Boon Wan the Sweeper

When the housing problem reached a stage that was waiting to blow up, Boon Wan volunteered to take on the task to clean up the mess. Actually it was no mess as far as his predecessor was concerned. It was all expected, prices determined by market forces, prices were affordable, and there was no queue and no demand even. It was a beautiful situation except that the home buyers were making nonsensical noises.
 
If a junior minister were to tell the MND Minister that there was a serious problem, he would be shooed out of his office. When the MND Minister said no problem it meant just that, no problem. Who had the audacity to tell him otherwise? Luckily Boon Wan was heavier and could use his weight to shove the MND’s objection aside and to do what was necessary.
 
So Boon Wan went on a ramping programme to ram through all the barriers against building more flats. Eng Hen was full of praise for Boon Wan for decisively tackled the housing problems created by his predecessor who would not admit that there was a problem in the first place and thus no actions needed.
 
With the housing problems stabilized, Hsien Loong should move Boon Wan to the MOM to tackle the growing problems of foreigners, fake degrees and discriminations against our own PMEs, to remove the term ‘local’ to tell the real story of how Sinkies are fairing in the job markets, to ram through the walls of local and foreign owned companies that are refusing or discriminating against Sinkies for employment.
 
Here again, Boon Wan’s weight as a senior minister would come in handy to bang his way through. He could decisively tackle the employment of PMEs and the fake qualifications problems just like he tackled the housing problem. He could order the CEOs of foreign companies to wait outside his office instead of crawling to their offices to beg them to be nice to Sinkies looking for jobs.
 
I support Boon Wan to take on the MOM and deal with the crisis immediately. No more dilly dallying. The mess is real big, bigger than the housing problem and growing by the days.
 
What do you think?

Kopi Level - Red

MH370 – Misinformation and fuzzy logics

A few days after the disappearance of MH370 and the failure to locate any debris in the surrounding seas, the possibility of it being hijacked became very real. And the few evidences available pointed to a highly sophisticated team of hijackers who were doing everything they could to avoid detection by radars. And it took 6 fruitless days to discover nothing, absolutely nothing to tell anyone where it could have gone to.

Then on the 7^th day after its disappearances there was a flood of information, even confirmed to be genuine, coming out to tell everyone a completely different story. The aircraft did not disappeared but was seen all over the sky and making all kinds of illogical manoeuvres to tell the world where it was and where it was going.

When such things happened, when logic becomes illogical, when the information made available, volunteered even by normally reliable sources, even by friendly sources, one must raise the antenna of doubt. If the information does not make sense, and telling some wild stories, one has to be suspicious and to question its validity and reliability.

Often information can be offered for the wrong reasons, mischief, misinformation, spurious, given under duress or circumstances that are unacceptable. And why, when this information was supposedly known, was not made known earlier and led so many nations on a wild goose chase in the South China Seas for almost a whole week?

The new information that was withheld and now made public include: Aircraft flying to 45,000 ft and descending to 23,000 ft. Aircraft flying to the west and under military radar screen. Aircraft flying at 29,500 ft and towards Penang into the centre of Butterworth and Penang radars with no attempt to hide its position. And subsequently aircraft flying towards the direction of India, presumably towards central Asia, where it would be seen by civilian and military radars. It was like the hijackers telling the whole world here I am, see, come and catch me. Why no longer trying to avoid radars?

All the information is saying that the first premise that the aircraft was manoeuvred to avoid radar detection is not true. The aircraft did not have that intention and was on the radar screens of military radars. Why didn’t the military raise an alarm and scramble fighters to intercept an unknown aircraft flying into Malaysian airspace? If it had hostile intention, it would have succeeded in whatever it wanted to do.

MH370 was claimed to have climbed to 45,000 ft when its max ceiling height is only 43,000 ft. It is not easy to fly an aircraft beyond its height ceiling. The pilot would have to fly it like a fighter aircraft, accelerate on descend to max speed and pull it up to hit a new high. A commercial aircraft doing such a manoeuvre would subject the fuselage to excessive stress and the wings could fall off. Is it believeable?

And the aircraft was happily flying into Penang and Butterworth radar zones at a height that it could not be missed. How ridiculous could this be? Are the hijackers suddenly became that stupid?

In my earlier posts though I mentioned a westerly route, 280 to avoid the Butterworth radars and staying at the verge of Phuket air traffic radar, I ruled this out as flying further would make it visible to radars in the west, unless it is hitting some deserted islands in the Indian Ocean. The best route to take is the easterly direction where there were no radars to pick it up on their screens.

The new information throws all the earlier premises into disarray. It suggests that the hijackers are likely to be associated with the Uighurs and their destination is central Asia. They could not fly there without being picked up and it was exactly that way, it was not picked up by anyone at the level they were supposed to be flying. They could not fly low level without burning out fuel for that kind of distance and not seen across India or countries in the region.

Najib spoke as if the latest information were gospel truths, unquestionable.  Really? Could the information offered, that were concealed for so long, be misinformation, fabricated information or spurious information?

A new dream, not owning a home

Nina Brown lost her townhouse to foreclosure due to recession. That was not the only house she lost, but another three. She now lives in a rented home. The American Dream of home ownership is crumbling. With recession, foreclosure, and more recession in the pipeline, more Americans are giving up on home ownership. This seems to be a new trend in the world’s biggest economy.

Could this be something that Sinkies would be looking forward to, renting their homes instead of home ownership, though some are saying that we have been renters all the time, at least 80% of them living in HDB 99 year leasehold flats? This is another story.

At the moment many are still in the property speculation game when money makes money and lots of money without having to work. Would the same outcome in America hits us the same way when a major recession comes along? Would our young and new home owners, with their massive debt from housing loans ended like Nina Brown, facing foreclosure and become the statistics of a new fad, renters?

We are following closely at the heels of the Americans in everything they do. When they got a cold, we will surely have one as well. How long can we hold before the next wave of recession and foreclosure hits the City? The only way to avoid such a crisis is to push property prices higher and kick the can further down the road.

But if we are to listen to what came out of Parliament, the problem crisis is over and we should be congratulating the ministers and ourselves that all is well. No longer a problem, all problems solved. In fact it is time to raise the prices of properties or else the developers would start to kpkb again.

What do you think? The next dream will be not owning cars.

Kopi Level - Yellow

MH370 – Many questions to answer

At this point in time, all fingers are pointing to a hijack. This prompts many questions on how a hijack could take place. Presumably there must be a pretty big team of hijackers to be able to over power and control 239 passengers. And they must be heavily armed.

So, how could so many hijackers board the aircraft and were they in the passenger’s list,  and went about unnoticed? Also, how could the firearms be smuggled into the aircraft? I am presuming they have firearms to be able to control so many passengers. Were they aided in some way by the ground crew? It is not easy to bring so many pieces of weapons on board.

And on Mar 8, when was the aircraft discovered to be missing, and what were really seen on the radar screen? Were they really detected on the radar screen, civilian air traffic radar or military radar? Could someone be telling lies and misleading everyone?

KLIA’s radar is unlikely to see the aircraft. Military radars could be off for the weekend or on skeleton crew, and in a relaxing mood as it is peace time and no intrusion is expected. It would be pure good luck for an operator sitting in front of a screen and monitoring all the happenings to MH370, a routine flight when there could be other civilian aircraft in the air.

What was real and what were speculation and misinformation?

While I was pondering over the above, I heard over the news that Najib had more or less confirmed that MH370 flew towards Penang and then northwest towards the Indian Ocean at about 29,000 ft. The information seemed to be confirmed and the aircraft actually was seen on military radars, probably one in Kota Bahru and then seen again by the radar in Butterworth. He also said that it was confirmed that someone deliberately switched of ACARS and the transponders in the aircraft.

What he did not say but implied was that the aircraft was deliberately flown to wherever it wanted to and to be seen on military radars and to be tracked. This is something that is contrary to the view that the aircraft was doing all it could to avoid being seen on radars. Over the last few days it was reported that the aircraft was not seen by radars at least from the spot when it last disappeared and all the way to Penang and only appeared over Pulau Perak. Now it is reported that it was seen flying from where it last disappeared, yes reported disappeared but was seen flying to Penang, tracked by military radar!

If the information is true, Malaysia is doing the right thing to search in the west and stop all searches in the South China Sea. But if the information was fake or misleading, it could be misled to search exactly away from where it should be searching.

Interviews with an ex FBI agent Steve Cutler and a Singaporean expert Paul Yap, both still believed that whoever was flying the aircraft he was trying to avoid radars. How to explain the new facts that the aircraft flew into the thick of radars in Penang and Butterworth and even seen by the one in Kota Bahru? They are now claiming to be seeing the aircraft all the while since it last disappeared or reported to have disappeared up to the Indian Ocean?

What is going on?

Policies Good, Politics can do better

This is what sums up the views of Chua Mui Hoong about what’s happening in Parliament and what the Govt has been doing. Before anyone starts to throw chairs and tables at her, let me make a point here. What she wrote is just her opinion. And this is what she called herself, Opinion Editor. Her title says it and you are free to disagree and also you may have your own opinions that may not agree with hers. I think that is fair.

How many of you agree with her that the Govt policies are good? I am stretched to find any. Maybe I will do a contortionist act by agreeing with a few that are good depending on who you are. High ministerial pay is good and helps to fight corruption too. And it gives our President a lot of dignity too.

High property prices are good as they turned Sinkies into millionaires without having to work and can collect higher rentals.

All the changes regarding CPF are good as they made Sinkies smiled at their monthly or quarterly statements that informed them how rich they are till they died. The money is guaranteed to be there, and would not runaway even if preventing the owners from squandering it.

Allowing medical cost to go unchecked is also a good policy as it means the quality must be damn good as good things don’t come cheap. Our medical fees are now like branded goods, paying for quality for those who can afford it. For those who can’t, just stand far far away to admire.

Our policies on foreign talents are even better, starting from paying for their education with generous scholarships to giving them high paying jobs to replace Sinkies that are not good enough despite world class university education that emptied their savings. And fakes are also excellent for the economies, don’t disturb them as long as the employers are happy with them, and the displaced PMEs are not complaining and happy driving taxis to be their own bosses.

I could go on with another long list of good policies, but that would become too boring.  Let me quote Ignatius Low on Housing. ‘It has been this resolve to move quickly without being encumbered by the decisions of his predecessors that has been the basis of Mr Khaw’s success.’ He went on to ask Boon Wan to take a bow for a job well done. I don’t know how many of you would agree but I don’t think it is such a difficult thing to do when someone shitted and vomited all over the place and one has to clean up the mess. But the stench stayed, a lot of money and effort wasted with many home buyers forced to buy sky high priced properties that would strangle them one day when they lost their jobs. They would be displaced PMEs as a matter of time. And there are many high income earners that were either forced to buy expensive private properties, migrated or still depending on renting properties, booted out from buying cheaper public housing.

The damage had been done and the prices are still in high heavens. Good job done?

And how many would agree that the report card for Health and Manpower be rated as satisfactory? As for Transport, appalling is quite appropriate though the report card said, ‘Can and must do better’.

Anyway it is all about personal opinions and it is good that we can share our opinions on things without being personal. A bit of civility will go a long way.

Kopi Level - Green

TRE – The shadow Parliament

In a way the TRE is looking like the shadow Parliament where national issues are discussed furiously by the people and their representatives. Every issue is hotly debated and reflected the real feelings of the people, the tension, the angst, the misery, the pain and the frustration and exasperation, all came out as real as you can get. Though there might be some fakings, but it is hundreds of times more real than the real Parliament.

Here not only genuine issues are raised, genuine questions are also asked, issues that really affect the lives of the people. There is no time for superficiality and no material issues raised for the sake of raising just for fun.

The people’s representatives here are really the representatives of the people. If they are not and speaking 

against the people, they will be ‘goreng’ and chewed to pieces.

You can imagine how the parliamentarians or MPs and ministers appearing here and talking nonsense or incomprehensible things or things they wanted the people to believe are right or good for the people when they are not? They will be striped naked and whipped and torched here. Oops, cannot say such things like whipped and torched or some people will take it literally. Only figuratively like all the good things they said in Parliament, figuratively also.

What do you think, which is the more real Parliament? Or which Parliament is a talk cock session?

Khobragade won against the American bully

She was an Indian diplomat in New York and accused of making false submission on her maid and even suspected of drug smuggling. To make things more embarrassing, she was arrested in broad daylight in a public area and subsequently subjected to the most humiliating search conducted on a woman by the American police.
 
This sparked a diplomatic row and the Indian govt cried foul, brought her home and then appointed her as a counsellor to India’s mission in the United Nation. This immediately raised her status and protected with diplomatic immunity. Though this was technically foul as it was done after the accusation and charges, so what? This is the only way to deal with American treachery and devious plots against their political target.
 
After months of diplomatic chest thumping, the Americans finally backed off and dismissed the charges. India has succeeded in facing up to the international bully by being tough, as tough as the Americans to win this case.
 
Well done India. Other countries must learn from this episode and take the Americans by the horns when they turned devilish if they are to get an even chance to shrug them off. China better learn from India in how to deal with the American bully.