handcuff is a must even for minor offences

lionel de souza, a former police officer, still maintained that a crime is a crime and handcuff is a must. big crime small crime, seizable offence, non seizable offence doesn't matter. better to play safe than to let an offender run away. i hope he will suggest to mrt and the bus company to equip all bus and train captains with a dozen pairs of handcuff for each train or bus. all these fare cheats must know that they are committing a crime when they cheated and must be handcuffed to prevent them from running away. otherwise the poor policement will have to submit a report, subject to investigations and may lose his jobs. this is how serious an offence for a police officer for letting a criminal escape. and don't forget those drivers who went in to jb to top up their tanks but broken the 3/4 tank rule. these drivers must be handcuffed quickly in case they drive their cars into jb and don't come back. i am going to import handcuffs for sale to these companies and quote lionel de souza as an authority. i like this lionel. good for handcuff business. the next tourist attraction in this island will be to look out for minor offenders being handcuffed. there will be plenty of opportunities given the abundance of fine rulings in the island, spitting, chewing gums, kicking footballs in void decks, jaywalking or running across busy orchard road, etc etc and don't forget our professional visitors soliciting for business. is this a good insight to the thinking of our govt officers? kiasu and kiasi and the public pays the price for it. now i know where the term pgo originates.

the desperate middle class

irene ng raised the plight of the new poor of singapore. lost job, sold hdb flat still no money to survive and pleaded for cpf to let them retain some portion of the money needed to return to cpf. gan kim yong replied, 'allowing homeowners to keep part of the proceeds from selling their flats will "deplete their cpf savings and undermine their post retirement needs...this might help them meet their daily needs for a while, but we will be storing up bigger problems for the future...arranging loans from cpf is also not practical because they are unlikely to repay their loans even through instalments."' the answer will come, said gan kim yong, when the ministerial committee on low wage workers releases its final report in january. so meantime do nothing. the problem will go away by itself. or can comcare fund help to tie them over in the meantime? do people understand that there are people who are desperate for help now and cannot wait?

privatisation is a 4 letter word

whenever the word privatisation is mentioned, it means several things, improve efficiency, improve profits and higher price or cost to the users. the problem here is that improve efficiency may not take place. but higher profits and higher price/cost can be guaranteed. the reason is simple. it is now a private organisation and is answerable to shareholders and must return profits to shareholders. and profits is never enough, be it $10 mil, $30 mil or $100 mil. every year the profit must increase by a certain percentage to show growth. so $100 mil profit this year, next $100 mil again is no good. it must be $110 mil at least. what it means to the consumers is very simple too. you have to pay more. that is only a natural thing in privatisation especially in a monopolistic business. the other problem associated with privatisation is the change of priority. the business objective is no longer the service or products but profits. hospitals now find it their business to generate revenue and profit. not to provide medical care. no money...just too bad. you must pay for your medical service which comes at a level equivalent to how much you pay. the reason and objective of public transport is not public transport per se but profit. if education goes along the same path, then educating the young of the nation is not important but profit. can't afford to pay for quality(ie expensive) education, go elsewhere. and the cost of all these quality stuff must only go up. privatisation is a word to be fear in the singapore context. is there such a thing called 'not for profit' organisation in the private sector? even charitable organisations talked about revenue and profits to motivate their stuff and pay them well. it is only a matter of time before we privatise the govt and the whole country.

taro aso a very dangerous man

taro aso defended koizumi's visit to yasukuni shrine and made his stand on japan's role during the second world war. in his view, japan's invasion of east and southeast asia was to defend itself against western imperialism. how does defending western imperialism led to the invasion of china, korea and the greater part of southeast asia? these are not western countries and have done no wrong to the japs. this is a sick and deluded japanese man who only thinks about japanese interests and is prepared to distort history to support his private views. together with koizumi and abe, they make an unholy trinity that could lead japan to another war with its neighbours. and with the encouragement of the cowboy in the white house, war with its neighbours is not a remote possibility.

inter state relations affected by a criminal

would the relationship of singapore and australia be affected by a drug trafficker, a criminal. looks like it will be. what is this world turning into? criminals are now important enough to waste the precious time of statesmen, professionals and the public as if they have nothing better to do. howard, though trying to take a milder stand, is seen to be affected by the mounting pressure from an aroused public and a small group of activists and has also commented that the execution of the drug trafficker will not go unnoticed. how ridiculous can things be?

nus/ntu -another mrt in the making

the corporatisation of the two universities, autonomy, merger and acquisition, to be the best we can be, to generate revenue as a business organisations...are these the goals for the future? are we taking the same route as the privatisation of our public transport system and our health services? i hope i am wrong. that we are not turning the two universities into private organisations for more efficiency and better results and profit generation. if these are the goals, we can expect the universities to embark on a trail of acquisition and expansion, recruiting the best among the professors, acquiring the best facilities that money can buy, to make the two universities a brand name, to attract more paying students to generate more profits. look at the busines model. where are the sources of income to support such a grand design? raising funds from the public/shareholders, selling bonds, joint projects with commercial enterprises etc etc but finally up tuition fees. an ambitious plan to be the best would demand a very big appetite and big funds to keep it going. raising funds from the public has its limits. selling bonds is a debt that must be repaid. commercial projects, selling books, publications, research works will not be enough to sustain a branded organisation that wants the best in everything. ultimately the tuition fees must go up. just like the mrt. the commuters, in this case the students, will have to pay. which student is going to pay and carry the burden? foreign students would be given scholarships. the super rich students, no problem. the bottom 10 to 20% may have grants and subsidies. it is the middle crunch. depending on the financial ability of these parents, the lower half will bear the biggest brunt of ever increasing tuition fees. the squeeze will always affect the neither here nor there families. fees will be increased but affordable. affordable to who?

nus/ntu corporatisation - another world cup dream

i don't really know what corporatisation of nus/ntu mean. is it privatisation or a different animal? but looking at the broad direction and goals that these two universities are heading, we can expect them to aspire to be the best in the world. this is like our world cup dream. there is nothing wrong with big dreams and big ambition. both universities are highly regarded and highly ranked among the world best. but we need to touch ground and not get too swell headed and get carried away. how far shall we go? do we want to be better than harvard, yale, mit, princeton, cambridge and oxford? yes, for sure. but at what price? we can bring the world cup home. no big deal. just pay for it. but for what? to make all the football fans in the kopitiam happy? in the case of being the world number one in education, the formula is not that simple. even if we are willing to pay, we can only buy all the facilities and the best professors. but the input, the quality of the students is not going to change much. unless we go for the world best students and tell our own students to go elsewhere. the world best university needs world best students. because of our own national interests, ie to educate our own students, we cannot be a harvard or the equivalent of any top ivy league universities in the usa or uk. our talent pool is just too limited. but we can get the best from the region. so what? what are we trying to achieve? do not let this over exuberance to want the best lead us astray. we need to set a more realistic objective. be the best in our region and among the best in the world. our current ranking may be good enough. yes we can push for a higher ranking, at what price? who is going to pay for it?