Sultan of Johore – So much to learn from Singapore

An Agencies’ report on an interview with Sultan Ibrahim of Johore appeared on 28 Dec and the Sultan’s frank view on Najib and Singapore. After years of silence, out of the spotlight following Mahathir’s clipping of the wings of the royalties, the Royal House of Johore is stirring once again. The current Sultan and his son the Crown Prince have exuded a new sense of mission and confidence in what they think is good for Johore and Malaysia. There is a kind of balance and rationality in the things they said, free from the encumbrance of the past, of race and religion. Behind what they said is the focus on peace and stability and on development of the state and country and the good of the people regardless of race, language and religion. This is a common trait in the thinking and policies of Singapore leaders.

In the report, other than taking a position of being above politics and taking a non committal position in the power struggle in KL, the Sultan did not want to be seen to be taking sides. And in a major shift in thinking, the Sultan said he found it ‘hard to understand the rationale or irrationality of my Malaysian leader who wants Malaysia to quarrel with Singapore. There is so much we can learn from Singapore. They have done well, let’s be honest here…We don’t have to go on expensive study trips to Europe or the United States – just go across the causeway to Singapore; they have done so many things that are correct and efficient.’

This change of tone is unprecedented coming from the Malaysian leaders and coming from the Royal House of Johore.  The new leaders are starting to chart a course very different from the days of Mahathir when everything is about politics and muddled with a history of political baggages. Even Najib, though still playing with the politics of race and religion has departed from the policy of no need to learn English. He is talking about learning English as the international language of commerce.

The profound change is in the thinking of the Sultan of Johore that is very pragmatic and development biased. With his development priority in place, Johore is going to develop rapidly and runaway from the other Malaysian states unless his legs are tripped by the Federal govt in KL.

For a start the Johore state govt may want to engage some Singaporean state planners to assist in the redevelopment of Johore Bahru. We have plenty of experienced civil servants available to offer our expertise. And not to worry about the expensive trips Singapore is sending to the West to learn from them. I can bet they learn nothing much as we are much better organized and developed than the West in city planning and management other than one or two obvious areas that we are still scrambling for cover. Learn only the good stuff.

Actually Singapore is very worried that all the Malaysian states would put aside their obsession with politics and start to think progressively and objectively. Singapore would be in real trouble with a competitive and development minded Malaysian govt. We would not be able to compete with a new Malaysia withthe low productivity of today due to the foreigners here.

It is a frightening thought and a frightening reality. All the million dollar pay will be gone with the wind.

The things that silly Asians and American cronies would not want to know

Below is a quote I copied from John Harding’s blog on what Putin said.

‘Putin also took aim at the United States and the West for the wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria, saying they destabilized regions “that looked quite good until recently but are now areas of anarchy.”

“We know who decided to change regimes in those countries and impose their own rules,” Putin said. “They destroyed those states and then they washed their hands of it, opening the road to radicals, extremists and terrorists.”’

 

The American’s game plan of destabilizing countries and allowed them to fall into ruins and anarchy is the way to keep these countries and their people forever in poverty and unrest, and to allow the Americans and the West to keep them under control and to be exploited.  The sad thing is that many countries and pro American jokers would not want to know about this. They only want to believe in a good and compassionate and caring white God that could do no evil and whatever evil He did is for a good reason.

 

And these countries supporting this American policy of regime change and destabilising functional economies could not see themselves ending up as the next target of American regime change. There are many countries in SE Asia, Africa and the Middle East that have very good potential for regime change by virtue of the fact that they are either ruled by corrupt leaders, undemocratic or dictatorship or the most important factor, Muslim countries and of course with oil reserves.

 

When these countries became victims of American invasion and regime change, it would be just dessert, just retribution for supporting such an Evil Empire and committing crimes of destroying functioning countries, killing their people, and also their leaders.

 

Those that live by the sword will die by the sword.

Why Singapore has no talents?

Life is a learning process. People get smarter and wiser after making many mistakes in life and learn from them. They worked on their problems, overcame the problems and gained experience and wisdom. The funny thing in life is that the more challenges one faced in life, the more one learns and the tougher one becomes though not always the case. A person that did not have to face too many difficulties and challenges invariably learns less, not necessarily that he is less clever. So, where can you find experienced and well trained people in Singapore when everything works so well, no problems?

In Singapore, everything works. So the people working in the industries, in the ministries, etc etc would naturally learn less as there are lesser breakdowns and problems for them to overcome and to learn from. Ok, I know you people will be shouting SMRT! Ok, there are exceptions. After the breakdowns are taken care of, our SMRT staff would be very experienced and they can market their skills to the world, for having gone through all the problems and knowing how to deal with them. I think this is the only industry and profession where we can tell the world we have the most experienced and trained people.

The industries like water and sewerage system, power and electrical system, all working so smoothly, sure got no talent. Just like in the business, banking and finance, our banks were rock solid, no problem for so many decades. Where got talent?  They got no opportunity to learn anything, so now we have to start all over again, go overseas to find the talents we need. Maybe when there is a financial crisis and out banks are at the brink of collapse we will have new talents after they survived the crisis.

The moral of the story, when you want people with talents in flood control and drainage, go to countries that are flood prone. They sure have very experienced people who would know everything about flooding and drainage. If you want experienced train operators, go to countries where trains always breakdown and you will find all the seasoned engineers and managers who have gone through all the problems. Very well trained and experience.

And if Singapore wants to go nuclear, better go and recruit the engineers and scientists from Fukushima when they are still alive. Not many would be left around for long. They have the experienced on how to deal with a breakdown. And if you want banking and finance experts, go to countries where there are many banking frauds and problems, you will find all the experienced people to hire.

Did someone say when a system is working fine, with no problems, it means you have very able people running it, proactively planning and preventing problems from happening?  These people would not have the experience of solving all the massive breakdown problems but they are so efficient to prevent problems from happening, seeing to it that everything works at the push of the button. Unfortunately if they have to apply for jobs, they would not have a string of problem solving skills to boot and some may think they have no talent, or no experience at solving problems.

What do you think? Who is the better person to employ? Those that ensure systems work with no or little failures, or those who cannot manage a proper system that runs smoothly and every day fighting fires but with a lot of experience to tell? Do you want people to work diligently until everything works so fine that people may think they are useless, nothing to do, or people who run around everywhere trying to solve problems when problems is the norm, and looking like very hardworking, very involved, because they could not ensure that the system works smoothly?

If no one was there to screw up the housing policy and programmes, Boon Wan would not have the chance to solve the problems and now can put it in his resume as the hero that solved the housing problem. Some may say the problem is still there. That is another opinion.

Underemployment – Blame the young graduates

It was a good thing that the media is now pursuing the problem of underemployment of our graduates from our world class universities that have a renowned reputation, I heard that employers really loved to employ the graduates from these world class universities and our graduates are in great demand. So if any graduate from these world class universities failed to get a job, it must be his own fault. They graduated from world class universities but without the skills the employers want, or for the reasons like some unthinking parrots would spout every day, our graduates are demanding, lazy, choosy, only want high pay but not wanting to work, entitlement mentality.  Not to worry, these sick parrots would be here to repeat the shame shit they stored in their heads instead of their bottoms.

While the media are picking up this dreadful news of our pathetic graduates, spending a small fortune and putting great effort to get their As and degrees, some asses are still telling stupid things like it is a good thing, normal that only a small percentage is not employed. Or some saying, they are not tracking, meaning why waste time tracking them, or they are only interested in tracking part time employment. Now you know why they are so blur or ignorant about the problems faced by our jobless or underemployed graduates. They don’t even know, they don’t bother. So, they quoted a Sarah that had been hunting for a job since May but ended up taking something not relevant to her fine arts degree. Reading between the lines, nobody cares despite the media starting to dig up the shit. It is her fault for taking a course that has no market demand.

How can our world class universities be churning out graduates that did not have the skills employers want? Do our universities think that our graduates are all children of millionaires or ministers and went to universities to study for fun, study courses that have no market value because they don’t need to work after graduation? Why offer courses that have no market demand, not marketable and making the poor graduates struggled to get the degrees and wasting 3 or 4 years of their lives in the universities for nothing? Do the universities have the responsibility to do their due diligence to offer relevant courses and not issuing degrees that cannot be eaten?  Whose fault is that? The universities or the students? No need to ask for the answers. It must be the students. The question, is it fair to blame the young students who did not know what the job market is all about? Aren’t the universities in a better position, with better knowledge, to offer the relevant and useful courses for the students?

And who was that to say that only two percent of the graduates are unemployed or underemployed and that is healthy? In normal cases it is healthy. But when 2 million foreigners are employed here, many with fictitious degrees, some with fake degrees, some with longkang university degrees, it is NOT ok. Something is very wrong. Something is very sick.

By the way, apart from the professional degrees, many degrees are not designed to fit into the job market fresh from the universities, eg the arts and social sciences, the general sciences, humanities, the artistic courses. How can employers expect young graduates to be immediately employable and with the skills to start work when fresh out from universities?

While those responsible for the plight of our graduates from our world class universities are talking cock, I hope the media will continue to pursue this issue and highlight the pains and suffering of our young and their parents, being left on the lurch by the people responsible to look after them in the initial years of their working life, the people that they voted to protect their interests.

The media should also dismiss the fools and irresponsible Singaporeans that are running down our young graduates and passing silly comments that the unemployed and underemployed graduates have only themselves to be blamed. The media should also take to task those million dollar people in education for turning the other way when our graduates from our world class universities are bashed and ridiculed as worthless and with a piece of paper that cannot be eaten. The media can play a big role to champion the cause of our miserable graduates from our world class universities as they have been abandoned by the very people they trusted and placed their hopes on. They are on their own, dismissed and discredited, insulted and taunted by irresponsible Singaporeans in their own country.

There is a time to fight and defend your very own brothers and sisters. If no one is going to fight for them, then, like the Sarah they interviewed said, the last option is to go overseas.  Oh yes, Skillsfuture will train them to be employable overseas when they cannot find employment in their own countries. And the govt is going overseas trying to attract overseas Singaporeans to come back home because we are losing our Singaporean core. Dunno what shit they are talking or doing. So these young graduates can first go overseas and then be invited to come back later in life.

In the meantime foreigners, more than 2m of them with half past six degrees are happily employed, all with the right skills, better than our world class university graduates. And they have no problem securing a job here, even applying from a distance, in their home country.

Singapore the safest and most peaceful place on earth

A chaotic year went by and many will ‘kee chiu’ if I say Singapore is one of the safest and peaceful countries in the world. We should count our blessings and thank a forward looking, proactive and good planning govt that is all the time worrying about our national security and the preservation of our social fabric. Chee Hean had made two statements yesterday, one after protecting our social fabric from a breakdown of social cohesion that would lead us down the rubbish chute of social unrest and racial strife. And it is a miracle that we could keep our social fabric intact after stuffing the little island with more than 2m of the people highly prone to violence from around the world. The few punching bag incidents are peanuts and tolerable. We can live with that. It must be the successful integration process that the govt has put in place and the good jobs that were given to the foreigners that resulted in this harmony. This is something to be proud of, and a price worth paying for.

The next important statement by Chee Hean is on cyber security. This is an increasing threat to our smart nation where the decision to cross the road or what to eat, or whether the oldies at home are safe, are all wired and computerized. Then there are the transport system, the water and flooding system, the electrical grid, banking and finance, the health records and our power system. With so many systems being wired up, the opportunities for them to be targeted for mischief are plentiful and very real.

And thanks again to the great policies of the govt to import the best foreigners to boost up our IT industry and our cyber security. It is a cat and mouse thing and we need the best cats to catch the most intelligent mice. And if the mice are from foreign sources, we need foreign cats to deal with them. Ah, to set a thief to catch a thief really works. What about local threats? They would route their attacks from overseas and the foreign cats would be well placed to catch them too. Our cyber security and cyber defence are in the best hands, the best foreigners money can buy to guard our security and to protect us.

Singaporeans can sleep well. All the computerized systems will be safe under the watchful eyes of our foreign IT experts. This may be called defence in depth like having gurkhas to guard our installations. Foreign mercenaries can play a big role in our safety and security. So far so good. This is not ownself check ownself. This is depending on foreigners to check ownself and to protect us. The foreigners not only protect us, they also provide good jobs for us and integrated very nicely with our citizens. This is like what they say, have the cake and eat it as well.

Let’s hope our social fabric will remain intact when we hit 6.9m. Let’s hope we would not be dragged into a war by some of our good friends or because of them terrorists would want to teach us a lesson for meddling with their domestic affairs.

This is another good thing to remember for Christmas.