Many Sinkies support fare hike

Someone quoted Lui Tuck Yew, the Transport Minister, that he was glad many Sinkies support the fare hike by the Fare Review Mechanism Committee's recommendations, particularly those concessions. Should one read the support for all the recommendations and concessions together, or support only for the fare concessions, or support for the fare hike and others? Read that sentence in one mouthful gives the impression that the Sinkies are in support of fare hike and fare concessions, all in.

Just to make things a bit clearer, I have set up a poll on the right column. This poll only refers to one item, fare hike, so as not to be too confusing. Those who support the fare hike can kee chiu. Others can vote anyhow. Vote ching chai also can.

Myth 235 - They myth of difficulties in getting a job in Sin

Many Sinkies are crying father and mother that getting a job is so difficult in Sin City. Some have experienced writing and sending out hundreds of letters without a reply. As for the PMETs, they knew what it was like and many have refused to apply anymore, given up hope. Same goes to those above 50 years old, also no hope, has beens, finito, unless they are very well connected.

This is the general impression given and repeated in cyberspace. There are so many horror stories posted in Gilbert Goh’s Transitioning.org blog for the unemployed. The cases sounded genuine, and in most cases are.

The funny thing is that foreigners have no problem find a job in this Sin City except Sinkies. Maybe they are called Sinkies not for nothing. Sinkies have no place in Sin City. There are more than a million foreigners happily employed here and in many high paying jobs. How could Sinkies claim that they could not find decent jobs here? This must be a lie or a myth.

Many foreigners don’t even need to set foot here before landing a job. They are offered jobs in their home countries and could start work the moment they landed in this island of opportunities for foreigners. And many many more are coming as Sinkies make way for them and reduced themselves to social scums, whole day kpkb for no reasons but only themselves to blame. They are just not good enough. And many Sinkies are saying so too, from the top to those quitters who came back to soak up whatever they could find here.

The only thing one can say about these Sinkies is that they deserve it. They no longer know how to fight back, how to scratch, and happily let the assholes tagged them as daft, lazy, expensive, timid and good for nothing, unemployable. And everyday they can only see plane loads of foreigners happily landing in Changi to take up jobs waiting for them here.

How did this happen and for so long, and everyone is so comfortable about this state of affair?

PS. Max posted this in TRE.
'I have a Master degree in Logistics from a top ten Australian university. Been jobless at 48, for 3 years having been laid off after losing job to foreigner. Applied for PR for my foreigner wife whom I met and married while working overseas but was rejected by ICA.
Having applied numerous jobs without any response, finally found one without competition and an all Singaporeans company. Am now driving a taxi, no complains about foreigners, because 100% Singaporeans in this company.'

The truth is that Sinkies have been urged to go for higher education and now found out that they are over qualified. So must downgrade to be taxi drivers. Their high qualification becomes a liability. Top jobs are reserved for FTs, low jobs for FWs. Sinkies with high qualifications unfit for both.

Contract jobs getting popular with irresponsible employers

More PMETs are being hired on contracts, according to figures from MOM showing that some 70,000 PMETs were hired on contracts last year, up from 67,000 the year before in 2011. The contract period for PMETs typically runs from 6 months to 1 year.

Ask the Sinkies how many can afford to survive on contract work when they are committed to a 30 year mortgage and a host of family and social commitments that must be paid in cash every month?
Ask the foreigners and none will be against it as they know they are not here for the long haul or their commitments are not like the albatross on the neck of the Sinkies.

These conflicting realities and demands in the lives of the Sinkies are simply brushed off as non issues. No one will bother about it. Sinkies are soft, timid, lazy and it is their fault. Why can’t they be like the foreigners and work on short contract terms?

Now, would the Sinkies know who to blame for the plight and the fix that they are in now? Do they understand that the system is designed against their well being? Would the Sinkies wise up and decide what is good for them and do the necessary to help themselves, to change the system that is loaded against them but in favour of the foreigners and the elite?

The housing mortgage is a 30 year monthly repayment that must be paid every month. The household expenses cannot wait. The children’s schooling and expenses cannot wait. The monthly bills cannot wait. Contract jobs is contrary to the well being of Sinkies when they are faced with continuous barrage of bills and payments and any period out of job and without income is unbearable and crippling to their life style.

The proliferation of contract jobs offered to Sinkies must be regulated and reduced. How can Sinkies live with impermanent and temporary income when the expenditure is continuous? Companies offering contract jobs to Sinkies when the job is permanent in nature is irresponsible and unfit to be good corporate citizens. They are exploiting Sinkies and compromising their livelihood for short term benefits.

There are jobs that are temporary in nature that requires short term contracts, fair enough. But there have been many cases exposed that the nature of the jobs are permanent in nature but being offered on contract terms that detrimental to Sinkies with their list of family commitments.
So?

I fainted twice

Many of you must be quite happy registering yourself in the Do Not Call register to stop cold calls or nuisance calls from marketing people from disturbing you. I have been informed of the Personal Data Protection Act.
 
S37(1) of the PDPA, a message is a specified message if the purpose of the message or if one of the purposes is to offer, to advertise, promote or offer to supply or provide any of the following
ii. goods or services or
ii) a business opportunity or an investment opportunity
 
What is the meaning of all this? It is like that, with the Do Not Call thing in effect on 2 Jan 2014, if a sales representative is to make a cold call or to invite a client to attend a seminar or something like that, and the client has registered with the DNC, the sales representative can be fined up to $10,000 for making the call to the client. Damn serious offence, better be very careful who you call.
 
And it is the responsibility of a sales representative to check the DNC list before calling. I think you have to pay everytime you check a number. I can’t believe what I read. I fainted, woke up and relooked at the message again, and fainted again.
 
Is this real, that it is the responsibility of a sales person to check if a person he is calling is in the DNC list? My God, I have no word to describe this insanity. No sales rep is going to call anyone anymore. And many of you will not be receiving any calls for fear of being fined $10,000. A thief that broke into a house may be fined how much? A hooligan or road rage case when someone is severely beaten, how much would be the fine? In this DNC thing, making a call can be fined up to $10,000. And oh, a text message like SMS or fax is the same as calling.
 
What is happening?

The Americans bullying another superpower wannabe

The way the Americans manhandled the female Indian diplomat in New York is simply humiliating. She was handcuffed in public, stripped down and even had a cavity search done on her. The Indians are furious about this demeaning conduct of the American police. There was no respect for decency and courtesy extended to a diplomat of another country. They are treating her like another of those from the Third World country. It was abused and an assault on human dignity.
 
India is rightly not bemused and angry. And India is behaving exactly how a big power should, go for a tit for tat. India is not going to be push around, not even by the Americans. India is going to subject the same treatment to American diplomats in India.
 
This is something that China must learn. As a big power it has to behave like a big power and mush give the other guy a bloody nose if being whacked. If not, China would be kicked around not only by the USA, but also by Japan and pesky countries like the Philippines.
 
In international relations dominated by the American and western powers, the language is power. And if one has the power, one must use it. There is nothing to be shy about it. Let the pesky countries scream. That is the only thing they could do and the screaming will die down after a while and they will learn not to misbehave. If not dealt with this way, they will keep on coming back to scratch at China.
 
After this incident, India will be accorded the respect it deserves as a big power from the Americans. The Americans would not dare to do it again to any Indian diplomat or abuse India in any way.
 
China must look at this case and learn the India way to deal with another country, big or small. As a big power, you have to behave like a big power to be respected. If not, just sit on them and let them feel the weight. That is what the Americans have been doing all the while and this time on India. And India is shoving the Americans off its back. It is not going to be a pushover. China must not be a pushover or it would be pushed to a corner in a very humiliating way that is unbecoming of a big power.

SMRT asking for fare hike

Is the hike in fare justifiable? In the past, before a hike there would be talks of hike ok lah so long as service would be improved. And after so many years and so many hikes, has the service improved?
 
This time the hike is due to operating cost. Sure, with the frequent breakdowns and the massive changes to rectify the faults, cost must have gone up. But why was there a need for such massive and expensive cost expenditure to upgrade and replace worn out parts and equipment?
 
For many years, the transport operators had been chalking up hundreds of millions of profits annually and the top management was happily enjoying the fat bonuses. And no one was complaining about the good windfall. Recently, after the repeated disruption of services, it was revealed that maintenance were compromised or neglected in the past. Is this true? If so, the big profits of past years were partially due to the savings on maintenance cost. It is thus time for SMRT to cough out what it took from maintenance to plough back into the system. The higher maintenance and operating costs are just payback time and should not be passed to the commuters.
 
And don’t forget the more than a billion charity from the public coffer to buy more trains and equipment that should have come from the operators.
 
So, is this fare hike justifiable? And no one is mumbling about improving quality of service. How much profit are the operators making or are there incurring losses?
 
What do you think?

Snowden - Man of The Year in GUARDIAN

Year of Snowden and his revelations

Below is an extract of an article in China Daily on 2013-12-13 by Chen Weihua

There is no doubt in my mind that former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden should have been Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2013.... if the Person of the Year is someone who has done the most to influence the world in 2013 for better or worse, then Snowden should have had no competitor this year.
Snowden's revelations since early June awakened the whole world - government, corporations and ordinary people alike.
People have realized that they are under massive surveillance, through various NSA programs, such as PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora, and the mining of telephone metadata. They have had to redefine the word privacy....

Snowden's revelations came as the US was busily attempting to label China a major hacker against the US, and showed that whatever China or any other country is doing in cyberspace simply pales to insignificance compared with the actions of the NSA. The NSA has not only hacked into China's cell phone and telecom companies as well as universities and hospitals, it has also spied on many other countries, including many of its allies, as well as 35 world leaders.
Last week, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom, said that his paper had published only 1 percent of the 58,000 files passed on by Snowden. If 1 percent of Snowden's disclosures are so damning of the US, it's hard to imagine what the impact would be if the remaining 99 percent is also made public....

While Snowden is widely seen as a hero and a whistleblower, the US government and many US politicians have tried hard to paint him as a criminal and traitor. The US federal prosecutors have charged Snowden with violating the 1917 Espionage Act....

I don't know why Time magazine did not select Snowden as the Person of the Year. Hopefully it is not because that the controversial nature of his revelations inside the US. It is certainly not controversial at all in the rest of the world....

If the arrival of Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air, the revelations by Snowden have been an earthquake whose shockwaves have been felt around the world. Time magazine got it wrong. There was no one more influential this year.
The author, based in Washington, is deputy editor of China Daily USA.