'I said that the underlying problem is that the education system aims
to pick the top students for the top secondary school and later for
scholarships to prestigious overseas universities.
If the reward is set at a high level, parents will continue to do the
best that they can to make sure that their children become top
students. The children from wealthy families will continue to get the
advantage. Those from poorer families will be disadvantaged.
To get rid of this competition, we have to stop identifying the top
students. We should only look for students who passed and those who
failed. In each cohort, about 90% should pass in each year.'
The above quotes are from Tan Kin Lian in his article posted in TRE offering his solution to what he saw as Ong Ye Kung's inability to solve any problem with his new changes. According to Tan Kin Lian, the problem with Singapore's education is the focus to pick top students to be offered scholarships to the best universities in the world. I differ. Anyway this is what Tan Kin Lian wanted to avoid. So, Ong Ye Kung's new solution did not do away with identifying and selecting the best students.
Tan Kin Lian's solution, make schools produced students with pass or fail grades, get rid of competition. If this is introduced, parents and students do not need to compete with each other and would lead to less stress and maybe everyone passed. I think all of you would have a lot to say about Tan Kin Lian's proposal to solve the education angst of Singapore parents and students.
I just want to point out one fake reality. Many countries are churning out perfect score students just for their students to look better and can compete better with other countries' students. Also many half baked students and half baked universities are getting first class grades by hook or by crook, fake or real never mind, especially when they come to Singapore. Singapore would accept anything as real on printed paper as they have no means or intelligence to check their validity. Singapore has degraded to the point that they did not even bother about having a degree to qualify for a job as long as the fake can do the job.
So how are our students with only pass grades going to compete with the real and the fakes with A grades? I am sure Tan Kin Lian did not consider this yet. We already have millions of fakes descending here and taking away good jobs from our Singaporeans. The situation can only get worse if our students merely have a pass grade or average grades from the schools, polys or unis. But this may not be a problem as the most desirable jobs for Singaporeans today are hawkers, Grab drivers and part time jobs, all does not require a degree.
What do you think?
10/06/2019
Bestest solution to haze problem - Collect more money
Can't believe that this annual haze hazard is so difficult to solve. Every year the ministers would be pulling their hair trying to talk to one another to keep the haze at bay but failed miserably. No one seems to have any clue about how to kill this problem once for all, or at least cut down the severity. Millions of people from all the surrounding countries, including those from Indonesia, are suffering but could not do anything about it. The Indonesian govt too is clueless and hapless. The cleverest govt among the Asean countries also could only talk talk and talk talk but no result.
Th Indonesian govt has come up with many laws to charge, fine and imprison the culprits but all seems to fail or ineffective. A 10 billion rupiah fine for a fire starter also did not work as often they could not find enough evidence to pin on the culprit which is a real and practical problem.
Actually the solution to this problem is so simple. It is not necessary to go after the fire starter but the owners of the land where the fire is. This one it is easy to prove and with the fire as the evidence. No need to find a fire starter or how he did it. And just do it like the way they dealt with Singaporeans. Hit their pockets real hard. Pay for burning and creating haze that harm people of all the affected countries. Why not? Why can't the Indonesian govt just imposed heavy monetary fines on the companies that caused the haze, like $10,000 for every fire detected by satellite and confirmed by ground checks. If $10,000 is not enough make it $20,000 or more until it hurts. 100 fires would mean $1m in fines or a multiple. The details can be easily worked out. And it is money not just for the Indonesian govt but also for the officers monitoring the fire. The law enforcers would have the fund to pay for their staff and equipment, good well paying jobs. Everyone would be happy except the fire starters and the companies behind them.
There will be problems like starting fire to claim or extort companies for under table money. The companies that have to pay would have to make sure that fire would not be started by saboteurs or corrupt officials. It would become a very lucrative business for the govt and govt employees just to keep the sky and air clean. Many people can be employed to manage and control this fire starter and haze problem. Many people can also be rich from the fines being paid, as long as it is heavy enough to deter the companies from starting fire recklessly.
Singapore would be able to offer all the expertise on how to collect more money to solve a bad problem that affects millions of people. With the political will and so much money to collect, the haze problem would go away quickly. At the moment the Indonesian govt did not see the monetary incentive to do so. Show them the way on how to collect money, how to collect more money and save the people and animals from fire and haze.
Th Indonesian govt has come up with many laws to charge, fine and imprison the culprits but all seems to fail or ineffective. A 10 billion rupiah fine for a fire starter also did not work as often they could not find enough evidence to pin on the culprit which is a real and practical problem.
Actually the solution to this problem is so simple. It is not necessary to go after the fire starter but the owners of the land where the fire is. This one it is easy to prove and with the fire as the evidence. No need to find a fire starter or how he did it. And just do it like the way they dealt with Singaporeans. Hit their pockets real hard. Pay for burning and creating haze that harm people of all the affected countries. Why not? Why can't the Indonesian govt just imposed heavy monetary fines on the companies that caused the haze, like $10,000 for every fire detected by satellite and confirmed by ground checks. If $10,000 is not enough make it $20,000 or more until it hurts. 100 fires would mean $1m in fines or a multiple. The details can be easily worked out. And it is money not just for the Indonesian govt but also for the officers monitoring the fire. The law enforcers would have the fund to pay for their staff and equipment, good well paying jobs. Everyone would be happy except the fire starters and the companies behind them.
There will be problems like starting fire to claim or extort companies for under table money. The companies that have to pay would have to make sure that fire would not be started by saboteurs or corrupt officials. It would become a very lucrative business for the govt and govt employees just to keep the sky and air clean. Many people can be employed to manage and control this fire starter and haze problem. Many people can also be rich from the fines being paid, as long as it is heavy enough to deter the companies from starting fire recklessly.
Singapore would be able to offer all the expertise on how to collect more money to solve a bad problem that affects millions of people. With the political will and so much money to collect, the haze problem would go away quickly. At the moment the Indonesian govt did not see the monetary incentive to do so. Show them the way on how to collect money, how to collect more money and save the people and animals from fire and haze.
10/05/2019
Andrew Yang for POTUS
Andrew
is an outsider in every aspect of American politics, a non politician, an
Asian, a young entrepreneur, a completely unknown. He is now ranked number 4
after several rounds of elimination in a contest to be the Democrats candidate
to stand against Donald Trump, shoving aside more than 20 other more prominent
candidates including senators and congressmen and women.
Many
took Andrew Yang’s announcement to be in the race as a joke initially but are
now having second thoughts. He is on the move, gaining more and more supporters
and recognition as the race gets closer to 2020. There is still one more year
to go and he is the only candidate that is gaining momentum each day. His
latest prize is to raise $10m, $1.6m lesser than the third highest candidate in his third quarter fund raising, up from $2.8m.
He is now behind Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Andrew’s
campaign is run under his most famous programme called Universal Basic Income, $1000
for every adult American with no exceptions. His followers, mainly young and
internet and IT savvy, calling themselves the YangGang, wear a hat with the word MATH meaning Make America Think Harder. His popularity comes from his long list of policies to solve
America’s problems of the 21st Century instead of the normal
politicking of politicians. He is unmatched in this approach as his
intellectual and grasp of the problems America is facing put the rest of the
candidate to shame.
And
his MATH games is going to bring very far. He has slightly more than 300,000 donors so far
and this is a small drop in the ocean of 350m Americans. The number is in his
favour. All Andrew Yang needs is 1m Americans to give him $10 each and he will
get another $10m. As the campaign gets closer to nomination day, it is not
difficult for Andrew Yang to pull in 10m Americans or more to donate to his
campaign and push the amount to $100m or more in campaign fund. 10m million
young Americans plus the Afro and Asian Americans and the rest of the Americans
whose jobs are threatened by technology, the Americans that are living from paycheck to paycheck would push his supporters way pass his democrat contenders.
Andrew
Yang is on the roll. The math said so. The numbers said so. The displaced and
jobless Americans said so. He is going to make history. The Americans are going
to make history, after Obama.
10/04/2019
Nothing surprising about hate China when the racist Americans are concerned
- Joshua Wong Chi Fung was the mastermind behind the 2014 Occupy Central protests in Hongkong. This traitorous kid condones violence to bring his brand of Democracy. For him, democracy means anyone who disagrees that democracy is best, will be silenced, walloped or maimed, as evidenced in his Kamikaze crazy protest movement in Hong Kong. He is enjoying support from Marco Rubio, Nancy Pelosi, and surprisingly America hates China so much that for once Republican and Democrat don't challenge each other, so long as "kill China" mode is on. It was ridiculous that Fortune Magazine named this kid as a brilliant leader, he was even nominated for Nobel Peace prize. The way the Americans work, if 1.4 billion Chinese are decimated, the person who pressed the kill button would also get Nobel Prize for Peace and Human Rights and Democracy. Democracy, it is a damn, dirty word. American politicians are the most evil creatures on Earth.
10/03/2019
The fairy tales of eternal economic growth
People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are dying, ‘We
are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is
money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.’ Gretha Thunberg
The above quote is what this young girl said in her speech on Climate Change at the UN. Do they sound familiar? Anyone can relate to her words about economic growth? Who does not want economic growth? In this little island, everything is about economic growth, growth at all cost, because if you don’t have economic growth, how to pay million dollar salaries to the employees? And how to have easy economic growth? Grow the population by importing all the wildlife you can find to fill up every inch of earth on this island. When they are here, they need to have housing, services, food, cars, entertainments etc etc, ie they need to eat and consume goods and services. All these activities adds to one thing, economic growth!
But one problem, their activities would also lead to higher uses of plastic bags and plastic straws, and these are not good for climate change. So we must all work very hard to cut down use of plastic bags and plastic straws. Get it?
In Greta Thunberg’ speech she gave a scathing attack on world leaders for betraying the young people through a lack of action on climate change. She added. ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood through your empty words…The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.
How can the world leaders fail them when they are working so hard to provide better life for them through eternal economic growth? Is there a contradiction, is there a lie? Economic growth is the panacea of everything good in life, the more growth the better, never mind if it means stuffing 20m people in this little piece of rock. It is good.
When Adam and Eve were the only two living beans on earth, there is aplenty in everything, fresh air, food, green forests, no plastics, little waste and all the natural resources for the two beans to enjoy. Now the world’s population is 6b and growing because world leaders need more human beans to increase economic growth. Soon there will be 7b, 8b or more people sharing the earth, consuming all the resources, eating all the fishes in the ocean. Poisoning the ocean with plastic waste, nuclear waste etc etc. Temperature rising.
Not to worry, it would not happen to us. Don’t listen to this Greta Thunberg. She does not know how good economic growth is. You want your HDB flat to be worth $1m? If your answer is yes, you must want economic growth. You must want 10m, 20m people in this island. Please support the no holds bar immigration policy to bring in more and more people, then we can build more and more properties to house them, more shopping centres, more hawker centres and food courts, more reservoirs, more power stations….and more plastic bags.
A lot of serious thoughts have been put into this formula of more people equal more economic growth. No one can deny economic growth. Let’s go for it, Greta Thunberg or no Greta Thunberg. We know what is good for us, the residents of this little piece of rock. And we will share this piece of rock with more wildlife, the more the merrier.
The above quote is what this young girl said in her speech on Climate Change at the UN. Do they sound familiar? Anyone can relate to her words about economic growth? Who does not want economic growth? In this little island, everything is about economic growth, growth at all cost, because if you don’t have economic growth, how to pay million dollar salaries to the employees? And how to have easy economic growth? Grow the population by importing all the wildlife you can find to fill up every inch of earth on this island. When they are here, they need to have housing, services, food, cars, entertainments etc etc, ie they need to eat and consume goods and services. All these activities adds to one thing, economic growth!
But one problem, their activities would also lead to higher uses of plastic bags and plastic straws, and these are not good for climate change. So we must all work very hard to cut down use of plastic bags and plastic straws. Get it?
In Greta Thunberg’ speech she gave a scathing attack on world leaders for betraying the young people through a lack of action on climate change. She added. ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood through your empty words…The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.
How can the world leaders fail them when they are working so hard to provide better life for them through eternal economic growth? Is there a contradiction, is there a lie? Economic growth is the panacea of everything good in life, the more growth the better, never mind if it means stuffing 20m people in this little piece of rock. It is good.
When Adam and Eve were the only two living beans on earth, there is aplenty in everything, fresh air, food, green forests, no plastics, little waste and all the natural resources for the two beans to enjoy. Now the world’s population is 6b and growing because world leaders need more human beans to increase economic growth. Soon there will be 7b, 8b or more people sharing the earth, consuming all the resources, eating all the fishes in the ocean. Poisoning the ocean with plastic waste, nuclear waste etc etc. Temperature rising.
Not to worry, it would not happen to us. Don’t listen to this Greta Thunberg. She does not know how good economic growth is. You want your HDB flat to be worth $1m? If your answer is yes, you must want economic growth. You must want 10m, 20m people in this island. Please support the no holds bar immigration policy to bring in more and more people, then we can build more and more properties to house them, more shopping centres, more hawker centres and food courts, more reservoirs, more power stations….and more plastic bags.
A lot of serious thoughts have been put into this formula of more people equal more economic growth. No one can deny economic growth. Let’s go for it, Greta Thunberg or no Greta Thunberg. We know what is good for us, the residents of this little piece of rock. And we will share this piece of rock with more wildlife, the more the merrier.
10/02/2019
Singapore needs a massive revamp of the income tax regime
The poor Singaporeans are the highest taxed individuals in Singapore in nett terms. Though many have been beguiled by the little income tax they are paying, many low income and no income Singaporeans are still subject to the regressive GST, taxing on everything that a Singaporean used and consumed. This is very unhealthy and discriminatory against the poor and low income Singaporeans. At 7% GST, poor Singaporeans, no income Singaporeans and low income Singaporeans are all taxed at 7% of their consumption or expenditure, with no exceptions.
If we were to consider the personal income tax system, with personal reliefs, earned income relief and other reliefs, anyone earning less than $30,000 annual income would practically pay $0 income tax. But this savings in income tax has been swallowed up by the 7% GST which effectively forms the based for personal income tax of everyone, young and old, working or not working.
On paper, any Singaporean earning $20,000 pa would not be subject to any income tax. The tax for the next $10,000 taxable income is $200 at 2%. If all reliefs and deductibles are included, a person earning between $40,000 to $50,000 would be taxed $200.
If the average income of Singaporeans is $3,000 pm, it would mean 50% of Singaporeans would be paying $200 or less in income tax. Maybe 60% would be paying $200 or less. Imagine how much work and how many people are hired and paid to administer 50-60% of Singaporeans income tax submission and assessment?
Why not change the tax regime for Singaporeans earning $50,000 and below to be exempt from income tax? Why employed an army of tax personnel to monitor and collect $200 from a few of the 2m citizens? So many resources and manpower could be redeployed into more productive areas and a lot of savings in payroll. After all, with GST, the people are already paying 7% personal tax in another form, and the pool of tax payers includes children, babies and retirees with no income but paying taxes.
The other area of main concern is not to tax indiscriminately, on essential and basic items and on children, education and medical services. These can be fine tuned to tax on the selected items and services. A one size fits all idiotic approach to catch everyone with no exceptions and compassion is negligence and a lazy attitude in public administration. The fine tuning would also make it less expensive for citizens versus foreigners when foreigners are a big part of our population and workforce.
With the uncontrolled and unchallenged lust to increase GST to 9%, the need to think deeply and thoroughly on how this might affect the less able citizens becomes more important. We don't pay millions for slipshod and careless policies that are convenient to apply but indiscriminate in hurting the well beings of the citizens. If there are so many mean people that think means testing is important and necessary, this principle must also apply to indiscriminate increase in GST. Do the due diligence, put in more effort and think, use the so called million dollar brain or talent to show care for the people, especially those that would be adversely affected. Every dollar counts.
These are just a few thoughts on the need to revamp the tax regime instead of continuing the way it has been for so long. If the CPF can be changed and changed until it turns into not the people's money, for who's interest, why should not the tax regime be changed as well, to benefit the people that need to put up with it?
If we were to consider the personal income tax system, with personal reliefs, earned income relief and other reliefs, anyone earning less than $30,000 annual income would practically pay $0 income tax. But this savings in income tax has been swallowed up by the 7% GST which effectively forms the based for personal income tax of everyone, young and old, working or not working.
On paper, any Singaporean earning $20,000 pa would not be subject to any income tax. The tax for the next $10,000 taxable income is $200 at 2%. If all reliefs and deductibles are included, a person earning between $40,000 to $50,000 would be taxed $200.
If the average income of Singaporeans is $3,000 pm, it would mean 50% of Singaporeans would be paying $200 or less in income tax. Maybe 60% would be paying $200 or less. Imagine how much work and how many people are hired and paid to administer 50-60% of Singaporeans income tax submission and assessment?
Why not change the tax regime for Singaporeans earning $50,000 and below to be exempt from income tax? Why employed an army of tax personnel to monitor and collect $200 from a few of the 2m citizens? So many resources and manpower could be redeployed into more productive areas and a lot of savings in payroll. After all, with GST, the people are already paying 7% personal tax in another form, and the pool of tax payers includes children, babies and retirees with no income but paying taxes.
The other area of main concern is not to tax indiscriminately, on essential and basic items and on children, education and medical services. These can be fine tuned to tax on the selected items and services. A one size fits all idiotic approach to catch everyone with no exceptions and compassion is negligence and a lazy attitude in public administration. The fine tuning would also make it less expensive for citizens versus foreigners when foreigners are a big part of our population and workforce.
With the uncontrolled and unchallenged lust to increase GST to 9%, the need to think deeply and thoroughly on how this might affect the less able citizens becomes more important. We don't pay millions for slipshod and careless policies that are convenient to apply but indiscriminate in hurting the well beings of the citizens. If there are so many mean people that think means testing is important and necessary, this principle must also apply to indiscriminate increase in GST. Do the due diligence, put in more effort and think, use the so called million dollar brain or talent to show care for the people, especially those that would be adversely affected. Every dollar counts.
These are just a few thoughts on the need to revamp the tax regime instead of continuing the way it has been for so long. If the CPF can be changed and changed until it turns into not the people's money, for who's interest, why should not the tax regime be changed as well, to benefit the people that need to put up with it?
10/01/2019
Foreign interference in internal affairs of a country
This has been on the lips on some politicians recently like it is a
national threat. It is a national threat when interference is against a
ruling govt but not the other way. And this hard truth is a historical
truth. The ruling govt of a country would not want another country to
interfere in what it is doing domestically or against its political
rivals or citizens.
Should any citizen of Singapore dare to go to another country’s rulers to ask them to interfere with Singapore’s politics or domestic affairs, you can imagine what hell is like. In many countries, historically, this is treason, and the person involved is called a traitor. It is an unforgiveable crime against the state and people. There could be exceptions when a country is ruled by a rogue dictator or regime when a hapless people is forced to invite foreign assistance to overthrow a ruling rogue regime. However the difference between overthrowing a rogue regime and regime change because of foreign interference by foreign power is a very thin line.
The calling of a foreign power or leader to interfere in the domestic politics is happening today in the USA! Donald Trump is facing impeachment exactly for this crime. In the transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukraine President he was quoted to have asked him to investigate the son of Joe Biden, the leading democrat candidate to stand against him. While Trump has yet to be completely discharged from the accusation of having the Russians interfering in the presidential election that led to his Presidency, he is now caught with his pants down, inviting a foreign power to meddle with the next presidential election. The Americans could not take this act of treason and are mounting an inquiry that could lead to Trump’s impeachment.
The irony is that a few weeks’ back the American Congress was seen listening intensely to a bunch of traitors from Hong Kong inviting the Americans to interfere in the affairs of Hong Kong, China. The Americans are encouraging such acts of treasons against the govt of another country but would not tolerate such similar acts in their own country.
Would Singapore support the Hong Kong activists that went begging the Americans to interfere in their domestic affairs? How would the Singapore govt deal with such acts if they were Singaporeans and not Hongkongers ?
Should any citizen of Singapore dare to go to another country’s rulers to ask them to interfere with Singapore’s politics or domestic affairs, you can imagine what hell is like. In many countries, historically, this is treason, and the person involved is called a traitor. It is an unforgiveable crime against the state and people. There could be exceptions when a country is ruled by a rogue dictator or regime when a hapless people is forced to invite foreign assistance to overthrow a ruling rogue regime. However the difference between overthrowing a rogue regime and regime change because of foreign interference by foreign power is a very thin line.
The calling of a foreign power or leader to interfere in the domestic politics is happening today in the USA! Donald Trump is facing impeachment exactly for this crime. In the transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukraine President he was quoted to have asked him to investigate the son of Joe Biden, the leading democrat candidate to stand against him. While Trump has yet to be completely discharged from the accusation of having the Russians interfering in the presidential election that led to his Presidency, he is now caught with his pants down, inviting a foreign power to meddle with the next presidential election. The Americans could not take this act of treason and are mounting an inquiry that could lead to Trump’s impeachment.
The irony is that a few weeks’ back the American Congress was seen listening intensely to a bunch of traitors from Hong Kong inviting the Americans to interfere in the affairs of Hong Kong, China. The Americans are encouraging such acts of treasons against the govt of another country but would not tolerate such similar acts in their own country.
Would Singapore support the Hong Kong activists that went begging the Americans to interfere in their domestic affairs? How would the Singapore govt deal with such acts if they were Singaporeans and not Hongkongers ?
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