The opposition guessing game

The mystery of a ‘non’ existing opposition party in the govt can be annoying to those who wanted the opposition to be more vocal and aggressive in speaking out on national issues. Some are very disturbed by the WP’s deliberate silence and inaction. It must be a conscious strategy to focus on local municipal issues, look after their wards well as nothing they say or do would affect national policies but more often than not be met with a tirade of robust and sometimes intimidating response. Thus, an avoidance strategy of keeping the nose clean and fight only during an election could be a well crafted and conscious position to take.
 
The PAP must be quite happy with the stand of the WP, lesser attack and lesser embarrassment. No need to constantly try to fix them. It is a kind of uncomfortable truce, I don’t rub you the wrong way, you don’t rub me the wrong way either. At the same time it may disappoint the supporters who expect more from the opposition party leading to a loss of confidence and desertion. The WP would definitely lose some points and some supporters from its inaction.
 
The inaction or non communication of the WP with the other opposition parties is causing much discomfort and apprehension and annoyance. Some are looking at this as aloofness, arrogance and incooperative and would make forming of an alliance against the PAP that much more difficult. The perception is like the rest of the opposition parties are inconsequential and does not matter and WP could go alone in its fight with the PAP.
 
Maybe the opposition parties should cool down and concentrate on what they want to do and how they would want to contest the next GE. It is unlikely that the WP could offer more than 30 good candidates at one go. Even if they could field 40, it would still leave more than 50 % of the seats available to the opposition parties. Actually other than the WP, there are only two or max three opposition parties that are worthy of contention and may win some seats, ie SDP, NSP and perhaps SPP. The rest can do whatever they want, make whatever noise they want, even contest in a 3 corner fight, they would not make a dent to these bigger parties.
 
Once the WP has made its claim on the SMCs and GRCs, the SDP and NSP could divide the leftover seats among themselves. There are enough seats for the rest to contest without fighting with the WP. There is no need to sweat the small stuff, to be angry because the WP did not want to talk to them or negotiate. Each party should simply put all its resources on the GRCs and SMCs they have chosen to contest and fight directly with the PAP without having to worry about the WP or vice versa.
 
The cake is big enough for all to share. There may be a few obvious weak GRCs, but really other than a handful, the rest of the GRCs are there for the taking. Many are borderline cases and for the opposition to take them is fair game. The invincibility is gone. The weight of a minister is now a liability.

A big F for succession planning

It would appear that succession planning in corporations is something of a myth, a critical operation need but given only lip service. DBS is an outstanding example that it ended with a succession of three foreigners in the CEO seat, the current on being a citizen only after given the post. What happened to succession planning that no Sinkies were line up, trained to assume such a vital appointment or seriously, none was found to be good enough? After the current CEO, would it be another foreigner to take over? Very likely if the track record is anything to go by.
 
After Hsieh Fu Hua at the SGX, the same story repeated itself that a foreigner is needed. Would it be another foreigner after the current one has departed? Why not, when the locals are not good enough, or succession planning is not something that they are interested. We have seen the drama of getting someone to succeed Ho Ching in GIC when they had to go overseas to seek foreign talents again for more good years. They thought they found a Goodyear only to find something missing and then no more Goodyear and Ho Ching had to be reinstated. Is the situation now better with a local being groomed in case Ho Ching wants to step down again? Or would there be another round the world trip to find the One for this job when locals are found wanting again? Would they do a DBS, give the job to another foreigner and hand him a pink IC to tell the daft Sinkies that another Sinkie is in place for the high paying job?
 
Succession planning is not always a lost cause in all the big corporations. SIA for one could groom and find locals to continue the stewardship of the airline. And I think UOB too would be in the good hands of another local if not forced to buy another foreigner to take over what Wee Cho Yaw has built in a life time. Has UOB done more badly compares to the other two big local banks that are run by foreigners? UOB is a good case to dispel the foreign talent myth. Otherwise the silly fools would tell Hongkong, China, South Korea and Japan to hire angmohs to run their banks. And if the angmohs are too expensive, find one from the 3rd World as long as he is a foreigner.
 
The best succession planning is perhaps in politics. And the best person that executed such a plan was none other than Chok Tong himself. The moment he took over the premiership he already had a successor in mind, recruited him and groomed him for all 12 years of apprenticeship before finally handing over the baton to him while Chok Tong still had many good years to serve. This is a classic succession planning that GIC and DBS or SGX can learn from. An incumbent CEO generously recruited and trained a local successor to replace him. And the successor was so appreciative to reward his mentor with an Emeritus Minister title for his effort.
 
Now, would we see a local take over GIC, DBS or SGX when the time comes? Do they have a succession plan in place? To be real, why would a CEO want to plan and train someone to takeover from him? It is simply stupid to do so right? Anyway, Chok Tong is still around and his talent in this area can still be tapped before it is too late. You need a great man or a dull one to do succession planning, or planning for one’s own exit or demise. Very likely the person in the hot seat wold make sure that no one is fit to take over from him, or even groom a dud to be discarded as not good enough. Across the causeway Mahathir did exactly that.

Welcome to the new normal

‘Within the span of 10 minutes, construction worker Ramachandran Balamurugan had molested the four women by stroking their buttocks, thighs and private parts.
According to court documents, he molested the women, aged between 22 to 51, between 10.30am and 10.40am on Nov 17.’ The New Paper
 
This guy was sentenced to 7 months jail. It is a good thing that with more than a million foreign workers here, we only heard of one isolated incident like this. Sinkies can feel really safe. Statistically 1 over a million is 0.00001% which is remotely small.
 
Just hope that this is real and not a new normal. Or maybe Sinkies need to readjust their comfort and safety level to prepare themselves for such thing to happen more frequently. I swear that a 0.00001% is a miracle even in the best and safest developed country.

Another achievement or empty glory?

‘Singapore tops IB exam in region for fourth year’, screams a headline in the Today paper and maybe other papers as well. The first para, ‘For the fourth consecutive year, Singapore has topped the Asia Pacific region in the International Baccalaureate(IB) diploma examination. Of the 1,747 students here who took the IB diploma exam last year, there were 43 who scored a perfect 45 points – two more compared to a year ago.’ The report went on to show how well the rest of the students have done with an average of 36.53%, higher than the global average of 29.95%.
 
With such an achievement, not only in IB but in O level, A level as well, Singapore must be teeming with very clever and talented people. The achievements of the young citizens must translate to a pool of very intelligent adults and talented workforce.
 
Unfortunately the truth is far from it. Singapore has been proven to be lack of local talents and had to import feverishly from the regional countries for talents to help the dull and untalented locals. And many of these students who have perfect scores in IB, O and A level, will eventually work under the supervision of talents from 3rd World countries with average academic scores or even fake certificates.
 
What went wrong with the education system and the scintillating academic achievements? Don’t ask me. All I can see is crap. Either the exam results are craps or the students are craps or the employment scene is crap. Something must be crazily wrong.
 
I would want to believe that the students genuinely did very well academically and it is the silly system that allowed foreign craps to rule over local talents that is at fault. And you have silly people creating such a system to disadvantage the local talents and driving many to joblessness, unemployment or to depression.
 
What to do?

How a lie can become a truth

Andrew Loh wrote: ‘Barely a month after its mistake in reporting that a Bangladeshi had been killed in the Little India riot on 8 December 2013, the Straits Times seems to have once again got its facts wrong, or helped propagate a false story.
 
On 24 December, the Straits Times reported the publication of a report in Hong Kong about the execution of the uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Straits Times report, by its senior writer Ching Cheong, was titled, “Jang’s execution bodes ill for China”.
 
It described how Jang was executed – by being “eaten up” by “120 hounds” which had been “starved for three days”.’….
 
A piece of news published by the official national newspaper, The Straits Times, obviously carried a lot of weight and many readers can be forgiven for believing that this is a true story, verified, checked and double confirmed by professional newspaper men before putting it on print. And for those who would love such stories about Dear Leader and their programmed hatred for anything North Korean, they would simply gulp it down happily with a big jug of beer.
 
Why not when this news was happily picked up, quoted and reprinted by many of the supposedly reputable western media with an agenda to run down North Korea. In Andrew’s post the media mentioned to have quoted ST for this piece of juicy and serious news are: The Independent, The Daily Mail, USA Today, New York Daily News, The Nation, Fox News, The Telegraph and the Washington Post. A few of these are real biggies and what they posted would be taken as gospel truth. And I am damn sure these papers love such news, the more gore the better, to confirm their fabrication of what North Korea is all about.
 
According to Andrew this ‘eaten up by 120 hungry dogs’ is a piece of shit or lie that is not truth. I am not sure if Ching Cheong, the author and China expert, and the ST, have come up to dispute or confirm the authenticity and reliability of the report. As far as Andrew is concerned, this is an outright lie. But this may not be so. I have no means to check its authenticity, but the ST has. Even if the journalist was fed shit and believed in the shit, he still had to cross the barrier of the editor and chief editor who were obviously highly trained and experienced newsmen. They would not have passed this piece of news if they didn’t believe it was true and had not checked it themselves. If the news was false, a lie, it could now be turned into a truth when readers read it in The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph or one of the supposedly reputable and reliable media. People would then quote these big boys to claim that it must be the truth.
 
My suspicion is that this is another piece of crap originated from the West with their vicious agenda to paint North Korea as an uncivilized country with an equally evil dictator in Kim Jung Un. And in many places, or if Andrew did not raise this fact, many would simply read it, store it in their memory and after sometimes, becomes another convenient truth manufactured by the West and planted in their subconscious by the great media as The Truth.
 
Ok, I am not saying that the news was a piece of lie. Let’s hope a reputable paper like the ST would come out and rebut what Andrew had said or make a correction. Asking for an apology would be too much. And they could come out and confirm it was the truth and demand an apology from Andrew too.
 
What is the truth?

The careless intent behind a consumption society

The economists will tell you that consumption is good. Spend and churn the economy, grow the economy by conspicuous spending. Borrow and spend, spend and spend, it is good for the GDP. Savings is bad. Do not save, everyone must spend every cent they earn. Prudence in money is not encouraged. So everyone spends, like the Americans, whole country in debt but economy booming, and life is good. The Americans could do that and for now they can still do that by just printing more money. They have extended their good fortune and making the rest of the world working for them, to feed them and let them enjoy a life of plenty and luxury without having to work like other people.

We are also encouraging our people to spend and spend. The talk of being prudent is only lip service. The people who talked about prudence know that prudence, spend within your means, is real and very important to one’s financial well being. Then look at the policies. They are all designed for the people to spend all their money, if not, spend all the money on behalf of the people, to stimulate a vibrant consumption economy. Other than the top 10 or 20 percent income population, the rest of the citizens would be spending every cent they earned and with many money not enough and in debt. Housing, transportation, medical, practically everything has been carefully calibrated to make the people spend everything. Even their life time savings for retirement are already spent or with new schemes to spend them.

As for the top income earners, they have no care about what is happening, about high cost of everything, high inflation. All they need to bother about is to ensure that their income is growing at a rate many times ahead of inflation and rising cost of living. They will also spend. But they only spend perhaps 10 or 20 percent of their income, some even lesser. The rest is saved. They are prudent with their money. They do not spend every cent of their money. They know that is bad. But what is bad for the ordinary people is good for the economy.

So the policies are designed to make sure the people will spend and spend, without any choice. They cannot stop spending as the prices of goods and services will be push up and up to ensure the policies of a consumption society work. The poor are made to spend by compulsory schemes while the rich quietly save.

At the end of the day the average Sinkies will just depart with nothing left on them, just like how they came. For the not so lucky average Sinkies, they will live a life in debt.

Deport the undesirables as a deterrent

Last week Dudley Au, a senior gentleman, wrote in a forum letter in the Today paper calling for deterrence against crime. He was referring to the rioting in Little India and how important it is to make sure that the perpetrators and potential rioters would think very hard should they want to riot again. Singapore has done well in the past by using deterrence effectively to keep criminals and violators of the law at bay by strong punishment as a statement.
 
Death penalty for kidnapping and for drug smuggling were made very clear that there is no chance for ignorance. At one time long hair was not welcomed to the island and posters were put up at entry points to get the message across.
 
The need for deterrence to stop foreigners from turning this island into a wild wild west or a 3rd World lawless country is becoming more urgent with the high numbers of foreigners here. The Little India riot just broke the camel’s back. The govt has been very tolerant of the mischiefs committed by foreigners to the extent of being too soft to the ire of the citizens. Rude and hooligan behaviours of angmohs and other foreigners thumping down the law abiding citizens were often reported but taken too lightly.
 
It is time to put the message across that foreigners are here as our guests and at our pleasure. Misbehaviour, rude behaviour, criminal activities etc are not acceptable and foreigners exhibiting such unruly and unacceptable behaviour will be ruled as underdesirables and will be deported immediately, without going to the courts of law in light cases, while serious offenders will be charged in court and subsequently deported in serious cases. Cases like foreign cyclists taunting and threatening law abiding Singaporeans are cases that deserved deportation. The govt cannot be seen as a lame duck or tacitly supporting such wild and uncivilised behavior of foreigners against the citizens.
 
Sign boards on the deportation of undesirables shall be prominently displayed at entry points like those long hair posters of the past. Let there be no mistakes that foreigners can shit on the citizens or behave like hooligans and thugs here, and definitely will be dealt with serious in criminal cases. We have millions queueing to come here and throwing out a few pariahs will not affect the attractiveness of this paradise island for making a fortune and a good life.
 
We need this deterrence to ensure law and order and safety of the citizens. We do not want to become another 3rd World with 3ed World normals. 3rd World normals are just not acceptable here.
 
Seriously, will the govt even dare to consider such measures against the angmohs? The days of caning Michael Fay is over. We don’t have anyone strong enough to talk to the angmohs as equals and to treat them as equals and the bad as bad. Our ministers even have to make callings on the foreigners instead of summoning them to wait outside his office.