Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Benchmark
All the talk about bench-marking ministerial salaries. Here's the new bench mark for MPs. Now step down disGRACEFUl, money driven civil servants!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Playing dirty
Not sure if you guys have been catching Taiwanese drama serials these days, but it sure beats our own Singaporean productions where the standard seems to be dropping of late. Anyway, a private joke on this drama serial that I am catching right now every evening -hooked on it.
"Do you know the hottest question from auntie to auntie these days is: 今晚有没有做"爱? "
"Do you know the hottest question from auntie to auntie these days is: 今晚有没有做"爱? "
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
British Transparency
Since we were British ruled before...I hope we reach the plateau of transparency soon with acknowledgement that this is necessary for generations of Singaporeans to come.
Source.
So apparently ours is the highest paid cabinet; politicians; civil servants in the world. So we Sillyporeans have every right to demand nothing but the best.
Kudos to the Singapore Police Force in catching 5 knives-wielding foreign workers around Kallang area, and hope they can catch the remaining 2. But it is no relief that 2 were caught trying to sneak back into Singapore, means they did a Mas Selamat? Or worse..they walked straight out of immigration exits. I just applaud the way Shitty Times write their stories...quoted "It is not known why they try to come back". One would expect more investigative-type questions to the police on how did they leave in the first place, instead of questioning criminal stupidity? So now crazy foreign workers can come in and out of Singapore holding weapons to terrorise our heartlands? Soon we will need police patrol all over our island to prevent such acts which reminded me of Mumbai, India... just that ours is crazier as we do have millions of foreign workers living in our midst from Serangoon to Jurong. I do hope well-known high budgeted military spending can come to good use in that seemingly likely event. Looks like I need to spend more time with my loved ones and practising my Wing Chun!
Government reveals 172 civil servants earn more than PM
Meanwhile, Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the British TaxPayers' Alliance, said the move to publish public spending data "is long overdue but is nevertheless extremely welcome".
"Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent and anyone earning a large amount of money in government should have their pay packet open to public scrutiny, so people can judge whether they are providing good value for money," he said.
Source.
So apparently ours is the highest paid cabinet; politicians; civil servants in the world. So we Sillyporeans have every right to demand nothing but the best.
Kudos to the Singapore Police Force in catching 5 knives-wielding foreign workers around Kallang area, and hope they can catch the remaining 2. But it is no relief that 2 were caught trying to sneak back into Singapore, means they did a Mas Selamat? Or worse..they walked straight out of immigration exits. I just applaud the way Shitty Times write their stories...quoted "It is not known why they try to come back". One would expect more investigative-type questions to the police on how did they leave in the first place, instead of questioning criminal stupidity? So now crazy foreign workers can come in and out of Singapore holding weapons to terrorise our heartlands? Soon we will need police patrol all over our island to prevent such acts which reminded me of Mumbai, India... just that ours is crazier as we do have millions of foreign workers living in our midst from Serangoon to Jurong. I do hope well-known high budgeted military spending can come to good use in that seemingly likely event. Looks like I need to spend more time with my loved ones and practising my Wing Chun!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Interesting stuff you find on Facebook about Singapore Policies
Before I begin with the interesting stuff you find on Facebook which is closely related to the policies the government has been making lately, it is good to note from the walls and comments found in social sites or other forms of new media, there are about 6 ABCDEF groups of people you will often observe.
1) The Apathy group who don't comment at all and are sitting on the fence on everything.
2) The seemingly Biased/Blind group who protest at everything or support blindly on all issues basically because they are on the same side.
3) The Complaint group who does nothing but whine without any analysis of the issues.
4) The Destructive group who engages everyone to do stupid things like spamming some MP's email.
5) The Effeminate group who I think are the worse kinds, often telling people to stop whining, what is the point of doing this or that, cannot change anyway, accept the fact that...etc - Seriously isn't it worse than whining/complaining? Because I think at the very least a complaint raises awareness.
6) The Fruitful group who will have constructive suggestions and critical analyses to take it to the next level.
This is a pretty interesting Facebook group : Dear PM Lee, please take the train with me :)
This group is asking our PM to get down from the ivory tower and take time to see how the public transport is actually performing. An interesting find on the wall inside the group :-
Another interesting group: VOTE FOR CHANGE, VOTE THE PAP OUT
This group's manifest or description is pretty interesting and somehow very true, tempted to join the group but fear the repercussions, that my Facebook friends will proclaim I am a biased bigot and thus lose my effectiveness to actually discuss like I am a sound-minded individual with no political affiliations (haha, which is true that I am sound-minded and somewhat educated with absolutely no inclination for whatever party but focussed more on policies made by sleeping buffoons in parliaments these days) :-
1) The Apathy group who don't comment at all and are sitting on the fence on everything.
2) The seemingly Biased/Blind group who protest at everything or support blindly on all issues basically because they are on the same side.
3) The Complaint group who does nothing but whine without any analysis of the issues.
4) The Destructive group who engages everyone to do stupid things like spamming some MP's email.
5) The Effeminate group who I think are the worse kinds, often telling people to stop whining, what is the point of doing this or that, cannot change anyway, accept the fact that...etc - Seriously isn't it worse than whining/complaining? Because I think at the very least a complaint raises awareness.
6) The Fruitful group who will have constructive suggestions and critical analyses to take it to the next level.
This is a pretty interesting Facebook group : Dear PM Lee, please take the train with me :)
This group is asking our PM to get down from the ivory tower and take time to see how the public transport is actually performing. An interesting find on the wall inside the group :-
So the PM's wife just proclaimed that me, and a hell lot of my friends including her Father-in-law is no better than waiters and waitresses!!...no offense to the service industry intended on my part, though maybe Ho Ching has. A job is a job, what makes her work more noble? Especially after losing billions and billions of dollars which can be used to help the poor instead of raising Conservancy charges, GSTs, ERPs, Polytechnics/University fees...etc, but seriously I think even if we did not lose those billions, the money wouldn't have gone to subsidise the population but into the coffers of the employees of the SWFs.
LKY's daughter Lee Wei Ling wrote on Sunday Times today (21st Mar):
"My brothers chose not to give their children any Western names. One nephew, when he was in school, asked his parents' permission to adopt a Western name. His mother Ho Ching told him: 'In China, only waiters and waitresses use Western names.' My father also explained how 'Harry' became part of his name and how he tried to remove it."
So, if you who have a Western name, Ho Ching is saying you are no better than PRC waiters and waitresses... LOL!
Another interesting group: VOTE FOR CHANGE, VOTE THE PAP OUT
This group's manifest or description is pretty interesting and somehow very true, tempted to join the group but fear the repercussions, that my Facebook friends will proclaim I am a biased bigot and thus lose my effectiveness to actually discuss like I am a sound-minded individual with no political affiliations (haha, which is true that I am sound-minded and somewhat educated with absolutely no inclination for whatever party but focussed more on policies made by sleeping buffoons in parliaments these days) :-
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
A good read
For my home hunting friends out there. A good blog entry.
...the passing of the Land Acquisition Act in 1966 which allowed the government to buy land as cheaply as $1 in the name of national development. The forcible acquisition of land at dirt cheap prices is normally referred to as expropriation in other countries and is normally illegal too.National development came as a price to many who gave up land forcibly in the name for the greater good only to find that the monies profited went to far fewer than expected.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Perhaps just perhaps
I have been reading lots of online articles as well as in the newspapers and perhaps just perhaps we were all so wrong about our benevolent godly Minister Mentor. It is all a matter of perspectives.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
How things are all related - so wake up!
This is how things really work around here these days. Sorry if you do not understand what I am trying to saying (you can actually google all the terms if you bother) - all I can say is wake up and open your eyes, read more and start to care, because things work in cycles.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Numbers changes with perspective - so think
I love numbers. Love maths since primary school, enjoyed it through my academic experience. Did well, mostly As except one stage where basketball over took importance over everything, did so badly in Secondary 2 that it scared my parents and they sent for a home tutor.
But it was only when I started working in semiconductor industry before I realised numbers appear differently to everyone. How we crunch it, how we view it seems to make a different statement. This intrigues me further.
I used to do data analysis with semiconductor figures of gate oxide thickness, processing time of individual process steps, etch rate times etc...the list goes on and on. Think about how your IC chips in your computer or mobile phone come about. Hundreds of process steps, thousands of recipes, equipment, engineers and technicians handling - add these up and that makes data analyses in my job the toughest way of finding a defect or a particle in the chip which made it fail.
I recently had dinner with my US visiting VP of HR and the questions he ask entails our views of Singapore and he reveal he was a hip-swinging Woodstocker in the 70s with the V-sign going "Peace!". I realised my views were similar to his - we seek to challenge, never settling for being #1 and we need to be there to give an alternative view, to oppose not for the sake of opposing, but to seek the truth, the better solution. In some sense, I see his passion similar to mine.
Sometimes this leads to being labelled a maverick in many ways, from political views to even basketball teams. I realised if one has a passion for something he/she believes in, they tend to have views on it. I then look to my female colleague whom she prefers a status quo, everything remains as is - with the government, with life. Her answer to what would you change in Singapore if you have a chance to do it was - nothing.
Are we that perfect? I have to agree with this recent statistics that has surfaced.
Singapore is ranked third in the world by the World Bank in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita ($49,288). (source is from Wikipedia) We have a sovereign wealth fund which is one of the highest in the world, though recent losses have depleted ~30% of it, while many other funds have reaped a 30% increase in the equities market. We have the highest paid government civil servants in the world which will ensure that corruption is to the minimal.
But these numbers do not mean a thing if you look at it from another perspective. Something perhaps my female colleague has failed to see and quite often ask me why I am so biased - I forgot to tell her that I wonder the same about her. Our income gap, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, is the highest among the 20 most developed economies. This means the wealth distribution is of high disparity. So while our GDP is high, this is because the minority at the top has earned even more money while the poor remained or became poorer. You would think how could that be, the per capita reflects an average salary. Yes - average meaning we sum it up and divided by the working population. If the poor get poorer, with the rich earning more, it will make up for the shortfall. With the looks of cars queuing up to get into the latest shopping haven Ion @ Orchard, you will then realise there is no recession and where is the poor. Well you will need to search but not too far off. I have seen homeless people sleeping at City Link near the Esplanade side, they will not be there on weekends, but on Fridays as I made my way to my usual coffee place, they will be there. You can see the videos I posted earlier of old people rummaging through bins looking for food or valuables. Our foreign import policies have depress wages, made more Singaporeans lose jobs because of their cheaper costs which increases revenues of coffeeshop owners, engineering companies etc. Did my female colleague realise that foreign workers being alone, can survive sharing a room with 8 others, their eventual place of residence will be elsewhere etc. Did she realise that inflation is a foreign word to the back-broken aunties picking up cans, she just need to know where to buy $1 chicken rice and that $0.50 cannot get her on a bus ride anymore.
I am disheartened by my colleague's lack of passion in this sense. Our government need to extend out that hand when we know many old people refuse to take handouts because this nation builders of our past and heritage have pride. More pride than our civil servants who continuously justify "corruption-free" reasons with grossly over paid salaries. They make me spit at the words "civil" and "public service". And I blame my colleague for not voicing out, for thinking that not rocking the boat is the better choice; thus not caring about the fact that not everything is fine in Singapore. We cannot get complacent with the forever #1 thinking here. As we all know Singapore has already lost #1 airport status, we also know cleaners are sleeping in there because seriously Changi Airport Terminal 3 is so quiet, I wish students will all go there to study to give it some life. One day, be it Seoul Incheon International Airport, someone out there will surpass you and it is not because we are spending less money on our airports or ministers. But because of complacencies. Too much gratitude, wrong history learnings attribute success to a selected few and hence they have so much power in their hands. We worsen the situation by placing them onto that ivory tower, unable to see the lesser mortals.
Everyone has but one vote, though we all know that without a level playing field, many of us have yet to cast a vote, especially me despite over 10 years of eligibility. If there is one thing I would like to change in Singapore; it is not for a level playing field for the oppositions, it is not for more NMPs like Sadasivan who has stepped up and make me believe there is hope; but I wish for a discerning voter who can make sense of the numbers that the state media feeds you. Do not look at the 2006 Happiness study and think that we are a happy lot, look at the 2009 one and decide for yourself. So they might break up the population with GRCs, they might dangle carrots or cash rebates, but to the discerning Singaporean - we should know better. So think before you vote, it decides your future generations - the policies made now affects them as well.
But it was only when I started working in semiconductor industry before I realised numbers appear differently to everyone. How we crunch it, how we view it seems to make a different statement. This intrigues me further.
I used to do data analysis with semiconductor figures of gate oxide thickness, processing time of individual process steps, etch rate times etc...the list goes on and on. Think about how your IC chips in your computer or mobile phone come about. Hundreds of process steps, thousands of recipes, equipment, engineers and technicians handling - add these up and that makes data analyses in my job the toughest way of finding a defect or a particle in the chip which made it fail.
I recently had dinner with my US visiting VP of HR and the questions he ask entails our views of Singapore and he reveal he was a hip-swinging Woodstocker in the 70s with the V-sign going "Peace!". I realised my views were similar to his - we seek to challenge, never settling for being #1 and we need to be there to give an alternative view, to oppose not for the sake of opposing, but to seek the truth, the better solution. In some sense, I see his passion similar to mine.
Sometimes this leads to being labelled a maverick in many ways, from political views to even basketball teams. I realised if one has a passion for something he/she believes in, they tend to have views on it. I then look to my female colleague whom she prefers a status quo, everything remains as is - with the government, with life. Her answer to what would you change in Singapore if you have a chance to do it was - nothing.
Are we that perfect? I have to agree with this recent statistics that has surfaced.
Singapore is ranked third in the world by the World Bank in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita ($49,288). (source is from Wikipedia) We have a sovereign wealth fund which is one of the highest in the world, though recent losses have depleted ~30% of it, while many other funds have reaped a 30% increase in the equities market. We have the highest paid government civil servants in the world which will ensure that corruption is to the minimal.
But these numbers do not mean a thing if you look at it from another perspective. Something perhaps my female colleague has failed to see and quite often ask me why I am so biased - I forgot to tell her that I wonder the same about her. Our income gap, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, is the highest among the 20 most developed economies. This means the wealth distribution is of high disparity. So while our GDP is high, this is because the minority at the top has earned even more money while the poor remained or became poorer. You would think how could that be, the per capita reflects an average salary. Yes - average meaning we sum it up and divided by the working population. If the poor get poorer, with the rich earning more, it will make up for the shortfall. With the looks of cars queuing up to get into the latest shopping haven Ion @ Orchard, you will then realise there is no recession and where is the poor. Well you will need to search but not too far off. I have seen homeless people sleeping at City Link near the Esplanade side, they will not be there on weekends, but on Fridays as I made my way to my usual coffee place, they will be there. You can see the videos I posted earlier of old people rummaging through bins looking for food or valuables. Our foreign import policies have depress wages, made more Singaporeans lose jobs because of their cheaper costs which increases revenues of coffeeshop owners, engineering companies etc. Did my female colleague realise that foreign workers being alone, can survive sharing a room with 8 others, their eventual place of residence will be elsewhere etc. Did she realise that inflation is a foreign word to the back-broken aunties picking up cans, she just need to know where to buy $1 chicken rice and that $0.50 cannot get her on a bus ride anymore.
I am disheartened by my colleague's lack of passion in this sense. Our government need to extend out that hand when we know many old people refuse to take handouts because this nation builders of our past and heritage have pride. More pride than our civil servants who continuously justify "corruption-free" reasons with grossly over paid salaries. They make me spit at the words "civil" and "public service". And I blame my colleague for not voicing out, for thinking that not rocking the boat is the better choice; thus not caring about the fact that not everything is fine in Singapore. We cannot get complacent with the forever #1 thinking here. As we all know Singapore has already lost #1 airport status, we also know cleaners are sleeping in there because seriously Changi Airport Terminal 3 is so quiet, I wish students will all go there to study to give it some life. One day, be it Seoul Incheon International Airport, someone out there will surpass you and it is not because we are spending less money on our airports or ministers. But because of complacencies. Too much gratitude, wrong history learnings attribute success to a selected few and hence they have so much power in their hands. We worsen the situation by placing them onto that ivory tower, unable to see the lesser mortals.
Everyone has but one vote, though we all know that without a level playing field, many of us have yet to cast a vote, especially me despite over 10 years of eligibility. If there is one thing I would like to change in Singapore; it is not for a level playing field for the oppositions, it is not for more NMPs like Sadasivan who has stepped up and make me believe there is hope; but I wish for a discerning voter who can make sense of the numbers that the state media feeds you. Do not look at the 2006 Happiness study and think that we are a happy lot, look at the 2009 one and decide for yourself. So they might break up the population with GRCs, they might dangle carrots or cash rebates, but to the discerning Singaporean - we should know better. So think before you vote, it decides your future generations - the policies made now affects them as well.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Price to pay
Is oppression a price to pay for stability and peace?
Are you willing to be muted in order to live safely?
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures. - A.Lincoln
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. - Dorothy Thompson
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. - M. Scott Peck
Are you willing to be muted in order to live safely?
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures. - A.Lincoln
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. - Dorothy Thompson
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. - M. Scott Peck
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Too much
I believe people should always have just enough - too much of anything is bad.
Too much KFC ice lemon tea gives me tummy aches. Too much chocolate gives me pimples. Just as if a person has too much money, he might indulge in more sins and in turn get into much more trouble like getting drunk.
Too much money drove NKF and many other Singapore charities to improper handling of finances, which eventually led to first class air travels, golden toilet bowls and the unforgettable "peanuts". I bet if their finances are just sufficient, there won't be any money to mismanage or abscond with.
I believe just as our town councils and many more government bodies who have excess cash will all start to behave like mini-funds, mini-Temaseks and mini-GICs and play the role of fund managers wanting more and more {I am sure they do not personally gain from this, but then again I bet KPIs (Key Performance Index) of their performance is part of their annual bonuses}. Would we have blamed them if they had grew the S$2 billion treasure chest instead of losing S$16 million? My only finger pointing is with S$2 billion, why am I still paying SC&C? Why are the subsidies such paltry sums? Are they really subsidies? Or like NKF, the cost of $3 medicine is sold at $4 and is subsidised based on market rates of $6?
The solution to having too much of a "good thing" is accountability and transparency.
1) Be transparent, show the cost of maintaining the Towns - do we really need S$2 billion in reserves? The recent nationalpropaganda media has been showing US universities losing huge sums of investment and are saying it is acceptable in these times to lose lots of $, so we should accept our town councils' mistakes but the US universities have been transparent in their accounts which are published online and made available.
2) Let's be honest, if the government came clean with what they have been doing and apologized for their mistakes then perhaps it would have been easier to swallow. As we all learn from mistakes when we acknowledge them. Not just put on a defensive front and tell everyone to move on. I have been guilty of this many times as it is probably a guy thing but then again it is no excuse. But hey I am not paid millions by the people thus I am not accountable to the people.
I believe our government, town councils and many other GLCs have forgotten who pays their salaries and who gave them money to invest in the first place. I bet my grandfathers/parents and my tax/ERP/SC&C/CPF dollars have contributed some sweat into it and I should have every right to criticize any wrong doings.
Too much KFC ice lemon tea gives me tummy aches. Too much chocolate gives me pimples. Just as if a person has too much money, he might indulge in more sins and in turn get into much more trouble like getting drunk.
Too much money drove NKF and many other Singapore charities to improper handling of finances, which eventually led to first class air travels, golden toilet bowls and the unforgettable "peanuts". I bet if their finances are just sufficient, there won't be any money to mismanage or abscond with.
I believe just as our town councils and many more government bodies who have excess cash will all start to behave like mini-funds, mini-Temaseks and mini-GICs and play the role of fund managers wanting more and more {I am sure they do not personally gain from this, but then again I bet KPIs (Key Performance Index) of their performance is part of their annual bonuses}. Would we have blamed them if they had grew the S$2 billion treasure chest instead of losing S$16 million? My only finger pointing is with S$2 billion, why am I still paying SC&C? Why are the subsidies such paltry sums? Are they really subsidies? Or like NKF, the cost of $3 medicine is sold at $4 and is subsidised based on market rates of $6?
The solution to having too much of a "good thing" is accountability and transparency.
1) Be transparent, show the cost of maintaining the Towns - do we really need S$2 billion in reserves? The recent national
2) Let's be honest, if the government came clean with what they have been doing and apologized for their mistakes then perhaps it would have been easier to swallow. As we all learn from mistakes when we acknowledge them. Not just put on a defensive front and tell everyone to move on. I have been guilty of this many times as it is probably a guy thing but then again it is no excuse. But hey I am not paid millions by the people thus I am not accountable to the people.
I believe our government, town councils and many other GLCs have forgotten who pays their salaries and who gave them money to invest in the first place. I bet my grandfathers/parents and my tax/ERP/SC&C/CPF dollars have contributed some sweat into it and I should have every right to criticize any wrong doings.
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