Why not use some of the reserves instead of more taxes

When this was raised in Parliament, Heng Swee Kiat’s PAP style reply was that the reserves cannot be touched. If now take a bit, tomorrow a bit, then eventually nothing left. What kind of logic is this? This is like the asking for one drumstick and they said you want to slaugher the chicken. There will be time when it is necessarily to use a bit from the reserves to tie things over like the how many times the reserves were used during Nathan’s time, was it thirteen times. How much was taken out and were they put back?
 
Why when there is supposed to be nearly a trillion reserves and not a cent can be touched? Is it like someone here said, want to keep the reserves as big as that of China? Or are the reserves thing a bottomless pit, can put in cannot take out? Or is it that there is really nothing left at the bottom of the pit?
 
Over three generations we, I used we because a big part of the reserves are the people’s own savings in the CPF, have squirreled quite a big sum of savings. Who is benefiting from these savings if the people contributing to it are not? At the rate the original Singaporeans are vanishing, the reserves would be benefiting foreigners that are being brought in by the millions and will be the main beneficiaries of our savings. The other main beneficiaries of our reserves are the millionaire fund managers getting paid by the millions. And the bigger the reserves, the bigger will be their appetite for risk and for more pay.
 
The other consideration will be that the sum is now quite huge and no one is so irresponsible to suggest spending them away. What the people are asking is to set aside some of the earnings to benefit the people. With the clever millionaire fund managers managing the reserves, the reserves should be growing every year and putting aside a sum to benefit the people would not deplete the reserves. I say again, no one is asking to spend everything, but just a part of the profits. Can understand this simple logic or not?
 
What is the truth? The reserves are actually the people’s CPF savings, or at least a big part of it. If they have problems returning the savings to the people andkept coming out with all kinds of schemes not to return, even to take by compulsory schemes, and keep telling people to put in more, you can make your guess whether there is enough money to return to the people. From this point, try to extrapolate how much is really there in the reserves.
 
The reserves are your money, not the govt’s savings or money, unless you believe one joker in Parliament claiming that the CPF is not your money and you deserve to be robbed of your life savings. Go and ask your MP and MP/Minister if the CPF is your money. If it is your money, then how much left are the reserves minus the CPF money and why you should not be benefiting from your savings but foreigners that are coming in to take over this country?
 
What do you think? I think they have a lot of money in the reserves. If not how to pay the fund managers tens of millions, some even wondered if some of the fund managers are being paid near to a hundred million. How near no one knows as their pay and bonuses are state secret. But surely if they can pay by the millions, the reserves sure got a lot of money.
 
Actually if they just put a few civil servants to park the reserves in FDs, safe and secure for 3% interest, there is no need to pay by the hundreds of millions to the fund managers and risk losing their pants and the reserves.
 
What do you think?

The Quad wants to build alternative Belt and Road to compete with China

The troublemaker Quad members, comprising USA, Japan, Australia and India are contemplating of building an alternative Belt and Road after failing to derail the Chinese Plan. Now from envy they are scratching their heads on how to build something to show that they too can think and plan. They are so clueless and hapless that they could only think of copying what China has done. And they claimed that they want to make it more efficient and economical. To do so, they must have the technology, the money and the cheap engineers. The only country that has the money is Japan. The US could print more fiat and useless banana currencies and hopefully they will still be in demand. Australia has no money and no technology. India could perhaps provide all the cheap engineers and labour.
 
So, what are they going to build, parallel roads and rails along side China’s leading to China? Or are they going to build roads to nowhere?
 
I can imagine that they will be building bridges instead as all the roads needed are covered by China’s Plan. What is the point of building all the roads and rails to India or Japan, definitely not to USA and Australia. What is there to buy or sell to India that needed such a grand plan? Perhaps they can build bridges, yes, build bridges across the Indian and Pacific Oceans to USA and India and Japan, from Australia.
 
Desperate men would come out with desperate measures and desperate plans. They forgot that the roads and rails would only be useful if there is trade and with buyers and sellers. China is the factory of the world, selling everything. And the rest of the world wants to buy and sell to China, the world’s biggest consumer market. Who cares about Australia and India? Who wants to buy from USA and Japan when they can buy the same thing cheaper from China, S Korea, and Taiwan?
 
The Quad is looking very comical. They can trade among themselves after they have built their bridge over troubled waters.

Budget - Generous govt giving angpows to the people

When people told me that when a govt is so desperate to scheme to keep the CPF savings from returning to the rightful owners, the poor people, and worse, even used compulsory schemes to take away the people’s life savings, it is a sign that the govt is really desperate, very short of money. Why, because the CPF savings are the people’s life savings, saved over a life time, it is SACRED. The CPF is different from the so called sacred cows. The money does not belong to the govt but the people, blood and sweat money, hard earned money.
 
Faced with this kind of logic, I must admit that I also agree with this assessment, that the govt is desperate. But after Heng Swee Kiat’s budget speech, I kinda change my mind a bit. I am very flicker minded and easily persuaded by good news. Now I am not sure. How can the govt be short of money when it has a budget surplus of $9.6b? This is real news from the main media, not fake news from the social media. And to support this fact that the govt has the money, it is going to give big angpows to the people. Everyone, oops, I think only citizens, they cannot be so silly to give to PRs, yes new citizens also will get this angpow as long as he/she is above 21.
 
The angpows are from $100 to $300, more for the lower income, ie less than $28,000 will get $300, $28,000 to $100,000 will get $200 and higher income will get $100. This is so generous, even millionaires will get $100 angpows. Where in the world got such generous govt? And more, there will also be enhancements to Edusave, housing grants as well.
 
I think in the next GE the percentage of votes for the PAP will go up to 80% or higher.
This is a budget of good news, a time for celebration. The 2% increase in GST will only kick in around 2012 or even 2015. Why? Because if the govt can make more money, like GIC and Temasek investments, then maybe no need to raise GST. See, better pray that the fund managers are good and lucky and make more profits. Maybe they should be encouraged to do well by paying them more bonuses in advance.
 
If not, the govt said, after prudent spending, saving and borrowing for infrastructure, there is still a gap. How big is this gap, I dunno. Not sure if the govt will continue to spend lavishly on big parties, on fake gardens, or F1s, on buying gold medals, on giving billions of dollars to educate foreign students? Not sure if there will be more schemes to spend the people’s life savings in the CPF.
 
In the meantime the govt is saying, have a prosperous new year with more angpows….when tomorrow comes, then see how. For you, with you and for everyone.

Heng ah, Huat ah!

If Singaporeans were to decide or elect their PM – Tharman it shall be

Below is an extract from a post about the curious case of a wildly popular politician by a Augustine Low posted in the TRE on Tharman.
 
“Tharman Shanmugaratnam is a one-of-a-kind politician. He has more ardent fans than any other. Netizens have long clamoured for him to be Prime Minister. Even critics of the PAP have heaped praise on him.
 
Yet Tharman never sought adulation. On the contrary he seemed discomfited by it and has done his best to deflect attention, protesting “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.”….
How cool is that – a poet and a David Bowie fan who became a Deputy Prime Minister?
 
The supremely smart and brainy side of Tharman is most apparent to people. He has a sterling record as Finance Minister and is the first Asian to chair the G-30 – a prestigious global body of top financial experts. He has also been named Finance Minister of the Year by Euromoney magazine.
 
For someone who is not attention-seeking or rhetoric-driven, who is in fact diffident at times, he actually has a great common touch and rapport with citizens. In the 2015 general election, Tharman outperformed all others, securing 79.3% of the votes for Jurong GRC….
 
In fact there are a surprising number of people who still harbour hopes of Tharman being Prime Minister. It may be wishful thinking. But it just goes to show that Singaporeans are not looking for sound and fury in their leader, for someone who is ever generous with promises. Rather, Singaporeans are dying for someone who is smart yet straight talking and sincere, and whose imperfections make him all the more human and relatable.”
 
If Singaporeans were to elect their PM, Tharman will win hands down. Unfortunately Singaporeans do not have this right to vote and elect a PM of their choice. The PAP elite, the inner circle, or is it one man, will decide who will be the PM of Singapore. Singaporeans have been living with this myth for a long time, that the electoral system allows them to elect the PM. No, never will they be allowed to choose or elect their PM. The PM is not the people’s choice, then, now and going forward under the current system.
 
In the same sense, Singaporeans did not and will not elect a President of their choice though they think they did. The system has excluded the people’s president and allowed the ruling govt to decide who the Singaporeans can elect as the president in a small pool of you know who.
 
But if providence would have its way, Tharman looks set to be the next PM. All the factors and schemings are working in his favour. The more they schemed the more likely Tharman would become the PM.

Contempt of Court?

Below are some discussions in the TRE regarding MPs writing to the courts. This issue was also reported in the main media. The discussions assumed that it was alright and an acceptable practice to write to the court on a pending case or a case under trial. Do these people understand the meaning of contempt of court?

What is contempt of court? To influence the judges to make decisions for or against the parties in a case. And knowing how sensitive and easily influenced are the judges even to social media, Shanmugam had warned the public not to anyhow write about a case when it is in court. Think about it, if the judges can be easily influenced by public opinions of nobodies in social media, not I say one, how much more would they be affected by letters from MPs or even ministers? (Personally I think the judges are highly trained professionals and with high integrity and would not be easily influenced by any Tom, Dick and Harry). Read below and form your own conclusion on the arrogance, ignorance and insensitivity of MPs writing to judges on a case.

And the party has no specific rules regarding writing to judges except a few words by LKY not to do so but nothing about writing to the judges is contempt of court! Is influencing the judges a contempt of court?

"Two weeks ago, High Court judge See Kee Oon questioned an appellant’s use of a letter from her MP Lam Pin Min (Sengkang West) to play down the offence she was convicted of. (Juz wondering? MP White Horse? Or spouse White Horse or grassroots tua kee?

Kee Chui, Minister and Chief Whip, was then quoted by ST as saying that the PAP has “no specific governing rules” on the sending of MP letters to the courts or other agencies or ministries.
A retired district judge, Mr Low Wee Ping, who was the Registrar of the Subordinate Courts and Supreme Court in the 1980s, in a letter to ST, said one Harry Lee had instructed all MPs, in writing, that they should not write such letters to the courts.

Mr Lee was also of the view that if the MP’s constituent resident perceived his sentence imposed by the court as lenient, he might attribute it solely to the MP’s letter, and, therefore, feel obligated or grateful to vote for the MP in an election wrote

Also

MPs approached by TODAY, such as West Coast GRC MP Patrick Tay, said they are aware of the “long-standing practice” for PAP MPs not to write to the courts on behalf of their constituents*."