ISIS threat to hit American establishment worldwide

On 13 Dec 15, I posted an article War of Words and in one para I mentioned that the ISIS was threatening to hit American establishments world wide, ‘The most effective warfare today has turned out to be the War of Words. ISIS have just warned the Americans to withdraw its troops and involvement in the Middle East or else  they will hit at every 7 eleven stores around the world, or at any MacDonald or Kentucky fastfood outlets, or every Apple stores, Coffee beans, Starbucks or any American brand establishments worldwide.’

The attack on a Starbuck in Jakarta would make govts around the world take the threats of ISIS more seriously going forward. There will be more demand for security officers all over the world to protect American establishments. There will be more worries about patronizing an American outlet like Starbucks or MacDonald. How would this going to affect the business of such establishments?

Taking it easy, ignoring the threats would be compromising on security and safety of the customers and the staff. The threats have been carried out. Would it be repeated again, somewhere in some corners of the world?

Things are going to be very messy and life is going to be very inconvenient. Singapore better not take such threats lightly. The Indonesians learnt a bitter and painful lesson for not taking the threat seriously. Chinese New Year is around the corner. Would our security checks and patrols be stepped up? Do we have enough manpower and resources to provide such security covers? In an open society like Singapore, with so many American and western establishments it is not a small job to do.

Take heed.

Obama has a lot to learn from Singapore

I went through Obama’s final speech before his Presidency expired and found many similarities and many shortcomings with Singapore. There are really many things that Obama could learn from Singapore and before quitting his Presidency on a high note. Alas, it is a bit too late now. Let me just mention a few points and maybe the next American president could pick up the cue from Singapore’s success.

The first point, Obama felt that ‘many Americans feel frightened and shut out of a political and economic system they view as rigged against their interests.’ How can the American political and economic system be rigged against the Americans? I only know that the American stock market system is highly rigged and they knew but not doing anything, allowing the cheats to cheat the innocent investors with their super computers. It is a crime that many silly countries are copying without thinking of the consequences. As for political and economic system, the Americans need to look no further. Come to Singapore and learn from our unrigged, fully transparent and fair system. Obama also called for an end to gerrymandering. This one he can also learn from Singapore, definitely no gerrymandering here. Then the American system will become fairer and more transparent.

Losing jobs and continuous training are also affecting the Americans.  Obama also told the Americans that they must retool and retrain but ‘they shouldn’t lose what they’ve already worked so hard to build in the process.’ This one I am not too sure if the Americans should learn from us with our many good lifelong training systems and SkillsFuture stats board helping the people to be retrained to be taxi drivers and security guards and many well paying jobs. I pass on this one.

Oh, one thing the American system is different from Singapore, they have unemployment payments which we don’t have. This one maybe we have to learn from the Americans.  Obama also wanted to raise minimum wage and strict immigration laws. Yes, the Americans should have more lax immigration policies like Singapore and let in more immigrants for more growth. No wonder their economy is not growing. Donald Trump would disagree and I can understand him.

Obama also advised the Americans to get more involved in politics. This one is the same as us. We also want our Singaporeans to get more involved in politics of the right kind, not the Hong Lim Park kind or the opposition kind. We need to vote and support a one party system, a ownself checks ownself system, the best kind of political system in the world that brought us from 3^rd world to 1^st World. The proof is in the pudding. We have proven that this system of one party ownself checks ownself works very well.

The Americans must come more often to learn from Singapore even if the Oracle is no longer around. We have many super talents that are paid in many millions not for nothing. They are really super talented and can offer the American presidents many good advices. It is a wisdom to learn from people earning more money than you. Talent and wisdom are measured by the money one commands and earns.

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)?