F1 final curtain call?

 

11 races gone by and nearly $2b spent with the govt footing 60% of the bill, would the F1 race continue for another chapter? No doubt there are values generated from such high profile event to add some oomphs to this once labeled dull and lifeless city. With the changes in govt policies and the two casinos, cruise centres, Sentosa, the Zoo and Night Safari, would there be a need to continue to splurge a few billions for an event that, based on the latest race, losing its glitters? Attendance had fallen to a record low of 73,000 from its height of 219,000.

The bill of $150 million to organize such an event is real. The returns of $150 million incremental receipts is as good as extrapolation from a lot of intangible accounting. How much of the receipts would be translated to actual profits to offset the $150m of cost has yet to be added up. Assuming 30% was profit, that was only $45m, a far cry from the cost of $150m. A $150m receipt is NOT $150m profit!

The Singapore Race is now dubbed as the ‘crown jewel in F1’ by Ecclestone. Iswaran added that ‘there is a clear appreciation of the value that Singapore brings to F1, not just as a venue but in terms of the larger position of the sport and also as a business…’

Singapore has added value to the F1 event. There is no other place like Singapore to hold such a glamour event, safe, clean and efficient and convenient. Should not the F1 organiser be paying Singapore a fee instead of Singapore paying them a helfty $150 million? The big question should be who needs who more, who contributed more to the success of the event?

It is time Singapore appreciates its own value and not continue with the self deprecating thought and policy that we need them, like the foreign talent myth, that Singaporeans are daft, and trust that they need us more. Just hang up the phone and wait for them to call back. The worst case scenario is for Singapore to save $150 million that could be used for better things.

What do you think? Should Singapore continue to behave like the unthinking glory seeking adolescent, begging to be invited in, to be given a seat, and to pay whatever they asked, because papa got money to throw?

Grow up Singapore. You are not a third world little country that needs to pay for superficial glory, for a bit of noise on the streets. It is $150m a race to organize. It is public money that must be accounted for and carefully spent.

CPF – Coffin money kena tangkap

 

This is the most cruel thing to do to anyone. The coffin money is what a person has left for his last journey, to have a decent burial. When one accuses another of robbing his coffin money, it is a very mean and heartless thing to do. Some called it ‘or sim kua’ or 黑心肝.

Going back in time, anyone remember what was the purpose of CPF savings? Yes, it was a simple saving scheme for old age, for retirement, a kind of coffin money. Over time, when the savings got too big, someone decided that housing was also very important, having a roof over one’s head was a basic need. So some CPF money was allowed for the people to buy a home. $7k or $10k, quite affordable and would not erode the savings. Still a lot of money left for retirement and to buy a coffin. Then HDB prices gone up, $30k, $50k, now $300k, $500k, $1m, and still some donkeys said very affordable. But after paying for a home, what is left in the CPF for retirement and for a coffin? Hardly any, barely any left. Don’t talk about the hare brain scheme of allowing 90% of CPF money to play the stock market. That is another pathetic and heartbroking episode to many oldies.

Now, did anyone put their savings into their CPF to buy medical insurance? What is that? Never heard of! The CPF is about retirement and coffin money. Who wants to save to buy insurance with their retirement and coffin money?

How much of your CPF money has been ‘tangkap’ and set aside for medical and insurance? When has the CPF been turned into a medical insurance scheme against the wishes of the people? Do the people, the savers, have a say in their money? Why is the money now gone, to pay for insurance, to pay for medical insurance whether you need it or not?

What happens to the main objectives of retirement savings, of coffin money? Where is my money for retirement? Not enough, why not enough for retirement? Who has been robbing me of my CPF savings? After saving a life time, at more than 50% of one’s income, still not enough for retirement, not enough for coffin money?

Who has been so cruel to dip into the people’s coffin money?

China transforming the world

While the Americans are preoccupied with creating tensions, inciting wars, building military alliances and selling weapons, China is using its new found wealth to rebuild, reconstruct and transform the world strategically that has caught the Americans and the western powers dumbfounded.  Hundreds of nation states would be involved and participating in this new infrastructure development. Ever since the expansion of European and western powers through colonialism and imperialism, the world was built and revolved over old concepts of deep and warm water ports.
 
The British Empire went all over the world to seize, build and control maritime ports, to control the sea routes for trade and military supremacy. Controlling maritime choke points was the way to extend influence and military power. Other western powers followed but with lesser success. Countries with deep water ports benefitted from international maritime trades with their fleet of ocean going ships. Container ports and VLCCs  carrying oil further reinforced the importance of the sea and shipping as the favoured and most important means of transportation other than by air.
 
China’s strategic concept of One Belt One Road is about to change the world and how international trade and trade routes would be reorganized, revamped, managed and conducted. High speed trains crisscrossing the Asian continent linking Europe and Africa to China, and with the prospect of linking North and South America to Asia by rail was never thought possible but now a reality waiting to happen. Europe and China are already connected.
 
In one stroke of the pen, shipping and the importance of deep sea ports become relatively irrelevant. Landlock countries in Asia, Africa and Europe could find a new life line for the transportation of goods and services and no longer restrained and limited by the lack of a sea ports. The land routes benefitting from high speed trains are much more efficient in all ways and cheaper in the long run.
The ports that straddled the eastern coast of the Atlantic Ocean, both sides of the Indian Ocean, the western Pacific Ocean, would diminish in their utility for trade. The concept of cutting the Kra Isthmus to save a couple of days is obsolete when weeks could be saved travelling direct between Europe and China, Africa and China, by rail.  It is even more important that the Isthmus of Kra remained intact not to disrupt the flow of high speed trains.
 
Whither the fortunes of the maritime ports in Southern Asia. Singapore in particular will face serious challenges when the land routes are fully operational. And the nightmare for Singapore would be a rail link between West Malaysia and Sumatra and linking direct to Java. Indonesian goods can travel by rail to China and Europe and vice versa.  New transportation hubs would sprout from sleepy little towns like Malaysia’s Port Dickson and Dumai on the Indonesian side. The Tuas port could become a white elephant.
 
The world map of commerce and trade would be totally unrecognizable in another 2 or 3 decades. Fortunes would change for the sea faring ports. New trading centres would rise in Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. The One Belt One Road project when fully developed would see the rise and fall of fortunes of new and old cities and transportation hubs. This is the biggest game changer of the 21st Century.

Some Asean countries are thinking of snubbing China and wanting to opt out of the OBOR project. Is there an opt out option? Sure, if Singapore, or even Malaysia were to opt out, the rail line would end in Thailand and a Thai port would become the new transportation hub and international commercial centre for goods plying from China, East Asia and Europe. That would be the end of the story for Malaysia and Singapore as flourishing trading hubs if they chose to opt out of OBOR. 

Tharman in panic mode

This is the first time Tharman has lost his cool and furiously trying to defend himself all because of a survey commissioned by Yahoo and conducted by Blackbox. And The Independent Singapore posted this comment, The Independent Singapore social media site said this, ‘We asked our readers on Sunday (4 Sep) who should be the next Prime Minister of Singapore. As at 12pm today (6 Sep), we have had 2,316 responses to the poll – and most (1882 votes) voted for Tharman Shanmugaratnam to lead Singapore into the future.’
 
The report saw Tharman desperately denying that he wanted to be the PM and that he was not suitable to be one. Such modesty and humility are rare in Singapore, that a people’s choice candidate had to dispel such a notion or chattering in the political grapevine. This was what Tharman said, 'Just to be absolutely clear, because I know of this talk that's going around, I'm not the man for PM. I say that categorically. It's not me. I know myself, I know what I can do, and it's not me.'
 
The big question now is whether what Tharman said is good enough for him to have a peaceful sleep at night. Or would he be so bugged by it, or would he think other people would not leave him in peace, to keep calling him to take his rightful place as the next Chosen One?  Maybe he should make a public statement, a pledge or something like that, to say even if offered, he would reject the PM post. Now that would be something. And I am sure he would then be able to sleep in peace.
 
This episode is looking quite funny and quite scary. This is the greatest honour bestowed on a man by the people, telling him that he is their choice, but driving the man into panic mode, not wanting to be the Chosen One is just strange. It is not a death warrant! It is a great honour.
 
Of course the polls would be quite embarrassing to those Chosen Ones to know that they ranked so low in the eyes of the people.  It is like what Shanmugam said, if one cannot get the majority votes of the people, it would become a joke. All PMs to be must enjoy the popular votes of the people to be able to stand in front of them to talk to them as their leader.
 
And Tharman is the man but is running away from the call of duty. He would have dug a hole to hide himself literary.  No agencies should anyhow conduct polls like this one. A lesson learnt I hope.
Poor Tharman.

Hugh White - Don't be so presumptious

 

In his article in the ST on 27 Sep titled ‘Choosing between America and China’, this Australian academic could not resist wearing his pink lenses and all his western biases to discuss the China American relations in Asia. ‘None of us in these countries want to live under China’s shadow….At the same time, all of us want America to stay engaged in Asia, to help balance China’s power and set limits on how far its regional leadership develops….’ Who were these ‘none of us’ and ‘all of us’? Australia and Singapore, or do they include Laos, Cambodia and other neutral states? Hey mate, Asia is not only Australia and Singapore and American allies. Now the Philippines is not going be counted in your ‘none of us and all of us’, get it? The ‘us’ must be the Little USAs right?

Now what is your problem, what is Australia and America’s problem, an assertive and expanding China upsetting the balance of power in Asia? What is the picture, what kind of balance of power? China expansionist, assertive and has no right to want to have a bigger breathing space and room to play with? Look at the chess board, China is occupying only two squares in a corner. The rest of the squares are occupied by the Americans. This is the status quo that the American and the Australians and the ‘us’ would want to preserve as the status quo. And this was what he said in the rest of the article. China must be contained in the same two squares, by persuasion, coercion or war.

Now, who is pushing who into a corner? The American Empire is very comfortable to constrain China in a corner, with two squares and the Empire controlling the whole chess board. So, is China pushing outwards against the squeeze put up by the Empire, trying to break free, or being assertive and trying to eat into the space of the Empire?

He then dwelt with the reality of accepting China as an equal partner to the US, that the rise of China is inevitable. How could the relationship be equal if the Americans insist on sitting on 62 squares and demanding China, as an equal, to sit in the corner with 2 squares?

Hugh White could not see this inequality, inequity, that the Americans have been occupying too many squares in the chess board and it is time to relinquish some space to an equal partner. How about each power sitting on 32 squares? Is it too much for China to want to sit on half of the squares in the chess board? Why is China called aggressive and expansionist and ambitious, when it has only 2 squares and wanting a few more squares to breathe easier while the Americans refused to vacate a few of the squares?

What kind of balance of power is Hugh White talking about? What kind of equal partnership is he advocating for China to accept? What was clear in his article is this, the fear that ‘America might start slowly but surely, to withdraw from Asia’. What kind of foundation for a regional order would he think would be acceptable to both China and the US? A chess board where the Americans continue to sit on 62 squares and China to sit in 2 in a relationship among equals and with the Americans pointing a gun at China not to move?

To the western narrative, China’s OBOR, AIIB are all expansionist and belligerent in nature, a country that is planning to conduct wars, to conquer other nations. On the other hand, all the wars conducted by the Americans and western countries all over the world are for peace. Signing up military alliances and conducting war games are for peace, friendly gestures to the countries targeted, even when conducted outside their doorsteps.

Finally there is an Asian leader, brave enough and clear thinking to admit the truth, that conducting war games are aggressive in nature and would raise tension in the region. Duterte is going to end all military war games with the Americans. No provocative joint patrols in the South China Sea. I said he is brave for his life is at stake for going against the ‘peaceful’ Empire. He would be removed by the Empire, dead or alive. His Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay is negating almost everything he said to appease the Americans. Yasay could be a hot favourite of the Americans to be engineered to take over from the fall of Duterte. Duterte must watch his back and his every move. Defying the Empire is very risky thing to do. It is better to be Little USAs to be safe and be in the good books of the Empire.