Planktons struck- fish farmers needing help

Noven Chew and a member of the Nylon String, the organiser of the Charity event

Bachata Rosa's dancers



Last Thursday the ST put up another article on the plight of fish farmers struck by killer planktons in the Straits of Johore. A few hundred tons of fish for the table were wiped out in a matter of days and the poor farmers saw their hard work went belly up. Their harvests were gone, each losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, putting their livelihood at stake. It was a big blow to the industry and to the fish farmers with limited resources. They needed all the financial assistance to replenish their fish stocks and to go about without income for months.

The AVA has stepped in to provide technical assistance and some financial help to give the fish farmers a new start, new fish stocks and fries, technology and equipment to protect against new plankton proliferations in the water and threatening the fish stocks.

Private individuals have also step forward to give a helping hand to the fish farmers. Noven Chew, a single mum, lost almost everything and her friends rounded up their friends to get her farm back to shape. A group calling themselves ‘Nylon String Men’, the organizer, worked with Victor, the owner of Hooha Pub/Café in Pasir Panjang to raise fund for Noven two weekends ago. Local singers and dancers answered the call to perform for a charity night at Hooha.

Bachata Rosa, a single mum helping another single mum, also did her part, contributing  two dance items for the night with 4 dancers from 4 different age group.

It is heartening to see fellow citizens standing to help fellow citizens in difficult times. Many thanks to the Nylon String Men, Victor and Bachata Rosa for their public spiritedness and generosities. Govt bodies can help, the people too can do their parts and lend a helping hand when fellow citizens are in need.

 

Amos Yee – What are the issues?

On the first day of the hearing that took just 20 minutes, the defence lawyers stated that the graphics in Amos Yee’s facebook were nothing offensive or obscene and many magazines or media had similar graphics or pictures in them. The case was adjourned with the court asking the counsels to define what is offensive and not offensive.

The second point in contention was Amos offending the Christians and with intent. And that it is no good as it would, in my interpretation, harmful to our social fabric and make the Christians angry. The defence pleaded it was not Amos intention to hurt the Christians. So the issue now is a matter of Amos intent with what he said and how it offended the Christians.

The defence counsel also quoted that many Christians said they were not offended. Would this be enough? Would it be enough if hypothetically the Pope or some Christian leaders were to stand up to say they are not offended, which means there was no victim?

While the two sides were saying their peace, it would be good if the defence lawyers could make a plea to the judge to remove the chains and shackles on the poor boy. He is only a kid and he has not hurt anyone. Can the court be kind enough to take pity on the boy without influencing the court’s decision the case?

Perhaps the President or Chairman of the Kindness Movement may want to say some kind words for poor Amos.

Poor child.

1MDB – modus operandi of SWF

The way the 1MDB operates and the attacks on its integrity have become a great publicity case in Malaysia and a political football between those in power and those waiting to unseat those in power. Given the fact that both sides are quite equally matched in political influence and with significant support on the ground, the contenders are not going to get away easily or be thumped down without putting up a big fight.

In the rumour mills, there have been speculations as to how a fund like this would or could make money for the people behind the fund. And it is interesting to see the different processes involved and how money is being made. The first part is the source of fund. As a sovereign fund, the funding is easy if the people behind it could use all the political influence and power to get cheap fund without having to go through the due process of qualifications as a reliable and credible borrower. It is a case of just demand and the money will appear, OPM, or from govt linked organizations where there is no individual owners to talk about.

Such funds are not only easy to come by, the terms of repayment are just as fluid if not hazy. It can be on a continuous basis with no beginning and no ending, round tripping or refinancing and refinancing with the funds remaining in the SWF forever and unaccountable to anyone. With this part secure, there is money, plenty of money, unlimited supply of money.

The next big question is how to siphon the money out from the fund. Oh, I have skipped the investment part completely. Maybe I should touch on this, as suggested by some analysts as to how the SWF will invest the good money to make good returns. The trick is NOT to make money. Profitable investments are only good on paper but not worthwhile if the money cannot be taken out from the fund. So paper profits or cooking the books to show profits would do.

The best and easiest part is to lose money, the more the better. Any bad investment would mean the money in the fund can be drawn down, or lost, spent. With this model, investment becomes so easy and needs only a little bit of ingenuity. Find junk companies, boost up their share prices, inflate them as high as possible, buy high, very high. Then let the price falls and sell at the bottom. Junk companies can be created by proxies or cronies. Some junk companies can be a shell or fictitious, never mind. The intent is to lose money in order to get the money out from the SWF.

Just imagine if each investment in a junk or fictitious company would lead to a loss of $300m, how much could be pocketed if 10 such companies would to fail? Easily $3b and setting aside a few hundred millions for the cronies and proxies would be small change and everyone very happy.

The other important trick is to keep the accounts secret to allow the fund to write whatever profit or loss it so desired. In a way the fund can keep on running in perpetuity, with new money coming in and pocketed by announcing bad deals and big losses. Then top up with more of OPMs.

This is a very simple model of how to make SWFs make money for the people behind them, no transparency, no accountability, just get a few cronies to go through the motion of investing in loss making companies over and over again. No one will bother to check it out, no one will bother to complain and ask for accountability. 1 MDB was just unfortunate that it could not keep its activities under wrapped and was exposed prematurely. If not, it could be a golden goose that would lay unlimited golden eggs.

The genuine SWFs got to sweat to make money, to justify to shareholders, to govts and auditors, and be accountable for the profit and loss. It is not easy to make good and profitable investments. Not everyone is a Warren Buffett. But making ‘sure loss’ investment is a piece of cake. The small difficulty is how to make the loss as big as possible and still look genuine.

This is great fun, oops funs, to operate. No stress, no need to work too hard and money is coming in by money going out in loss making investments. Simply ingenious!

Expats agree Singaporeans should be employed first

‘It seems there are just VERY FEW good jobs on offer in Singapore because the market IS SO SMALL.
Having said this, why does your PAP Government even allow Pinoys and Indos to take PR and then take SENIOR MANAGEMENT JOBS?

These jobs (which are the same jobs I am competing for) are in EXTREMELY LIMITED SUPPLY and, in my opinion, should be RESERVED EXCLUSIVELY for local citizens and foreigners should be told to fxxx off.

You see, while I compete with Pinoys, Indonesians, Indians and Chinese (not locals) for these jobs, I have seen on many occasions that my interviewer is actually NOT EVEN A LOCAL SINGAPORE CITIZEN.

I feel the PAP is doing a great disservice to the local Singaporeans.’ By Sam

The above extract is posted both in Transitioning.org and TRE, supposedly by an expat called Sam.
The main question is why are Singaporeans, PMETs and young graduates, facing so many problems and hard times getting a decent job here? Singaporeans are complaining not because they are against expats and foreigners working here. The angst is that why are so many Singaporeans not able to get a decent job and ended up unemployed, underemployed or retired prematurely? And we have practically full employment. And we have a few hundred thousand foreigners here with good jobs.

Why is it so difficult to get all the Singaporeans, especially the PMETs and young graduates employed? Singapore is not facing a situation when there are not enough jobs to go round. We have so many foreigners happily employed here and many found it so easy to get a job while our very own citizens are having trouble landing a job.

Any politicians still cannot understand or see the point or the angst the Singaporeans are facing? I must conclude that such people are simply daft, dumb or pretending to be daft and dumb, looking the other way.

And no, for the monkeys who are accusing the jobless Singaporeans of having an entitlement mentality, I say stuff it in your ass. Singaporeans should have priority for jobs here, good jobs.  Level playing field is not good enough. This country belongs to the Singaporeans, not to any asses. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t have to work and underperform. The lazy and spoilt PMETs would get the boot. They should get preference, especially in govt or GLC jobs but it must not be an iron rice bowl and they could be fired if not performing.

We have so many jobs to go around, to 500,000 foreigners. There is no good reason that Singaporeans who want to work cannot find a decent job commensurate with his qualifications and experience. Please don’t give any crap reasons like lack of skills set. Rubbish! Sometimes a little training, orientation and OJT would be enough to work someone into a job until the job is so specialized or technical in nature. It is so sinful, a crime, for fake foreigners to take the good jobs of qualified Singaporean.

There is no excuse for not providing jobs to Singaporeans. There are plenty of jobs for Singaporeans and foreigners and for fakes. Even if all the PMETs and young unemployed Singaporean graduates are employed, there will still be hundreds of thousands of good jobs available for foreigners.

Let’s not short change the Singaporeans, the citizens of this country. Singaporeans must not accept this state of affair. Not doing anything to right this wrong against Singaporeans is unacceptable. This is the chance for politicians to prove that they are there to serve the interest of the Singaporeans, to look after the voters who voted them into Parliament. Did anyone say they need to take care of the interest of foreigners first, to give them jobs because they are better than Singaporeans?

Please kee chiu.

Who would you employ, degree mill or legit university?

Many people have wisen up to omnipresence of fake degrees here and all over the world. It is real, no joke. And many have started to question the value of the degree and the intelligence of the graduates, degree mill verses legit university.
 
Employers are interested in good and intelligent graduates. And this used to be a graduate from a reputable university, best an Ivy League university. It used to be that simple. A good graduate from such universities means a tested and proven one. No need to look further.
 
Things have changed so much. Today a degree from an Ivy League university could be a printed fake degree unless one do due diligence to check it out. And there are also many fake degrees with degree mills with very similar names to Ivy League universities.
So employers have changed tack. The piece of paper is not important anymore. It is whether the candidate can do the job. I believe anyone can now be an engineer or doctor or software expert without going through the mills of a legit university. The proof is in the pudding.
 
I think employers could have been seriously looking at those with degree mill degrees to check for intelligence, creativity, street smart, and the ability to take short cuts. A degree mill graduate has all these qualities, including the communications skills to get pass whoever is on their way. It takes a lot of ingenuity to get that degree mill degree, of getting it cheap and fast, saving so much effort and money. This is surely a measure of intelligence out of the box. And better still if they can con, I mean convince, the employer that a degree mill is ok. The employer would definitely benefit from such clever employees, to be able to cut cost and cut corners and talk their way out even in a sticky situation.
 
Getting a straight jacket legit degree graduate is at best an honest, decent conformist, run of the mill graduate, who would just follow all the rules and system. This kind of employees can be easily replaced by robotics, cheaper and more reliable.
 
Unlike this robotic type of employees, a degree mill graduate would have the confidence to bluff his way through any situation and has a lot of guts to do things and get things done, at the quickest, shortest possible time and cheapest cost. That is the real value of such employees, highly creative and ingenius.
 
No wonder there is now a new thinking, don’t waste time chasing that degree. Got degree good, no degree better. Some employers are now looking at other things than just a piece of paper. This is the real world, the new ethos, new work ethics.
 
Oops, did anyone say cheating is the flavor and desired quality to survive in this fake new world, where fake is the in thing?