Good news for property/asset owners

The Australian Govt is planning a slate of hikes in fees for foreigners buying properties in Australia. They believe in a level playing field for Australians and to protect the interests of Australians in property ownership. I quote Abbott, ‘This govt is determined to ensure that the aspirational people of our country get the fairest possible go.’ To the rest of the world such policies are short sighted, protectionist, nationalistic and anti free trade but Abbott and the Aussies are going to show them their middle fingers. To the Australians, the world can go to hell. They will protect the interest of Australians first. (Now you know why quitters are crawling back here to praise how good this Sin City is?)
 
If every country is to follow the Australian policies, and many are except the silly ones, Sin City will stand to make a lot of gains when property speculators have no where else to park their money with Sin City stretching out its open arms to receive them. Now Sin City need not even have to make its policies and regulations more attractive. All the rich property speculators will descend onto Sin City and snap up everything they could lay their hands on. Everything is for sale in Sin City.
 
Sinkie property owners and assets owners can be reassured that all their hoardings would go quickly and at very high prices. HDB flat owners too would benefit from seeing their properties appreciate in value as well when the private property prices shoot to the sky. With this golden opportunity opening up, everything could be put on sale. And when all the residential and commercial properties are sold, other national assets could also be tabled, like the MRT, the buses, the ports, the reservoir, the banks, etc etc. I think no more power stations left if I am not mistaken, all already sold.
 
When everything is sold, the islands too could come on board and would fetch really good prices. Sin City would be a haven for property speculators when everything can be bought. And the whole world will look at the Sin model as a great example of free trade, allowing the free market mechanism to determine the value of anything and everything. And all the Sinkies would be sitting on HDB flats that are worth millions.
 
The opportunities to getting rich are so plentiful and so easy that there is no need to work anymore. Just trade assets and sell properties to whoever has the money and offering the highest bid.
 
Boom town coming to Sin City. Just pray that more countries would be like Australia, chasing away investors from buying properties and they will make a beeline here, the shoppers paradise for properties.

A degree course for politician wannabes – Lesson 2

After the first lesson on what is democracy and what is the meaning of serving the people, the second lesson for this course in govt for politician wannabes is about the differences between a republic, a monarchy and a dictatorship.

A monarchy is simple, the right to rule is by birth or by the mandate of heaven. The monarch and his family will rule forever. The people and country and everything in the country are owned by the monarch and his family. His children will become princes and princesses and become monarch to succeed him. And relatives would become dukes, duchess, lords etc etc and paid living expenses as an entitlement.

A dictatorship is simply a country and people seized by an individual or a group of individuals by force and the gun. Should be easy to understand when the dictator or dictatorship just ruled for their own interests and benefits and the people are merely another form of slaves or subjects.

For politician wannabes, the simple descriptions like the above are good enough.

A republic is very different. The country is owned by the people, the citizens, and if they adapt a democratic political system, then the people will elect their representatives to help them run the country on a contract basis, renewable every four or five years. Many citizens of republics know that power corrupts and put a limit to the number of years the elected representatives can be in office. They would also have many rules to prevent any scoundrel from usurping power and turn the republic into a dictatorship or a monarchy.

Politician wannabes in this country must be hammered into them the meaning of a republic, that this island is a republic and is not owned by any party, dictator or dictatorship or any family or individual. The people own this island and are the true masters of the island. And politician wannabes when they are elected to political office must remember that the people who put them into power can remove them from power. And don’t they dare usurp power to treat the republic as their own property.

And they must not forget to write the 1,000 lines, ‘A democracy is a govt of the people, by the people and for the people’ everyday.

Self appointed observer of SMRT breakdown contingency plans

With the train breaking down getting to become a daily affair, it is only a matter of time before I get to have a first hand taste of what it was like being caught in such a situation. And it would be a good opportunity to see how the SMRT staff copes with the demands during a breakdown and how the commuters could be quickly transferred to the shuttle bus services to their destinations.

I boarded the train from Buona Vista on Friday evening towards Jurong East. Everything was normal. Changed to the NS train at Jurong East and was offered a seat by a young lady. Said thank you for the kind offer and waited for the train to move on. An announcement came on that an intruder on the track earlier was cleared and the train would resume normal service. Oh, I didn’t know that, and good that service was resuming.

When the train reached Bukit Batok another announcement came on apologising that there would be no service between Jurong East and Yew Tee as the intruder incident was still not settled. The train cabin light went off and all disembarked.

An intruder was on the track. Hmmm, if no explosive or fireworks, he would be apprehended in no time. Not to worry. Half an hour or so would be over. Not a technical problem. After 10 minutes the platform was almost empty with only a few hopefuls like me eagerly waiting for the train to resume service.  It was 10 pm.

The station control announced that a free shuttle bus was available from Bukit Batok to Yew Tee for commuters. Well, nothing seemed to be moving might as well. Outside the station control room a lady officer was surrounded by angry commuters. She was relieved when I budged in to ask about the shuttle bus, giving her a break. She said no shuttle bus from Batok, only from Jurong East. What the f…! Never mind, small error. Went back up to the platform. Another announcement, same as before, of a shuttle bus available. Went down again, asked the same officer who again said no. Told her this was the second announcement, asked her to check with the male officer inside the office. She checked and confirmed that there was indeed a shuttle bus at the bus terminal.

So some commuters went to the bus terminal, but no sign of a shuttle bus, no waiting point sign, no officer there, no one knew what the hell was happening, where to wait, where was the shuttle bus. The interchange office was closed and no one to ask. All trooped back to station control. Told the officer what was going on, that they must have an officer or a sign telling people where to wait for the bus. She went back into the control centre to check her files. Thought she found the SOP and went to another office trying to get the signs and whatever out. She was trying to sort things out for the next 15 minutes without anything happening while the commuters were getting agitated.

The best part, the male officer kept himself locked in the station control room and placed whatever card boards he could find over the counter window to avoid communicating with the commuters who wanted to know what was going on. He was lucky that the commuters did not throw bricks at the control station. There was a big crowd of commuters getting angrier every second.

By 10.40 pm the lady officer was still struggling to sort herself out with the shuttle bus procedures and another officer arrived to join her, but still getting no where. They simply did not know what to do. The male officer still locked himself in the station control room and looking very busy with his phone. I looked at the TV screen and saw the messages of train arriving/departing and looking normal. Told the lady officer no need to bother, the service should be back to normal soon. And yes it came back a minute later and the gantries were opened for the commuters to resume their journey.

With trains breaking down becoming a normal daily affair, it was unacceptable, and unbelieveable that a SOP was not available, or available but the staff were unfamiliar and did not know what to do. The male officer was happily making his announcements of free bus service but had no clue where and when the shuttle bus would be. And no one thought it was necessary to brief and guide the commuters to the pickup point of the shuttle bus.

Hello Sir, I think a section leader or a platoon sergeant would be able to do a better job managing the commuters and directing them to the shuttle bus pick up point. It does not even need an officer to be present to give orders. But what happened at Bukit Batok was a dismal failure.  The intruder incident started at 9.30 pm and luckily the train service could resume by 10.40 pm.

No one took charge and no one knew what was happening and where the hell was the SOP. The officers sure did not know anything about the SOP or what to do. Maybe that was the reason the male officer hid himself barricaded inside the control room from the commuters. The only plus point was the lady officer, keeping her cool despite angry commuters all over her and trying to do what was necessary. But she must be properly briefed of the shuttle bus service procedures if she is to do her job well.

What is happening, Desmond? No SOP? Or got SOP but officers not briefed or did not know what was in the SOP? Train stoppages are now a routine and the procedures must be have honed to perfection by now given so much real life practised sessions. It was fortunate that many of the commuters took their own initiatives to switch to public buses and paid extra for the journey. Some commuters were also angry for the fares being deducted and wanting to know when they could get their money back.

A degree course for politician wannabes

This is a follow up to my article If I am the PM and my good intention to make sure all the MPs are up to it to run the country. And my contention is that they are to attend a degree course in one of our top universities on the subject of government and how to run a govt. I know that some immortals are naturally gifted to have this skill set in born, born to rule, in them. So immortals can be exempted from this course since they already born with this talent. For the rest of aspiring politicians and wannabes, despite their successes in their professional fields, they must attend this course, compulsory, if they want to be qualified to stand for election as an MP. Our country must be run by able men and women who are properly trained to do the job and to be paid in the millions, more lucrative than any other profession.

The first topic to teach them is about Democracy. They must be made to know that this island republic is a democracy and not a monarchy or some dictatorship. So for the first lesson I would want them to write 1000 lines everyday. And this is what they should write.

‘A democracy is a govt of the people, by the people and for the people.’

They not only have to submit this to the lecturer everyday, they must all rise and recite this everyday before the class starts. They must be told that the political leaders of a democracy comes from the people and elected by the people to serve the people, not to serve themselves or to serve foreigners.  Repeat this everyday, of the people, by the people and for the people until it is second nature to them, that they will never forget these three phrases.

Comparative roles of opposition politicians in Parliament

Singapore and Malaysia inherited the same template for a democratic govt and parliament from the British. Both have evolved and made amendments to alter the nature of govt and parliament but the principles and fundamentals are still in tact.  Now, am I making a naïve statement on this?

Observers of the politics and politicking on both sides of the causeway cannot miss the stark difference in the roles being played by the opposition parties. Up north, the politicians seem to have all the time in the world to check on the ruling party, to investigate their misdeeds and wrongdoings, to form parliamentary committees to investigate the ruling party and their cronies. They are very busy doing that. As worthy lawmakers and as checks and balance to keep the ruling party and govt on their toes.

Down south, the opposition parties or shall I say party, are also very busy, not with checking the govt and lawmaking, but in running town councils and being checked by the ruling party/govt. The WP is now up to their neck, trying to shake off the demands placed on them to meet the deadline or no subsidies for AHPETC. They are working like crazy, to comply with administrative procedures and processes of a town council. Do you think they have time for other things, to keep the govt in check, to go checking on the govt and its agencies?

And with the GE around the corner, I don’t think they even have time to prepare for it or know that the GE is going to be held tomorrow. See the difference, the opposition lawmakers in the north have all the time to fire questions at the ruling party. In the south, the ruling party has all the time firing questions to the opposition party and keeping them very busy trying to ward off the blows and no time for anything. It is the ruling party that is doing the checks and balance against the opposition party.

Funny isn’t it?