How many of our politicians did not serve NS?

To be more specific, how many of our current serving politicians that are of NS age but did not serve NS? And how many are new citizens or not Singaporean by birth? This question will increasingly be raised by the people when more and more foreigners are being invited to become political/national leaders, to think and to serve the Singaporeans.

The big question in the minds of the true blue citizens would be this: You mean these people are better than Singapore born citizens, that we cannot find better Singapore born citizens than them to be our national leaders? Look at every one of them and ask, are they really that exceptional that they are the best, better than our Singapore born citizens and better than the men that have served NS and committed to defend this country with their lives?

You really believe that all the Singapore men are duds, not better than the foreign born citizens especially those that somehow did not have to serve NS?

What do you think?

The 1.5 quadrillion dollar derivative bubble waiting to go bust

I too could not imagine how big is 1.5 quadrillion dollars. Let’s hear what Michael Snyder said about this 1.5 quadrillion problem and what it has to do with derivatives.

“Today there is a horrific derivatives bubble that threatens to destroy not only the U.S. economy but the entire world financial system as well, but unfortunately the vast majority of people do not understand it. When you say the word “derivatives” to most Americans, they have no idea what you are talking about. In fact, even most members of the U.S. Congress don’t really seem to understand them. But you don’t have to get into all the technicalities to understand the bigger picture….

Well, the truth is that the danger that we face from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet has called them “financial weapons of mass destruction”. Unfortunately, he is not exaggerating. It would be hard to understate the financial devastation that we could potentially be facing. A number of years back, French President Jacques Chirac referred to derivatives as “financial AIDS”. The reality is that when this bubble pops there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it. But ignorance is bliss, and most people simply do not understand these complex financial instruments enough to be worried about them. Unfortunately, just because most of us do not understand the danger does not mean that the danger has been eliminated….

One day some event will happen which will cause a sudden shift in world financial markets and trillions of dollars of losses in derivatives will create a tsunami that will bring the entire house of cards down. All of the money in the world will not be enough to bail out the financial system when that day arrives. The truth is that we should have never allowed world financial markets to become a giant casino. But we did. Soon enough we will all pay the price, and when that disastrous day comes, most Americans will still not understand what is happening.”

The above were extracts from Michael Snyder’s article at http://themillenniumreport.com/2014/07/will-the-1-5-quadrillion-derivatives-market-collapse-in-2015/

This is a chilling article of how the whole world is allowing the floating of a hot air balloon into the stratosphere and waiting for it to go bang. There are so many experts and men of wisdom who could see the danger of this monster created by the financial thugs in New York and in all western model financial centres and crying out loud. It is not crying wolf just to frighten the children. The cries and pleas are for the financial thugs to stop this scam and unwind. Unfortunately, at this point in time there is no option to unwind but to keep blowing the bubble. Any attempt to unwind would cause a panic riot and deflate the bubble just as well. It is not that they did not understand and insisting of blowing it bigger. They knew the danger and are just praying that the bubble would not go bust.

Singapore is not so daft to pretend that it did not know and did not see the danger of this gigantic bubble. No, they are pretending to be daft, pretending that if it is ok in the US and Europe, it should be ok for us. If the West is not afraid of the bubble, why should we. If we don’t join them we will miss the boat. Let’s all pretend that all is well and blow our very own derivative bubble and join the party. If it goes bust, we can’t be blamed. Is there a need to sign an indemnity or disclaimer form like after the Lehman bonds and toxic notes now before blowing the bubble? And who should be the one to sign the forms first, the people selling the derivatives, the regulators or the ‘sophisticated clients’ aka rich and stupid and did not know what the fund managers are doing with their money but have millions to lose?

Singapore has now boarded the derivative hot air balloon and enjoying the ride. It is trying to play catch up with the West by pumping more hot air and cheering as the derivative balloon gets bigger and flying higher. Higher, higher, there is plenty of room to go higher. Derivatives are the way to go, to blow the top. There is absolutely no danger of a derivative bubble bust. We know what we are doing.

Did they not see the warning signs and the calls to curb this derivative monster? What warning signs, what monster? What would happen if the derivative bubble goes bust? Oh, they have all signed the disclaimer and waiver of indemnity forms. So should be alright. Not my problem. The ‘sophisticated clients’ have all signed their licence to lose all their monies.

Heng ah!

China, the student that surpasses the master

With no due disrespect to China, in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping arrived for his state visit, China’s leaders were still caught in an inward looking mindset, wanting to do everything indigenously, to reinvent the wheel of modernization. What Deng saw in Singapore, the transformation of this island into a cosmopolitan city state, must have set him thinking of what China could be. Lee Kuan Yew rightly pointed out to him that what Singapore could do, China could do many times more and better given the same industrious population.

In less than 40 years after Deng opened up China and modeled it after the Singapore of 1978, China has surged ahead in all fields and left Singapore behind like a jaded master. Singapore’s pride in housing is nothing compares to what China has built in the last 3 decades and still building in grander scale. Every Chinese city is transformed into a modern and bigger city, bigger than the island of Singapore. But that is not all, China is the factory of the world, not just producing plastic flowers and earthernware. China is producing everything that the western developed countries are producing and is closing the gaps in high technology and high engineering industries. In 1978, China did not have any of these. Today China is a front runner in high speed trains and giving Japan a run for its money.

I read in the news today that a French company is going to build LNG plants in China. I was a little baffled. Then again, if one is to look at the bigger picture of what is happening in China, this is part of the normal process of learning new technology. Ford, GM. Toyota, Honda and many international brands of heavy equipment manufacturers are setting up operations in China. There is nothing new in having foreign investments and attracting foreign investments into China.

The big difference is that in a few years, China would be producing everything the foreign corporations are producing, with local engineers and technicians, with local brands producing similar but better products at cheaper cost. Chinese brands are starting to appear in the international scene. The Chinese are not reinventing the wheels but hitching a ride, borrowing and copying foreign technology and using indigenous talents and workforce to carve up new markets for themselves.

Creative Technology had many years of head start ahead of the Chinese. But with very little govt support, it is shrinking in market share, in products and recognition. What would local companies like Creative Technology be if the govt had invested fully into them, with finances and local talents? Would our lead in water filtration plants like Hyflux be a household name in the world market if the govt invests heavily into it and be ranked among the Hyundai, Matsushita, Panasonic, Ssangyong etc etc?

The big difference between China and Singapore is that the former believes in its own people and talent and wanting to produce and make products of their own. Singapore only believes in buying, like buying kindergartens. We do not believe in growing our talents and our own industries. We want to buy them and replace our local talents and industries with foreigners and foreign industries. Instead of investing in our own talents other than lip services, and local companies, we went overseas to look for foreign talents and buying failed companies or cheap low tech companies and committing the sin of giving up on our own talents and companies.

China sent out hundreds of thousands of their best to foreign universities to learn and to come home to rebuild their country and industries. What did we do with our talents? Become administrators or politicians or soldiers. And what about the talents needed in the industries? Just buy them, bring them in, open the door in the name of free market and free competition, we don’t need to grow our own timber. We buy and buy but allowed our own timber to go to waste. In another word, we don’t have faith in our own talents, we dismissed our own talent as no talents and covet other people’s talents. But the sadder part, the talents we brought in are in many cases fakes and frauds.

While China leapt forward to take on the world, moving bravely and confidently into the 21^st Century, Singapore is slumbering in the past of 1978. Singapore has stagnated. Our top industries today are in food and services, in hawker food. Our banking and finance industries, IT industries have been overrun by foreigners, taken over by foreigners. Our health industry too has been overtaken by foreigners except for the top end. But this would not be long before foreigners take over the whole industry as well when citizens become a minority.

At least Malaysia is still trying to manufacture a national car. We are now promoting hawker food as the national icon, the industry of the future. And we don’t even know that in a matter of time, the hawker fare would be operated by foreigners as well. Our last bastion is the taxi driving occupation and maybe sublet rooms to the foreigners to make a living.  The plum appointments in the security industry are also filled by foreigners and our local PMETs would only be good to be security guards. Our so called talents would be only good enough as part time workers or working as temp staff.

The future is very bright. For who?

PS. A happy Deepavali to all our Indian brothers and sisters.

Kishore: Let’s nationalise public transport

Wow, Kishore, what are you saying? Don’t you remember all the clever reasonings to privatise public transport into privatized public transport? Shit what am I saying? Isn’t the private public transport a private company listed in the stock exchange? Or is it a public company owned by the govt and that is why a minister is running the show now?

I can still remember vividly that the main reason to privatise the public transport system is that civil servants are duds, inefficient, and only privatization would make public transport efficient. In other words, the talented people are in the private sector. Even a sales girl is good enough to run a public transport system and made good profit. Now a general also can do. If not a minister should do.  Wait a minute, aren’t a general or a minister a public servant, a kind of civil servants that were originally assumed to be less efficient or inefficient?

The call to return public transport to the hands of civil servants must be horrifying. The govt took so much effort to privatise the public transport, how to justify publicise the public transport system? Have the talents to run private public transport gone back to the civil servants, so civil servants are now efficient enough to run publicise public transport system?

If this is the case, then there is good ground to nationalize the private public transport system to make it public public transport system. In the same reasoning, private public hospitals must also be nationalized to be public public hospitals, to be more efficient and not be run to the ground like the private public transport system.

After writing the above, I am thoroughly confused. What is the difference between a private public transport system and a public public transport system in terms of operational efficiency and not breaking down daily?

Perhaps Kishore could explain and share his wisdom on this call.

John Hardings tireless effort to compile the crimes of the Evil Empire

Below are extracts from John Harding’s article posted in his blog(URL at end of article) on the crimes committed by the USA against countries of the world. These are things that the blind believers of the USA refused to see, did not want to know and keep on praising the Evil Empire as the bastion of goodness, of democracy and human rights. The Americans have committed everything under the sky in violation of all the things they said about democracy and human rights. If these facts still cannot erase the fake beliefs that the Evil Empire is anything but goodness, nothing will. The incorrigible and unthinking Afro Asians would continue to want to believe in the Great White God as their saviour, as the saviour of mankind. That is their choice. For the thinking and rational people out there, here is all the proof that you need to change your mind.

Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

• Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
• Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
• Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
• Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
• Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
• Plus … although not easily quantified … more involved in the practice of torture than any other country in the world … for over a century … not just performing the actual torture, but teaching it, providing the manuals, and furnishing the equipment.

Below is an open letter posted by John Harding in the same article of a plea by Jürgen Todenhöfer that laid down the facts in in different way.

 Dear Presidents and Heads of Governments!

Through decades of a policy of war and exploitation you have pushed millions people in the Middle East and Africa into misery. Because of your policies refugees have to flee all over the world. One out every three refugees in Germany comes from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. From Africa comes one out of five refugees.

Your wars are also the cause of global terrorism. Instead of some 100 international terrorists like 15 years ago, we now are faced with more than 100,000 terrorists. Your cynical ruthlessness now strikes back at us like a boomerang.

As usual, you do not even consider to really change your policy. You care only about the symptoms. The security situation gets more dangerous and chaotic by the day. More and more wars, waves of terror and refugee crises will determine the future of our planet.
Even in Europe, the war will one day knock again at Europe’s door. Any businessman that would act like you would be fired or be in prison by now. You are total failures.

The peoples of the Middle East and Africa, whose countries you have destroyed and plundered and the people of Europe, who now accommodate the countless desperate refugees, have to pay a high price for your policies. But you wash your hands of responsibility. You should stand trial in front of the International Criminal Court. And each of your political followers should actually take care of at least 100 refugee families.

Basically, the people of the world should rise up and resist you as the warmongers and exploiters you are. As once Gandhi did it – in nonviolence, in ‘civil disobedience’. We should create new movements and parties. Movements for justice and humanity. Make wars in other countries just as punishable as murder and manslaughter in one’s own country. And you who are responsible for war and exploitation, you should go to hell forever. It is enough! Get lost! The world would be much nicer without you.
 
Jürgen Todenhöfer

http://johnharding.com/2015/11/the-anti-empire-report-140/