SMRT – 40 recommendations to make rail network more resilient

I read this report in the media saying 40 recommendations were made by 13 experts, four of whom were foreign experts, to improve the fault prone SMRT system. This must be expected and nothing surprising. I am not too concern about the cost unless the total amount of recommendations would be equivalent to replacing everything with a brand new system. That would be much cheaper and at least last for a few good years, and brand new some more.

The 40 recommendations mean that either the system has 40 problem areas or 40 areas that were not up to specs and thus needed to be pumped up or replaced. No wonder we have so many problems in the last few years, so many areas that needed improvement. So lucky we have these experts to look into it and could rectify these 40 problematic or potentially problematic areas.

What I am trying to find out from the recommendations by the expert is a simple answer. What is the cause or causes for the recent spate of breakdowns? My thinking is very simple. If one does not know the problem, how could one solve the problem? The 40 recommendations could be totally unrelated to the cause of the problem or maybe barely related. I still think it is important to diagnose the main cause or causes of the breakdowns if a lasting solution is to be found.

If not, the money spent may be money spent for nothing, would not help in a big way to the breakdowns. Let me give a simple example on what I am trying to drive at. A patient is in the intensive watch, dying. A team of experts went in but could not find the reason for his illness. After several weeks of diagnosis they came up with a list of recommendations. The heart specialists recommended inserting 3 stents to improve his blood flow and pressure. The kidney specialist recommended changing one kidney, the blood specialist wanted a complete blood transfusion, the knee specialist wanted to replace his knee caps, the spinal cord specialist wanted to insert a few steel discs to straighten his backbone and posture….and many other good recommendations. The critically ill patient would have practically a new body with many new parts. But the main cause or causes of his illness is still unknown.

After all the major operations, the patient remains in the intensive care unit, still in the same state of comatose.  Good intention, a lot of money spent, all for nothing. This is what I am concern about.

What do you think?

Do we have high frequency traders in SGX?

/// Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, has been at the vanguard of warning about the dangers and the rampant fraud that the rise of high-frequency trading (HFT) algorithims have let loose in today's financial markets. .....

Of the situation that led to his award, he says:

"The folks at the NYSE were selling their direct feed for north of $30,000 a month versus the SIP which is under a thousand dollars a month. Their customers are not buying it because it has that much more rich data. The thing that makes it worth $29,000 more is that it is faster, but that is illegal. Up until this point they deny that that is the case. And somehow it works. So the exchanges make all their money from their highest paying customers which are the high frequency traders. And the high frequency traders pay the exchanges exorbitant amounts of money to have a slight advantage.

That's how the whole system works. It is absolutely, positively rigged. There is no question about it. It is rigged on many different levels in many different ways -- for example, no retail order ever gets to see the light of day of the stock exchange. That's one of the many eye openers. People who aren’t pros in the market don’t realize that it's all a rigged game. "

Hunsader also had opportunity at one point to access the audit trail data from the CME futures exchange, data that the central authorities almost never allow outside eyes to see. What he found was clear evidence that a very small number of very large players push prices and volume around at will to vacuum up profits at the expense of everyone else:

SOURCE:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-19/eric-hunsader-financial-system-absolutely-positively-rigged

 

This is a very important piece of information and deserves to be an article on its own so that more people can read about it.

Why would HFT traders want to pay another $29,000 pm just to be faster? The return must be much more than the $29k pm.  But this is not the only advantage, by being faster. They are not telling the whole truth and the fraud and cheating involved. Why did they said it is rigged? Who are the victims of the rig?

Who allowed this fraud to be practiced in the exchanges?

What we have is a bunch of crooks that knew what is happening but chose not to know. And we have a bunch of people kpkb about everything but the real issue, did not know what is going on. And the end result, the traders taken to the laundry and the exchanges turning into a casino that would run to a standstill in a matter of time.

This is irresponsibility at the highest level.

Elected President – A can of worms

The Constitutional Commission of wise men and a woman has opened its door for business and several wise men and wise women were invited to share their views on the task set for the Commission. What the Commission is not set up to do is to examine the primary basis for the need of an Elected President, the first assumption. In political science, the first thing we were taught to do was to examine the assumptions of a political theory. Without doing so we could be sent on a wild goose chase and feeling very happy about it, that everything is sound and right. 

It is like someone claiming that sugar is the cause of diabetes and everyone would be shouting, ‘hang the sugar’!  Get rid of sugar, ban sugar, increase sugar tax, fine people consuming too much sugar!  In politics, it could be like someone propounding the theory that dictatorship or one party is best and everyone will be going about praising dictatorship or one party and trying to make a dictatorship/one party better and betterer.

Well, since no want is going to talk about the first principle, about the first assumption, it is pointless to ask such a question. Everyone is taking for granted that the Elected President is the best thing to happen to our political system, or a motherhood that we have to live with, just like a rogue govt or a rogue president waiting to happen, hiding behind the bend.

Since this is the case, let me join the circus, oops, I mean the circle of wise men and women, to make the best of the Elected President thing. This I must again confess, I don’t think is a good idea or necessary, but a waste of public money and resources that can be put to better use. Oh, and before I go and make myself silly,… among the wise men and women that have spoken, the wisest of the wise is, I must say, the legal intern called Brian Chang. This is what he said in a simple sentence that said so much. ‘ I think we need to (be) very careful with whether we want to introduce race based criteria which do not exist at the moment into any of our political offices and if we want to take the first step down the (slippery) slope.’

This sentence alone already shows the kind of complex and multitudes of problems that will come along when ethnicity or race is embedded into our political system, in the Elected Presidency. No need to elaborate further. No one is more blind that those with eyes but could not see. It is an enormous can of worms that would start to wriggle out once it is opened. Do we want to ask for something that we cannot cope with that we don’t have to in the first place?

Ok, now that I have vented, let me get to the great silly ideas that I have been playing with, the minorities in our Elected Presidency concept. What is the meaning of minority? The original CMIO or more? How much more would we want to classify an ethnic group as a minority and eligible to have a right to be the Elected President by default, provided and protected by the Constitution? Would we be welcoming the Pinoys, the Myanmese, the Banglas, the high caste Indians, the Vietnamese, the Thais, the Indonesians and what not as our new minorities and enjoying equal rights as the MIOs, to have a right to be an Elected President?

And why stop at ethnicity, what about women as a minority, (AWARE has spoken), what about age, religion, the non meat eaters, there are many kinds of minorities in our little piece of rock.  Oooh, I forgot about the beautiful pink people. They are minorities too.

Ok, ok, this is pushing the limit too far. Let’s get back to the ethnic minorities. What is the best formula to work with? Now it is 75:15:8:2, or there about.  Can this be crafted into a scientific formula of relative representation? Or should it be a simple rule of thumb, 3C:1.5M: 1I: 0.5O?  To make this formula workable, multiply by 2 and we will get 6C:3M:2I:1O. Just ignore the new minorities until they start to protest violently.  The formula will mean over 12 terms of EP, 6 terms will go to a Chinese, 3 terms to a Malay, 2 terms to an Indian and 1 term to an Others. My apologies to call you Others, not my choice of words.  How to count if one minority president sits in the Istana for more than one term?

What about the new Others that should be added in? Should the new formula be CMIOPIMVBT? It would be quite a ‘chap cheng’ formula and quite perplexing. It may be better to reengineer the population to a point where each ethnic group is 10% and every tribe will have one term of Elected President each, very fair and very easy to manage. Next time got 20 tribes, can change formula again.

I won’t want to go further than this. It is already complicated enough. What do you think? A race embedded formula for the Elected Presidency to make sure every minority group is treated equally and fairly. Can it ever be fair? Never mind, the silly majority here is very generous and will go along with anything, with any formula, even reducing its majority status. They believe in meritocracy and excellence regardless of nationalities. You can sell them to be prostitutes and they would not mind.

Enshrining racial differences into our political holy grail? Anyone think this is a good idea?

Does anyone remember what is this?

‘We, the citizens of Singapore,
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society
based on justice and equality
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity
and progress for our nation’.

Please respect this national pledge. Sorry Raja, need to remind the daft and dumb about what you said, even if it is an aspiration.

Entrepreneurship is not just for the young

Jonathan Chee wrote an article published in the Today Online calling on the govt to think of giving the seniors a helping hand as well in funding for entrepreneurship. The govt’s  scheme is mainly targeted at the younger set for good reasons. The young have so many more years to go, why help the ‘ah pehs’ and the ‘ah mahs’ who should be looking after their grandchildren or sailing into the sunset in their golden years, or pushing carts for exercise?

Here is a bit of Johnathan’s article published on 14 Apr.

‘Entrepreneurship is for all, regardless of age (“S’pore to create space for ‘winners’ to emerge: Heng Swee Keat”; April 8, online).

“Colonel” Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken in his 60s, and Mr Ray Kroc established McDonald’s when he was 52. If Singapore focuses only on the youth, then we would lose the opportunity to have senior entrepreneurs like them….

The Government can give a hand to these experienced Singaporeans by allowing them to borrow from their CPF for their ventures, or lend them working capital based on their CPF balance….’

Though Jonathan’s call is valid as many oldies would like a chance to have another go at the challenge of going into a project or venture of their own, be their own boss for once, not the driving taxi type of boss, there is a catch. Once the CPF is mentioned…this is a very sensitive subject. Don’t ever dream of touching it. There is nothing much left after Medishield Life and Medisave Life and the Minimum Sums.

If the seniors were to allow to use their CPF savings and failed again, there is no turning back.  But another point, where got money left with everything locked up, all top priority items, spent already or designated and set aside, cannot touch. The CPF owners like Jonathan will have the last right to decide what they can do with their savings. The govt has the first right to decide what they want to do with the people’s CPF life savings and how much it wants to ‘tangkap’ for the good of the people.

Like they said, Jonathan would have to ‘tan ku ku’, if he knows what the govt’s plan on his CPF. That is real entrepreneurship. Making millions pay for something with no right to say no and no effort, no special skills or technology, no rent to pay.  And don’t ever think of touching the CPF minimum sum. Not your money anymore.

News coverage on Bukit Batok by election

So far, the coverage for both Chee Soon Juan and Murali has been quite balance. If one wants to nitpick, then one may complain that the photos of Murali are usually a bit bigger or Murali would be placed on top or in a more strategic position in the paper. Other than such fine details, this is the best that can be in terms of news coverage to date.

In the Today paper on 18 Apr, let me make a couple of observations. Chee Soon Juan is likely to lose out on the goodies that he could offer. All Chee could do was to promise that he would do this or that. Murali just rolled out the goodies cart packed with groceries for the people. This time he is even more innovative by giving equivalents of vouchers for the residents to choose what they want. This guy is so rich and generous. Chee cannot compete on this for sure.  Wait for Murali to push out his abalone porridge or XO roti prata cart and Chee would be left standing, high and dry.

Chee Soon Juan has an edge in having his wife accompanying him in every walkabout. He must have sensed that the people in Bukit Batok would want some kind of assurance that he is a happily married man and his wife is always around him to make sure all is fine. Under the present circumstances, this must be an advantage Chee is using to put the Bukit Batok voters at ease.

It would be nice if Chee could even the odds, find the money to throw some goodies, more groceries to the people. Where to find the money? So the richer man will still have an advantage in this, to show he cares, We Care, by giving. Chee must have a good chat with Murali to get some tips on where to find the money to give to the needy residents and say We Care also.