Foreigners setting agenda for serious discussion in local media

17 Aug, I looked through the few pages next to the editorial column of the ST where more serious articles are posted, not the kind like who is eating what, which dog is prettier or why we should not feed the birds or monkeys, I noticed that only one or at best two articles were written by Singaporeans. Perhaps another one or two could be new citizens or PRs. This is the pathetic state of news reporting and journalism in Singapore, just like IT and banking, Singaporeans not good enough. In news reporting, Singaporeans would be good enough to write about hawker foods and Michelin stars or sports.
 
Two articles got me reading to see the agenda of the writers, one, ‘That China worry, again by Ravi Veloor and another, ‘China’s trouble economy a bigger worry…’ by a Suchir Sharma. Not dissimilar to the western media’s China bashing, the two biased western coloured lens articles, if you are to believe in them, had one theme, China is in big big trouble.
 
Ravi Veloor started by laughing at Alibaba for having only a market value of US$440 billion, far behind Apple’s US$1 trillion and close competitor Amazon. And this is the fault of Xi for the bad relations with the USA. He would not want to tell you that Alibaba has only recently been listed in the NY Stock Exchange and has a history of a couple of decades old at most while Apple and Amazon have more than double, triple or quadruple the history of Alibaba.
 
He then went on to talk about Trump winning the trade war and China is now faced with a long list of problems. On the other hand the Americans are merrily going around as if nothing is happening, nothing is affecting them. He even went on to say that Xi Jinping is having a lot of trouble at home, his popularity challenged, he is being attacked for causing the trade wars with the USA and would be held responsible for it. Other leaders that were in trouble were Putin and Modi.
 
Trump and the USA have no problem. Trump is having a great ball of a time putting pressure on other countries and leaders. No one is troubling Trump or putting pressure on Trump. The tape recordings of him hiring prostitutes and other saucy stuff are good Sunday morning read, the whole media industry attacking him is only for fun, making enemies of everyone and countries, including traditional allies and national leaders are non issues. Simply said, everything is fine in the USA and in Donald Trump. America is another Disneyland and Donald Trump is the happy Donald Duck.
 
Suchir Sharma’s article dismisses Turkey’s lira problem as chicken feed and claimed that China’s economy is the real problem. As usual, China is in deep economic woes. The greenback is rising and Yuan is falling which can only be good for the Americans and bad for China. And China cannot lower the value of its Yuan to boost export as it would lead to a loss in confidence on the Yuan as a reserve currency. China is in a dilemma. No a weakening of the Yuan is bad for China and the rising value of the dollar is good for the USA. 

The USA is riding high and carefree. The higher the greenback appreciates the better. No, it would not affect American exports. America is in control of everything and everything is in favour of the Americans. The falling Yuan was due to the trade war launched by the Americans, not a deliberate move by China to counter the hike in tariffs.
 
And the greenback is in high demands and the Yuan is not.
 
Reading the two articles, anyone would believe that China as a country is failing apart and would soon be bankrupt and broken up as a lost country. Xi is going to be removed from power. Hip hip horray! Long live the American Empire!
 
Now, are these articles fake news, distorted news or objective and serious intellectual discussions that no Singaporean journalists could produce? What are their agenda and motive for disparaging China with these fishy and loaded views?

Mahathir visiting China – The truths will be told

Mahathir will be spending 5 days in China to set a new path for relations between the two countries. In his meeting with Xi, many agreements are likely to be signed to promote trade and development. This is Mahathir’s Durian Diplomacy when durian is going to play a key role in a new phase of China Malaysia relations, eclipsing the shadowy relations with the USA. Even before his trip, Mahathir has already disclosed the American meddling to block Chinese investments in Malaysia and paying Malaysia a sum of more than US$20m to achieve that. What? The Americans meddling, manipulating and coercing Malaysia to go against China? How can, the Americans are such peaceful and nice people, never do that, if you ask the Gang of 4 in little Red Dot. They will be fuming mad and accusing you, oops, accusing Mahathir of spreading fake news.
 
Mahathir’s trip to China would reveal many truths that China and the world would want to know. Top on the list would be the disappearing of MH370. The families of the victims are asking to meet Mahathir and Mahathir would be happy to see them and tell them the truth. This is a rare opportunity that only the divine could help, in the removal of Najib, and allowing Mahathir to unravel the dark secrets of this disgusting and dreaded episode involving the lives of 293 innocent people on board. The MH370 saga happened in Najib’s watch and many things were kept under wrap. You can be very sure Najib knew many things about the disappearance of MH370, including what Abbott told him and how and why Abbott got to know in the distant corner of the world. Mahathir would have all this privilege information now and would be very pleased to tell Xi about it and about the wicked people behind it.
 
The other interesting saga is the assassination of Kim Jong Nam. The truth would be kept in the dark for a long time if Najib would still be in charge. It just so happened that Mahathir must come into the picture and to allow the truth to be told. Who killed Kim Jong Nam would now have a better chance to be unveiled. The two women involved would be made to tell the truth and spill the beans. The evil doers would no longer be able to hide under political patronage.
 
The invisible hand of the unknown is powerful. Man thinks they can do evil and go unpunished. In both cases, all the conspiracies would be no conspiracies any more. Mahathir would be greatly rewarded for telling the truth and both Malaysia and China would benefit greatly from this trip. Mahathir would not return empty handed like holding a basket of MOUs that are worth nothing. China would be generous and big projects and agreements would be signed, for sure more durians and other Malaysian produce would be heading to China and all the major projects in Malaysia would get Mahathir’s blessing.

My heart is in India

An Indian national working for state bank DBS has just been arrested for defacing the Singapore flag. According to state media Straits Times, Avijit Das Patnaik posted a photo of the Singapore flag being ripped apart to reveal the India national flag on Tuesday (Aug 14).

Avijit, who have held the Singapore permanent residency for over a decade, wrote “Phir bhi dil hai…”, which translates to “Still my heart is…” on the post to express his patriotism for his motherland India.

The above is posted in thestatestimes. I cannot blame the Indian national, a local, yes a local, for having his heart in India. In this sense I am proud of him, for he knows where his patriotism should lie, a proud national of India. If he is to say his heart is in Singapore because Singapore brought him here, gave him a good job and good pay, then he is nothing better than a lying mercenary that would betray his country for money.

Every citizen of any country must be proud of his own country and his heart must be in his own country. I can't say that for the daft Singaporeans. Their hearts are always somewhere else and bringing foreigners to take over their country does not mean anything to them. They either don't mind and are clueless about what it means when their country is taken over by foreigners. Maybe they will know when the day comes when they are driven out of their country as boat people, stateless.

Now some are very proud to call the foreigners locals, when these foreigners' hearts are in their motherland. This point is double confirm by the above incident.

PS. Any foreigner that showed disrespect to the Singapore flag and anything Singapore must be sent home.

Malaysia beats S Korea 2-1 without foreigners

Malaysia under 23 team beat South Korea 2-1 in an Asian Games match in Bandung. How did they do it, being ranked 114 against defending Asian champion South Korea?  They must have brought in a lot of foreign talents and a foreign coach. If not, if they could not afford to pay for foreigners, there is no way they can beat the top team of Asia.

The horror, they have no foreign players in their team. All local boys and a local coach by the name of Ong Kim Swee. Maybe the name Kim Swee did the trick. Go find another Kim Swee to be coach or player, never mind. Kim Swee will be the winner. No need to waste money on foreigners.

After playing football for so many years, after hiring so many angmohs to play and to coach and the results showed, getting from bad to worse, is it not high time to put on the thinking cap, to look at local talents instead of waiting for an angmoh to pull a rabbit out of a hat? When is the colonisation of the mind by the West going to cease? Angmoh tua kee, locals, oops, it is very bad to use the word 'local', must use the taboo word 'Singaporeans'  no good ya? Only traitors to Singaporeans would use the word 'local' to betray the interests of Singaporeans.

What is happening to our local, oops again, I mean Singapore football and football players after spending so much money on foreigners?

Read the following two extracts on the Malaysian under 23's achievement.

'BANDUNG: Tottenham Hotspur star Son Heung-min came on as a second-half substitute but it was not enough to prevent South Korea from slipping to a shock 1-2 defeat to Malaysia at the Asian Games on Friday (Aug 17).

A brace from Johor Darul Taz’im forward Safawi Rasid was enough to see Ong Kim Swee’s men take the three points as South Korea failed to build on their opening 6-0 win over Bahrain.' Channel News Asia

'Malaysia recorded the biggest shock of this year's Asian Games football tournament when they stunned four-time champions South Korea 2-1 at the Jalak Harupat Stadium in Soreang, Indonesia last night.

In doing so, Harimau Muda have qualified for the round of 16 of the Under-23 tournament - they beat Kyrgyzstan 3-1 on Wednesday - as they lead Group E on six points.

Johor Darul Takzim starlet Safawi Rasid was the hero with a first-half brace in the fifth and 45th minute, while Singapore-born Dominic Tan also impressed in defence.

South Korea might have underestimated Ong Kim Swee's team by resting World Cup goalkeeper Jo Hyeon-woo and Tottenham forward Son Heung-min, whose hopes of avoiding national service enlistment rests on his team delivering the Asian Games gold medal.' ST online

Ho Ching’s salary – Everyone is asking

Ho Ching’s salary is the hottest topic in social media for the last few months. Everyone has a reason to want to know how much she is earning and there have been plenty of speculative figures being tossed around ranging from $20m to more than $50m a year. Given that she has been in the position for 16 years, if she is getting $20m pa, she would have made a salivating $320m till now for being the CEO of this sovereign wealth fund, oops Mahathir has another term for it, sovereign debt fund. But both are wrong as this fund does not belong to anyone it seems. Now everyone is also wondering who really own this fund and whose money is it?

Here are some comments posted in TRE and thestatestimes.

‘According to Ang, before Charles Goodyear was hired to be CEO of Temasek Holdings in 2009, he was already earning a salary of $54 million at BHP Billiton. Ang then said, “Logically, Charles must have been offered more than his $54 million salary to quit BHP Billiton”.

He also then calculated that “Conservatively assuming Ho was earning $54 million then and had worked without any break, this works out to $147,945 a day or about 25 times of the PM’s salary”.

After looking at the doubling portfolio value of Temasek Holdings, Ang then speculates that Ho earns “about $300,000 a day”.

Similarly, earlier this year, socio-political activist Leong Sze Hian questioned why Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek does not disclose its management costs such as the salary it pays to its chief executive.

He added, “To the best of my knowledge, I understand that Temasek does not disclose its “management costs” (such as the CEO’s annual remuneration) like Norway’s SWF (sovereign wealth fund).”

Leong also added that in 2017, it was reported that Temasek incurred “administrative expenses” of S$8.4 billion, against a net portfolio value of S$275 billion. The fund, however, has claimed that such expenses were not incurred by the fund alone, but represents the total “administrative expenses” of the fund and its subsidiaries.’

From the above once can feel the envy and unhappiness over the supposedly big salary of Ho Ching. I would like to take a different view that may sound similar to Chok Tong’s wise comment about ministers not being paid enough. Everyone Singaporeans subscribe to the point that if the ministers performed well, they would not mind even giving them a bigger pay rise. The caveat is if they really performed well, not scheming to take more of the people’s CPF savings or raising more taxes and fees. What is $10m, so they quipped. They, I mean the natural aristocrats. $100 is big deal to the oldies picking cardboards or cleaning tables in the hawker centres.

Take a look at Ho Ching’s performance as quoted above. Read this, ‘After looking at the doubling portfolio value of Temasek Holdings, Ang then speculates that Ho earns “about $300,000 a day”.’Many of you would be staring at the $300,000 a day with eyes turning green or red. I say, look at the other number in words, ie “doubling portfolio value”. Temasek is managing something like $200b! If Ho Ching could double the value, to $400b, what is $300,000 a day or $50m a year? I say pay her, pay her $100m. She deserves it. Caveat, if she could really double the portfolio through profit from her investment. No one will dispute with the principle of rewarding good performers.

And if she could double the $400b to $800b, I will say pay her $1b. And I am not being generous. True talent must be paid well. Of course fake talents should be not paid even a cent. I am very sure Chok Tong would fully agree with my suggestions.

However, the reward formula must be equitable to both employee and organisation. It cannot be a one way thing, when employee made profit, they want to be paid big bonuses, when they lost a fortune, they also want to be paid in the millions. The HR people are not that daft that they could not come out with a formula that is fair and just to all parties.

What do you think?

PS. I deserve a National Day medal.