The labelling game ricocheting

For decades, the branding game was one sided. Names like communist, extremist, terrorist and a danger to country were quite often attached to the ‘undesirables’ and some unfortunate ones ended up behind bars while some left on a self imposed exile. The milder forms were anti govt, quitters, xenophobia, racist, betrayers and yes traitor, were also used on those not in favour.

With the advent of the internet, this branding game is now played with greater vigour by the other side. The anonymous bloggers have had a field day calling the govt all kinds of fanciful names, and yes, including traitor, selling out the people and country. Corruption, cronyism, greedy, untrustworthy, and many worse labels that were very personal and very unpleasant.

Not that these labels are true, but true only to those who did the labelling, the way they are being used is going to rub people the wrong way. The scathing attacks of course are undesirable and should not be encouraged on all sides. It is best that people avoid labelling people or boxed anyone into any pigeon holes they wanted to put the other party in a bad light. It reflects badly on the person who did the labelling as well.

The only good thing arising from this nonsense is that both camps must now know that both can play the game and both have their own avenues to do so. This is like the possession of nuclear weapons, both are just as destructive and it is best to avoid using them. In the internet, the use of labelling is quite new as this was not available to the users till now. The novelty of a newly acquired tool would entice the users to be more generous and frequent in its use. Hopefully both sides would know that it is to their best interest that this tactic of branding be ruled out and be avoided,

Let there be lesser or no name calling so that both sides can appear more civilised and nicer to each other. The playing field is quite level or at least being levelled.

The Most Congested Expressway MCE

The MCE opened to traffic on a hazy Monday morning and caught motorists by surprise when jams started to form near the Garden by the Bay towards the Marina Bay Financial Centre. The 4 photos are in sequence starting from the Garden, straight and running parallel to the empty closed stretch of ECP, turned right and under the ECP to a traffic light junction just next to Tower 3 of MBFC.

The cause of the traffic snarl was likely due free moving highway traffic converged and came to an abrupt halt at the traffic light. At this junction, traffic turning left towards MBFC and Lau Pa Sat entered a two lane road that was subsequently widen by the removal of concrete road dividers into 3 lanes. That did not really help that much and the 2 to 3 km jam was cleared only in mid afternoon.

Many motorists were held up by at least an hour in the jam. By the way, the MCE is underground and underwater, all $4.3b of it. The jam was on a new surface road leading from the exits of the MCE to MBFC.

A Jewel to save Changi Airport

There is an editorial piece in the ST stressing how important the Jewel is going to be to save Changi Airport as the preferred aviation hub in the region. Changi is facing competition from KL and Bangkok and needs a game changer to stay in the race.
Now, what is the race about? Are travelers choosing to fly into Bangkok and KL or Singapore because of a shopping mall or a shopping mall that is dressed up as a jewel? 

I will be equally thrilled to know that those travelers will fly to Changi when their destinations are Thailand and Malaysia just because they want to visit the Jewel. So, after visiting the Jewel, they will then fly back to Bangkok and KL? I am still scratching my head over this kind of logic.
 
I think the only big difference that the Jewel can make is to replace Paris and London as the fashion and shopping centre of the world. Now how to do that when a shopping mall is a shopping mall and when a fashion centre is not just a shopping mall? I think the Jewel can be different by pricing all its goods out of this world like our minister’s salary. So all the rich travelers who just want to buy the most expensive luxury goods must come to the Jewel and no where else. It is another kind of branding, the most expensive city with the most expensive expressway and the most expensive shopping mall. And all the goods bought will have a Changi Jewel tag as a statement that it is the most expensive caused it was bought at the Jewel.
 
Other than this most expensive branding, what else would make the difference for travelers to fly to Changi just to be in Changi to be in the Jewel when their destination is Bangkok or KL?

Is there a conspiracy to keep retard Sinkies from banking and finance?

Singapore is a financial centre but increasingly Sinkies are found wanting in banking and finance. There are very few Sinkies that have the experience for top and middle management in banking and finance. And this great financial centre has to go to the 3rd World where banking and finance are rudimentary at most to find experienced bankers to fill up senior banking and finance jobs.
 
Is this crazy or idiotic, I dunno. Is there a conspiracy to keep Sinkies out of these jobs? I dunno. What I do know is that in a matter of time no Sinkie or very few will have the experience to be even considered for such jobs. A Sinkie financial centre will be run by foreigners from the 3rd World when banking is but little finance companies and pawn shops.

A year of masturbation

I was quite amused by this article in the Today paper by Devadas Krishnadas. It has a title, ‘A year of maturation for Singapore’. He went on to list out some of the major events that happened and how PAP reacted to them. Let me take a different perspective on the events that were the highlights of 2013.
 
The most fearful and unhappy event was the Population White Paper with a 6.9m target by 2030. The two huge protests that were unexpected let to a series of masturbations with the 6.9m being explained as only a planning number. This was subsequently supported with great plans to build three mature housing estates that could take in enough people to fit in nicely with the 6.9m number. Maybe these housing plans are also for planning purposes only.
 
The attendance numbers of those protestors in Hong Lim were masturbated from a range of 10,000 to 2,000, the former reported in social media and the latter in the main media. The crowd was so big that the reporters had serious problems counting or telling the difference between a 10,000 crowd and a 2,000 crowd.
 
A related problem to the 6.9m population is the influx of foreign workers and how the citizens were losing out to foreigners in employment. The trick to soften, blur, diffuse or confuse was to throw out employment numbers with citizens and PRs lumped together as locals. This kind of masturbation did not bring about the ecstasy but more anger and ridicule by the unhappy citizens. They refused to be misled by such wishy washy data and are demanding that the masturbation stops. Unfortunately no one is listening and data for locals continue to be published as the right data.
 
The next masturbation was the PSI numbers churning out and reported in the news as current numbers. These were met with another outcry when the people on the ground were engulfed by thick haze but the PSI numbers were reported as non hazardous. With the protest getting louder, it was further explained that a 24 hour PSI number is better than a current number. Of course no one believed in this baloney.
 
The new Media regulation to masturbate the new media needed no further explanation. It was crude masturbation under the glaring eyes of the public. What else is there to say?
 
And there was this huge National Conversation that was abbreviated to Natcon. Subsequently, after a few more sessions of masturbation it was renamed Our Singapore Conversation. And the intent was to get Sinkies involved in national policy making or like bringing the govt to ground level.
 
The Little India riot was unforgettable. How to masturbate a major outbreak of violence on the streets when policemen were injured and police vehicles were burnt? It ran short of calling it a once in 50 year happening. It was a once off incident caused by alcohol. And the rioters were very nice people. And some even said it was normal, they are like that. So no big problem really. It would not happen again.
 
The biggest and most natural of all the masturbations must be the two cases involving senior public officers in the car parks. And the icing was that the women were throwing themselves at the ‘pop stars’.
 
What a year of masturbation!

Descent to lawlessness

After so many years, the plague of loan sharks is still haunting the people. How many cases are happening daily? Is it so difficult to eradicate loan sharking in a little island? Maybe if the loan sharks are smarter and more shrewd than the best of our super talents?

And the scale of violence against the citizens is getting bigger. It used to be individuals beating up the citizens, mostly foreigners beating the daft Sinkies. The latest is a group of 7 to 8 viciously beating up a taxi driver for not wanting to pick them up, and his whole taxi was smashed. Whether they are locals or foreigners, this is an affront against the law, a kind of attitude that said to hell with the law, a dare devil lawlessness. Hope the police get them fast and deal with them harshly like the way they bashed up the taxi driver. And any complaint of police brutality against these assholes should not be entertained. These bastards needed to taste their own medicine.

At a bigger scale of lawlessness was a crowd of more than a hundred people in Geylang confronting a few policemen. They were willing to attack the police as they felt comfortable with their numbers. And of course the bigger one was the Little India riot when a few hundreds thought they were big enough to beat up anyone and burn police cars.

The bigger the number of people get together, especially foreigners from the 3rd World when rioting and disorder is normal to them, the higher the possibility of such violence happening. And with the latest incidents, more and more will be emboldened to be more violent when they see the law as weak on its knees. With so many silly cries of cuddling and kissing the rioters, and so many being given chances to get away with a warning, what kind of message is being sent to these village thugs?

And the smart rogues would turn around to accuse the police of brutality and the police would panic and start investigating their own kind for roughing out the very nice, innocent and gentle rioters the wrong way. Gone were the days when the red van was a sight to fear and entering one meant being given a physical lesson on muscle toning and rib massage. When the law is not feared by the rioters, when silly people kept saying how nice the rioters were, you can bet the rioters would be nicer and greatly encouraged to be even nicer in their next riot or their next taxi driver victim.

This descent to lawlessness is in a way encouraged by the softies living in our midst. They cannot see anything wrong with rioting and the violence on the streets. And they want to be gentle on the rioters. No one has any harsh words on the rioters, on the breakdown of law and order.

Welcome to this new 3rd World and 3rd World mentality, that rioting and violence are normal. I really hope they are not going to prosecute any men in blue for their rough handling of their darling rioters.

Be practical with education choices

Many parents are still spending millions on their children’s education. They often empty their nest eggs just to get their children a place in the best university, locally or foreign. This was a good thing in the past when such a degree will guarantee a good career and a good return on their investments.

The reality today is very different. A good education is not only a financially depleting enterprise, it can be very depressing and even suicidal to some when the good jobs did not come along with the degree but an outstanding debt for the parents and a child feeling so indebted and guilty to their parents. The simple equation of pay for a good education and ending with a good and rewarding job is not working anymore. There are many depressing and heartbreaking stories of jobless graduates or graduates ended up as waiters, temp staff, taxi drivers and even security guards. What is the point of an education, a very expensive one, when the end is a broken dream and joblessness?

Under such circumstances, it is important for parents to seriously understand the new ball game and be prepared for it, to know what they want and whether it is value for money. The time and money invested in the child must be proportional to the returns and the expectations. Study the job market and find out what jobs go to who and from where and work the sums and plan accordingly.

Those who want their children to be top civil servants or millionaire politicians, there is only one route, get a scholarship from the govt. A PM scholarship is useless, I mean a Papa Mama scholarship would be unworthy for such a quest.

For those who want their children to be in the banking and finance industry, there is only one place to go, India. Practically all the hires in the industry are graduates from Indian universities. The top guys are from India, the recruiting agents are from India, the people doing the interviews are of Indian origins. This is real, and if one aspires to be a banker, go get an Indian university education. And better still, marry an Indian and get the right connections. This is a piece of practical advice, a gem.

Not very long ago, all the Indians who want to be a top civil servant or minister would want to marry a Singapore Chinese. This formula is not going to work in the future. The trend is reversing.

And India is also good for those who want to be in IT. It is a must place to go. Forget about those top ranking local universities. They are good only on paper.

And for those who are looking for a career in the service industries, like waiters, counter boys and girls, telemarketing, the place to go is the Philippines. They are producing the best and the highest number of employees in these fields. Even answering services, the best place to go is now the Philippines. Use to be India. And the university fees and cost of living are also cheaper. The total cost for such a degree is probably 20 percent of those in our local universities and 10 per cent for one in Australia, US or UK.

Now, why would parents want to spend so much in the education of their children to become a counter service staff or a waiter or waitress when a degree in the Philippines will do? And why go to Australia, UK or US when a degree from India is so much cheaper and in demand?

Parents must think out of the box, be practical and realistic. The world is changing. Get a degree from a country that is marketable. And now India is tops and the Philippines is second.

Good luck to all of you and your children. Hope they will get their degrees and their waiter or counter service jobs. Of course a cheaper and better choice is not to waste the money, just be a hawker, no need degrees.