Investing CPF monies in Singapore stock market is bad

The proposal by the SBF for the two govt funds to invest in the local stock market to revive it before it goes into comatose is a good idea to some and bad to others. There is a debate going on with two sides offering differing views. I am of the view that investing CPF monies in the local market is bad for several reasons, some of my reasons are the same as those mentioned and I have a few to add.

Investing in the moribund stock market is a big risk. Don’t forget the foreign big funds have their super computers plugged into the SGX system and to trade against everyone. If Temasek and GIC were to put more money in the local market, would they also lose their pants like the other investors?

What I think many people did not know or could not see, but not Temasek and GIC, is that they are managed by very expert people and they should know better where to put the people’s life savings. They must have reckoned that investing in the local stock market is more dangerous than investing in foreign countries, including hazy dazy and funny 3^rd World stock markets. Of course the returns are higher as well in these funny countries and their stock markets. Not sure about the risk element. But after considering the two, it must be worth it and safer to invest anywhere else than in the local market.

This principle is the same like investing in foreign students, giving billions of dollars as scholarship to foreigners instead of to Singaporeans. Foreigners are the best. Foreign talents are the best including replacing our locals in jobs, top jobs. This is a very consistent policy. Foreign degrees from God knows where are better than our world class university degrees.

So, in the same line of thinking, any foreign company or stock market must be safer than our local stock market. Our stocks, degrees, our everything, is overhyped, over priced, over paid. Go overseas, everything is cheap and good. Investing in our local companies in the stock exchange therefore must be a bad idea, poor returns, higher risk and over priced. Investing in 3^rd world stock markets is the best. No risk, did I hear people saying no risk in 3^rd world stock markets? Or did I hear investing in American stock markets is safe? What about investing in top American and European banks, safe or not?

I have put up a very clever and solid case to invest everywhere except our stock market.  I rest my case. I also support giving more scholarships to foreigners, giving more jobs to foreign talents.

PS. Please forgive me for not knowing what I was writing. I think I must have taken something funny or I am thinking like our super talents. Did they say go with the flow?

Data theft – Singapore is so bless

Australian steel giant BlueScope is suing a software development manager based in Singapore for downloading 40 gigabytes of sensitive documents ‘of very substantive commercial value’. Dumb Australians, how could they trust a foreigner with access to commercially sensitive information without any safeguard? This is like being caught with the pants down. They deserved to have their sensitive documents stolen for being so lackadaisical in the protection of sensitive documents. Even if they are successful in the suing the ex employee, the damage is already done and is oo late for their own good.

Singapore is so bless. With so many thousands of foreigners here working in the IT industry providing all the IT support to govt and big commercial corporations, and have access to confidential and commercially sensitive information, we don’t have such problem. No theft of such nature has been reported. This could mean a few things, the foreigners here are of the highest quality in honesty and integrity, or our system of control is so good that they are unable to steal information even if they wanted to. Forget about the part that they have stolen but no one knows. This is a Singapore miracle, to steal information under our nose and not caught, oops, no information has been stolen when our legs have opened so wide for so long. It only proved that we have placed our trust on the right people. This is what they called, good judgement of people and character. An uniquely Singaporean trait.

Or perhaps Singapore is just simply blessed with all the good lucks and nothing bad will happen to us even with the millions of foreigners here, and the thousands of foreigners handling all the sensitive information and documents that were of great commercial and security values.

It would not happen in Singapore. Only stupid Australians will allow such things to happen to them. We are the best in information security and protection.

The oil rig industry in a tailspin

The crashing of oil prices to below $31 from its dizzying height of more than $120 per barrel is going to take its toll on many blue eye boys, I mean blue eye companies.  Never mind if this is a war against shale oil production or green energy production, oil prices have come down to earth.

The first casualties are the rig builders, the darlings of yesterday with order books to the brim to last another 20 years of growth. Overnight the orders turned into smokes and according to some analysts the oil rig companies are facing bankruptcies! The reports are talking about Keppel Corp and SembCorp Marine, two of our blue chip companies whose stock prices have fallen by 40 or 50%..

If the reports are real, or close to the truth, then someone will be looking for buyers of these companies just like NOL. The wheel of fortune is really spinning hard and fast. Maybe they should look at China to be the Yellow Knight. China has just saved Najib from his 1MDB investment flirtation. Don’t sneer, China has very good reasons, economic reasons, to want to buy up the half completed oil rigs for a song. At least the oil rig builders need not file for Section 11.

Look, China is developing the oil fields in the South China Sea and would need a lot of cheap oil rigs. And since we are able to sell them cheaply, China may be interested to pick them up with the companies thrown in. But just be careful should China raise the issue of hosting American spy planes and ships to harass them in the South China Sea. This would drag in politics from an otherwise clean economic deal.

Would anyone be sending a team to China to invite the Yellow Knight to save the day? The Singapore Discount or Singapore Sale is on again for oil rigs or oil rig builders. Would these companies be renamed Keppel Corp(China) and SembCorp Marine(China)?

Green men and green potatoes

Someone is reported to have encountered green potatoes in his fridge. Luckily not little green men.  The first remark he got from a ‘doctor’, dunno from where, quack or qualified from our world class medical school, the potatoes turning green could be due to Agent Orange. Why Agent Orange turns purple sweet potatoes not to orange but green, I really dunno.

It is a frightening thought if Agent Orange is among us, in our supermarket, in our food chain. If you have seen those children in Vietnam and the US affected by this
Agent you will flip if you discover that you have taken food that may be tainted.

In this case, not to worry. AVA has assured the public that the green colour ‘could be due to a “natural occurrence, when the water soluble pigments in the cooked sweet potatoes are exposed to air”.’ I dunno how long Vietnamese agricultural food, like vegetables and fruits and meat have been in our system and been consumed by the people here, so far no cases of Agent Orange deformities has been reported. So must be safe to eat food from Vietnam.  The AVA is also reported to have assured the public that food imports, including Vietnamese sweet potatoes, are regularly tested for chemicals and other forms of contaminations.

Anyway I choose to avoid Vietnamese food products exposed to water and soil in Vietnam. I can’t shrug off knowing that the kind Americans had poured millions of tons of chemicals to fertilize the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War, and Agent Orange was the most popular of the human fertilizers.

My advice of women conceiving babies is best to avoid food from such sources.  Foetus are highly susceptible to all kinds of chemicals. Just a personal opinion.  It is safe or else AVA would not have allowed them in, just like the millions of foreigners, all very safe. And all have passed the stringent test, including checks on their degrees and certificates. All very safe, food, vegetables, meat and migrants.  The Europeans are also welcoming the migrants happily and in big numbers, though not as big as ours, and all very safe. They only need to integrate them like the way we do and all the teething problems will be over in due time.

Dunno if European countries are importing food from Vietnam or from Fukushima.

MOE, MOM and WDA restructured

The double reporting of WDA to MOE and MOM has been straightened out with WDA now reporting to MOE under Ong Ye Kung. Ong Ye Kung will not be the Coordinating Minister for MOE/MOM/WDA and SkillsFuture training to make sure MOE is training graduates with the right skills for the industries and not ending up skillless, got talent and a lot of knowledge but no employers want to employ them.

The above was yesterday’s news. Today, MOE is overseeing Pre-employment training(PET) and continuous education and training(CET) under a new stats board called Skills Future Singapore(SSG).  The Workforce Development Agency will now become Workforce Singapore, a new stats board under the MOM. It would retain the former role of WDA, ie employment facilitation, career services and industry engagement.  These two stats board would solve the problems of employment faced by Singaporeans trained with skills not wanted by employers.

I really hope it is so simple, train the people with the right skills and the employers would happily employ them instead of foreigners. I am sure anyone with a little commonsense would know the real reasons why our talented young graduates are not employed but foreigners are in demand. And it is not just cheap labour. Cheap labour could be one of the reasons, but there are other more sinister reasons that dumbasses would not want to see.

I bet, even if all our graduates are trained with all the skills employers need and willing to accept competitive pay, they will still be passed over just like what is happening today. I was going to suggest that Ong Ye Kung send an army of teachers and civil servants to the 3^rd World countries to find out why they are producing the right graduates with the right skills and talents that our industries and govt agencies are so happy to employ. Of course this is just a red herring when stupidity is the reason.

I am asking the same question aloud once more. Why are 3^rd world half baked education system able to produce the workers that a first world city needs? And why are our students paying for a very expensive education, educated in world best universities and did not have the skills ‘OUR’ employers want? If the 3^rd world countries are doing the right thing, then I would suggest that everyone in MOE and the world class universities be sacked. They are not doing the right thing, producing unfits, dysfunctional graduates that cannot be used by the industries. And we should send a team of educators to the 3^rd world countries to learn from them, from their cheap education system, teaching little but producing the right graduates for our system.

Of course the half baked 3^rd world education systems are no match to our world class super expensive system. Then what is wrong? I bet on one knows. That is why they are still scratching the wrong balls without addressing the real problem. If they know what is wrong, dare to face the truth, and stop being stupid, there is no need to waste time setting up two new stats boards to engage in shadow play.

Yes, they said stupidity has no cure. Anyway, let’s hope Ong Ye Kung knows what is happening and could save the day like Boon Wan saving the housing problems by simply building more flats. The reason or solution to Singaporean graduates and PMEs being sidelined and unemployed is so basic and easy, as easy as building more flats. No need to muck around and fighting with shadows. Tiok boh?

Super expensive world  class education producing dysfunctional graduates not fit and not wanted by the industries? And everyone is running around like bull arses flies, looking so busy, and scratching the wrong balls.

And they forgot to set up a COI to study what is wrong!