2/11/2025
American fascism must be stopped and Trump's evil intention to invade other sovereign countries to make USA more treacherous again will not go unchallenged.
Budget 2025 - What I would like to see
Lawrence Wong is going to deliver his hamper budget very soon. Given the election year, given the cries about high cost of living and nonstop increases in taxes, fees and fares, it is quite reasonable to expect that Lawrence Wong would be quite generous in his first budget as the PM. With all the revenues collected, with all the sovereign funds making lots of rupees, oops, I mean money, giving a bigger hongbao to the citizens should not be a painful decision. No need to slaughter the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Lawrence had said many times about supporting the senior citizens, knowing very well that many are retired and have no income to soften the blow of high cost of living. The food in kopitiam or food courts are not exactly cheap. $50 could hardly buy anything in NTUC FairPrice. Maybe could buy a bit more in Sheng Siong. Tough time is facing the senior citizens and those that are unemployed for one reason or another.
60 years after independence, the prudence and thriftiness of the earlier govts, and the high saving rates have helped to accumulate a national reserve that could come in handy for a time like this. After paying millions and millions, if not billions to the fund managers, perhaps it is time to return some dividends to the Pioneer and Merdeka generations for their contributions to the national reserves over the last 6 decades.
It is a good gesture to share the accumulated wealth of the nations to the deserving citizens without exceptions. But there is one exception that must be made with regard to new citizens. The nation has a lot of money in the reserves but sharing it with the citizens must be carefully considered.
New citizens did not contribute as much to the nations reserves like the original citizens. The children of the original citizens have parents or grandparents that contributed their parts to the nation's reserves. Cannot say the same about new citizens. New citizens already enjoy many windfalls for becoming Singapore's citizens to start with. Subsidised medical care, education and the privilege to buy HDB flats or landed properties. Buying a HDB flat direct from the govt is like striking lottery of a few hundred thousand when sold in the resale market. This is not small change for the average Singaporean. And they have two cherries to pick as citizens.
If I am not mistaken, I stand corrected, new citizens immediately qualified for all the govt handouts and Assurance Package the day they become citizens. Is it necessary? The new citizens would not be expecting to strike lottery once they become citizens. The handouts and Assurance Packages from the govt in recent years are not small change. And Lawrence is likely to be more generous in his maiden PM budget.
The big question, why should new citizens that have not contributed much to our national reserves be given as much Assurance Packages and handouts as the original citizens who have contributed for many years, many decades? Some fine tunings are warranted when handing out our nation's reserves to new citizens who have hardly contributed much to the reserves. Having a lot of money to give away is one thing. Some prudence and careful thinking are called for when giving out OPM.
New citizens could qualify for the full benefits of govt handouts and support over time, not necessarily to be immediate. The savings could be given to more deserving senior citizens that lived through a time of low wages and when cost of living was lower. It is a double whammy to have to live with little or no savings when the cost of living is hitting the sky and seeing new citizens enjoying current higher salaries and also sharing the same govt handouts.
What do you think?
PS. KNN, Singapore govt so good, gives free money once become citizen.
Rogue politicians behaving like warlords, lawless
Rogue politicians are behaving more like gangsters today. And they are abusing their position of power to bully their victims, to favour their own kind that have been found guilty by their own justice systems. And this shameless behaviour of rogue politicians is not happening in authoritarian states but in so called democracies or fake democracy like the USA.
Trump and Biden were extreme examples of such rogue politicians, pardoning their family members, relatives and friends from criminal acts unashamingly. And this is lawful under their legal systems, or under the gangster Rules Based Order. They write their own rules and laws to suit themselves. Trump went even further to scold Biden, calling him names, blaming him for the decline of the American Empire, during his inauguration in Biden's face and all the dignitaries and official guests. He did not have to hide behind parliamentary immunity to do it. This is how audacious and lawless rogue politicians have become. They are above the law.
Nearer home, Najib was convicted of corruption but could serve his sentence in the comfort of his home. This is all made possible by the power he wielded in the political system. No one dares to call it corruption of power. It is like saying if one is in power, political power, one will be treated differently from the masses. This is in contrast to the ancient Chinese principles that even royalties, when convicted of crimes, would be treated like everyone else and be punished accordingly, no special treatments.
Historically, royalties and those in power could abuse their positions, acted cockily and ignored the law, ignored public opinions because their power was supposedly to be perpetual, or could last for centuries and thus untouchable, unless in the court of black face Bao Gong. In western democracy, or democrazy, the power is only for a few years or a few terms. The rogue politicians would be ordinary citizens when they lose power and would not be protected by the political system they were in. Trump has made this a painful reality for the ex American politicians by withdrawing the security details assigned to protect them for their crimes while in office. They will be out there on their own. With Trump, this corrupt privilege of protecting rogue politicians ceases immediately.
The Americans should be proud of gangster Trump to bring justice to their political system. Like they said, set a thief to catch a thief. All the rogue American politicians are trembling in their pants without security protection and could be hit on the streets by disgruntled voters. The likes of Pompeo, Bolton, Blinken, Sullivan, and even Biden's family members. Biden would be spared as he did not know what is happening and too old and far gone for anyone to want to touch him.
Can democracy be trusted as a fair and just political system?
AI is last bastion to fall. Chinese software versus American hardware
Ai must be the last bastion of the USA that is going to fall. DeepSeek being a free and really open platform for everyone to use, is a game changer. USA AI developers were hoping to reap a bountiful harvest when the USA acquired the complete monopoly in AI, with so much invested. This was the plan in preventing high-end chips from ending up in China, which will prevent Chinese companies from developing cutting edge AI apps. That was the premise and the agenda to hinder China's progress.
However, heaven has eyes and now the whole world can see that cutting edge development in AI does not depend on top-of-the-line chips alone, but how to use mid-range chips to do high-end computing, plus the expertise to think out of the box.
Those developers helming DeepSeek AI development are not long in the tooth old timers in IT, but young graduates from Chinese Universities, thought to be inferior to USA university peers. I just came across the news that the USA is now admitting that Chinese engineers are valuable and goes on to say that the country needs to lure these tech engineers to work in the USA. In other words, the USA is trying to steal China's technology prodigies.
China must not forget too soon that the USA lies, cheat and steal like nobody's business.
China decoupling from US gaining momentum
The sooner a new global currency and financial system is set up, the better for the world. China is not waiting for the USA to decouple from it. China wants a faster decoupling more than the USA.
China is looking at the evolving BRICS and Global South market more importantly and has already done its homework and is prepared to put the USA market behind it, knowing that USA consumers are losing the ability to afford the kind of spending power that was touted in the past.
The USA manufacturers on the other hand is not able to access the BRICS and Global South market under competition, even if the USA were to force manufacturing back to the USA to produce goods. So far, despite all the posturing, we do not see a rush by manufacturers to move back to the USA.
Onshoring is not going to work when the USA is becoming a closed country that is going to provide a market that is just a fraction of BRICS and the Global South combined. The gloating that only USA consumers are rich enough to afford the kind of spending power that other country's citizens cannot afford no longer holds water today, especially when being revealed by Rednote users when comparing living standards and living costs.