Mahathir waves his magic wan and saves RM3 billion

This is a feat no economists or finance ministers can do, not even the US Treasury. What did Mahathir do to save so much money for Malaysia in so short a time? He cancelled 3 mega projects, building high speed trains and ports that he deemed are useless projects that would not benefit Malaysia. Now with such a great achievement, the Malaysian govt would have more money to proceed on his pet projects and the hot favourite is the very important and beneficial crooked bridge. This bridge is going to be his star and his legacy that was struck down by the two previous PMs as nonsensical, building a very expensive bridge to replace the efficient and low maintenance causeway.
 
His next big project is his Proton Saga, a moribund car that was going no where after several decades of production. Nothing in the car was made in Malaysia except maybe the rubber mat and the tyres. Now that the company has been literally sold and put an end to his legacy, he needs another car to keep his legacy alive. His dream of a Malaysian car is still alive. But how much of this car is going to be made in Malaysia? How about starting to build a car engine or buy one from another car manufacturer? A good suggestion would be to buy over the engine that Habibie built for his defunct locally built aircraft. I am presuming that the Indonesians built that engine and not bought from somewhere and only designed the body of the aircraft.
How much of a national car if the main engine of the car is not made in Malaysia? What is the point of building a national car that is anything but national or domestically produced and built? Did they build anything in the first Proton Saga that Malaysia can claim as made in Malaysia?
 
I remember there is another pet project mooted by Mahathir, the bridge to Sumatra, Indonesia. This may cost less than the 3 mega projects he cancelled and probably would have better economic value. And now that he has the money, this bridge idea could be revived.
 
Malaysia needs some big infrastructure projects to keep the economy going. Maybe Mahathir could buy over the factory building trains in KL. With the high speed train projects cancelled, there is now no reason for China to keep this factory operating in Malaysia. There is no demand for its trains. When the Japanese take over the high speed train projects, they would be using Japanese trains. Mahathir may be able to buy the Chinese train plant on the cheap, at a steep discount, fire sale. The price could be very attractive, and it can become a national project, Made in Malaysia trains, just the rolling stocks, without the rest of the rails and rail system. This is a factory ready for a takeover as the owners would be planning to close down its operation in Malaysia.
 
There are many possibilities for Mahathir given the money he created from his great savings by cancelling the mega projects.

Singapore ministers can learn a lot from Mahathir in how to save public fund and not thinking of wasting on mega projects.

Singapore Harapan - A new chapter in the making

Lee and Lee or Lee versus Lee
 
Singaporeans have grown up with the familiar Lee and Lee combination. Other sub sets are Lee and Kua or Lee and Ho. Today a new combination is in the making, Lee versus Lee. Even with the family dispute coming into the open, no Singaporean could envisage the possibility of a Lee versus Lee in the political arena.
 
Over the weekend this Lee versus Lee combination is looking like a possibility. It was all over the social media that Cheng Bok had a breakfast meeting, or having breakfast with Hsien Yang in West Coast hawker centre. Wasn’t Hsien Yang in self exiled in HongKong? Not really. I have seen him the MBFC area a couple of times. Hsien Yang is free to move in and out of Singapore though his residence could be in HongKong for the time being.
 
The breakfast with Cheng Bock is stirring a lot of speculation that Hsien Yang, the reluctant political candidate, may be having second thought, that he has to enter the ring for many reasons, personal or otherwise. It is no sheer coincidence or unplanned for Cheng Bock to be seen together with Hsien Yang. And this meeting was meant to be made public, to give notice that things are happening, maybe to gauge the response from the public of such a possibility.
 
Yes, it is like sending out a test balloon, no offence right? So far the reaction from the social media has been quite encouraging. A Singapore Harapan needs strong personalities to carry it. Cheng Bock alone may not be enough. Hsien Yang could lend some weight though he has not been a political entity before. If he does get into the ring, at least it would cause a mini tsunami. People would definitely feel uneasy. For one thing, it is tough to sue such a Lee in court or calling him liar or demeaning terms freely like attacking other opposition candidates. He is no push over and has the finances to take on what comes may. He is a political pedigree. Hitting him is like taking a punch at Lee Kuan Yew.
 
Would the people welcome a Lee versus Lee in the next GE? Would the people be comfortable with another Lee potential PM in the making albeit coming from another corner, to challenge the sitting Lee in another corner, maybe to be the disruptive force of change that is sorely needed in a moribund and out of touch political machinery that has taken the people for granted and doing what it chose to do, ignoring the concerns and plight of the people. This is a Lee that is also a chip off the old block but with a totally different perspective of what is good for the people and country. This is a Lee that is not PAP, never a PAP (I think) and now may be taking on the PAP. OK, OK, there is PAP blood running through his veins.
 
When the time comes for change, the change agents would appear on the scene in the most awkward and unthinkable form, from unexpected quarters. GE 2019/20 is looking quite interesting from this development. The reluctant candidate has appeared. Think more unforeseen events can be expected before the GE. Would more able and brave men and women stand up and cross over to the Singapore Harapan? When this happens, Singaporeans would see a formidable and credible opposition front to take over the govt.

Today is Deepavali, festival of light. Singapore needs more light to lit up the darkness. Happy Deepavali to everyone and a brighter Singapore.

Go Jek going to operate in Singapore’s tiny market

The Singapore market, be it taxi driving or mobile phone, is really a very small market. Once you have two or 3 players, it would be saturated with the market share split by the few players. Why would Go Jek be so keen to enter the market after Uber and Grab, that have already been acquired? The answer is in the mobile phone business model. There was once only one operator with 100 percent market share. Then they opened up the market under the so called open leg policy, liberalization, to allow Uber and Grab to come in, in the mobile phone market they allowed M1 and Starhub to come in. And as expected, the market share was split.
 
The once only one operator then strangely realized that its market share was diluted by the new operators. This was bad and it needed to regain its market share, the whole market share. So what should it do? Buy up the new operators offering them a Singapore Premium to divest their investment in Singapore. And lo behold, the only one operator now had regained all its market share again, albeit after coughing out hundreds of millions of OPM. And the new operators took their prize money, pat their backsides, and laughed all the way to the bank.
 
Go Jek is jumping in, likely to follow this same successful formula. All it needs is to gain market share, even if at a loss. It would only need to hold on for a few years for the one and only operator to wake up to realize that its market share has been diluted again. And in panic mode it would decide to buy up Go Jek at a premium. And Go Jek would happily give up everything to exit the market, with a huge Singapore Premium. The only and only operator would again have the whole market share.
 
Why is this possible? Very simple. When one is holding a lot of OPM and needs to invest to be seen to do something, and if one has no idea on how to start a business, the easiest and most convenient way to show some results is to buy up another apparently successful company with a tested business model. The Singapore entrepreneurial story is about buying businesses without having to start one. It is not easy to start a new business and to be profitable when one has no idea how to start a business, without any business experience except some text book knowledge or knowledge from irrelevant industries or occupation.
 
After Uber and Grab, here comes Go Jek. And soon Go Jek will come to pass. And Go Jek will not be the last corporate raider in this sense. Many will come, to set up companies waiting to be bought over. Any company will do, no need high tech or high thinking. Kopitiam also can. The next target will be the share bike business. Some clever business entrepreneurs without entrepreneurial experience are eagerly waiting on the sideline, waiting for the right moment to buy up the bike sharing business, and pay the standard Singapore Premium to go with it. And the bike sharing companies could happily exit the market and laugh all the way to the bank, pocketing the OPM that has no owners.
 
This is Singapore’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial business model to buy and run a business.
 
Why invite outsiders to come in to steal a market share and then to buy it back?

North Korean officials preyed on women with impunity

This is headline news reported by AFP quoting a righteous Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth. Is this guy an American? Did he read the news about American officials, including the President and a Supreme Court judge and several top officials in the White House groping and attacking women, raping, and getting away with impunity? Compare their acts with the North Koreans, what is the difference and which is more newsworthy or disgusting?
 
Kenneth Roth also accused the North Koreans of treating their women like ‘sex toys’. Mmmm, is this Roth a descendant of slave American slave owners? Did he know that treating women like sex toys in the good old days of black African slavery was par on course? Did he know that a white guest to a white slave owner’s home would be invited to have his pick of the slave girls in the chicken farm in the backyard?
 
He added with details, ‘Every night, a prison guard would open the cell. I stood still quietly, acting like I didn’t notice, hoping it wouldn’t be me.’ Wow, so dramatic. What would he think a slave girl would say in the dark days of American slavery? Let me try to remember, how about, ‘Every night, the master would open the cell. I stood still quietly, acting like I didn’t notice, hoping it wouldn’t be me.’ Is this familiar, or he has conveniently forgotten? These are words that this Kenneth Roth have quoted from the movie 'Roots'.
 
The evilest creatures on earth, capturing Afrikaans as slaves, treated them like animals country wide, continent wide, massacring millions of native Americans to near extinction, today walking around in white robes to condemn others as the evil ones, and they are the angels of Gods. Everyone is evil and bad, the Americans are the good guys.
 
Kenneth Roth also quoted this with glee. ‘North Korean women would probably say “Me Too” if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices are silenced in Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship.’ How many American women that stood up to expose the sexual attacks by American top officials would also say “Me too”?
 
How many black women, many long dead and gone, would also say “Me Too” if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices were silenced in the American white conspiracy or dictatorship, the land of the free only for the whites?
 
It is a lie, it never happen in America, the land of the free, liberty and the land of human rights abuses. Oops, no human rights abuses, definitely no abuses of the white Americans. What about black Americans? Latinos, Spaniards and Asians?
 
This is the kind of smear campaign the West has been indulging for centuries against Asians and the rest of the world, attacking them, badmouthing them, to divert attention from their evilness and wicked deeds. The millions of people they have killed in the Middle East and other parts of the world would not be spoken. No crimes against humanity, but any small things happening in other countries, they would accuse them of crimes against humanity.

National Games 2018 - Masters 4x100m 65-74

A friend forwarded this video to me. He also did not know who shot it and I could not give credit to the videographer.  RB is the last runner in the inner lane. The first runner in my team was Tan Nam Chong, second runner Jeffrey Boh and third runner was Cheong Seng Quee, my primary school classmate.