Boon Wan thinking aloud about housing

In today’s paper, Boon Wan was quoted thinking aloud about housing policies that were changed and the possibility of more changes. Two key points were mentioned, to remove or not to remove the income ceiling and that HDB should be the trend setter of price and not market forces. He said HDB may not be able to influence fully the prices of private properties, but it could set the price of public housing. Finally someone from the Govt got the common sense to know this, that being the biggest developer of public housing, actually a monopoly, the Govt can determine the prices of public housing. Believe it or not, it is true. I am enlightened.

The issue of removing the income ceiling received the same stupid comments from daft Singaporeans, that by doing so, it would mean that there will be more competition for public housing from those earning more. Hey Minister of Education, the education system has failed miserably to make Singaporeans think independently. So far they can only think, now that is an over statement, they can only parrot the official view impregnated into their dull piece of grey matter in between their ears. Why should there be more competition, or what is the cause of more competition when the ceiling is removed? Supply, it is supply that is causing the problem, silly you. When the Govt builds enough, where is the fear of competition from the wage earners? Those who earn a few dollars more are still the average Singaporeans that need housing. And the fact that they need public housing speaks well of their finance. The rich are those that are selling their properties for $300m, $100m or $50m.

This seed of false envy planted in the minds of daft Singaporeans is very difficult to remove. We have average Singaporeans, all the employee type that draw a salary excluding ministers, top civil servants and top management, staring at each other with green eyes thinking that the other wage earners that earn a few dollars more must be deprived from public housing, must take up a million dollar mortgage to buy private. When would employee grade Singaporeans stop bickering and fighting among themselves for public housing when the fault is all because the Govt refuses to build enough, especially over the last decade?

Boon Wan has slowly started to come around to his senses that public housing is for all Singaporeans. No Singaporeans should be victimised, discriminated from buying public housing flats. All Singaporeans are equal under heaven at least in doing NS, in their rights to buy a roof over their heads. Why are those, who are neither rich nor poor, be deprived from buying public housing and made to defend this country in NS just the same? Can or should the Govt deprived Singaporeans who have served NS, who pledged to fight and defend this country, from buying HDB flats when new citizens who have not done NS be allowed to buy?

The foul up in public housing is smelling and nauseating. And Boon Wan is still defending his predecessor for a job well done. He refused to acknowledge that his predecessor fouled it all up by over building and then compounded the problem by not building. And the biggest or silliest mistake was that the little excess was not excess at all when the immigration door was swung wide open and horrors of all horrors, there were millions of foreigners coming in, and even with the excess it was not enough. And Boon Wan said, one must not be stubborn, when faced with the influx of foreigners buying up everything, his predecessors still refused to budge and continued with his BTO scheme and claiming all was well.

Was everything well, was public housing well? Don’t tell me.

Tokyo Auto Show 2013

Some

of the cars at the show.

The discriminating readers in social media

I have written quite a few articles and for the latest two, one on India Indians integrating with the locals and another saying that there is no discrimination against Singaporeans in Singapore, I am expecting readers to strongly disagree with me or even receiving brick bats from them. The position or conclusion of both articles would not go down well with the readers. I too don’t agree with them. But I cannot claim otherwise unless there is evidence to support a different assertion.

In the case of India Indians integrating with the locals, the best I can say is that they are attempting to do something. But integration is not a one day thing, not even one year or five years. It may take a whole generation or cross generations to integrate into a society. So it will be foolish of me to say that they have integrated well with the locals over a few days. It is just the first step in a long journey.

The point about no discrimination against Singaporeans is qualified by the MOM having a few cases and Chuan Jin and Tharman calling up some big organizations for tea. There were cases, and could be many. But where is the evidence? Where are the reporters reporting on them?

The Brompton Bike case and the AIM case would also be non issue if the netizen reporters did not dig and air the cases and the sticky stuff in them. The reporters, mainly the netizens, not so much about the main stream reporters, can play a big role in exposing the crimes and deceits of foreigners and foreign companies discriminating against Singaporeans. And they have the social media to publish what they have unearthed. There is no fear that no one or the main media would not want to publish them. We need to hear more of such cases, and whistle blowers there must be many, to step forward to defend fellow Singaporeans to make Singapore our home and for Singaporeans.

How well are the foreigners integrating with the locals, the India Indian, the PRC Chinese and the Pinoys? When they are few in numbers, they have to integrate and live with the locals. When their numbers are big, they can be with themselves, among themselves, ganged up to protect themselves and their life style. They don’t need to integrate with the locals. They have critical mass to be on their own. They can form their own enclaves, buy properties in select areas, and even discriminate and ostracise the locals, kick the locals out of jobs, deprive the locals of jobs to keep them for their own kind.

We do have a big problem with big foreign populations. The bigger they are, the bigger will be the problem. The problem today is 5.4m in size. It will be 6.9m and bigger in the future. The problem is here to stay and will grow and swallow up the locals if they are not careful, if they are complacent and think that things will be the same, that being the locals they will have a little advantage over the foreigners. When the foreigners outnumber the locals, the advantage will go to the foreigners and the locals will end up at the wrong end of the stick. It can be very pathetic if that day comes. Sad, it will come faster than the unthinking locals can imagine.

The world on the brink of total destruction

This week is an exceptional week. The stock markets in Europe and US continue to surge to new highs. This has led the Asian markets to follow suit, to make big gains as if the world is seeing an economic recovery and everything is looking rosy again. What many people on the street did not know was that the brinkmanship in the Korean peninsula could easily go awry and the whole world could go up in smokes. Both parties were stupidly upping the stakes and the hot button could be pushed to trigger a series of other hot buttons being pushed in the US, China and Russia.

The events that were happening in the Korean peninsula are not isolated incidents that are local in nature and can be contained. While the mad Americans kept on pushing the two Koreans into open warfare, thinking of taking advantage of the situation for their own benefits, things are getting clearer now that the Americans, the innocent Americans, will bear the brunt of an all out nuclear war and many big American cities would stand to fall. And the big cities in Japan, South Korea, China, Russia and Europe would likely to go too.

The basic position of the Russians and Chinese is that they would not allow the Americans to nuke North Korea. The Americans were calculating that they could wipe out North Korea and strengthen their foothold in the peninsula. This was just plain naivity. A nuclear strike on North Korea cannot be a local affair. In geopolitics, Russia and China would not accept a fait accompli and an upset to the balance of power in favour of the Americans. Also, the nuclear fallouts could easily spread across Asia to both Russia and China. They are not going to take that shit from the Americans. South Korea and Japan could too be under the nuclear cloud, depending on the wind direction. The Americans thought they could twiddle their thumbs from far away and be shielded from the nuclear disaster. They could be happily having their breakfast and reading their morning papers while East Asia burns.

The point is that the Russians and the Chinese would never let it happen. An attack on North Korea would be an attack on them and it will be a free for all. It was and is very likely that all their ICBM stations were on full alert last week. The Americans would be ready too, and so would be the Russians and the Chinese and the North Koreans, the Iranians and all nuclear power American allies. All it needs is for a crazy American to push the button and all hell will break lose. No, the North Koreans would not be crazy to be the first to do it. They know the table will be turned against them. They will be history for sure. Only the crazy Americans could think they could get away from nuking the North Koreans.

Today, some senses are appearing on the American side and the South Koreans as well. The provocation must stop, from their sides, not from the North Koreans. They are the ones trying to start a war. They may now know how silly they have been. The Americans must too have realized their own stupidity to think it is possible to do as they wish and the Russians and Chinese would allow a nuclear strike on North Korea.

Sensibility has returned and the South Koreans are urging the North to go back to the negotiating table. The irresponsible western media are still distorting the truths and not blowing the whistle on the Americans. It is time that the western media and the Americans point the finger at Washington for bringing the world to the brink of total destruction, to risk the good American lives, the innocent Americans that did not know what is happening and could become collateral damage in a nuclear war. Some Americans are speaking up. Some western media are starting to talk politely about the American provocations and miscalculation. But more must be done to stop the American madness and menace. Only the Americans and the western media, if they still have a little conscience, to rein in the mad men and women in Washington and allow the world to breathe a sigh of relief.

The tension is still high and no one can take any chances. The western media must call a spade a spade, and the main provocateur in the Korean Crisis is the USA. Stop lying and putting the blame on the North Koreans. They did not start all this.

US ignites crisis on Korean peninsula to besiege China: Mike Billington

I have copied this article from PressTV and I hope the article is circulated to the whole world to inform the innocence of the treacherous intents of the Americans and how they are pushing the world to a nuclear holocaust. It is the Americans that are behind this crisis and they must be held solely responsible should a nuclear war erupt.

An analyst says severe US provocation against North Korea as a pretext for military buildup to surround China has brought the threat of nuclear war worldwide.
 
In the background of this Russian President Putin has called for calm and a political resolution to Korea and said that a blowout of the Korean conflict could result in a catastrophe that would make Chernobyl (1986) nuclear accident, seem like a child’s fairytale. North Korea, in response to the severe US provocations of ongoing military drills with South Korea and even flying US nuclear bombers over the Korean peninsula and the US reinstalling its chemical weapons battalion into South Korea, has threatened to use nukes against the US.

Press TV has interviewed Mike Billington, Executive Intelligence Review in Washington about this issue. The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The major question everybody is asking right now is how serious that threat of nuclear or even of a military attack launched on South Korea has actually become?

Billington: I don’t think there is any danger of a nuclear war sparked by North Korea’s nuclear attack.
I think there’s a great danger of a nuclear war sparked between the United States and China and the United States and Russia over either the Syrian and Iranian situation in the Middle East or over Korea in Asia.



What I would like to point out actually is that there has been a concerted effort in the Western press including the New York Times today to falsify the warning coming from China about the danger of war in Asia.

Xi Jinping, the new head of China, in a forum yesterday said no country should have the right to create a regional of even global crisis for their own self-interests, their own selfish interests.

That was recorded in the New York Times this morning adding falsely the words in front of that speech that no ‘Asian country’ should have the right to do that.

And of course the Chinese have repeatedly said that while North Korea is in fact taking provocative measures that should be stopped, that the US provocations are even more severe in defense that they’re sending nuclear bombers over Korea; nuclear-armed submarines and ABM systems all of which are seen correctly as the surrounding of China, not just the surrounding of North Korea who is potentially going to do a provocation, but if it is it’s going to be of the sort they’ve done in the past.

General Dempsey, the head of our Joint Chiefs of Staff here and who is a sane mind here in the US countering the Obama and British build up for war was asked if he thought there would be a provocation from North Korea and he said, “I don’t believe so, but we would be foolish not to prepare for it”. So we are taking certain measures.

But he himself is going to China and going to Russia in an effort to counter the build up coming from the United States, which is indeed bringing the threat of nuclear war worldwide very, very close and it’s extremely dangerous.

Margaret Thatcher, to love or to hate her?

To many outside England, Margaret Thatcher was just another well known politician, ex PM of England. It took many by surprise that some quarters in England could rise to celebrate her death. They popped champagne and held pop concerts to express their joy at her departure while the country mourns for the loss of another historical giant.

‘Socialist Angela McCormick explains: "I'm here for a generation that didn't have a future when they left school and didn't have jobs. I'm here for the members of my family who have been devastated by the economic policies or the economic crimes of Margaret Thatcher."

Did Margaret Thatcher cause so much anguish among the citizens of her country, losing jobs through bad economic policies? And it only took her death for the bursting of boisterous elation. While she was still around, the anger and hatred for her was subdued or suppressed, only to be released now. It is quite a pity that those who were affected adversely reacted that way. But they were just human beans.

Political leaders did many good to some people and many bad things to other people. They will leave behind a legacy, to be hated and spit upon, or to be loved and respected. It is better to be leaders in totalitarian states when big statues would be unfold to honour them after death, kind of being immortalized to live forever in the hearts of their people as dear leaders.

In democracy, the ending can be quite unpredictable, and can be very unflattering.

No job discrimination against Singaporeans

After the revelation by Tan Chuan Jin and Tafep in Parliament, I seriously thought the problem of employers, local and foreign, discriminating and victimizing Singaporeans in employment opportunity is a serious one. So I posted a few articles about this sad state of affair happening to Singaporean PMEs, being victimized and ousted from their jobs and be replaced by foreigners.

Since then I have been watching the news closely everywhere for more evidence of such discrimination and victimization of Singaporeans for good jobs in their own country. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was hardly anything mentioned, not a clue or evidence that such a bad thing is happening. They say no news is good news.

I believe the main stream journalists and the freelance investigative journalists in social media are busy trying to fish out such acts of discrimination against Singaporeans and if there are such cases, they would definitely blow them up in the main media and social media. Obviously there are none or none has been discovered. So, for the few cases brought up by MOM, they must be exceptions.

All is fine. No worry, all is fine. If not fine, Singapore being so small, and we have very responsible and patriotic reporters and journalists in both the main and social media, they would have uncovered them. Thank God things are ok. Singaporeans, especially the PMEs who have lost their jobs and unemployable must be a natural thing, a meritocratic thing. They only have themselves to blame and to reflect on why they were unemployable. We have a fair system, a level playing field. No foul play. Everyone is so innocent, I mean the employers and organisations employing foreign PMEs. There is no discrimination and victimization.