruption’. I was viewing the video clips of presentors Haris Ibrahim and Rafizi Ramli and their interviews with Tony Pua on the subject of 1MDB. My God, if you want to know what democracy and freedom of speech are you must google for these names to know what we are missing.
 
Najib and Rosmah are involved in this corruption case amounting to 42 billion ringgits in unexplained debt, and the audience roared with the approval. And why was Mahathir complaining? Because he did not have his fair share, that’s why. And who topped the list in the total value of bad debts to be bailed out by the Govt? Mahathir pipped Najib by a nose but only because he ruled the country for more than 20 years. Najib did what he did in 2 years. And the good news, Najib is catching up fast. Wow, can this kind of language be used in our little island of democracy and free speech? I don’t think anyone would dare to say these things even in Hong Lim’s Speakers’ Corner. Oops, not true. I am sure there will be brave people, given the permit, to stand in Hong Lim’s famous little mound to say Najib, Rosmah and Mahathir are corrupt. Sure can.
 
Tony Pua and Rafizi even claimed that the ruling party was treating the Malaysians as daft, a familiar note, not being able to understand how the money was transacted through many layers to lose its trail, till no one know what to ask, where it went. At least our MPs and ministers know how to ask where is the money going. Everything is secret and there was no transparency in 1MDB’s activities to talk about. Is that new? But Tony Pua and his gang were still able to trace the highly questionable investments in oil fields in Altantuya’s Mongolia and the Caspian Sea with equally questionable companies operated by unknown and questionable individuals.
 
The facts that were revealed and confirmed, according to Tony Pua, were that a govt sovereign fund under the charge of the wife of the PM has been involved in questionable dealings and the PM could go down with it, and they are going after Najib and Rosmah for accountability. Tony and Rafizi also claimed that the 42b ringgit of debt by the sovereign fund could bring down the Malaysian govt and affecting every Malaysian adversely. This part I find it quite unbelieveable for such a big country, with oil wealth oozing out from the sea, to be at crisis level all for a miserable 42b in ringgits which is not even 20b Sing dollars. That only proves how rich Singapore is compares to Malaysia. Even without oil oozing out from the sea, we don’t even bat an eyelid with the officially announced lost of $50b or $60b Sing dollars during the financial crisis. In ringgit terms that would be more than $100b! What crisis are they talking about?
 
Anyway, it was an eye opening experience to know the generous space available to talk about corruption of a PM and his wife involving billions of public money, OPM. And they are not even charged, just assumptions and insinuations. And as if God wants to push the knife deeper, the falling oil price would only accentuate the severity of the miserable 42b ringgits and made it a bigger crisis.
 
Malaysia boleh, at least in democracy and in free speech, and the wide berth to play around for the opposition lawmakers in Parliament. The speakers were so casual when they made the corruption charges as if the PM and his wife were already guilty. This is a plus point for the Malaysians. The names of Najib, Rosmah and Mahathir and other senior politicians were freely and loosely used for condemnation with no hesitation, no restraints or the need to self regulate, with no fear of being sued to bankruptcy. They were telling them like jokes in a kopitiam but on youtube and in public forum.
 
Can’t imagine a similar scenario happening in Sin City. The husband and wife team’s days are numbered and it is only a matter of time for more disclosure of 1MDB’s debt problem. They can’t keep manipulating the accounts to show profit when there is no profit or hide under non disclosure or secrecy. And there is a limit to how much they can squeeze from the provident fund and the number of assets they can transfer to the sovereign fund to make it look good. Everything is hidden, secret, no need to tell. And this is what made Rafizi and Tony giggled. Secret lah! When no one knows what is happening, something seriously wrong is likely to be happening.

Who decides who is fit to be the next govt?

I want to follow up with Boon Wan’s statement that the Town Council is the PAP’s way of testing the opposition MPs’ability to run a country. Is running a Town Council a necessary or effective way to gauge a party or MP’s ability to run a govt? LKY never run a Town Council and so did Goh Keng Swee. Maybe that was why the country was so badly run then compared to how well it is run today by the new leaders with the privilege and experience of running a Town Council.
 
To me, running a Town Council is a piece of cake for any reasonably clear thinking individual. The difficult part is to navigate through the landmines, traps, obstacles and avoiding snipers and ambushes along the way. But to be serious, to really want to manage a Town Council to resemble running a country, to benefit from the experience, then it should go all the way. Let the Town Council be run like a mini state, collect its own taxes or be awarded its fair share of the tax collection, let them run their own police and mini civil service etc etc. That would really be a meaningful training experience.
 
The current structure of running a Town Council is more like how to overcome the problems and difficulties in an obstacle course when things were just being difficult, when they have no autonomy in finance and in having very little bargaining chips in their dealings with other govt agencies. How fair is the playing field for opposition parties to run their Town Councils and how fair is the test of their ability to run a Town Council like running a mini state? Heard of playing against a loaded dice?
 
By the way, does an opposition party need to gain the approval from the ruling party in how to run a country, to pass the test set by the ruling party, and then be given a pass grade to go ahead to run a country? Who decides which party is suitable to run a country? The ruling party or the voters?
 
An alternative party does not need the blessing and consent of the ruling party to be the elected govt. It is not the power of the ruling party to set the conditions and to say the alternative party is not good enough. It is the right and will of the people to decide who they want to run the country. This is a democracy, not a monarchy or someone’s grandfather’s company whereby the family call the shot and decide who is fit or not fit to take charge. Maybe I am wrong and Boon Wan is right. The ruling party would decide who or which alternative party is able to run the country.
 
I have a suggestion. The alternative party should send their candidates to PAP for tea, for a fee of course, to be certified fit and able to form and run a govt like the PAP candidates, everyone chopped with the PAP quality seal and ISO 9001 certified.

Saving SGX

It took two petitions, one online and one offline, to pack Magnus Bocker off. SGX announced yesterday that he would be leaving by end of June. The important task at hand is how to save the SGX from the ICU? The state of denial that all is fine is not an issue to MAS. The main problem is whether MAS sees any problem with the pathetic or critical condition of the stock market. Is everything doing fine, more new investors signing up, more derivatives being traded good indicators of the health of the stock market? Or would the MAS look at the number of investors really trading and the value of trades done in the equity market, the number of remisiers leaving the industry,  and the pittance in commission being generated?

There cannot be any real solution to the dying stock market if the cause or causes of its demise are not diagnosed. Does anyone really know what is wrong with the stock market, wants to know what is wrong with the stock market and to do an overhaul of the failed system? Yes, it is a systems fault, its problem is systemic, not no lunch break, not smaller lot size, not super penny stocks, not dwindling volume and disappearing investors. These are only symptoms of the cancer that is crippling the market and would go naturally if the real cause of the failure is identified.

If MAS is still wondering where to start, go to Shanghai. The Chinese have been studying the American model of stock trading and knew exactly what is wrong and are not going to repeat the same mistake. They are offering Shanghai and Hongkong as the alternative system where computer trading involving super computers in HFT and algo trading would not be allowed, where large scale manipulations would not be allowed. They are returning to the basics of stock market operations. There is an article ‘China now gives investors an alternative to (the)manipulated HFT U.S. stock markets’  at www.examiner.com.

Computer trading with high speed computers plugged into the main system of a stock market is simply unfair trading, giving unfair advantage to the computer operators to manipulate and rob the rest of the investors in broad daylight.

And the last thing the SGX should do is to go globe trotting to hunt for another foreign talent to replace Bocker. It would be a replay of the pathetic story all over again as most of these talents would still be sold to the American model of computer trading and all its fraudulent ways.

The MAS is faced with a mammoth and arduous task to quickly disconnect all the toxic cables connected to the SGX main trading system. These external computers are like parasites sticking to the main trading system and sucking everything, every dollar from the investors.

The stock market must go back to its original role as a source of funds for the industries and not a casino. It must not be turned into a cheap gambling system for boys and girls to play with their pocket money. The boys and girls can go and play monopoly. The stock market is for the adults to invest, for the industries, the corporations to tap as a source of fund for growth and expansion. They can’t get the funds from little children in the schools.

The stock market must be X rated and not PG13.  The broking houses and the Society of Remisiers must use this window to work with the MAS to find a real solution to the serious problem the stock market industry is facing. Make the stock market do what it was originally supposed to do. We already have two casinos and there is no need for a third casino. The broking houses and the MAS have a common interest to want to see the stock market back in the pink of health.

What is the point of having more boys and girls signing up as potential investors when they are not investing? It is time to be real. Or would this opportunity be wasted and everything back to square one with the hiring of another foreign talent to do the same thing all over again, with the stock market fighting for its life in the ICU?