Is your life getting better?

Sure, definitely better. Swiss standard of living is nothing when one is earning millions every year. Swiss standard of living is nothing when one is living in a house worth tens of millions and owning a few more to rent out. Swiss standard of living is nothing when buying a Ferrari or Lamborghini costing more than a million is small change.
 
For those who cannot afford to send their children to university, cannot afford to have more children, cannot afford to pay medical bills, downgrading to smaller HDB flats, can only afford to buy smaller HDB flats, cannot afford a car, are your life getting better?
 
Talking Point on 2 Apr telecasted live on the topic of the middle class and whether their lives are getting better. My impression after listening to the panel and callers is that Sinkies do not deserve to be called Sinkies. They should be called daft Sinkies. The Hongkies, Taiwanese and PRC Chinese did not call Sinkies stupid for nothing. It is a well deserving title.
 
Now why do I say that? The views from the forum is all about adapting to your means and downgrading. I can accept that when one is an idiot, one should not aspire to anything more than 3 meals and a pair of shorts. But when one is talking about the middle class, the 50 to 60 percent sandwiched between the lower income and the rich, what kind of life or aspiration should they be expecting other than downgrading?
 
In the 70s and 80s, everyone was talking about upgrading, getting bigger flats and private properties if possible, and going for that super convenience called a car. And the people aspiring and attaining such level of comfort were not even the middle class but the workers, the taxi drivers, the supervisors, the technicians, the young graduates. Life was getting better for everyone, including those below the middle class.
 
Today, it is very normal for a young family to have at least a graduate, or both are graduates. They spent millions and a life time studying to get to that position. Is it too much, unreasonable, for them to aspire to live in a bigger HDB flat or condominium? Forget about private landed properties, these are way beyond their means today but not within the means of their lowly educated parents. Is it too much for them to aspire to own a small Japanese car to make living that much more convenient and pleasant, eating out once a week or a month?
 
What transpired in the forum is that daft Sinkies should be happy with public transport, if not even go on bicycles. Forget about small cars, cars are not necessary. When have daft Sinkies been fed with this kind of stupid ideas? And a small HDB flat should do, live within your means. Is that what daft Sinkies are contented after spending a third of their precious life pursuing tertiary education and spending a fortune on that to live in stupid small HDB flats and go around taking public transport? Is this what the future holds for the Sinkie middle class?
 
But the daft Sinkies that were airing their views found this acceptable, the type of life they feel reasonable and happy to be. Who said Sinkies are unhappy? Most of the views expressed by the daft Sinkies was that they were happy not owning a car. They did not want to know why the roads are so heavy with traffic and the prices of cars and COEs so high. They are very happy if public transport is satisfactory and they can live without a car.
 
This message of no need for a car has been successfully stuffed and buried in the daft Sinkie mind. They are all talking about downgrading and living within their means. I can accept that if they could not even make it to tertiary education and should not be asking for too much. Why would a minister find it difficult if she could not be earning a couple of millions a year to live a ‘decent’ lifestyle?
 
I must say the daft Sinkies are easily contented with life and are a very happy lot, living, adjusting and adapting with the quality of life without cars, without a decent job, smaller HDB flats and eating out lesser.
 
Is this what Sinkies are living for? No more ambition for a better life, no more aspiration that things can be better? Oh, the new aspiration, to own and ride a bicycle, and perhaps become his own boss, driving a taxi and with a few degrees to hang inside the taxi..

Kopi Level - Yellow

China must act against the Pinoys

The wreckage of a rusty WW2 ship sunk and rotting in the Chinese island is being used by the Pinoys and the USA to spike the Chinese and challenging their claims to the island. The wreck ship has been there since 1999 and is home to 9 Pinoy marines. They lived on provisions supplied regularly by the Pinoy fishing boats that played a game of hike and seek with the Chinese Coast Guards. The latest event happened a few days back with some reporters in the fishing boats to report on the event. And the Americans expectedly came out in support of the Pinoy ruse.
 
China may be thinking that it is a matter of time before the scrap metal of the wreck would be inhospitable and the Pinoys would have to swim back to Manila. This has taken 14 years and it is still there and causing so much embarrassment to the incompetent Chinese. It is time that they take action and remove the wreckage and the Pinoy soldiers in them from the island.
 
If China believes that the island belongs to China, it must assert its right of ownership and declared the Pinoys as trespassers, arrest them and put them in jail in Hainan. They should then send a bill to Manila to pay for the cost of the operation and to take their soldiers back. Failing to do so is not only a sign of weakness but an indirect admission that the island is disputed and China is not the owner yet.
 
There is no need to worry about the Americans and the Pinoys as they are expected to act and behave accordingly. And China can show the middle finger to them as well as the western media as all three are in cahoot to show China in a bad light. It is better to deal with the matter in a clinical manner, remove the rusty piece of shit and the illegal occupiers immediately to tell the Americans and Pinoys and the rest of the trouble makers that China would no longer tolerate their nonsense. China must be firm and resolute in maintaining and protecting its territorial sovereignity. There is no room for dilly dallying and to encourage the Pinoys to dance around like clowns in Chinese territories. 

Inaction on the part of China is bad.

Why no lunch break will not be lifted

With the news on FBI investigating HFT in all the major papers, more reports and comments are coming out on the unfair advantages HFT is giving to the computer traders. In a Bloomberg report, a columnist by the name of Lewis said,’ U.S. stock market is rigged by high-frequency traders who make tens of billions of dollars jumping in front of investors. Everyone who owns equities is victimized by the practices.’ Now would this ring a bell and wake people up a bit? Why is this not illegal, not a crime?
 
Aaron Smith of Pecora Capital added,’ We don’t want to be in the high-frequency space because then you’re in a technological foot race against the next guy, When they have a bigger, faster, stronger computer, you’re out of business. We’re not interested.’ This is how effective or destructive HFT is. And it is legal at the moment. The exchanges made it legal knowing that it is unfair trading. Can you believe it? When the big funds will also be driven out of business trading against HFT, what chance do the small traders have?
 
Now why would I say ‘no lunch break’ will not be lifted? In the same Bloomberg report a Javier Paz said this, ‘FX has ongoing liquidity throughout the day, no interruption in trading and fewer gaps in prices, which all allow for algorithmic trading to flourish.’ 

Now you know the real reason why remisiers are not going to have their lunch break back. It was never about increasing trading time to increase business and commission. It is all about computer trading, and no lunch break means no interruption and means fewer gaps in prices and means good for HFT and computer trading.
 
Now, are you wiser or still blur like sotong and be let around by people pulling your ears? The truth is out. Who is the deceiver?

Hsien Loong – If something is wrong….

‘PM Lee's answer to Sir Malcolm Rifkind's question of whether Singapore's incorrupt system was reversible:
 
"I think it is reversible but I think these values and this system is fairly well entrenched. The expectations from the public are there, so if something is not quite right you can be sure that somebody will sound the alarm. And in this day and age, there is no possibility of these things - something wrong being kept secret for very long. Within the system there are mechanisms to make sure that if something is suspicious, it is investigated, and if something indeed is wrong, then consequences will have to follow.’
 
How many of you agree with what Hsien Loong said above? His version is that the daft Sinkies will whistleblow, will kpkb when something is not right. He also assumed that when the alarm is sound, the govt will be notified and will put it right.
 
In reality there are a few normal scenarios. One, the people can kpkb but the deaf frogs will not listen. Two, the right people will not kpkb as they cannot see anything wrong. So there is no need to sound the alarm.
 
‘And in this day and age, there is no possibility of these things - something wrong being kept secret for very long.’ Now now, how many things have gone wrong and have been kept secret for very long and will be kept secret for as long as the party is in power? 

No? No such things? Do you agree?

Kopi Level - Green

MH370 – Not a shred of evidence

More than 3 weeks have passed and a massive search exercise involving many nations is in full swing in the southern Indian Ocean. Everyone has been told that the aircraft ended or crashed there. Everyone is convinced that that is the truth. No one seems to be questioning whether this could be a disinformation or a diversion.
 
Where is the evidence to say that MH370 crashed there? Can anyone bring out a piece of solid evidence to say that the aircraft crashed into the southern Indian Ocean? Solid evidence is solid evidence, not guess work, not extrapolation, not theories, not beliefs. The extrapolation by Immarsat using Doppler Theory is, ahem, just extrapolation and could be furthest from the truth.
 
There is absolutely no evidence to prove that the aircraft ended in the Indian Ocean though a few Prime Minister are trying to tell the world they know it is there.
You tell me what is going on? Every clue and lead led to a big blank. Are the searchers working with their heads? Did they know that the Americans are taking their own sweet time as if they know that it is all a big fake show, that there is nothing there?
 
Not sure whether to laugh or to cry.

Putting on the red lens on climate change

Last night’s SG+ on climate change was all about all the great things Red Dot has done on climate change and saving mother earth. Everything is so positive, green buildings, water conservation, new water, earth hour, cutting down on wasteful consumption, reducing car population, reducing carbon emission, encourage walking or cycling, saving waste papers, plastics etc etc. Everyone in the panel of discussion was patting himself and feeling so good that as a first world country we were setting an excellent example for the less developed countries to follow.

I was just a bit puzzled by some of the things that we are doing like scrapping cars in 10 years or less when they can be used for 20 or 30 years. Is this wasteful or saving resources? What about pulling down structurally sound buildings that could last another 50 to 100 years just to rebuild even higher and higher buildings? Are these acts helping to reduce consumption of energy and resources and material or wasting them?

What about increasing the population from 3m to 5.4m and now proceeding to 6.9m? Is the increasing population going to increase consumption of energy and resources or the other way?

On the whole I think any one of these three items, premature scrapping of good road worthy cars, pulling down of structural sound buildings or population increases could outdo all the things mentioned in para one added together to reduce consumption of resources but conversely has more adverse effects on climate change in bigger ways.

What is the point of saving a glass of water but turning the aircon on the whole night? Think how much airconditioning is needed to cool the funny gardens for plants that would grow wild in their natural habitats? Is the Red Dot really a good example in energy saving or reducing consumption of resources to help in slowing down climate change? How much more energy and resources would need to be consumed for every million people added into the island, the food, energy, utilities, their toys, the leisure and casual consumption for them to live and use?

Can we remove the red lens and look at the self perpetuating myths and fallacies we created to make us look good and feel good? Our greed for more people is so destructive that we didn’t even know or were aware of it. We are so blind to our wrongs and so smug in blowing our own trumpets. We are helping in the worse way to destroy mother earth by destroying our little island first.

Singapore students top the world in PISA

In a test conducted by Programme for International Students Assessment in 2012, Singapore students, and I repeat, Singapore students, beat the rest of the world to come up tops, not only in rote learning but also in creative thinking. Amazing isn’t it? 

After a decade of wearing the no talent tag, when they are deemed to be more stupid and useless than fake talents from the 3rd World, our students are world beaters. And those 3rd World countries where we drew our talents from were not even mentioned or appeared in the top rankings. Among those rated closer to Singapore are South Korea, Japan, Macau, HongKong, Shanghai, Taiwan, Canada, Australia and Finland. No wonder we are seeing the rise of Asia.
 
These students that topped the PISA test are likely to be strait A students for their O and A level examinations. And they are likely to be admitted to local universities and will also do very well. They will also be able to find employments quite easily and will be quickly promoted to middle management in the future.
 
But they will not be good enough to be at top management level. They will mostly be replaced by the fake talents from the 3rd World that they beat with hands down. Then they will add to the statistics of the unemployed or underemployed PMEs. And many will end up as their own bosses, driving taxis to pick up the foreign fake talents and hoping for some tips if they are lucky. If they are unlucky they will end up as punching bags to these foreign talents for their amusements.
 
Some of these who refused to accept their fate will try desperately to submit their resumes to the employment agencies operated by foreigners but would be told that they lacked the skill sets and experience needed for their clients. These foreign employment agencies would prefer to recruit their talents or fake talents from the 3rd World to fill up positions in this world class city.
 
One caveat, this is likely to be the picture if conditions remain like what it is now. Things may change in 10 or 20 years when all the free trade agreements are signed and foreigners flooded this city looking for jobs and our world beaters would count themselves lucky if they could even find employment in the first place.
 
Andreas Schleicher, Special Adviser to the OECD Secretary General on Education Policy and Deputy Director for Education and Skills has this to say, ‘It shows that today’s 15 year olds in Singapore are quick learners, highly inquisitive, able to solve unstructured problems in unfamiliar contexts and highly skilled in generating new insights by observing, exploring and interacting with complex situations.’ What he meant is that our students are not blind muggers but really talented and creative. But would those asses listen to him? I bet not. The asses will still be singing praise for foreign talents and recruiting fake talents and bring them in plane loads to replace these local talents in top jobs, middle jobs and eventually all jobs except taxi drivers.
 
Can these bright Singapore students look forward to a great career in the future? What do you think?

Kopi Level - Green