Trump threatens to obliterate the Turkish economy

‘I’ve done before’. Trump tweeted after threatening to destroy the economy of Turkey ‘if Ankara takes a planned military strike in Syria.’ This rogue Empire is destroying the economies of many countries and their people by economic sanctions and threats of war. Now it is Turkey’s turn, once a closed ally of the Evil Empire, now being treated as an enemy for not wanting to do the dirty works of the Empire, for not wanting to buy American weapons and buying Russian weapons.
 
What is Turkey’s crime for inviting this threat from the Evil Empire? The Empire has been fostering and feeding and arming Kurdish rebels in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime but pretended to be fighting the ISIS. Now that the Empire has lost the Syria war, there is no need for any more pretences, no need to keep feeding the Kurds that were being beaten to the point of being useless against Assad. It is time to pull back the American Special Forces attached to these rebels and terrorist groups. But the Kurds were not only a terrorist group to the Syrian govt but also to the Turkish govt. Both would not tolerate their existence in the Syrian Turkish border to do harm to either country.
 
Erdogan is determined to wipe out these groups before they become a bigger threat to Turkey. The Americans would not allow these as they were their war babies, trained, financed and armed to do mischief in Syria and the Middle East region. They would not allow anyone to harm their poodles if they could help it. So here comes the threat against the Turkish govt.
 
Would Erdogan relent and cower under the threat of the Evil Empire? Would the Americans dare to commit military forces and start a war with the Turks, now protected and sided with the Russians? The Americans have found that they are no match to Putin and his men in Syria. Turkey is even more difficult as it is far more heavily armed than Syria. The Trump threat would be as good as blowing with the wind. Yes economic sanction is the only way for the Americans like they did to North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. But Turkey is still a Nato member. This would be tricky for the Evil Empire. Turkey controls the strategic points in the Middle East and European countries can least offend Turkey with economic sanctions imposed by the Americans.
 
This could be a bridge too far for the Evil Empire.
 
Another truth is starting to come out from this American withdrawal. The Kurdish terrorist groups under the false flag name of Syrian Democratic Force is threatening the Turkish govt that any attack on them would resurrect the ISIS movement. Why? Because they are the ISIS but put on a different uniform under the American Special Forces control. Once attacked by the Turkish govt forces, they would put on ISIS uniform again and fight as ISIS. The so called caliphate is there under the protection of the Evil Empire and waiting to start another war with whoever the Americans want to destroy. This is the very reason why the Americans are adamant about protecting this SDF, ie ISIS in disguise.

The delusional Hongkongers

First they protest about the extradition bill, claiming that China is a lawless country and they were fearing for their lives should this bill be passed and when they committed crimes they could be sent to China, to be trialed in China, a communist system, an authoritarian system that would not give them a fair trial, would abuse their human rights. Is China more lawless or Hong Kong today, after the continuous rioting and vandalism on the streets, the beating up of innocent people and police by the Hong Kong mobs?
 
Then they demanded for the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong’s SAR, Carrie Lam. Then they wanted Hong Kong to be run as a different country, full universal suffrage, western democracy as if Hong Kong is a state that is on its own, nothing to do with China, China has no rights or authority over Hong Kong. Now they want independence, to have Hong Kong to themselves, breaking away from mainland China. A couple of millions of Hongkongers wanting to tell 1.4b Chinese and China that they want to take Hong Kong away as a separate entity!
 
As the weak Hong Kong govt fails to put down the rioting and vandalism on the streets of Hong Kong, the Hongkongers are embolden. They are starting to believe that the Hong Kong govt and China are hapless and helpless against them, that they are fearless and could run wild and wrestle Hong Kong away from China. China is so weak and would buckle under international pressure to let Hong Kong free as an independent state with a political system that is contrary to China and posing a threat to China as an alternative system, they believe and think they could do it.
 
Lately, the arrogance of false pride of the Hongkongers have gone a level higher. They are starting to exhibit a kind of superiority complex over mainland Chinese, ridiculing them, insulting them and even attacking them physically. Not only were the offices of Hong Kong govt being attacked, vandalized and burnt, they are now attacking Chinese businesses and the offices of Beijing in Hong Kong, and the latest, attacking the barracks of PLA troops. They are beating mainland Chinese on the streets. These silly Hongkongers did not know what it is like to incur the wrath of 1.4b mainland Chinese. They would be the ultimate punching bag when China decides to let them have it.
 
The Hongkongers think they are different from mainland Chinese, they are not Chinese, and telling the mainland Chinese in Hong Kong to go back to China in a derogatory way. They looked down on the mainland Chinese, despised the mainland Chinese, thinking that they are superior to them and did not want to have anything to do with them.
 
They have forgotten that their good fortune was a result of China and mainland Chinese. They did not know, or refused to know that their food, water and almost everything came from China. They think they are so clever that they can continue to prosper without China and mainland Chinese. Such insanity or stupidity cannot be cured sickness is unbelieveable in a people that is wholly dependent on China and mainland Chinese for their survival. They did not know that in the last 20 plus years, the mainland Chinese have overtaken them, surpassed them in almost everything. There are still many relatively poorer Chinese that came from the villages or less developed part of China. But the mainland Chinese living in the big cities are richer, wealthier and more sophisticated than them in many ways.
 
The Hongkongers are still burying their heads in the sand thinking that China is a backward country and mainland Chinese are poor country bumpkins. If they keep burying their heads in the sand, they would not know when they would be overtaken and replaced by the mainland Chinese. Their shortsightedness and false confidence and silly pride in themselves would soon come to pass and they would regret for their foolishness in a fast changing world and a fast changing China and Chinese people. How many more days can they dream that they are really superior to the mainland Chinese?
 
Their contempt and hatred for mainland Chinese and China would be their sin to reckon with. China was able to lock down Xinjiang and contain the terrorist acts of separatist movements in that region. It is so easy for China to lock down Hong Kong the way it locked down Xinjiang should it decide to do so.
 
Where can the Hongkongers run when China and the mainland Chinese decide that it is time to drive them out of Hong Kong? Even Li Ka Shing is making plans to leave Hong Kong and likely to end up as second class citizen in some western countries, with a lot of money but rootless, country less, living a meaningless existence. Many Hongkongers are going to end up this way, uprooted from their homes, from their motherland, to become non entities in some far away countries they could not called home.

Education, solving one problem but creating more problems

'I said that the underlying problem is that the education system aims to pick the top students for the top secondary school and later for scholarships to prestigious overseas universities.

If the reward is set at a high level, parents will continue to do the best that they can to make sure that their children become top students. The children from wealthy families will continue to get the advantage. Those from poorer families will be disadvantaged.

To get rid of this competition, we have to stop identifying the top students. We should only look for students who passed and those who failed. In each cohort, about 90% should pass in each year.'

The above quotes are from Tan Kin Lian in his article posted in TRE offering his solution to what he saw as Ong Ye Kung's inability to solve any problem with his new changes. According to Tan Kin Lian, the problem with Singapore's education is the focus to pick top students to be offered scholarships to the best universities in the world. I differ. Anyway this is what Tan Kin Lian wanted to avoid. So, Ong Ye Kung's new solution did not do away with identifying and selecting the best students.

Tan Kin Lian's solution, make schools produced students with pass or fail grades, get rid of competition. If this is introduced, parents and students do not need to compete with each other and would lead to less stress and maybe everyone passed. I think all of you would have a lot to say about Tan Kin Lian's proposal to solve the education angst of Singapore parents and students.

I just want to point out one fake reality.  Many countries are churning out perfect score students just for their students to look better and can compete better with other countries' students. Also many half baked students and half baked universities are getting first class grades by hook or by crook, fake or real never mind, especially when they come to Singapore. Singapore would accept anything as real on printed paper as they have no means or intelligence to check their validity. Singapore has degraded to the point that they did not even bother about having a degree to qualify for a job as long as the fake can do the job.

So how are our students with only pass grades going to compete with the real and the fakes with A grades? I am sure Tan Kin Lian did not consider this yet. We already have millions of fakes descending here and taking away good jobs from our Singaporeans. The situation can only get worse if our students merely have a pass grade or average grades from the schools, polys or unis. But this may not be a problem as the most desirable jobs for Singaporeans today are hawkers, Grab drivers and part time jobs, all does not require a degree.

What do you think?

Bestest solution to haze problem - Collect more money

Can't believe that this annual haze hazard is so difficult to solve. Every year the ministers would be pulling their hair trying to talk to one another to keep the haze at bay but failed miserably. No one seems to have any clue about how to kill this problem once for all, or at least cut down the severity. Millions of people from all the surrounding countries, including those from Indonesia, are suffering but could not do anything about it. The Indonesian govt too is clueless and hapless. The cleverest govt among the Asean countries also could only talk talk and talk talk but no result.

Th Indonesian govt has come up with many laws to charge, fine and imprison the culprits but all seems to fail or ineffective. A 10 billion rupiah fine for a fire starter also did not work as often they could not find enough evidence to pin on the culprit which is a real and practical problem.

Actually the solution to this problem is so simple. It is not necessary to go after the fire starter but the owners of the land where the fire is. This one it is easy to prove and with the fire as the evidence.  No need to find a fire starter or how he did it. And just do it like the way they dealt with Singaporeans. Hit their pockets real hard. Pay for burning and creating haze that harm people of all the affected countries. Why not? Why can't the Indonesian govt just imposed heavy monetary fines on the companies that caused the haze, like $10,000 for every fire detected by satellite and confirmed by ground checks. If $10,000 is not enough make it $20,000 or more until it hurts. 100 fires would mean $1m in fines or a multiple. The details can be easily worked out. And it is money not just for the Indonesian govt but also for the officers monitoring the fire. The law enforcers would have the fund to pay for their staff and equipment, good well paying jobs. Everyone would be happy except the fire starters and the companies behind them.

There will be problems like starting fire to claim or extort companies for under table money. The companies that have to pay would have to make sure that fire would not be started by saboteurs or corrupt officials. It would become a very lucrative business for the govt and govt employees just to keep the sky and air clean. Many people can be employed to manage and control this fire starter and haze problem. Many people can also be rich from the fines being paid, as long as it is heavy enough to deter the companies from starting fire recklessly.

Singapore would be able to offer all the expertise on how to collect more money to solve a bad problem that affects millions of people. With the political will and so much money to collect, the haze problem would go away quickly. At the moment the Indonesian govt did not see the monetary incentive to do so. Show them the way on how to collect money, how to collect more money and save the people and animals from fire and haze.

Andrew Yang for POTUS

Andrew is an outsider in every aspect of American politics, a non politician, an Asian, a young entrepreneur, a completely unknown. He is now ranked number 4 after several rounds of elimination in a contest to be the Democrats candidate to stand against Donald Trump, shoving aside more than 20 other more prominent candidates including senators and congressmen and women.

Many took Andrew Yang’s announcement to be in the race as a joke initially but are now having second thoughts. He is on the move, gaining more and more supporters and recognition as the race gets closer to 2020. There is still one more year to go and he is the only candidate that is gaining momentum each day. His latest prize is to raise $10m, $1.6m lesser than the third highest candidate in his third quarter fund raising, up from $2.8m. He is now behind Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Andrew’s campaign is run under his most famous programme called Universal Basic Income, $1000 for every adult American with no exceptions. His followers, mainly young and internet and IT savvy, calling themselves the YangGang, wear a hat with the word MATH meaning Make America Think Harder. His popularity comes from his long list of policies to solve America’s problems of the 21^st Century instead of the normal politicking of politicians. He is unmatched in this approach as his intellectual and grasp of the problems America is facing put the rest of the candidate to shame.

And his MATH games is going to bring very far. He has slightly more than 300,000 donors so far and this is a small drop in the ocean of 350m Americans. The number is in his favour. All Andrew Yang needs is 1m Americans to give him $10 each and he will get another $10m. As the campaign gets closer to nomination day, it is not difficult for Andrew Yang to pull in 10m Americans or more to donate to his campaign and push the amount to $100m or more in campaign fund. 10m million young Americans plus the Afro and Asian Americans and the rest of the Americans whose jobs are threatened by technology, the Americans that are living from paycheck to paycheck would push his supporters way pass his democrat contenders.

Andrew Yang is on the roll. The math said so. The numbers said so. The displaced and jobless Americans said so. He is going to make history. The Americans are going to make history, after Obama.