Class vs Crass

For supreme irony, look no further than page 16 of today’s The New Paper (30 May) whose editors deserve a medal for placing Mamoudou Gassama’s heroic “Spider-Man” act side by side with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s decision to sell his story about his love child with an ex-aide.

For those who just got back from Mars, Mr Gassama is the young man whose daring rescue of a boy dangling from a Paris balcony was universally seen and applauded on the Internet. The 22-year-old Malian had scaled four storeys of an apartment block to pluck him to safety. For his selfless feat, Mr Gassama received an audience and a certificate and medal of bravery from French president Emmanuel Macron.  For those who have not been reading the papers, Mr Barnaby Joyce, 50, was forced to quit as DPM in February over his affair with his then media adviser Vikki Campion. He left his wife of 24 years after getting his mistress pregnant.

Just picture the irony. One is an illegal immigrant, the other a Deputy Prime Minister until recently. One risks detention - and loss of life - to save a boy with no thoughts of reward or fame. The other compounds his disgrace by accepting A$150,000 for a tell-all TV appearance for his act of infamy. In a line, one exudes class, the other exudes crass.

CareShield Life – A big black hole exposed. You save I spend

CareShield Life is the third compulsory insurance scheme that the people are forced to pay for by the govt. The two existing compulsory insurance schemes are the CPF Life and Medishield Life. Insurance schemes are useful as a form of protection to those that were hit by unforeseen events. They are the good to have things. But not many people can afford the luxury of paying for so many insurances.
 
Be clear about these three insurances. They are not govt schemes to help the people. They are govt schemes to compel the people to pay for insurances that many could not afford to. Insurance is a luxury for those who could afford them. Many are trying to make ends meet and cannot afford such luxuries. Forcing them to pay for such insurances is to force them to cut down on other expenses.
 
No one would say no to having insurance if they could afford them. It is a no brainer to as anyone if they need insurance or if they want these insurances. But it is not what they want but whether they can afford it. All these insurance premiums are going to make a bigger dent into the shrinking CPF savings of the people. And the sillies are pretending they did not know why the biggest savers in the whole world could not save enough for their retirement. They did know want to know why the savings are being depleted, robbed, stolen, while the people are saving as much as they could, much more than any human bean in the world.
 
What is the big black hole? The committee claimed to be stressed by difficult issues on whether people could afford to pay and whether the payout would be enough. But they forgot or conveniently refused to talk about the big black hole.
 
They do not want to tell you what would happen to the excess cumulated fund from these schemes. They did not want to tell you that these compulsory schemes are profit making in nature, not to help you but to make money from you, from your compulsory payment of premiums. For many years, the excess funds collected were in the billions, but conveniently kept by the govt.
 
If the main objective of these schemes is to help the people, they must not be profit making in nature. Excess funds must be rechanneled back to the people in the scheme to lower the premiums they are paying.
The main objective of these schemes are not so paternalistic, altruistic, but to make money from you. Period. This is the glaring big black hole. You think they are really so caring, thinking about helping you, like raising GST to help the poor? It is all about making profits from you, from your life savings, from your retirement fund. They are forcing the people to pay for schemes that they may not want to make profits from the people.
 
I withdraw everything I said about this profit making motive if the govt comes out to say that these are not profit making schemes and all excess funds collected would be ploughed back to the schemes to lower the burden of the people in lower the premiums they have to pay.
 
As for now, you save, they spend for you. And when you don't have enough for retirement they would say you must save more.

Singapore needs affirmative actions to protect jobs for its citizens

Below are some paragraphs of an article by Gilbert Goh, again narrating the plight of PMETs unable to find jobs in Singapore when most of the jobs are taken up by foreigners. The employment policies are against Singaporeans. No amount of sweet and silly talks and half baked measures would change this unless the traitors to Singaporeans are gotten rid of.

Read below to have a feel of what it is like to be a rejected Singaporean PMET in a place called home.

"“What’s the use of being a Singaporean, when your livelihood is not secured and you need to compete vigorously with others not born here for a piece of pie in your own turf?!”....

“Recruitors are looking at my age wondering if I will retire soon. They poke at my resume and many of the interviewers are not even Singaporeans!”
I told him that his line of work favours the Indians from India and that recruitors will in all likelihood prefers to hire foreigners as the recruitment fees involved will be much better than if they hire a local like him....

“During the recent London’s Singapore Day, Teo Chee Yuan has persuaded us to return home as the country needs us,” he retorted. “But it all looks like a farce now.”

Our Prime minister and his deputies have gone round the world to try and gather the 200,000-strong overseas Singaporeans together and possibly persuade some to return home but if what David faces is the real challenge many other returning Singaporeans will encounter then they may even want to do what David has seriously considered ie surrender their citizenship and completely cut ties with us....my heart goes out to David who is obviously disappointed that he is rejected by his own country when he returns home – full of promise by our deputy Prime Minister in the recent London’s Singapore Day."

From the above a few things could be done to save the day for Singaporeans if the govt is serious.

1. All HR managers must be Singaporeans, or at least all govt and govt link companies, including stats boards and most important, the staff in MOM must be Singaporeans.
2. No more foreign recruitment agencies except recruiting for MNCs.
3. A temporary freeze on foreign hires and all requests should be channeled to MOM. The people in MOM must be Singaporeans and with a specific brief not to approve foreign hires until all qualified Singaporeans have been seen. A word of caution here, many job requirements are tailored to suit foreigners but not necessary in the job must be filtered out.
4. All CEOs of govt ministries, stats boards and GLCs must be called up to do national service in the employment of Singaporeans first.

There are many other things that can be done before this country is taken over by foreigners.

But there is only one answer to the plight of daft Singaporeans that continue to vote for a govt that pays them lip service but keep on importing foreigners to replace them. Tan ku ku.

Tharman is right - Conversion of reserves

 DPM Tharman once told Parliament that drawing down past reserves was “in essence a conversion of past reserves from one form (financial assets) to another (state land), rather than a drawdown of reserves”.


The above was quoted by Phillip Ang in his latest article on the drawing down of national reserves. In his article Phillip argued that a drawdown is a drawdown. A drawdown of $X billion of cash from the reserves means that this $X billion will be minus from the national reserves, thus the reserves will be lesser by this amount. But according to Tharman's explanation, the drawdown is actually a conversion of one form of reserves to another form, from cash to assets.

Now who is right? Look at this definition on the nation's reserves and the answer is quite clear.

Definition. The Constitution of Singapore defines reserves as “the excess of assets over liabilities of the Government, statutory board or Government company”.  The reserves comprise financial assets such as cash and shares as well as physical assets like land and buildings.

Clear? Tharman is absolutely right in this case. Drawing down the reserves to convert them into assets did not reduce the nation's reserves as many idiots in Parliament believed to be so. And as such they are so scare to touch the reserves as it would be a drawdown on the reserves, a frightening thing to do. Now would Tharman do the honour to educate the ignorant boys and girls in Parliament that they are wrong and stop behaving so stupidily talking without knowing what they were talking about? 

The conversion of cash reserves is not necessary a depletion of the reserves if the reserves are used to build assets that appreciate in value or could make more profits than the reserves lying inactive as cash and earning a miserable 1% interest. Or worse, if the cash are used in gambling aka investment and loses every cent of it. Converting cash in national reserves into valuable money making assets that make greater returns is not drawing down on the reserves.

The call to draw down the reserves to build T5 and Tuas mega port cannot be a drawdown on the reserves unless these are airy fairy schemes that would lose money. In that case these two white elephants should not be built at all, and the people should not be taxed unnecessary, the govt should not recklessly go around borrowing money to build white elephants. Does anyone disagree that the T5 and Tuas mega port are credible and worthy projects that would appreciate in value and bring in more profits or returns for the money spent? Oops, not money spent but cash reserves converted into asset reserves? If they believe that theses are worthy projects, then what is the problem? Why park the reserves as cash to be used in funny investments that only lose in the hundreds of millions or billions when projects like these could bring in more profits and beneficial to the country? Why defend the using or touching of the reserves so fiercely? Is there other reasons to do so that the people do not know about the state of the reserves?

If Tharman is right, all the nonsense being spouted in Parliament must made the speakers looked silly and they should rightly call for the drawdown of the national reserves to be converted to good money making assets as it would not draw down the reserves. Tiok boh? 

All the fools in Parliament defending the drawing down of national reserves to build T5 and Tuas on the false premise that it would draw down the reserves, please kee chiu.

The hysterical and dumbfounded defense of the national reserves from being drawn down is likely to have more unspeakable reasons for doing so, as it is crystal clear that conversion of national reserves into good assets is not a drawdown. It is a plus thing, a positive thing.

ElderShield - Do no evil

My apologies, I forgot where I copied this from, probably TOC or TREmeritus. Could also be from the main media.

The #ElderShield Review Committee (ESRC) shared their interim recommendations today, after getting feedback from more than 800 #Singaporeans from all walks of life over 26 focus group sessions. To help Singaporeans prepare for their long term care needs, the Committee has recommended that the enhanced ElderShield should be a universal and inclusive scheme for cohorts aged 40 and below when the scheme takes effect. Policyholders will join the scheme from age 30 so they can spread their premiums over a longer period while they are working, to enjoy lifetime coverage after they have grown old and retired. At the start of the enhanced ElderShield scheme, those aged between 31 and 40 will be included as these cohorts are not covered by the existing ElderShield 400 scheme. The ESRC further recommended that the enhanced scheme be administered by the Government as a key pillar of our social safety net. The Committee has also made some useful recommendations on how to make the claims process more accessible and convenient for policyholders and their caregivers.

I welcome the Committee’s interim recommendations. The enhanced ElderShield will enable Singaporeans to pool our risks and resources in preparation for old age, when one faces higher risks of becoming severely disabled. It is an important pillar of #Singapore’s social safety net as our society ages. The Government will look at providing premiums subsidies to keep the premiums affordable for lower and middle-income Singaporeans. This reflects our values in building an inclusive society, where we help and care for one another.
I thank Mr Chaly Mah and the ESRC members for their hard work in engaging different groups of stakeholders and developing their recommendations. We look forward to receiving the Committee’s final recommendations by the middle of this year. -- Hong Tat


I just have one word for these young punks. Do no evil. Stealing the people's life savings without their permission is a very evil thing no matter how it is cloaked or disguised. Remember, retribution will come, it is a matter of when, not if. Look at what is happening to Najib and his cronies and learn to be sincere, honest and really care for the people.

Do not steal the people's life savings. It is their money, they earned by their sweat, blood and tears.

Any govt that have designs on the people's life savings and started to steal the people's life savings has lost its moral authority to rule. The mandate of heaven would soon be taken away from them. Malaysia is a case in point. And many of the accomplices of crimes against the people would be brought to justice and live in shame when the day arrives.