France’s problem, Singapore’s solution

The govt leaders, analysts and experts must be wondering what went wrong in France that led to the massacre over the weekend. Could it be avoided if the French govt did the right things. Never mind about the French bombings in the Middle East. They were there for training and target practices, nothing to do with the attack in Paris.

 

I was listening to Channel News Asia news programme and there was the answer everyone was looking for. It was so simple but no one could think of it. Our terrorist expert in the S Rajaratnam School of International Affairs, Prof Rohan Gunaratna explained France’s problem and what France could have done and avoided the attack.

 

France has a huge immigrant population and mostly from the Middle East and Africa, and mostly Muslims. As a result there was an integration problem. The French govt failed to integrate them into the main stream of its society. Many were jobless and live in the ghettos and continue to live their way of life that is very different from the French. They were marginalized and remain aliens in France. And what can you expect from poor, jobless, hungry and marginalized people? They are angry and felt neglected, let down and outcasts in France. Such people would easily be lured into the world of terrorism, to take revenge on the society that had left behind. And there you have it, the Saturday Night Fever that was deadly.

 

The European countries that are taking in the refugees must learn this lesson from France. They must take good care of the refugees, give them good jobs, do not let them get together to live in slums or ghettos. Integrate them with the rest of the population. When these people are fully integrated and become like the rest of the citizens, you would not have terrorist problems.

 

Don’t ask me how to integrate the Muslim immigrants with the mainly Christian locals. But I may suggest they learn from Singapore. Singapore has a huge immigrant population but they are successfully integrated and blended very well with the locals. The govt spent a lot of time and money to integrate them and the locals have fallen in love with them. But that is only one part of it. Give them good jobs. In this area Singapore has definitely outdone everyone else. We not only gave them good jobs, we gave them top jobs instead of giving the jobs to Singaporeans. And the unemployment rate of Singaporeans is even higher than the immigrants. And when Singaporeans lost their jobs and could not find jobs in Singapore, the govt would not impose a pro citizen policy of hiring Singaporeans first. Instead the govt would train the Singaporeans to work overseas. So the angry Singaporeans would not be left behind, jobless and trying to make ends meet and give trouble. They will be happily employed overseas.

 

And, oh yes, this one very important. In Singapore, the immigrants don’t stay in the ghettos. They either live with the Singaporeans in their homes, fully integrated or they live in private condos in their own ghettos, together. Oops, living in private estates on their own would be fine. They will be so happy that they would not think of becoming terrorists in their fine homes that are better than the average Singaporeans.

 

This is the successful story of full integration with the immigrants, to make them happy, with good jobs and good homes, the Singapore integration way. The European countries must send their officials here on study mission to learn the right ways to integrate their immigrants before they turned into terrorists. France has its problems and the rest of the Europeans too have their problems with their immigrants.

 

Singapore has the solution in hand. It is called integration. So simple!

Highway robbery in Sin City

The entrance of Uber and Grabtaxi was supposed to bring in more competition to the local taxi industry and the immediate benefits taxi users are thinking off must be cheaper and better service. With more players on the road, these must be the case. After all the operating cost of these new players are very much cheaper than the traditional taxis.

There was this user who took a taxi at peak hours and hit by price surge. In the 27 minute trip, she paid $169! This is as good as a budget air ticket to Kuala Lumpur that is 500km away.  How could this happen? Sure it can happen and Uber explained how it works. The service has different rates for different level of services. The base rate or cheapest rate could be as cheap as the traditional taxi fare at $18 for a similar trip.

Taxi users better get use to this kind of cost for taking taxis. We are not the most expensive city in the world for nothing. The only think lacking behind is our taxi fares which is still very cheap compares to New York, Paris and London or other big cities. And many khongcums have been cheaping and cheaping and telling everyone our fares can go up higher to keep pace with the big cities. Cheap, cheap, cheap will soon be no more.

We are starting to see highway robberies on our roads when innocent taxi users could have their wallet emptied, legally.

 

The most significant cabinet change

The appointment of Heng Swee Kiat as the new Finance Minister is perhaps the most significant move by Hsien Loong to put the house in order. Too many things had happened in the banking and finance industry that were worst than the escape of Mas Selamat but not spoken and pretended that all is well. In fact all is not well in the banking and finance industry.

The unthinking embrace of derivatives as the business model for rapid growth to boost the dying stock market despite all the warning signs of a big derivative bubble waiting to collapse is not getting noticed by the people that should know how serious this could be to the banking industry. No one is taking heed and worse, plunging head long into this time bomb waiting to blow up. When it does, not only the whole banking and finance industry will be shaken, the whole economy will be affected and no one will get away unscathed by the ripple effect. It is like a weapon of mass destruction, to quote Warren Buffet, like the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead will be dead, the undead will be burnt and scarred for life.

The problems in the banking and finance industry are not limited to playing with fire and fraudulent products. When it was announced that we don’t have local talents to fill up the top management positions in the banking and finance industry, no one understood the seriousness of this development. How could a financial centre ended up with no financial talents? And the next big blurp, we will need another 30 years to develop our local talents for such positions. And everyone regard this statement as normal. What have we been doing all these years as a financial centre? Lost sheep not knowing what was happening?

And the frightening thing about these developments is that these are taken so lightly, as the new normal. No one sees anything wrong with it. No one sees any urgency about it. How did the local banking and finance industry degenerated to such an appalling state where there is a dearth of local talents? Wait a minute, this also means that the banking and finance industry is run and controlled by foreigners, not Singaporeans.  Does this ring a bell? Does anyone know how serious it is when the country’s banking and finance industry is in the hands of foreigners? Would they wait for the foreigners to pull the rug under our feet before they know how precarious this situation is?

Heng Swee Kiat has an enormous task to do, to reclaim the banking and finance industry to be run by Singaporeans, not by foreigners or new citizens. He better consults Koh Beng Seng and pull out the blue prints of Goh Keng Swee to rebuild our now non existence banking and finance industry. How can there be a banking and finance industry if it is controlled by foreigners?

If you take out the Wee family, take out Wee Ee Cheong, the whole banking industry is in the hands of foreigners. Is this a brilliant strategy or there is no strategy at all, no vision, no plans, let things happen, let the foreigners take control of our country, our banking and finance industry?

What do you think?

Breaking the cardinal principles of Total Defense

I read Darkness’ article on his lamentation on how the Israelis went about the defense of their country and people and why a Paris or Mumbai style attack is highly unlikely to succeed or even take place in Israeli cities. There are a homogenous people honed by circumstances to be consciously alert to any sign of trouble and everyone is trained to take ownership and responsibility of the surrounding. A bag left in the train or anywhere that it should not be would receive immediate attention by an Israeli nearby, not necessarily a uniformed officer. The Israelis practiced Total Defense to the hilt.

 

Comparing the Israelis, our Total Defense is a joke, a tragicomedy waiting to happen. Total Defense is not lip service and to be written on paper. The whole strategy must be understood by everyone, the citizen on the ground and the people at the top. A simple review of why the Israeli Total Defense is working and ours a farce would point to all the cardinal sins that we have committed to turn our Total Defense into a fishing net, full of holes.

 

For economic growth, for some silly theory that we need more foreigners to grow our economy, for coveting other people’s talent, for foolishly and dangerously embracing every foreigner into the country, into our social and govt organizations, and the nightmarish acceptance of foreigners to guard our entry points, sensitive organizations and even joining the police and armed forces, how can anyone talk about Total Defense? Even our commercial organizations, the IT and banking industries are controlled by foreigners. They could simply deactivate all the networks and commercial systems, collect all the sensitive information and data by now to do damage if needed.

 

How can we practice Total Defense when the potential enemies are living with us when more than 50% of our population is foreigners, when they are working side by side with us, eating and sleeping with us? If a bag or parcel is left in the train or a shopping centre, who is there to check on it, to alert the security when 6 out of 10 people are foreigners who have no interest in the safety and security of the people?

 

You cannot practice Total Defense, you cannot have Total Defense when the person beside you is not one of you and could be a potential enemy or terrorist. We have compromised our national security for the sake of economic growth. And some are so stupid to open their arms and legs to welcome every foreigner into their homes, into security and uniformed services.

 

How stupid can this country be? We have raised our security status due to the Paris attack and think we are now safer. How would it work, how can it work when the enemy is already with us? Who is going to guard against those that are guarding our security? Did they discover that one of the Paris attackers registered himself as a refugee in Greece and was allowed into France? How many are already in Europe? How many are already safe and secured in Singapore and waiting for the order to strike? We have more than 2 million foreigners here. You only need a handful of trained terrorists, 3 or 5 or 7, to strike terror deep in the heart of town.

 

Would someone want to rethink about Total Defense and the policy of bringing in foreigners by the millions? Did someone encourage these foreigners to integrate with us and betterer, other than joining RCs is to let them join the uniformed services, to be trained, to be armed, to put on our uniforms? And for sure, those recruited must be the most innocent looking and did not look threatening, did not look like terrorists. They have the fairest ladies to seduce James Bond not for no reasons.

Children, beware when people ask you for money

I would like to include adults in the word children as people will ask adults for money too. I do not want to say anything bad about any religion. But someone gave me this advice, when people ask you for money, be careful, think. And in particular, whatever religious groups or cults ask you for money, if there is a genuine reason say to build a place of worship, fair enough if you can afford and willing to contribute. But beware when after the place of worship is built and they are asking for more money to want to built a tower to heaven.

I feel that our children must be taught to think and to protect themselves from cheats and cons. I felt compel to write this after reading an article in the TRE and I would like to quote a few paragraphs of what the author wrote:

‘….they make you put the money into envelopes, then you put it into pouches...slowly I began to question – “Why was there is need?” …So the next service,…I didn’t give an offering…Then my mentor (everyone is assigned one) looked at me when I just passed the pouch over, asking why didn’t I give an offering. I said I have no more money left for the week, so can’t give anymore…After service at fellowship, the cell group leader requested to speak to me. He said it was my duty to put aside money for God every week, it was to show God my love and sincerity in worshipping Him….The following week onwards, they monitored if I gave offerings closely…. Yes, they monitor your tithings….’

Children, please, God has everything and does not need your money. God is not a greedy money grabber. God is not love deprived that you need to tell Him you love Him everyday to assure Him that He is loved by you or He will hate you or loses His self confidence that no one loves Him. God is not love crazy or love sick. God is not a conceited asshole that needs you to praise Him everyday. God has everything and does not need anything, if He is the God Almighty He has everything and is everything.

And parents of children, please do not allow your children to be pressurized by the con men and women to part with the little money they have. Speak to your children, educate your children. God does not need money. Those who have plenty and want to give, they can give. No one should be forced to give money to God.

When money is all the ‘God’ needs, he is not God. Run away as fast as you can from him. Do not go near him.

PS. For those who are interested in the article I quoted, you can go to TRE to read the details. The lesson is applicable to all religions, sects and cults. Obsession for money is a tell tale sign that things are not right. Don’t be cheated or deceived. Children must beware of people asking for money.