Go Jek going to operate in Singapore’s tiny market

The Singapore market, be it taxi driving or mobile phone, is really a very small market. Once you have two or 3 players, it would be saturated with the market share split by the few players. Why would Go Jek be so keen to enter the market after Uber and Grab, that have already been acquired? The answer is in the mobile phone business model. There was once only one operator with 100 percent market share. Then they opened up the market under the so called open leg policy, liberalization, to allow Uber and Grab to come in, in the mobile phone market they allowed M1 and Starhub to come in. And as expected, the market share was split.
 
The once only one operator then strangely realized that its market share was diluted by the new operators. This was bad and it needed to regain its market share, the whole market share. So what should it do? Buy up the new operators offering them a Singapore Premium to divest their investment in Singapore. And lo behold, the only one operator now had regained all its market share again, albeit after coughing out hundreds of millions of OPM. And the new operators took their prize money, pat their backsides, and laughed all the way to the bank.
 
Go Jek is jumping in, likely to follow this same successful formula. All it needs is to gain market share, even if at a loss. It would only need to hold on for a few years for the one and only operator to wake up to realize that its market share has been diluted again. And in panic mode it would decide to buy up Go Jek at a premium. And Go Jek would happily give up everything to exit the market, with a huge Singapore Premium. The only and only operator would again have the whole market share.
 
Why is this possible? Very simple. When one is holding a lot of OPM and needs to invest to be seen to do something, and if one has no idea on how to start a business, the easiest and most convenient way to show some results is to buy up another apparently successful company with a tested business model. The Singapore entrepreneurial story is about buying businesses without having to start one. It is not easy to start a new business and to be profitable when one has no idea how to start a business, without any business experience except some text book knowledge or knowledge from irrelevant industries or occupation.
 
After Uber and Grab, here comes Go Jek. And soon Go Jek will come to pass. And Go Jek will not be the last corporate raider in this sense. Many will come, to set up companies waiting to be bought over. Any company will do, no need high tech or high thinking. Kopitiam also can. The next target will be the share bike business. Some clever business entrepreneurs without entrepreneurial experience are eagerly waiting on the sideline, waiting for the right moment to buy up the bike sharing business, and pay the standard Singapore Premium to go with it. And the bike sharing companies could happily exit the market and laugh all the way to the bank, pocketing the OPM that has no owners.
 
This is Singapore’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial business model to buy and run a business.
 
Why invite outsiders to come in to steal a market share and then to buy it back?

North Korean officials preyed on women with impunity

This is headline news reported by AFP quoting a righteous Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth. Is this guy an American? Did he read the news about American officials, including the President and a Supreme Court judge and several top officials in the White House groping and attacking women, raping, and getting away with impunity? Compare their acts with the North Koreans, what is the difference and which is more newsworthy or disgusting?
 
Kenneth Roth also accused the North Koreans of treating their women like ‘sex toys’. Mmmm, is this Roth a descendant of slave American slave owners? Did he know that treating women like sex toys in the good old days of black African slavery was par on course? Did he know that a white guest to a white slave owner’s home would be invited to have his pick of the slave girls in the chicken farm in the backyard?
 
He added with details, ‘Every night, a prison guard would open the cell. I stood still quietly, acting like I didn’t notice, hoping it wouldn’t be me.’ Wow, so dramatic. What would he think a slave girl would say in the dark days of American slavery? Let me try to remember, how about, ‘Every night, the master would open the cell. I stood still quietly, acting like I didn’t notice, hoping it wouldn’t be me.’ Is this familiar, or he has conveniently forgotten? These are words that this Kenneth Roth have quoted from the movie 'Roots'.
 
The evilest creatures on earth, capturing Afrikaans as slaves, treated them like animals country wide, continent wide, massacring millions of native Americans to near extinction, today walking around in white robes to condemn others as the evil ones, and they are the angels of Gods. Everyone is evil and bad, the Americans are the good guys.
 
Kenneth Roth also quoted this with glee. ‘North Korean women would probably say “Me Too” if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices are silenced in Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship.’ How many American women that stood up to expose the sexual attacks by American top officials would also say “Me too”?
 
How many black women, many long dead and gone, would also say “Me Too” if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices were silenced in the American white conspiracy or dictatorship, the land of the free only for the whites?
 
It is a lie, it never happen in America, the land of the free, liberty and the land of human rights abuses. Oops, no human rights abuses, definitely no abuses of the white Americans. What about black Americans? Latinos, Spaniards and Asians?
 
This is the kind of smear campaign the West has been indulging for centuries against Asians and the rest of the world, attacking them, badmouthing them, to divert attention from their evilness and wicked deeds. The millions of people they have killed in the Middle East and other parts of the world would not be spoken. No crimes against humanity, but any small things happening in other countries, they would accuse them of crimes against humanity.

National Games 2018 - Masters 4x100m 65-74

A friend forwarded this video to me. He also did not know who shot it and I could not give credit to the videographer.  RB is the last runner in the inner lane. The first runner in my team was Tan Nam Chong, second runner Jeffrey Boh and third runner was Cheong Seng Quee, my primary school classmate.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – World’s tallest statue

India has outdone everyone in building the world’s largest statue of its leaders, twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US. And it costs only $560m. This is small change for the next super power in the making. This Sardar was also known as the Iron Man for united a feuding India of many states, something akin to what Mao Zedong had done for China. For such a great feat he rightly deserved to be so highly honoured, a very tall order.
 
Asians have traditionally been associated with glorifying their dead leaders and for building huge monuments to show their love and affection for their leaders. India is no exception and little Singapore is also following this trend. Though Singapore is more seen as a western country with western thinking, this Asian trait is still deeply rooted in the psychic of its western educated natural Aristocrats.
 
Singapore is going to build a monument for its founding leaders. 560 hectares of prime land, the most expensive land in the island, has been carved out for this purpose. How much would this land cost, plus the buildings it could build on it? Priceless!
 
Before this Sardar statue, Singapore has no good western role models to fall back on to build gigantic monuments. To imitate what the North Koreans did would definitely attract criticism that Singapore is becoming a small replica of North Korea. This $560m statue in India is a welcome news. India is Singapore’s role model,Indian fever, the biggest democracy. Singapore aspires to be like India and is importing millions of Indians here to transform the culture and DNA to be more Indian like and to benefit future generations of Indian’s super talent gene pool. An ideal Singapore family is an Indian husband and a Chinese wife as in many advertisement. Use to be an European man and a local girl.
 
Now Singapore can say India is doing it, and spent $560m on it. Singapore can definitely do better if not at least equal what India spent for its monument to honour its dear leader. Just wondering if Singapore would put up a statue as big and tall as India to be the tallest in the world, all for a good cause of course. It would be money well spent, every cent of it.
 
What do you think?

Para athletes – Against all odds. What about masters athletes?

Our team of para athletes returned from the Asian Para Games in Indonesia with 3 golds, 2 silvers and 5 bronzes. This is a much improved performance over their last outing. Understanding their disabilities and limitations and how hard they have to work to overcome their physical handicaps, their efforts and results are very admirable.
 
Yip Pin Xiu had two golds in swimming and a special award for the ‘World Para Series’ Best Female Athlete for high support needs athletes. The other two gold medal winner was swimmer Toh Wei Soong.
 
The govt has been very positive in supporting and encouraging the para athletes to engage in sports, which is a good thing. Every sport needs encouragement. The normal athletes too were given support by the govt.
Masters athletes – Nobody’s child
 
The only group that is receiving only lip service support is the masters athletes. This group may not be as normal as the young athletes as many of the masters athletes are ageing. Their physical parts are ‘rusting’ and getting brittle and stiff. They need many kinds of supplements and exercises to keep their muscles ‘supple’ and their joints less ‘rough’ to be able to perform the same feat as the younger and normal athletes. They are handicapped in their own ways, and some of their physical conditions are not too far from the para athletes.
 
Imagine uncles and aunties in their 60s, 70s, 80s and more running the sprint, doing high jump, long jump, hurdling etc etc. These activities at these golden ages demand a lot of training, endurance and pains that needed all kinds of pain killers to keep them going. Would the govt seriously consider giving them at least the same support as the para athletes to encourage them to keep on running, jumping and throwing? It needs a lot of drive, determination and training for a 60-90 year old to be running the 100m dash, something the younger athletes took for granted.
 
Some of the masters athletes have spoken to Grace Fu but so far nothing has happened. The masters athletic associations too had made their cases for some support, but it seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Why is the govt/SportsSG not showing much concern or interest in supporting the masters athletes other than lip service?
 
For so long, the masters athletes are like nobody’s child. They are left to fend for themselves and to amuse themselves at their own time and cost, living in the fringes of the athletic community. The darlings of the govt/SportsSG are the para athletes. For the record, a total of $250,000 cash rewards were given up in the recent Asian Para Games.
 
Next year there will be an equivalent Asian Masters Athletic Meet in Sarawak, Malaysia. Would the govt think of including this masters athletic competition in the same category as the Asian Para Games and reward the senior athletics with some cash awards for the honours and glory they bring to the country? Or masters athletics can do what they want, nothing to do with the govt or SportsSg, non of their business?
 
This time there will be qualifying time trials for the Asian Masters Meet. Does this mean that SportsSG is changing its mind and taking the masters athletes more seriously? Would the masters athletes be recognized finally? Many have been running for years without any recognition from the state while carrying the nation’s flag.
 
What say you Grace Fu?

Singapore #7 most giving country?

According to British Charities Aid Foundation, Singapore is the 7th most generous countries in the world. What utter rubbish. This is the most biased and unfair poll, from a bunch of ignoramus. They really did not know what they were talking about. The top 3 generous countries were Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Can you believe this nonsense? Singapore is definitely #1, many many times more generous than any country in the world. #7???? Nonsense.
 
The criteria used, giving of time, money and helping a stranger. So simplistic terms. This kind of criteria is best to use on individuals, not on a country. But never mind, let’s use these to see how generous Singapore is compares to the other countries.
 
Helping strangers, do they know that Singapore has been offering thousands of scholarships annually, for at least the last 20 years, to complete strangers, children of other countries, to study in Singapore schools and universities, up to doctoral level? You know how much this costs and how many strangers benefitted from this generous policy? Several billions of dollars and several thousands of students that otherwise would not have world class education. Not generous enough? And this was done at the expense of many Singapore children that have to give up their school and university places for these foreigners and their parents have to cough up their savings, some selling their homes, to pay for their education fees overseas.
 
And if you think this is not enough, not significant, think of the more than 2 million strangers allowed into Singapore, to take over the jobs of Singaporeans, to steal the lunch of Singaporeans. The 2m may not look big, but it is more than 50% of the Singapore population and to date they are a majority in Singapore. And over the years, several times this number have benefitted and got richer when they come and go, all at the expense of Singaporeans.
 
And what did the daft but generous Singaporeans do after losing their jobs? They either retired, and got themselves out of the unemployment statistics, or become taxi drivers or security guards, and kidding themselves that these are jobs of choice, freedom, independent, being your own bosses. Ah Q mentality or self delusion or being generous? The latter is not recognized or Singapore would be listed as the most generous country. They probably think Singaporeans are all daft, anything but generous.
 
The generosity of Singaporeans is at the nationals level, not just a few individuals that happened to be counted. And the policies of being generous are ongoing. It is even institutionalized in free trade agreements like CECA to benefit foreigners most and Singaporeans last and least.
 
How’s that? Still deserve to be ranked only #7 and not #1? Singaporeans are so generous until they are being regarded as stupid, daft, giving away so much but not recognized. Singapore and Singaporeans deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for their generosity in helping others, strangers and suffering in silence, becoming jobless and becoming taxi drivers and security guards while foreigners are allowed to come in and take on top jobs paying hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars. And the official excuse, these are jobs that Singaporeans did not want to do or have no experience of skill sets to do. Only third world people have the required qualifications, experience and skills sets to do these high paying jobs, with dubious and even degree mills degrees.
 
Daft Singaporeans must protest to this unfair ranking of Singaporeans. The ministers must also object to this ranking. Singaporeans must be number One, no less.
 
PS. On record Singapore must have provided scholarship and educated a few thousand students all over Asia and given jobs to several millions of the jobless from Asia. If this is not generous, what is? Which country could do better to look after foreigners at the expense of its own citizens?

Saudi Arabia squeezing Trump’s balls

Trump has been flip flopping over the savage killing of Khashoggi. What is the relationship of Khashoggi with the USA? Never mind, this is not that important anymore. What is important is that the Americans cannot do anything about it and Saudi Arabia and MBS would move on as if nothing has happened.
 
Why, why are the Americans and even Trump, could not do anything against the Saudis?
 
Listen to these threats coming from the Saudis.
 
1. Saudi Arabia will switch from petrodollar to petroyuan. Americans mati. The end of the American Empire.
2. Oil price will shoot to US$400.
3. Saudis will invite the Russians to set up military base in Saudi Arabia.
4. Saudi Arabia will ally with Iran and join the Russia/China camp. When this happened, Israel will no longer be able to control and mess around with the Arabs applying their divide and rule policy.
5. Saudi Arabia will dump US Treasury Bills.
 
What would the above mean to the Americans and Israelis? The Middle East would all be part of a new alliance with Russia and China leaving the USA and Israel as the two lone wolves facing the might of the Arab world, and losing control of oil as a weapon of war.
 
So, what can Trump and the Americans do? Sanctions? Remove the Saudi royalties? No, they would turn their heads, start to whistle and pretend that nothing has happened. Let’s move on, human rights, abominable crimes, what’s that?
 
The Americans are increasingly facing such Hobbesian’s Choice and becoming hapless while their allies defied the Empire and do as they please. The Americans are losing control of their allies. All the chips they held over their allies are becoming meaningless. The end of the Evil Empire is near. In this Khashoggi’s case the Americans would look so ridiculous over their claims of moral superiority, or righteousness, of anything by hypocrisy. This will be like the Americans unmasked, the Devil will be exposed.
 
Trump thought he could have his ways by pushing everyone around. This time he is completely at the mercy of the Saudis. He could do nothing to bring justice for the savage dismemberment of Khashoggi, very highly and likely a CIA operative.