Singapore National Games -Athletics

I ran for the Masters 100m men 65-69 years last Saturday at the Homes of Athletics next to the National Stadium. The afternoon heat was intense and quite unbearable for everyone.  Next Sunday I will run in the 4x100m relay at Bishan Stadium. Hope it rains a little or be cloudy with temperature a little more bearable. At 2.30pm, the heat is at its peak.

Other than the oldies, many primary school kids were also participating in the National Games and subjected to the same gruelling heat. I have written to the organisers to hold the games in the evening at least for the kids and the oldies. Imagine the runners were in their 60s, 70s and 80s, and children as young as 8 or 9 years old.  This is inexcusable if some of the very young or very old runners suffered from heat strokes.

Tan Cheng Bock and the birth of Singapore Harapan

This is the biggest piece of political news that surfaced over the weekend. SDP's Chee Soon Juan had rounded up the opposition parties to a meeting that sowed the seed of a united front against the PAP in the shades of Pakatan Harapan. For decades the Singapore opposition parties have been divided and factionalised into different tiny ineffective parties fighting hopelessly against the mammoth PAP machine. The quest was quite hopeless and very amusing if not silly to see them banging their heads against the wall. It was foolish and futile but they kept going at it as if a miracle will happen to change their fate.

The trumping of UMNO in Malaysia led by a 92 year old ex PM has been an eye opener to the conceited and hopeless party leaders of Singapore, like a mirror being held right in their faces to show their folly. It took Chee Soon Juan, the man that has been demolished and character assassinated as a lone ranger, fighting just for his own personal cause, to step up to dispel this myth. No other opposition party leaders was selfless enough to make this move, to bring in a third party in the name of Tan Cheng Bock, to unite the frail and fractured opposition parties together for a common cause, to bring down the PAP.  This move alone tells a lot about Chee Soon Juan, the man that they did not know or told to believe as otherwise. The real spoilt sport, those that would not want to be a team player, those who have selfish agenda, would not think of coming together in an alliance to be a real political force to be reckon with.

Tan Cheng Bock may not be a Mahathir, but he has enough respect from the people, conviction and commitment to do the necessary for the good of Singapore and the future of Singaporeans. It takes a lot of guts and conviction to want to do something like this, to bring down the ruling party, a once mighty political party that had done good for the country and people in the first few decades of its exixtencwe. Things must have gone very badly wrong for  an ex PAP stalwart to want to stand up to his old party that he once believed was the force of goodness.

The fear is gone. Tan Cheng Bock has taken a bold step that no ex PAP MPs or ministers dare to tread. The line is broken and hopefully this would encourage more ex PAP members to join the queue in this Harapan to do what is right. Many must have seen the rot and are fuming but for one reason or another, chose to remain in the dark corners of anonymity wallowing in self pity. The robbing of the people must be stopped. The selling out of Singaporeans to foreigners must be stopped. PRs are just passing by and will go when the time is right. Cheng Bock has lighted a match to show the way. It is time to make a difference, to do what they believe is right and good for Singapore and Singaporeans, not for locals and foreigners that are not Singaporeans.

Now where is that Chok Tong and his gang? Would he think or deem that it is time to join forces with Cheng Bock and the opposition before it is too late, before it is all over? All the ex MPs and current MPs that can sense a sinking boat should decide to abandon ship before it is too late like in Malaysia.

The seed for an uprising in the politics of Singapore has been planted on 28 Jul 18. It needs to be watered and nurtured to be kept alive and live another day. This is the hope, the day that all Singaporeans are quietly waiting for. Let not the light be snuffed out before it lives to see another day.

Singaporeans need a Singapore Harapan, not a local or foreigner infested Harapan to lead Singapore and Singaporeans to a better tomorrow.

PS. The parties that were present were Singapore Democratic Party, the People’s Power Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, the Reform Party, the National Solidarity Party, the Singaporeans First Party and the  People’s Voice Party. All the major opposition parties were invited.

Young men favourable to Police BMWs

Over heard some young men talking about their intent to apply to join the Traffic Police for the simple reason to be able to drive around in BMWs.  Driving such nice and high performance cars in this island when car ownership is increasing becoming a dream, the opportunity to drive BMWs is definitely very attractive and alluring. The Police should capitalise on this new acquisition in their recruitment drive for more traffic police officers. They used to be content to drive around in high performance but relatively cheaper Subarus which were great cars to drive. Now with BMWs, it would be ooh la la. And the officers would be very on the ball, driving the BMWs 24/7 on the road. It is like it is a pleasure to work. The person who recommended the BMWs must be rewarded for such a great idea, work with pleasure and pride. But don't get carried away and ask for Ferraris or Lambos.

This is a positive trend for a super rich city state with all the best superstructure and carefully crafted environment. The BMWs, like the expensive office chairs and Brompton bikes costing thousands of dollars would fit in nicely to give a classy and expensive image of economic progress and success.

Just a few decades ago, govt offices were the rundown buildings left behind by the colonial masters and with iron cabinets and aged wooden furniture. Today all govt offices are not only modern and well designed but also sensibly furnished to complete the picture of a first world country. The only outlandish or out of place 'furniture' in this first world city state is the walking populace from the third world and their third world behaviour that are fast catching on with the locals. Many parts of the manicured city states are taking a likeness to third world neglected corners of their countries.

Would they be thinking of Harley Davidson to replace the current batch of Japanese bikes for the mobile traffic police? If they do that, the Police Recruitment office would have a long queue of applicants waiting to join the force.

Nice. Singapore is living up to it as a rich nation. Got money must spend. If not like CPF, keep long long for what, keep until mati? Luckily got smart govt to teach the people to spend by having more compulsory insurance schemes. Don't spend also cannot.

Malaysia heading for big big trouble

With Mahathir returning to rule Malaysia and the nonsense he is spouting, the projects he is tearing apart, Malaysia is going to face more troubles than expected. But what Mahathir is going to do to harm Malaysia is nothing if he knows the deck of cards in his hand.

Look at the USA and what Donald Trump is doing or undoing to the treaties, agreements, ties and alliances built over the decades of the American Empire. Get the clue? Donald Trump is a greenhorn in politics, no experience in running a country! And he is leading America to self destruct in the name of making America great again. He just does not know what he is doing. Running a business empire is totally different from running a country. You need people with experience running a country to run a country, or at least some experience in running a town council to start with to run a country. Trump did not have any of these experiences to fall back on.

In Malaysia, only two persons have experience in running a country, in Mahathir and Lim Eng Guan. Mahathir ironically is the only one of two experienced politicians that have the required experience to run a country. The rest of the ministers and MPs are 'bodoh' or ignoramous, in Singapore's definition, with no experience in running a govt. Definitely they have no experience in even running town councils.

See, how can the Malaysian govt ever think of running the country well when nearly all the ministers and MPs have kosong experience to do so? They will be eaten up by the very experienced Singapore ministers and MPs, all very well trained, from being apprentices to being managers of town councils.

I would recommend that Mahathir send his ministers and MPs to Singapore to understudy the experienced politicians here and learn from them on how to run a govt efficiently.  There are many tricks they could learn from the Singapore politicians, like how to raise taxes indiscriminately, oops, I mean cleverly, with clever excuses until the people willingly pay and would not protest. The Malaysian govt can be very rich by increasing the water fees giving the same reasons as Singapore gave to the people, to teach them the value of strategic assets. 3c can sell $1. Or the equally clever sugar tax. Heard of that? Malaysia would have all the money to pay for all the infrastructures with these taxes. No need to delay the HSR and all the mega projects. There is another big area that the Malaysian ministers and MPs can learn from Singapore, the people's nest eggs in the EPF. That is a pot of gold waiting to be harvest. If they still did not know what I mean, just think insurance schemes for the people, to help the people, for the good of the people. The trick is 'compulsory'.

There are really many many good things that the Malaysian greenhorn no experience ministers and MPs can learn from Singapore. And all of them would become instant knows all of everything, become super talent. Oops, they may also ask for million dollar salary to keep them from being corrupt. And Malaysia will be corruption free. Sui boh? Mahathir better work fast to send them here for training before they failed badly and ruin the country before the next election. Talking about election, they can also learn from their experienced Singapore counterparts on how to win and win elections despite all the controversial policies and taxes and fee hikes. See, experienced politicians can do a lot of things and get away with it with no protest or uprising from the people.

Knowing that Mahathir has his pride, he will definitely not want to send his ministers and MPs to learn from Singapore and Malaysia will surely get into big big trouble. How can people with no experience in running a town councils or govt be allowed to run a country? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

PS. Maybe for a start Singapore can lend them a few of our top ministers to raise taxes and introduce insurance schemes using the EPF funds.

Silver lining for Singapore Stock Exchange

The light of the dying stock market is getting dimmer as days go by with better quality stocks finding it meaningless to remain in the exchange and getting themselves delisted. On the other hand, good companies/stocks would find listing in other stock markets more effective to serve their needs. The SGX is now one of the smaller exchanges in Asia, even smaller than neighbouring exchanges of Asean countries.
Broking houses are finding it hard to hold on to their remisiers and remisiers are leaving the industry almost daily. The strength of remisiers is almost half of what it used to be during its heyday. And there is no light at the end of the dark tunnel. There is pessimism and resignation in the air.
 
But all is not lost. In moments of despair a silver lining has appeared that may give some hope to those still clinging to a dying industry. The SGX is trying its best to revive the market with all kinds of things, looking clueless as to the real causes of its impending demise. The latest is to link up with other exchanges where the better companies chose to list to share a bit of their good fortune. However, this effort is not looking too promising as good exchanges would not want to waste time tying up with unpromising exchanges. Anyway, if good exchanges are not willing to tie up, any exchange will do as long as they are called stock exchange. Never mind the quality and substance as long as there is some form resembling a stock exchange.
 
The best hope to get more listings in the SGX lies in the super SMEs, like super penny stocks. This comes in the form of hawker stalls, foodcourts and restaurants where there is now a new buzz with the stalls gaining better image and business from Michelin. Many stalls and restaurants are now awarded the world famous Michelin star or stars as recognition of the quality of their products. With the Michelin star/stars decorating the stalls and restaurants, they would make good potential candidates for listing in the stock exchange. And with so many of them gaining more stars, maybe the SGX could set up a board, a third mini board, just for hawker stalls and restaurants with Michelin stars. There should be a few hundred such establishments out there eager to be listed in the stock exchange and to go international.
 
There is a glimmer of hope that the stock exchange would not die so fast with this new blood of Michelin stars. Say a big thank you to Michelin stars and hawker stalls. The future of the stock exchange can shining like the Michelin stars.
 
Outram Park Char Kway Teow can start the ball rolling. IPO managers, quick, hunt them down.