Lee Jnr’s report card

What do u think? From Bloomberg

I don’t find the Economist’s comments on our CPIB “deeply offensive and uninformed”

I’m not one of those constructive, nation-building S’poreans who think the sun shines from Tharman’s ass. And who find find the Economist’s comments on our CPIB “deeply offensive and uninformed”.

This is why The Economist’s charge that simply because the CPIB reports to the prime minister it can’t be independent strikes many Singaporeans as deeply offensive and uninformed.

T. K .Lim
High commissioner of Singapore
London

When the news of the incident in question went public, I got a call from KL, from an old connection who like me is semi-retired. Like me he invests, but he also does deals: he was once an adviser (Others would say “crony”) to Tun M and Anwar. He is proud that he and Anwar are friends even when the latter was jailed. I suspect he was (like others) funding Anwar when he was in the Wilderness. I was hoping he’d get a post in Anwar’s govt: no such luck. Btw, he’s also a friend of Badawi (Remember him?)

Sorry for the meandering.

He said that in the UK, Oz, NZ, and Canada the anti-corruption investigators never ever have to inform the PM or ministers of their investigations. The latter would only hear of the matter just before someone is charged.

Even in M’sia, he said the PM would be told of pending charges just before the charges are laid. He pretended to be offended when I laughed at this assertion. I said I had assumed Mrs Najib (aka First Lady of M’sa or FLOM) had received a call from the M’sian CPIB telling her that she and her hubbie were bring investigated and could they destroy any evidence that proved they were corrupt.

Back to the original comment, the High Commissioner, it seems reasonable to assume, is trying to muddy the waters between reporting lines on purely administrative matters (budgets, etc.) and seeking permission to investigate or charge. This misrepresentation, I find deeply offensive and uninformed misleading.

Related post: Nation Day quotes: Not from the constructive, nation-building media

PM doesn’t follow EPL games

That tot crossed my mind when I read

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan retain his full confidence.

Part of headline in constructive, nation-building Today

If he followed the EPL, La Ligue, Serie A or any other major European league, he’d know that saying “retain his full confidence” is the kiss of death. Whenever the chairman or CEO of a footie team says the manager or head coach or director of football has “his full confidence”, it means that the said person is going to be sacked very soon because the club no longer has confidence in the person.

Shows how out of touch our PM is with the “little people”?

We are 35 out of 170

Thank LKY and the Old Guard and the let’s pray to LKY that our millionaire PAP ministers don’t screw up.

Switzerland is tops. GCT was trying to BS us about Swiss standard.

The usual Nordic countries and Western countries are ahead of us. As in Japan and Korea. US of A just ahead of us.

From the Economist:

Which countries’ citizens are thriving and which are languishing? Where are people making progress and where are they sliding back? Often the answers to such questions come from examining their economies. GDP per person, however, can only show so much. More important is how prosperity translates into well-being. A dataset published on May 24th by the Social Progress Imperative, a non-profit organisation, aims to show that. It ranks 170 countries on how well they have provided for their citizens, using metrics other than wealth. 

Graphic Detail, the Economist

To make it easier to pray to the 9th Immortal.

Why millionaire PAP ministers should focus on rent costs

Came across an interesting discussion on the monetary effects of having to wait six years for a BTO flat.

In my case, rented a HDB flat from a condo-residing church friend while waiting for BTO. Kid was born in my friend’s flat. All in all, I invested $80,000 in rent all those years, would have been more if he didn’t offer a friendship price. Even if I were to sell my BTO, I’d make $120,000 more and minus the rent and housing loan interest, I don’t actually earn.

FB discussion

He’s saying, “Asset appreciation? What asset appreciation?”

He went to say

if one has to wait for 6 years for bto to be completed and go into rental. One would have to spend almost 200k for the 6 years of rent. And that figure is very Conservative given current market.

FB discussion

Another S’porean added

rent is now hitting 4.2k even in far flung places like Punggol, so that is over 300k assuming worse case scenario of a 6 year wait. Even if MND can bring the wait down to 3 years, this is 150k flying way from a couple’s nest egg and not coming back. I am not keen on the idea of young couples having to do this, because that money is honestly better spent on their kids. A dollar spent there benefits not only them, but the nation at large much more.

FB discussion

Our PAP millionaire ministers better take note that time is money, There’ll be a lot of unhappy S’poreans if the PAP doesn’t change their policies on when and how flats are built.

They are barking up the wrong tree by focusing on the “subsidy” BTO owners (and others) get. Focus on getting the BTO flats into the hands of voters ASAP.

 

HDB “subsidy” assertions continue

More assertions on the “subsidy” issue

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard commented that if you treat voters as sophisticated, they will return the favour. Our millionaire ministers obviously don’t believe this.

They obviously believe thar if they repeat assertions often enough the assertions become the truth, especially if the constructive, nation-building media support the assertions. But they should should remember that the most important component in the constructive, nation-building media has been caught with its pants down. It has admitted lying about its circulation figures after a not constructive, nation-building publication raised issues about the matter.

The SPH media team is now trying very hard to limit the damage.

 t

Three cheers for our millionaire education ministers

They really give options for late bloomers.

A FB friend whose son is going to ITE posted this comment

got so many tiers now

1. PFP – Direct go Poly

2. DPP – 2 year ITE higher nitec with secured Poly spot

3. JAE – 3 year ITE higher nitec with academic results

4. EAE – Early Secured 3 year ITE with portfolio

5. JAE – 2 year NITEC

6. Take O lvl at Sec 5 – some have academically improved and will be able to jump the huge gap in 1 year. Some are forced by parents whose mindset refuse to accpet any alternative education route. Some have failed their poly foundation year and thrown back to sec 5.

FB comment

What Dr Goh Keng Swee wanted is coming to fruition. Thanks to Tharman and the other millionaire PAP ministers who came after Tharman

Housing: Voice of the People in 2022

But the voters should thank the millionaire ministers and the (th Immortal?

Because

Property is crashing everywhere, except in Singapore. The Asian city-state’s private residential prices are up 14% year-on-year, according to third-quarter data from Knight Frank. That’s a sharp contrast to major cities like Hong Kong and Sydney, which saw decreases of 7% and 4% respectively over the same period.

…

The city-state boasts a home ownership rate of nearly 90% as of 2021, thanks to the government’s public housing policies. With average annual real wages growing almost 20% since 2017 and total employment expanding, many households are now looking to upgrade to private residences. Yet due to Covid-19 disruptions, net new housing has fallen below the 10-year average. As of the third quarter, 78% of planned private residential units were under construction, down from 90% in the same quarter in 2021, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/singapore-withstands-global-property-downturn-2023-01-03/

Can the millionaire PAP ministers hear the people crying?: Voice of the People in June 2022

Yes they heard the voters’ concerns about inflation

But the 9th Immortal hardened the hearts of the millionaire PAP ministers (Remember that they are probably part of the 1% who felt “No impact all all” about inflation): GST went up 1%age point on 1 January. To be fair to these millionaire ministers, they shelled out a few more peanuts.

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes

Why PM-in-waiting should be worried

In June 2022 around the time the new Dauphin was anointed this came out:

Only 63% felt positive about him and of that most (45%age points felt “Quite positive”. 19% “Don’t know/ No Opinion”. Wonder what are the %ages now?

Well he’s not done much about the “Cost of living” or “Inflation/ Price rises” except throw a few peanuts our way. So the 45% of “Quite positive” were right to be sceptical.

Hope they must be tested for Covid first

Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom made the list of top 10 destinations outside mainland China with the fastest-growing search volume, following news of China reopening its borders to the rest of the world.

Mothership: George and Philip Yeo funded

M’sia, Japan and the US have imposed Covid test restrictions, I hope S’pore follows.

US inflation shows PAP govt right on cheap FT policies?

One critical factor in explaining the persistence of high core inflation is tightness in the labour market. With roughly two jobs available per unemployed person in America, workers have strong bargaining power, which is reflected in hefty wage gains. A tracker published by the Fed’s Atlanta branch shows that in August wages rose at an annualised pace of nearly 7%. The grim conclusion for many economists is that America may require a marked increase in unemployment in order to temper wage pressures and, ultimately, inflation.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/09/13/despite-rosier-figures-america-still-has-an-inflation-problem

In S’pore, we don’t have this problem because we can always bring in FTs by the cattle truck loads via A380s when our true blue S’porean PMETs and manual workers (like waiters) want more $. Remember this when you read this: Beyond global post-pandemic inflationary pressures, Singapore’s economic structure will continue to drive up domestic costs – Academia | SG

Storm in tea cup show why we can’t be another Silicon Valley

I don’t like the public spectacle of putting Jo Schooling and Amanda Lim to shame while purporting to show that despite them confessing to breaking the law, we are a forgiving sort of place. So forgiving that we metaphorically whip them in public.

In Silicon Valley, smoking cannabis is par for the course. It’s residents are already experimenting with edgier stuff.

In today’s FT:

Cannabis has been legal for recreational use in California since 2016. There are dispensaries all over San Francisco — some sleek and shiny, others with a more hippy aesthetic. Will psilocybin mushrooms and LSD be next? Start-ups are focusing on healthcare, using psychedelics to address anxiety and depression. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has been running studies for years and found success treating PTSD. Just as cannabis was initially available for medical purposes, psychedelic therapy could open the door to changes in drug legislation.

Newsletter from Lex.

Is it right to continue criminalising the smoking of cannabis (especially in private)? After all, the PAP govt by repealing s377A of the Penal Code is going to allow male gays to bugger one another in private. So what’s wrong with smoking ganja in private?

We are no Silicon Valley or even a global city but a kampung.

HDB tells us flats are juz affordable or unaffordable?

HDB posted this infographic on FB without comment. Is some subversive working in the HDB (and who does not wish the PAP well) illustrating how unaffordable or barely affordable are HDB flats?

ISD must investigate

“Cost of flat up by 44 times while household Income up by 9 times between 1971 & 2021.”.

Gold extracted, peanuts given

And it’s from our own pocket: How we fund our SWFs from 2010

Double confirm, PM didn’t read Tocqueville

By planning to repeal S3377A, it’s clear our Beloved Leader never read Tocqueville. LKY never put it on Jnr’s reading list? It’s clear that in his analysis and actiobns LKY knew the dangers of rising expectations: people simply expect more.

This is what I wrote in 2013

Alexis De Tocqueville is famous particularly in the US for Democracy in America. But he also published The Old Regime and the Revolution in1856. In it he talked of the dangers of rising expectations.He argued that revolutions often took place not in times of despair but under improving conditions:

experience teaches us that, generally speaking, the most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways….Patiently endured for so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men’s minds.*

PMs Lee & Najib didn’t read Tocqueville?

Well the LGBTs and their fellow travellers are demanding more, a lot more. Without pausing for breath, or celebrating in public by doing anal sex, they now demand same sex marriage:

377A: Gay marriage looms as new frontline in Singapore battle for LGBT rights

…

Sunday’s announcement amounted to a pyrrhic victory. They say the constitutional amendment on marriage will ultimately hinder progress for LGBT rights.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62628494

What they are bitching about is that Parliament will have the power to redefine marriage which means the present the definition of marriage as one between a man and a woman will be hard to change,

(Related post: Why S377A is a gate worth storming, or defending/ Legal basis of repeal)

In 2013 I wrote

… I’m sure LKY had read Tocqueville because he was always trying to ensure that S’poreans didn’t have rising expectations of anything. He always wanted us to be aware of the fragility of life. He admitted, a few yrs ago, that the reason why the size of the reserves and the returns on the reserves had to kept a secret from S’poreans was his fear that we would expect more to be spent on ourselves, if we knew how wealthy S’pore was. At the peak of his mental powers, he would never have said this because by saying it he was saying that there was plenty of money that could be spent.

PMs Lee & Najib didn’t read Tocqueville

Xi learned from S’pore?

In June 2019, hundreds of thousands marched through the city to protest against a proposed law that would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China for trial

party officials in the city were ordered to study an article that outlined a policy known as “keep Hong Kong but not its people”, according to Ching Cheong, a journalist who has studied the Communist Party in Hong Kong for five decades.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/07/01/how-china-is-making-hong-kong-more-chinese

Replace the people of HK.

Xi learned from LKY?

Managing people, the S’pore way cont’d

Our version of “sulfur and fire”

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by the merciful and benevolent God of the Old Testament by way of “sulfur and fire” because of their wickedness. The wickedness was believed to be anal sex.

Could we go the way of Sodom and Gomorrah, now that the PAP govt will decriminalise sex between men?

Our dear leader last night told a rally that his PAP govt will repeal section 377A of the Penal Code. This colonial-era law punishes acts of “gross indecency” between men with up to two years in jail. The law is not “proactively enforced as PM once put it. So why bother?

Because the LGBTs have money and will be a new source of tourist dollars?

Btw, our “destruction” will come by way of higher inflation, slower growth and a GST rise.

Assumptions behind “affordable HDB flats”

Commentary: Even with million-dollar HDB flats, housing is still affordable for the average person

Beyond affordability, there are new challenges in the housing market that need attention, says this expert

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/hdb-bto-private-condo-home-resale-price-affordable-mortgage-inflation-2883131

It’s only affordable because of the repayment period and the large share of income repayment takes.

For new flats

In general, most new flat buyers use less than 25% of their monthly household income to service their monthly instalments, for a 25-year loan. For 4-room flats, which form the bulk of new flat supply, flat buyers would use about 26% of their monthly income if they choose a 20-year loan.

HDB 31 July 2020

Millionaire PAP ministers get “peanuts”

For every dollar of tax that is paid, for the lower income, they get $4 of benefits, for the middle income it is $2 of benefits, but for the rich, it is only 30 cents of benefits.

PMO | DPM Lawrence Wong’s interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait (Aug 2022)

Our millionaire “servants of the people” only get “peanuts”.

Seriously, anyone know the details of how the benefits are calculated?

Sign GST going up 1 point in Jan

About 1.5 million S’poreans will receive up to S$300 cash in Aug. 2022: Lawrence Wong

Newspaper headline a few weeks ago

Double confirm: Study shows “Pay millions, still get monkeys”

We were also interested to read this new study on corporate pay, from Ossiam and Proxinvest. It found that the more executives and directors are paid, the worse a company’s share price performs.

Moral Money, an FT newsletter

Relevant extracts

Board Remuneration (-2.6%): our results suggest that high board remuneration consistently
penalises equity performance. In fact, if the fee paid by the company to the member as
compensation for being on the board is significant in relation to the member’s net worth, it can
become a subconscious factor affecting their judgment.

https://api.ossiam.net/front.file/Governance%20Data%20Where%20is%20the%20Alpha%20-%20EN%20-%20Final/EN

And

CEO Total Compensation (-3.1%): companies with low CEO total compensation significantly
outperformed companies that award their CEO with large total compensation packages. This
finding could suggest that excessive compensation signals an agency problem in a weak
governance structure that could negatively affect the company’s performance.
• Senior Management Bonus Cap (-4.7%): the result suggests that a lower bonus cap
arrangement can be a highly effective tool and hence contributes significantly to equity
performance. Setting and maintaining an appropriate bonus cap for senior managers can play an
important role in controlling management’s attempts to misappropriate company resources by
paying excessive bonuses.
• Compensation Package (Base Salary (-1.6%), Annual Bonus (-2.0%), Long-Term (-2.1%) and Other
Compensation (-2.3%)): our results show that whether we consider the base salary, the bonus,
long-term or other types of compensation, companies that have a more parsimonious
compensation policy and award relatively less to their senior managers tend to perform better.
Interestingly, the biggest gap is observed for the Other Compensation pillar, which tends to be
company-specific and may eventually hide sub-standard practices in CEO compensation policies.
• Compensation relative to Total (Base Salary (+2.8%), Annual Bonus (-1.0%), Long-Term (-0.9%)
and Other Compensation (+0.6%)): a clear pattern emerges from our results: companies that pay a
more significant part of CEO total package in the form of base salary show better performance.
Meanwhile, when an annual bonus or other form of compensation represents a significant
proportion of total compensation, equity performance tends to lag. This confirms the intuition that a
high base salary proportion of the total package can serve as well-deserved compensation to
effectively motivate the CEO, while avoiding managerial short-termism linked to inherently shortterm incentives (such as a bonus), which possibly has harmful effects on the company’s long-term
growth.

https://api.ossiam.net/front.file/Governance%20Data%20Where%20is%20the%20Alpha%20-%20EN%20-%20Final/EN

Actually no need for study. Juz look at the performance of PM, Tharman, Lawrence Wong, Kee Chiu, Queen Jos and the other millionaire ministers: die die must raise GST.

NO GST rise, more “goodies”, early GE

S’poreans clearly think the 4G leaders are a bunch of overpaid mediocrities:

Majority of Singaporeans say inflation handled ‘badly’, according to Blackbox poll

…

About 55% of respondents in the mid-May survey conducted by pollster Blackbox Research Pte. said the government was handling everyday price rises “badly.” Almost 20% said it was tackled “very badly,” while 36% felt it was dealt with “quite badly.” At the same time, 37% said the government was performing “quite well” and 7% said “very well.”

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/majority-singaporeans-inflation-handled-badly-080041059.html

My best guess is that if the present inflation trends continue, there’ll be no GST rise next year. The voters are angry and a majority of 51% at the next GE (Remember that only 44% of those poll think our millionaire ministers are doing a good job in handling inflation) will do the $G leaders only harm.

My other prediction is an early GE, either in late 2023 or early 2024, General elections are due to be held in S’pore no later than 23 November 2025 to elect the 15th Parliament of S’pore. In 2025 GST will go up by 2 %age poinrs.

To sweeten the ground, there’ll be plenty of goodies using our $: Ownself pay Ownself.

Remember I predicted in 2018 that LW would be PM: Why PAP should make Lawrence Wong PM. And in 2015 that Heng would be PM-in- waiting: The next PM has been unveiled.

And GST still going up? / Li Hongyi for PM

Die, die GST must go up even after our Leader say this?

Outlook for post-Covid recovery clouded, recession could hit ‘within next 2 years’: PM Lee

The outlook for Singapore’s post-pandemic recovery has clouded and the risks have grown considerably, particularly due to the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Due to the increase in energy prices, Singapore will be set back about S$8 billion a year

Government support schemes may help ease hardships, but in the long term, “this does not really solve our problem”, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/pm-lee-hsien-loong-may-day-rally-2022-1887846

We are on autopilot? And 1970s technology? No AI? WTF?

Li Hongyi for PM so that we can have AI technology for autopilot govt.

Seriously, if we have autopilot government, do we need to pay ministers millions of dollars? Juz asking.

Still want to make us PAY And Pay?

The world faces a sharper trade-off between growth and inflation given how it is “almost a certainty” that inflation will be higher for longer, said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong on Monday (Apr 18).

… “the risks for both growth and inflation are weighed significantly on the downside,”

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/sharper-trade-growth-inflation-lawrence-wong-united-states-visit-2632126

And

Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 group of big economies will meet on Wednesday in Washington amid a deteriorating outlook for global growth. America is bracing for sharp rises in interest rates as the Federal Reserve fights inflation—a task that risks pushing the economy into recession. Europe is struggling with high energy prices, which will rise further if the European Union restricts imports of oil from Russia. China is persisting with its “zero covid” strategy by enforcing costly lockdowns in an attempt to suppress an outbreak of the Omicron variant.

Economist’s Daily Briefing

And the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for the global economy, blaming the war in Ukraine for pushing up inflation. Global growth is projected to slow from 6.1% in 2021 to 3.6% in 2022 and 2023. That is 0.8 percentage points lower for 2022 and 0.2 lower for 2023 than its previous forecast, in January.

And he and his fellow millionaire ministers, die die want to raise GST to protect the reserves and their children’s children? OK OK our children’s children also? As he said:

“We are not out of the frying pan, but already into another fire.”

Lawrence Wong

Sad, dirty secret of why US inflation is at 7.9%

There are many reasons why inflation is roaring ahead. They include policy mistakes and complacency, energy price rises and then there are three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: pestilence, famine (The UN’s food price index has already risen by 24% from a year ago and is set to rise further.) and war.

But the main reason is the shortage of lowest paid workers.

And lowest paid workers are now getting big pay increases in the US.

The Hardest Truth of economics is that productivity must grow in line with this wage increase in order to keep inflation in check. But the signs are that this is not happening, and won’t happen. And neither is the supply of workers increasing.

It is likely, therefore, that in America and elsewhere labour markets will have to be cooled the old-fashioned way: by central banks raising interest rates, making it a little more attractive to save than spend and thereby choking off demand for labour. The Fed has already raised rates by 0.25 percentage points, and is expected to raise them by a total of 2.5 points this year. America may well prove an example of what happens when policymakers respond to a labour market that has become dangerously hot.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/are-labour-markets-in-the-rich-world-too-tight/21808579

The poor have to be satisfied with this promise by Jesus:

Blessed be ye poor: for your’s is the kingdom of God.

Extract from Luke 6:20-21 

But in S’pore, the PAP govt makes sure that there are FTs by the cattle-truck load to ensure that wages remain low. At least that’s what retirees like me should hope happens, what with our millionaire ministers saying die, die must increase GST.

Ingrates like me who don’t for the PAP must remember that we, the well off, get almost first world service and quality while paying (indirectly) third world wages. The plebs who die die vote for the PAP, save us from having to vote for the PAP.

We getting our 4th jab soon

Regulators in America authorised a fourth dose of the covid-19 vaccine made by Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech for anyone older than 50, reports the int’l media.

Will our PAP ministers adopt this Putin law?

In Russia,

holding a blank piece of paper can land you in jail. A handful of such cases have been documented, in which people have been arrested at anti-war protests for carrying empty placards, deemed to be symbols against the invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/03/22/more-than-15000-russians-have-been-arrested-in-anti-war-protests

Related post: PAP S’pore “R” Putin’s Russia

PAP S’pore “R” Putin’s Russia

One-person protest is “unauthorised public event”.

S’pore: Jolovan’s latest problem shows Sylvia Lim’s and my prescience

Russia:

Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Russia’s Channel One who interrupted a news programme on Monday to hold up a placard reading “Stop the war”, was fined 30,000 roubles ($280) for “organising an unauthorised public event”.

Economist Expresso

Related posts:

PAP govt one up up on repressive central Asian republic?

Jogging alone can be illegal?

PAP uses Lawfare against its opponents?

Lesson for PAP millionaire ministers

How to grow the economy with less FTs (where the “T” stands for “Trash” often with fake degrees).

Do what Yum China is doing: automating.

But don’t they love FTs from mamaland? And prefer to fix the Oppo? And raise GST?

How millionaire ministers are solving the inflation problem

Because S’pore is an open economy, inflation threatens household budgets. Inflation is driven by disease-induced supply-chain foul-ups, and rising global food, commodity prices and energy prices.

https://dollarsandsense.sg/singapore-inflation-rate-2021-heres-much-prices-everyday-goods-services-increased/?fbclid=IwAR3hTfr2heVoB4tVbh4dMKUz-_elYE_UxKmzFoDKlPpoYB2z0ejjLVTLNss

The solution: raise GST by 2%age points.

OK, OK there’s some “Ownself pay ownself” via GST rebates etc. But they are “peanuts”.

GST, Inflation and our constructive, nation-building MSM/ No GST rise IMHO

At the very end of very long article on MAS’s surprise action to contain inflation, this appeared:

All eyes will also fall on what higher inflation will mean for the planned increase in Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said that the Government will have to start moving on the planned GST increase in Budget 2022 given that the economy is emerging from the pandemic.

Economists from Moody’s Analytics said the latest inflation reading “throws a spanner” into these plans.

“The GST is widely expected to be raised by 2023 at the latest in order for the Government to balance its budget sheet,” said Asia-Pacific economists Denise Cheok and Shahana Mukherjee in a report issued after MAS’ policy decision.

“With prices already rising at record speed, the timing of a GST hike will need to be carefully considered.”

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/mas-tighten-monetary-policy-cycle-what-it-means-singaporeans-2457641

Any half-decent Western media report would not tuck this gem at the end of an article entitled “MAS tightens monetary policy in surprise off-cycle move: Why and what it means for you and me“. It would feature in a more prominent spot.

But then this is Harry Lee’s constructive, nation-building media in action: “hide” inconvenient facts and opinions in the middle or at the end of articles. I didn’t make this up: this is in local editors’ unofficial style guide.

Here’s another recent example: GST: A very brave local academic.

Related posts:

What PM doesn’t understand about GDP and GST

GST: A very brave local academic

And remember you read the following here first.

Last year I wrote that PM would say that GST would rise in 2022: Chiat lat! Wah lan GST going up in 2022. Seriously, I still stand by my views in 2020 that there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE and Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE. I didn’t think economic growth will justify taking the PAP govt taking the risk. Alternatively, I now think fanning inflation ever higher will cause a rethink, if economic growth is strong

Lawrence Wong will caveat a January 2023 rise with a lot of “ifs” and “buts”, allowing him to avoid a rise when the time comes.

What PM doesn’t understand about GDP and GST

PM Lee in his New Year message on Dec 31 said that with the economy emerging from the Covid-19 crisis, the Government has to “start moving” on the planned increase in the GST. We now know GDP was up 7.2% last year.

BUT

As the above illustrate, strong GDP growth does not mean that everyone benefits by having higher wages. Some benefit more than others, many don’t benefit.

But then, one doesn’t expect a cabinet of millionaires to understand the problems many S’poreans face. Ordinary S’poreans are what Goh Chok Tong sneeringly called “mediocrities”. Millionaire cabinet ministers are his ideal “non-mediocrities”.

(Btw, last year I wrote that PM would say that GST would rise in 2022: Chiat lat! Wah lan GST going up in 2022. But fyi, I still stand by my views in 2020 that there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE and Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE. I don’t think economic growth will justify taking the PAP govt taking the risk. Lawrence Wong will caveat a 2023 rise with a lot of “ifs” and “buts”, allowing him to avoid a rise.)

GST: A very brave local academic

So if S’poreans don’t want a GST rise in 2023, just pray to the Eighth Immortal for GDP growth this year of below 3% this year (MTI’s prediction is “3.0 to 5.0 per cent” in 2022.)

GST: A very brave local academic

Two days ago I sent a message to an overseas connection who follows the politics and economy here

What I hate about the constructive nation building media and academics. No analysis, only paeans of praise: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/no-good-time-raise-gst-2022-provides-window-opportunity-politically-and-economically-analysts-1781846

It was about the balls-licking and ass-kissing media and academic (Yes, one of these academics is Eugene Tan*, brown-noser in chief) reaction to PM’s message that GST sure to rise.

(Btw, last year I wrote that PM would say that GST would rise in 2022: Chiat lat! Wah lan GST going up in 2022. But fyi, I still stand by my views in 2020 that there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE and Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE. I don’t think economic growth will justify taking the PAP govt taking the risk. Lawrence Wong will caveat a 2023 rise with a lot of “ifs” and “buts”, allowing him to avoid a rise.)

Whatever, there’s a brave local academic. At the end of a really long analysis piece on the outlook for inflation here in 2022, he wrote:

MORE SUBSIDIES FOR NECESSITIES?

As we begin 2022, Singaporeans will be looking ahead to Budget 2022, slated to be announced in February, and any measures it would have to help counter the rising cost of living.

The Government could provide more subsidies for necessities such as electricity, food and public transport. Another way to help would be to delay the raising of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

I would even go a step further and suggest that reducing the GST by one to two percentage points for a year or two would help. To help offset the revenue loss, the Government could increase the marginal tax rate in the highest income bracket.

Overall, the inflation rate in November 2021 is not something to be too worried about, but high inflation can indirectly lead to high interest rates, and those who have loans should look at the interest rates or refinancing options more carefully.

Citizens would also appreciate government subsidies to help with costs.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/inflation-price-interest-rates-increased-cost-living-2404301

Sumit Agarwal, the author, is no Eugene Tan and

is the Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor of Finance, Economics and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, and the managing director of the Sustainable and Green Finance Institute at NUS. He is also the co-author of Kiasunomics and Kiasunomics 2. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not represent the views and opinions of NUS.

CNA

I wish him well in his future career outside S’pore. I’m sure he’s an FT where the T stands for Talent.

===========================

*Eugene Tan must be breaking record in ass licking and Eugene Tan must be breaking record in ass licking

Why we get ministers who can’t organise an orgy in a brothel?

but first, a Blessed Christmas if you are Christian. And a merry, happy holiday if you are not Christian. And a a happy 2022.

Coming back to the question, it’s because of the way they are chosen

“When you’re at the top of the hierarchy, you have a lot of influence over people’s careers. There is a natural tendency for people to start to say things that they think you want to hear, that align with your world view, or make you happy.”

The bubble forms slowly, Mr Lesser explains, because at first your peers still see you as something of an equal, they know you and your background. But over time, he says, a “gap starts to emerge”, between the CEO and everyone else.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59043478

PAP govt’s fault S’poreans not running US tech giants

LKY’s gang made sure that S’pore didn’t become a shithouse country like India.

I kid you not. Explaining why mamas run so many US tech giants:

“No other nation in the world ‘trains’ so many citizens in such a gladiatorial manner as India does,” says R Gopalakrishnan, former executive director of Tata Sons and co-author of The Made in India Manager.”

From birth certificates to death certificates, from school admissions to getting jobs, from infrastructural inadequacies to insufficient capacities,” growing up in India equips Indians to be “natural managers,” he adds, quoting the famous Indian corporate strategist C K Prahalad.

The competition and chaos, in other words, makes them adaptable problem-solvers – and, he adds, the fact that they often prioritise the professional over the personal helps in an American office culture of overwork.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59457015

As a S’porean living here, I’d rather live in the S’pore that the PAP runs rather than shithouse place like India (even if the PAP ministers die die want Mamas to keep on coming here) even if S’poreans don’t develop the skills to run US tech giants.

Do this to anti-vaxxers here

I juz read that M Ravi is representing a group of ant-vaxxers. I’m not sure if this is the group of TRE readers that want to sue the govt for breaching their human rights. TRE is crowd funding for them.

Whatever, as is usual, he’ll say that the restrictions imposed on them are unconstitutional because his grandfather wrote the Con ( M Ravi’s grandfather’s parliament, is it? and M Ravi’s grandfather’s parliament, is it?). Seriously, Ravi says the con means what he says it means, not what the law says it is.

Austria’s chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, said that a national lockdown for those unvaccinated will begin on Monday. “I don’t see why two-thirds of the population should lose their freedom because another third hesitates,” he said. A surge in infections means 20% of intensive-care beds are currently occupied by covid patients. The country has one of western Europe’s lowest vaccination rates, at just 65%.

Stop playing nice to these anti-social S’poreans. Lock them down.

Fyi, anti-vaxxer flees to HK: Goh Meng Seng can’t hide from Covid-19

No Tigers for the MTF

I came across the u/m posted on TRE. I have no idea what this index purports to show, but I’m sure the writer would not agree with MTF: It’s Time for a Tiger” and “Give MTF beers, give them Tigers” and MTF: It’s Time for a Tiger” and “Give MTF beers, give them Tigers”

MTF stands Ministerial Task Force and MMTF stands for Multi Ministerial Task Force. They are the same team. MMTF is the official name, while many here shorten it to MTF.

———-

100th placing in the Covid-19 World Recovery Index

Look Where Lee Hsien Loong, Lawrence Wong, Ong Ye Kung And Co Have Led Us!

100th placing in the Covid Recovery Index!One Place above Afghanistan! Indonesia is placed 41 and Malaysia 50. Japan leads Asia at No. 6 with China at 8 and Taiwan at 11. Even Bangladesh is way above us at 14th place!

And we are one of the tiniest countries in the World!

We really have become 3rd World for Covid! Can you believe that Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung Are in the running to be the next PM? The PAP are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel!

And Singaporeans pay $53 Million a year for a cabinet of this type of quality????

Simon Lim

GST the Indian way

The usual anti-PAP types like to KPKB that S’pore’s 7% (going to 9%) GST rate does not differentiate between “essential” (stuff like rice and other basic foods, medicine, books or services like medical consultations) and “non-essential” (cars, facials and massages)

In India, the GST rate for various goods and services is divided into four “slabs”: they are 5% GST, 12% GST, 18% GST, & 28% GST. The higher the rate, the more atas the product or service.

Cars carry 28% GST in India. This is something that the PAP govt should consider given that it would like to restrict car ownership. Can increase ministerial and civil salaries to cover increase lah. LOL

Seriously, the more complex the GST system, the costs of administrating it go up and the more people try to game it to their advantage. When I worked in Oz as a lawyer, it was amazing to see the amount of money and time companies would spend to avoid taxes. In a couple of cases, I even flew to a different state to sign agreements on behalf of the client to avoid paying taxes.

Vaccination: no silver bullet/ India shows an alternative

Further to MTF: It’s Time for a Tiger” and “Give MTF beers, give them Tigers”, more reasons to buy PM-in-waiting Larry Wong and his team of millionaire ministers more Tiger Beers?

Look at our vaccination rate:

Still contagious: covid-19 jab efficacy

But the problem for our millionaire ministers and us (and the world in general) is that vaccination is no silver bullet against Covid-19 as once thought:

Still contagious: covid-19 jab efficacy

Fully vaccinated people with breakthrough covid-19 infections were as contagious as unvaccinated people, a British study published on Thursday found. Infections cleared faster in those who had been vaccinated, but their peak viral load was similar to the unvaccinated. The vaccinated and unvaccinated therefore infected a similar share of household members. What made a difference, however, was whether those household contacts had been vaccinated themselves. About 25% of vaccinated contacts tested positive, compared with 38% of unvaccinated contacts.

One reason for the disheartening results is the waning efficacy of covid-19 jabs against infection. Data from the household contacts suggested protection weakened within three months of a second dose. This means that people who are particularly vulnerable to severe covid might need a booster shot earlier than the prevailing six-month cut-off. Masks, ventilation and social distancing may be necessary at times, even in places, such as Britain, with high vaccination rates.

Economist Expresso

So maybe no Tiger Beers for the PAP millionaire ministers for getting us vaxxed?

But the alternative was (or is) for nature to run its course, as in India, and depend on immunity via catching Covid-19:

The world watched anxiously in April and May, when the caseloads were climbing almost vertically. The terror was justified. India was gripped by the first outbreak of the Delta variant (briefly called “the Indian variant”, until the WHO insisted on switching to Greek letters). Its ferocity taught lessons that some parts of the world are still learning. Indians died in untold numbers. To judge by the number of excess deaths, something like 2.3m lost their lives to the disease. Those who survived rued the government’s failure to procure vaccines earlier, when India had positioned itself as a pharmaceutical factory for the world. The rate of vaccinations went from a trickle to an erratic drip, as systems of every kind shut down. And then in June, almost exactly as fast as the wave of infections had shot up, it shot down again. Not 10% of the population had been vaccinated (see chart). Within two weeks it was back down to pre-Delta levels. No thanks to any medical intervention.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/10/29/how-did-india-beat-covid-19

Note India has been vaccinating like hell since then and now 23.4% or 323m people have been fully vaccinated.

So maybe the PAP ministers deserve their Tiger Beers, after all?

What do you think?

MTF: It’s Time for a Tiger” and “Give MTF beers, give them Tigers”

The Ministerial Task Force got one thing right: Heineken beer sales here were back were back above the pre-pandemic level. That’s a major achievement as the central bank says that domestic GDP is 10% below the pre-pandemic level, while GDP, as a whole, will soon be above the pre-pandemic level because of exports.

Heineken had a bad set of results (37.4% decline in Asian sales). Analysts did not expect the bad numbers that resulted from the return of pandemic restrictions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia. Heineken has a very strong presence in Vietnam, one of its largest markets globally.

But beer sales in Singapore, South Korea and Laos were back above pre-pandemic levels.

So the Ministerial Task Force got one thing right. So for them: “It’s Time for a Tiger” and “Give that man a beer, give him a Tiger”. Remember these slogans?

For those not in the know, Heineken brews Tiger Beer, in addition to Heineken, Amstel and Sol brands.

Teachers: PAP enablers

If you tot our local journalists and editors are running dogs of the PAP govt, spare a tot for our teachers:

Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions—to define, classify, control and regulate people.

Michel Foucault

Three cheers for our millionaire ministers?

Yesterday, I grumbled that our millionaire ministers don’t provide value in Millionaire dollar ministers, yet only second in Asean?, They are like paying for a Rolls Royce but getting a cheap and cheerful made-in-China made car, not even a Hyundai. So today I should praise them?

Actually No.

Because the minister responsible for throwing enough people into prison to ensure that gals can go running after midnight safely, and I can safely leave my doors open even when there’s no-one in,

was already a millionaire before becoming a minister (he was a top litigation lawyer), unlike the civil servants (e.g. Lawrence Wong), paper SAF generals (think Kee Chiu Chan) and GLC executives (err Grace Fu) who only became millionaires after becoming ministers.

I give credit where credit is due.

Millionaire dollar ministers, yet only second in Asean?

Something is wrong, very wrong. Especially as the gap between us and Thailand is statistically significant.

PAP govt’s idea of living with Covid-19

Tell 9% of households to voluntarily lock themselves up for the next 4 weeks.

8.7% of households in 2017 (latest available data) were 3G households i.e. households with three or more generations living under one roof.

Because

Seniors aged 60 and above, as well as those living with them, have been “strongly urged” to stay at home to reduce their chances of contracting COVID-19 amid a spike in cases.

This is especially so if they are unvaccinated, said the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) on Thursday (Sep 30).

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/seniors-stay-home-4-weeks-covid-19-vaccine-booster-2212356

this means that 9% of households were told to do voluntarily lockdown for the next 4 weeks.

AIC advised seniors to only go out for essential activities and I suppose that this advice also applies, even if the CNA report doesn’t state it, to those living with them.

Welcome to S’pore’s plan for living with Covid-19: no official lockdown for 9% of households but lockdown all the same.

Two cheers for the 4G leaders. They finally got something right

When an ex PAP running dog turned into a foaming at the mouth mad dog, wrote a piece (Visit https://www.facebook.com/thenewsingapore/) castigating the $4G’s performance over Covid-19, I had to do something to defend them.

They know the link between vaccination and economic growth and got over 80% of us vaccinated. Two cheers* for this quick action.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) blames low vaccination rates for ‘diverging’ south-east Asia growth vis-a-vis that of the rest of Asia.

It downgraded Indonesia’s (the largest regional economy) by a percentage point to 3.5%. the Thai economy (second largest) eby more than 2 percentage points to 0.8%, and Vietnam’s (the fastest growing regional economy) by 3.8%, from 6.7%.

================

Nike’s woes in Vietnam and Indonesia

Nike’s factories in Vietnam and Indonesia, which make three quarters of its shoes, have been hit by local lockdowns. In Vietnam alone it has cost the firm 10 weeks of production this year.

================================

While downgrading SE Asian growth because of low vaccination, it upgraded our growth rate by half a percentage point to 6.5%. S’pore has vaxxed about 80% of its population. From DBS:

More from DBS, showing that things are looking good.

And before u dismiss the DBS report as the equivalent of the constructive, nation-building ST (i.e. as BS) note DBS maintains ‘below-consensus’ forecasts with ‘bumpy path’ towards endemic Singapore: https://www.theedgesingapore.com/capital/brokers-calls/dbs-maintains-below-consensus-forecasts-bumpy-path-towards-endemic-singapore

---

*qualified approval or mild enthusiasm, often used ironically The cybernuts infesting TRE don’t know this.

Another PAP govt Covid-19 cock-up

I’m surprised that TOC and the anti-PAP cybernuts KPKBing on TRE and FB on the PAP govt’s policy on opening up (if it has one which doesn’t seem to be the case) haven’t picked up on the fact that the Pfizer vaccine which most of us have been vaccinated with is rubbish relative to Moderna’s version.

America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine was 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation, compared with 80% for Pfizer-BioNTech’s and 60% for Johnson & Johnson’s.

Economist, FT etc

We should have ordered a lot more Moderna. My friend who took Moderna despite having to get vaccinated it at an inconvenient time and place is feeling smug. As she’s in her 50s, she was afraid she might have to settle for Sinovac.

OK, OK, it’s more an understandable misstep than a cock-up. But my point is that the usual suspects are quiet on this. Why?

Btw, a separate study demonstrated that unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die of the disease than those who were fully jabbed.

One can only hope that Goh Meng Seng and other anti-vaxxers (Forward this to Goh Meng Seng and other S’poreans who wish us ill) suffer the consequences of trying to kill us with their misinformation. They should remember that Karma is a bitch.

Education: PAP ministers LKY’s education aspirations

Recently, while searching for an LKY quote on the kind of pupils (and the kind of parents that don’t aspire higher for their kids), I came across quotes (https://singaporelearner.com/2015/03/25/lky-lee-kuan-yew-quotes-on-education/) from a speech “New Bearings in Our Education System” he made to school principals on August 29, 1966. (Btw, I’m still looking for the quote, I mentioned in the first sentence

[We] cannot afford to produce the kind of pupils we did before. All of them went in for qualities which led to individual survival. You ask any bright boy what he wants to do. He wants to be a doctor. Why? Because then he can go anywhere in the world; he will still be a doctor and make money. Or, if he can’t, he will be a lawyer because he also makes money that way. But if he is asked to be an engineer or an architect or to do something else he says “Then what happens? If the country collapses I can’t get another job elsewhere. This attitude must change.”

Well the best students (or at least their Tiger moms) still want to be doctors and lawyers. And btw. those who study engineering often interview for jobs in the finance sector.

“What is the ideal product? The ideal product is the student, the university graduate, who is strong, robust, rugged, with tremendous qualities of stamina, endurance and at the same time, with great intellectual discipline and, most important of all, humility and love for his community; a readiness to serve whether God or king or country or, if you like, just his community.”

Going by the example of all those university peeping tom perverts, and all the whining about the mental health of students (One student gets murdered by another student, all the students in supposed elite school are traumatised: WTF!) where

is the student, the university graduate, who is strong, robust, rugged, with tremendous qualities of stamina, endurance and at the same time, with great intellectual discipline

?

And as for humility and love of community, pigs will fly first.

Finally

“I am extremely anxious about the generation that is growing up literate but uneducated. They can read; they can write; they can pass examinations. But they are not really educated; they have not formed; they have not developed.

Think of all the uneducated S’poreans who have first class degrees. Think of Kee Chiu Chan. He was from RI and is mow the minister of education.

But to be fair, maybe Harry Lee was juz talking cock?

In his memoirs, Herman Hochstadt revealed that when he was the perm sec in the ministry of education (1976-1980), one Harry Lee was the de facto minister of education.

Be thankful we got PAP govt

$4G leaders and PM are not worth their million dollar salaries (They let in the mama variant) but still …

Covid 19: Jialat, more KTV patrons?

When I read

COVID-19 cases detected among fishmongers in at least 11 markets

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-cases-detected-among-fishmongers-11-markets-moh-15240462

I tot jialat. They also KTV patrons.

But then I was reassured because MOH said that the fishmongers were likely to have been infected through contact with stallholders at Jurong Fishery Port.

But then I tot: “Maybe the stallholders were KTV patrons?”.

What do you think?

Whatever, epic fail for the PAP govt in allowing at least one wannabe hostess on  short-term visitor pass. And for not checking that she was working illegally (not suppose to work). And for allowing her to remain beyond her 90 day pass.

Our $4G leaders are showing that they are not up to scratch. Bet you they’ll blame it on the foot soldiers.

Covid-19: Three cheers for the PAP govt

Despite the PAP govt failing to convince S’poreans, like me, in the recent parly debate that it doesn’t love Indians from India more than it loves S’poreans, let’s credit it for giving most of us the best vaccine (Pfizer) that is effective against the Indian variant.

If it really loves Indian Indians as much as some say they do, we’d not have been vaccinated with Pfizer.

PAP govt squandered our efforts in obeying the Covid-19 rules

The following made me think the above.

Lawrence Wong’s latest remarks about the Bukit Merah Covid-19 outbreak (Indian variant I assume?) led to STI losing 1%++ on Wednesday

COVID-19 task force ‘evaluating’ timing and scope of reopening amid fresh outbreak: Lawrence Wong

Constructive, nation-building CNA

The only meaningful announcement on Friday was that two persons can eat together at an F&B outlet.. The rest were cosmetic, hence more support using our money: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/work-from-home-wfh-default-jobs-support-scheme-covid-19-15040560

It was then that I read that a senior British cabinet minister, annoyed that the lockdown in England has been extended for another month because of the Indian variant (In the UK, the Indian variant is everywhere, accounting for 90% of cases.) grumbled very publicly:

Several papers pick up on comments made by the Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, about the delay to fully lifting lockdown restrictions in England.

Mr Rees-Mogg told a podcast on the Conservative Home website that you shouldn’t “run society purely to stop the hospitals being full” – adding that “the NHS is there to serve the British people,” rather than the other way around.

BBC

 

(Ministers and pulic health experts in the UK want to protect hospitals from being overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients.)

This made me think.

The PAP government is here to serve S’poreans, rather the other way round. S’pore shouldn’t be run purely to ensure that Lawrence Wong and the other 4G leaders look good after cocking up.

S’poreans did their bit, by following the rules and getting vaccinated. But the PAP govt squandered our efforts by carelessly letting in the Indian variant because they wanted FTs from Mamaland by the plane load.

Don’t believe me? TOC has lots of charts showing that the data shows we got infected by Indian Indians: https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2021/06/17/indian-nationals-make-up-about-70-of-imported-cases-from-nepal-50-of-uae-to-singapore-in-2021-based-on-moh-data/

And the data does not seem to support the PAP govt’s assertion that the danger of getting infected is the price we have to pay to keep the building and construction industry going.

Btw, one Indian who brought the Indian variant in (She denies it, claiming she got it here at Changi) said she felt safer in India than In S’pore. And the PAP govt didn’t deport her back for her insult.

Still to be fair to the PAP govt, the int’l media has reported that Pfizer ‘s vaccine (the most common vaccine here) is highly effective at preventing hospitalisations from the Indian variant. So it did get us the best vaccine our money can buy.

And then there’s this

So a C grade for the $4G’s efforts is fair? What do u think?

Covid-19: Importance of first jab especially for elderly

In mid May

Singapore is expecting to administer at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to its entire adult population by early August, authorities said on Tuesday, after a decision to widen the gap between doses to inoculate more people faster.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/singapore-seeks-covid-19-vaccination-all-adults-by-august-2021-05-18/

The first jab is very important because

Very small numbers of people have been admitted to hospital with Covid several weeks after having one vaccine dose, a study of UK patients has found.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56933756

So PM’s message that we are ahead of schedule is good news.

The BBC report goes on to say,

Most of those affected were frail and elderly and at high risk of being very unwell.

Hence PM’s call yesterday

For those with elderly parents or relatives, please encourage and persuade your old folks to get vaccinated.

He reported that 280,000 elderly people have yet to book appointments and urged them to do so as soon as possible. The govt should hunt them down and vaccinate them forcibly, if necessary, for their own good and the nation’s prosperity.

So far S’pore is doing pretty well : 37% have had one dose and 28% have had the two doses. Lawrence Wong for PM!

Covid-19: Relax S’poreans, PAP govt is doing a good job

Despite being snubbed at last GE (only 60% leh), and S’poreans giving PM the finger, the PAP govt is still working hard, serving S’poreans.

Where the millionaire ministers are failing is not telling us the end game? Are they aiming for 100% vaccination before opening the floodgates to Indian FTs to infect us? Or is it 60% before allowing them in?

Fined S$2000 for working from the office

Seems that it’s now illegal to work in the office if the work can be done from home

I was recently told the story of MoM inspectors raiding an office and fining the employer S$2000 because the employer and two employees were found working in the office. Did Syazana Yahya lodge a police report? She believes that one police report against her gang, deserves another in retaliation: bit like Hamas retaliating for Israeli attack, after first attacking Israel.

The employer told the Gestapo inspectors that as the office could accommodate 10 people pre Covid-19 and so under Phase 2, less than five people could work in the office, why was he being fined? There were only three people in the office.

He was told that under Phase 2 (Heightened), it was illegal to work in the office, if the work could be done from home. He (like me) thought that working from home was the recommended option, not mandatory.

Here’s one very upset S’porean that the Indian variant came in because of lax procedures at Changi Int’l Airport, and because of lax immigration rules. He won’t be voting for the PAP govt at the next GE.

Btw, on the correct terminology that should be used by the PAP govt, I think Phase 2 (Heightened) is the real Circuit Breaker. Last yr’s Circuit Breaker was actually Lockdown Lite.

But then when it comes to the use of words, the PAP govt is so Orwellian.

Good news for the PAP

Young S’poreans are optimistic about their future prospects.

Interesting table. Compared to young people in other developed countries, younger S’poreans are pretty optimistic about their future.

What this means is that young S’poreams unlike their counterparts in the the West believe that the governing party can deliver the good life.

Chiat lat! Wah lan GST going up in 2022

The next GE has to be held by sometime in 2026.

I was arguimg that GST will not up until after the next GE because increasing it in 2024 or 2025 will be good politics and any earlier could tank any recovery: Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE . Related post: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE

But this by PM has me thinking that it could go up next yr or in 2023

Singapore’s economy could recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2021: PM Lee

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/global-recession-less-protracted-initially-feared-singapores-economy-could-recover-pre

He said that the outlook has brightened considerably with
economic growth this year is likely to exceed 6%, if there’s no setback to the global economy. 

So you heard it first here, GST can go up next yr.

 

BS that is S’porediscovery vouchers

Like all adult S’poreans, my mum and I each got S$100 of the above,

I was planning to let them expire unused because I was told they were complicated to use and required me to spend $: seems to be like co-pay . Recently, I was told that I could donate them to charity and my FB friends gave me the links.

Turns out to be pretty complicated.

Worse my mum needs to have a Singpass to donate (let alone use the vouchers for herself) .

Given her age (97 and counting) it never made sense for her to have a Singpass account.

So I’m forced to let the vouchers expire.

Remember the above when you read that the PAP govt KPKBing that S’poreans not using the vouchers.

WP: Finally

10 years after Aljunied, the WP is finally doing what people like me hope they would do. Better later than never. Btw, I was wrong about Bayee. I tot he would keep on wanking like Low, rather than holding the PAP govt to account.

Covid-19: HK and S’pore tops in slowing spread

Forward this to Mad Dog Chee, Goh Meng Seng and Terry Xu who think that everything PAP govt does in fighting Covid-19 is a disaster.

PAP’s govt Covid-19 relief measures are third world not first world

Going by what Heng said in his Budget statement, you’d think that our spending would be Swiss-standard. Well the spending is not. And other developed countries are spending a lot more than the Swiss.

Ain’t it funny that our five part-time PAP mayors are each paid more than the full time mayor of London, a global city, while us plebs don’t get first world Covid-19 help. Not that I personally need any help. But life is hard for many.

“[W]e gatekeep ‘excessively’ to the extent that we forget that gatekeeping incurs costs”

Here’s an interesting FB post from someone who is a volunteer in a social welfare group that he calls “CRT” in the text. CRT works with govt agencies: it submits applications on behalf of those looking for help from mthe govt.

Can u imagine the loss of productivity that results from his submissions and the efforts of the civil servants checking his submissions?

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I spent almost all of my ‘working’ hours today processing 3 financial assistance applications. It’s a programme offered by one of the social service agencies which CRT is collaborating with. The work includes explaining to people what this programme is about, how it works, interviewing them for the data required for the application, and collecting a whole ton of information (if I were to be a PDPC auditor, I think my assessment would be that this agency and programme is collecting far more information than they need for the purposes of the programme/assessment of application…), and then uploading and keying everything into the system.

Here’s what’s on the table. Each household whose application is approved receives up to $4,560 over a duration of 12 months.

As I trudged on with the all the administrative work, I asked myself whether this is ‘worth it’. Is it worth all the time we put in to get this application through? Is this level of gatekeeping worth it, and to what end?

I regularly ‘argue’ that sometimes we gatekeep ‘excessively’ to the extent that we forget that gatekeeping incurs costs. And it’s incredibly difficult to have the conversation on how costly gatekeeping is, simply because there seems to be little effort to track it. Or if the data is available, there is great reluctance to share it transparently.

But I guess today is a small experiment on quantifying the costs of gatekeeping. My last drawn pay (I last worked part-time, very entry and lowest-paid-rung kind of job at a social service agency), if pro-rated to full time, would be $2,000 gross. This means that it costs $100 for me to put up 3 applications. There has to be someone on the other end to review and approve the application, which I shall assume will incur the same costs too (they are likely to spend a lot of time looking at the application too, or maybe they’ll be paid higher than me lol). This is just to put up the application.

There’s a component of monthly review in this programme. So that takes up approximately 1 hour of my time per household. So that’s $11 per month per household. Assuming same assumptions above, the reviewing agency incurs $11 per month too. So that’s $22 per month.

That makes it approximately $60 (one-time) plus $22*12=$264, which in total adds up to $324 to gatekeep an assistance package worth $4,560 a year for one household. The estimated human cost of gatekeeping this amount of benefit amounts to 7% of the total benefits that goes directly to the intended ‘beneficiary’. The real cost is often higher because things happen, bureaucracy is inefficient, blah blah. I’d say the real labour cost to gatekeeping is around 10%. (Ok, I haven’t include the incredibly expensive costs to have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed, because we need to combine PDF files easily and encrypt them and blah blah. And other sort of these administrative costs lah).

Do you think it’s worth it?

And before you think – hey, it’s not that bad, this is just one programme – many low-income household apply for many different schemes, programmes, benefits etc. So it adds up to quite a significant amount of resources spent on gatekeeping. If you have some experience in the social sector, I invite you to tell me that’s not true. This is an inevitable, perhaps intended (?), consequence of ‘many helping hands’ approach. Well, I’ve said many things about ‘many helping hands’ approach, but one thing I’ll say again is that while most will agree that there is value in multiple stakeholders coming in to provide different services, harness a diversity of talents and skills to support people etc.; there is to me absolutely very little logic in ‘many helping hands’ to deliver material resources (for instance, go to SSO to apply for this, go to MUIS/CDAC to apply for that, go to hospital to apply MediFund, go to AIC to apply for this long-term care scheme, go to IMDA to apply for that digital inclusion scheme, go to MOE to apply for FAS, and the list goes on…)

Do you have any idea exactly how many schemes are out there, either by the Government or funded significantly by the Government, and how much time it takes to apply for them, and how much labour costs we incur to administer these schemes and ‘gatekeep’? And then we end up at: too many schemes and services! Need coordinators, need navigators, need information and referral services. And then the ‘problem’ of the system becomes the need for integrated and coordinated social service delivery. Yah, I like that also, but is that really tackling the issue at crux here? So all this is really an absolute nightmare, and in many ways invite us to question the failures and problems with charity and our existing social welfare paradigm.

And now I shall uncomfortably and very very briefly step into the political minefield called ‘do CDC mayors deserve to get paid so much’? I suspect the reason why many are questioning (note: not exactly against or completely rejecting, but simply questioning) the roles of CDC and mayors is this: we pay you so much taxpayer monies, to create more programmes and schemes, but to what end? To incur more costs to administer and gatekeep? Why can’t the money and resources go directly to the ‘needy’ and ‘low-income people’ the CDC and mayors are intended to serve? Heck, we should staff the CDCs exactly with these low-income people who are trying to find a job (and how many of these CDCs are staffed like that?) After some preliminary attempt at quantifying, through my own case study, the labour costs incurred when we have too many schemes and programmes, too much gatekeeping, I can only say that the doubts and questions about CDCs and mayors continue to intensify and deepen.

All of this should invite all social service practitioners to think about the administrative and gatekeeping costs that we incur with each programme, scheme etc. – no matter how well-intended. If we could do away with some unnecessary or excessive gatekeeping, my hope is that these resources can be better diverted to better places, like to people-in-need directly. Anyways, seriously who enjoys doing all this administrative gatekeeping work?? Don’t we have better things to do with our time???

I am very much part of the exact problem I am describing above, so it’s for me to reflect myself and imagine how we can transform our own internal practices, systems and policies. But really, this is more than that – it is matters of culture, paradigm and ideology.

Happy Sunday. It’s 12am and I really like to sleep but no, I’ve gotta head back to the paperwork mountain because the application portal died on me just now, which is how I ended up writing this post (!)I

Indian Supreme Court shares the view of the PAP govt on freedom of speech

Recently, the Indian Supreme Court said that the constitutional right of film makers to free speech did not extend to hurting people’s religious feelings.

Sounds like something Darth Shan would say

who warned the Muslim community that it has responsibility to show that it lives in a multi-cultural society and must be aware of others’ sensitivities, just as it expects others to be sensitive to its sensitivities.

“You have a group of Malay young men, showing the one-finger sign, supporting the group,” CNA quoted the minister.

“If a group of Chinese went and showed the finger sign and said that we should allow it – how would you all have felt? It is the same.” Very true. Something for the Malay community to think about.

As the photo has gone viral “across the Christian community”, Shanmugam said that it was crucial to show that the picture does not represent what the Muslim community thinks. “They won’t realize that this a small group of Malays, but they may think, is this what Muslims think of us? So now we have to send the message that this is not what the Muslim community thinks. These are black metal group supporters, they are not the mainstream community.”

Watain ban: playing the easily offended game can backfire

Btw, I think he would also agree with

There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.

Idi Amin

Meanwhile in Cynical Historian: What the 2019 statues tell us. In 2019, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Raffles’ landing, the PAP govt unveiled four statues to celebrate the anniversary. What message did the PAP want to send?

Which minister will take the Chinese Kung Flu vaccine?

In  One of vaccines chosen by the PAP govt is cheap but not that effective, I poited out that Sinovac vaccine we ordered

has not been submitted to the US, UK or EU authorities for approval.

This means that are no Western phase 3 safety and efficacy trials (the Gold standard required by Western authorities before approval) and if there’s little data on efficacy, how will the HSA review CoronaVac before rolling it out to the public?

Rely on what the Chinese and third world countries say?

In HK delaying use of Sinovac vaccine, I reported that Secret Squirrel alleged that VivanB and Darth Shan want Desmond Tan (Sabo King) to get the jab to show S’poreans that its safe.

It won’t work. We need a tua kee and respected minister to take the jab.

Serbia’s US-educated prime minister was the first European leader to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The country’s Russophile internal affairs minister rolled up his sleeve for an armful of Sputnik V. And the health minister happily posed for his injection with Sinopharm’s coronavirus shot.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55931864

As Hali and PM have taken the American/ German vaccine, we need someone like Tharman, Teo Chee Hean or Ng Eng Hen to take the Sinovac vaccine to assure us plebs its save: not an incomptent Sabo King. It would be unfair to get Heng to take CoronaVac because even though, we are told, he had a complete recovery, he did have a serious stroke.

(Btw, he’s a lucky man. I juz had to put down my 14-year old dog, S’pore breed, because he was paralysed. We suspect it was due to a stroke attack.)

Maybe Chan Kee Chiu will kee chiu? But then he doesn’t have the stature of Tharman, Teo Chee Hean, Ng Eng Hen or even Heng. So no point.

My choice would be Tharman because if he takes Sinovac vaccine and doesn’t turn yellow, all the ang moh tua kees who think the sun shines from his ass will be clamouring for it, not the ang moh vaccine.

Then I may get the vaccine Hali and PM got. Best of the class: German and American know-how.

Yes, yes, I kinow Indonesia’s president has taken the SinoVac vaccine and lived. But he’s Indonesian, not S’porean.

If the PAP wants to stop decline in popular vote, listen to George Shultz’s last words

The last GE saw the PAP again losing while winning. Its share of the popular declined 10 points to around where it was in 2011: around 60% of the popular vote. Worse, it had to rely on P Ravi, PRC running dog Goh Meng Seng and other useful idiots to help achieve this number: PAP’s useful idiots: s/o JBJ, Meng Seng, Lim Tean, P Ravi and Michelle Lee

I was reminded of GE 20120 when I read that George Shultz, a former US secretary of state who significantly shaped foreign policy in the late 20th Century, has died at the age of 100.

Trust is the coin of the realm. When trust was in the room, whatever room that was – the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room – good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post to mark the occasion of his 100th birthday last December, Mr Shultz reflected on the lessons he had learned over his life in politics.

Given the fiasco over contract tracing

Broken promises: How Singapore lost trust on contact tracing privacy

Guarantees that Singaporean phone data would only be used to fight covid-19 were hollow.

Kirsten Han writing in https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/11/1016004/singapore-tracetogether-contact-tracing-police/

and the govt’s attempts at damage control

Bill introduced to make clear TraceTogether, SafeEntry data can be used to look into only 7 types of serious crimes

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/proposed-restrictions-to-safeguard-personal-contact-tracing-data-will-override-all-other

I think the PAP govt should take to heart George Schultz’s words:

When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.

HK delaying use of Sinovac vaccine

Further to One of vaccines chosen by the PAP govt is cheap but not that effective, int’l media but not our constructive, nation-building media (I stand happy to be corrected) report that HK is likely to delay using tbecause of a lack of trial data, raising transparency concerns over a shot Beijing wants to sell internationally.

If it’s approved which minister will be jabbed with it to show us SingHealth users that its safe?

Secret Squirrel tells me that VivianB and Darth Mugam are pressing for junior minister Desmond Tan to get the jab to show us plebs it’s safe.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) can obtain TraceTogether data for criminal investigations, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan. Replying to an MP’s question in Parliament on Monday (Jan 4), he said the SPF is empowered under the Criminal Procedure Code to obtain any data, including that of TraceTogether. He said the Government is the custodian of TraceTogether data submitted by individuals. Stringent measures are in place to safeguard it.

CNA on 4 Jan

This set the cat among the pigeons and the govt is legislating to ensure that only serious crimes will trigger the use of this data,

Morocco Mole (Secret Squirrel’s sidekick) says his second cousin removed working in the Home Affairs ministry claims that Shan is upset that Desmond did not take the trouble to explain that only serious crimes would have triggered the use of the data.

Police will restrict use of TraceTogether data to ‘very serious offences’, says Shanmugam

ST two weeks ago

Whatever, Desmond Tan had better look for a new job. When he gets sacked, no parachuting into a cushy TLC or GLC pretend job.

How FT restrictions hurt economy

And no the person saying it is not a millionaire minister or a PAP social media or msm media running dog. It’s an economist from an int’l bank.

All this talk of a recoverying economy (Example:”Singapore economy looks to rebound in 2021″and STI recovering to last yr’s highs, reminds me of what a Jap economist was saying late last yr: the FT restrictions was no good for the economy. (Skip the next 10 or so paras to “Hiromasa Matsuura …” if you know the facts and the PAP govt’s spin on the data.

First a recap of the restrictions.

Singapore tightened its labor rules last September. But there’s a problem. FTs make up nearly 40% of the labor force — far higher than in most of its neighbors.

Its citizens are also rapidly aging, meaning that by 2030, nearly a quarter will be 65 or older. If a graying Singapore accepts fewer foreign workers amid reduced interaction with the outside world, can it maintain economic growth?

According to the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore had 1,351,800 foreign workers as of June last yr, of which 14% were Employment Pass holders — professionals, managers and executives like — while another 14% were S Pass holders, or mid-level staff with skills. Almost all of the rest possessed a Work Permit, which includes laborers from lower-income countries engaging in construction and shipyard work as well as domestic helpers such as maids and nannies.

If it accepts fewer foreign workers amid reduced interaction with the outside world, can it maintain economic growth?

PM says no, saying the Government must convince the sheep S’poreans that the best way to protect livelihoods and families is to keep Singapore open for talent and business. He said, “If we just close ourselves up and send away the work pass holders, it will result in fewer jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans, and more hardship for our workers and their families.” He was speaking at the People’s Action Party (PAP) biennial conference on 8 November last yr.

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PM says he understands S’porean fears

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong acknowledged the worry S’poreans have about job competition coming from “foreign talents”.

He said he fully understood the pressures faced by S’poreans with regard to foreign work pass holders competing against Singaporeans for jobs in Singapore.

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But’s that not juz PAP propaganda.

Hiromasa Matsuura, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Bank, said there are two ways the restrictions could weigh on the economy.

“If a foreign worker’s role is not successfully replaced by a local, the growth of the total labor force would weaken, resulting in a negative impact on the economy,” Matsuura told Nikkei. The other, he said, is that a decline in foreign workers would mean a slowdown of total population growth, which would lead to shrinkage in consumption.

“If employers’ needs and local job seekers’ needs do not match, a tightening of foreign labor rules may not be very effective,” Matsuura stressed. “The replacement of foreigners with locals should take place in tandem with the growth of relevant human capital.”

More at https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Local-jobs-or-global-talent-Singapore-faces-COVID-era-conundrum

My take: The business reaction so far suggests there is no guarantee of more jobs for locals. Our education system that screwed up?

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*From September 2020, the minimum salary requirement for an Employment Pass applicant was raised to 4,500 Singapore dollars (us$3,300) a month from the previous SG$3,900. That followed an increase from SG$3,600 to SG$3,900 in May. In the financial sector specifically, the threshold was set even higher, at SG$5,000, from December. Visa applicants in senior positions must earn even more. Similarly, the minimum salary for the S Pass was also raised to SG$2,500 from October, compared with SG$2,400 previously. “You may of course adjust your EP or S Pass employees’ salaries upon renewal,” Manpower Minister Josephine Teo told employers in a Facebook post explaining the new requirements. Still, the message was clear: “But consider the missed opportunities of building up your local employment, and the strong government support to do so,” she said.

One of vaccines chosen by the PAP govt is cheap but not that effective

(Breaking news at 5.35 am on 18 January 2021: Brazil has approved Sinovac’s CoronaVac.)

It also has not been submitted to the US, UK or EU authorities for approval.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Wednesday (13 January) that the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) will review CoronaVac before rolling it out to public: i.e. giving it to the plebs.

Several countries, including Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, M’sia and Singapore, have placed orders for the coronavirus vaccine (CoronaVac) developed by China’s Sinovac. It’s cheap compared to the ang moh vaccines approved for use in the West. It’s in use in China.

CoronaVac is found to be 50.4% effective in Brazilian clinical trials, according to the latest results released by researchers. It shows the vaccine is significantly less effective than previous data suggested – barely over the 50% needed for regulatory approval.

The two vaccines approved by the US, UK and EU are more than 90% effective, while the third (only approved in the UK) is 70%+ effective.

Coming back to Health Minister Gan Kim Yong’s assurance that the HSA will review CoronaVac before rolling it out to the public, how is HSA going to review the vaccine?

This made-in-China vaccine has not been submitted to the US, UK or EU authorities for approval.

This means that are no Western phase 3 safety and efficacy trials (the Gold standard required by Western authorities before approval) and if there’s little data on efficacy, how will the HSA review the CoronaVac vaccine before rolling it out to the public?

Rely on what the Chinese and third world countries say?

In response to India’s Covid-19 vaccination: Do you feel lucky?, about an Indian vaccine approved for use despite not completing its phase 3 trials, a regular reader, a fat cat who was a medical doctor wrote

Singapore will also have our own version of “Do you feel lucky”.

By the time vaccination exercise starts for the general population, roughly 1/3 of the shots will be from Sinovac. Phase 3 trials from Brazil indicates 78%* efficacy for this cheena shot.

My friends in the healthcare biz have been getting their Pfizer-BioNTech shots since last week of Dec.

• This was written before the 50.8% finding.

“The Law is an ass” argues TRE veteran

TRE’s last standing musketeer from the glory days (2011 — 2015) is based in China and is known as “techie Andrew”.

Recently, cyberspace was flooded with comments about the following case

Man jailed for cheating loan shark who hired him to harass debtors

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/man-jailed-cheating-loan-shark-who-hired-him-harass-debtors

Most of the comments were garbage. But what to expect from anti-PAP cybernuts?

But techie Andrew posted a very interesting take:

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Man convicted of cheating because he has taken payment but refused to commit a crime?.

This is indeed a very interesting case worth wasting time to discuss and study.

What the unlicensed moneylender wanted the accused to do was clearly illegal, promising to pay him after he has committed the illegal act.

The accused wants no part of it and did not carry out the clearly illegal locking of doors and harassment as instructed by the unlicensed moneylender. So he staged it for the unlicensed moneylender to think that he has done it and collected payment.

Point to note:

1. Had the accused carried out the locking as instructed by the unlicensed moneylender, he would have committed an offence and the unlicensed moneylender would be guilty of abetting, if the house owner makes a police report.

2. What the unlicensed moneylender instructed the accused to do was clearly an illegal act, which is against the law. Technically it was a verbal contract, BUT since what the accused was asked to do was illegal, how then can the contract even be binding and valid and how could the accused have been charged for cheating (because he refused to commit an illegal act), even if the accused has received payment, be it before or after the event?

By extention, the accused had to commit one crime or another, be charged for the locking of doors or cheating?

Picture this:

I was asked by Andy to murder someone and was paid upfront for the assignment. Since it was an illegal act, I staged the death of the person I was supposed to murder and told Andy that he was dead.

So according to the police’s logic, I had cheated Andy since I took the money and did not murder that someone?

Meanwhile, nothing happens to Andy, who had paid me to murder someone?

Walan eh, whoever the IO and DPP in this case sibei tokong man, salute ar!

Had this happen in China, Andy would have been arrested by teh police and I would get a pat on the back for not committing the muder liao lor. Its called “中止犯罪”, a provision under their law for the police to not take any further action against an accused.

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OK, OK, he never said the “The Law is an ass”. It’s my interpretation of the points he made.

What do you think of his argument?

PAP needs this law in S’pore

When I read that Zhang Zhan, a Chinese Kay Poh Queen (OK, OK a citizen journalist who covered Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak: she’d never get a job with our constructive, nation-building ST etc), had been jailed for four years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, I couldn’t help but think that this was the law the PM needs, but doesn’t have.

Best for Shan to bring in this law of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” so that PM doesn’t need to sue for defamation people like Terry Xu, Uncle Leong, and Roy Ngerng. Whenever PM rightly sues for defamation to clear his name, S’poreans someone get reminded that his siblings can make defamatory remarks about him, but not get sued. He just stands up and makes a parliamentary statement in response to their remarks.

Cue, anti-PAP paper warriors shout “white horses” and “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.

And I dream of “white horses” shouting “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.

Seriously, there’s a real advantage to the PAP govt of having this law against “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” which, btw, is a frequent charge used against activists in China. No need to charge people for one-person illegal assemblies, which does sound like something from Alice-in-Wonderland or from Kafka: absurd and surreal.

Singapore: Jolovan Wham charged for holding up a smiley face sign

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55068007

There is no need for more magic realism from the PAP govt, especially as writers, anti-PAP or just those who oppose the PAP, talented or mediocre, love to write in the genre: example

A man learns that all the animals at the Zoo are robots. A secret terminal in Changi Airport caters to the gods. A prince falls in love with a crocodile. A concubine is lost in time. The island of Singapore disappears.

 These are the exquisitely strange tales of Lion City, the first collection of short fiction by award-winning poet and playwright Ng Yi-Sheng. Infused with myth, magical realism and contemporary sci-fi, each of these tales invites the reader to see this city-state in a new and darkly fabulous light.

https://epigrambookshop.sg/products/lion-city

(Btw, the above collection of short stories is good fun, read it.)

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My reflections on one-person illegal assembly posts

PAP govt one up up on repressive central Asian republic?

Seelan Palay: Sylvia Lim was right

Jolovan’s latest problem shows Sylvia Lim’s and my prescience

Jogging alone can be illegal?

PAP uses Lawfare against its opponents?

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Coming back to Minister Shan, here’s a post by a anti-PAP, but usually clear-headed writer https://sudhirtv.com/2020/12/28/singapores-leadership-crisis-shan-the-phenom/. Worth a read.

Good ripostes to Minister Shan

Christmas in the West is not only about food and alcohol. It’s also time to light a cigar or in these more PC days, a reefer.

This reminded me that the decision by the United Nations’ drug agency to reclassify cannabis is one driven by money and profits rather than science and rationality, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam: more at https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/un-decision-on-cannabis-legalisation-down-to-power-of-money-not-rationality-and-science

–

And as though alcohol and tobacco don’t have $ behind them.

Btw, the science behind cannabis, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs: PAP really makes case for banning tobacco and alcohol. Seriously, I’m sure the absence of a ban in S’pore on alcohol and tobacco have nothing to do with money and profits, its driven by science and rationality.

What do you think?

Btw, I belive in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the 9th Immortal.

Smart Nation and Digital Government Group contradicts itself on app & token

PM’s announcement of Phase 3 reminded me of “Ownself contradict ownself” statements from the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group: the elite team meant to remake S’pore.

(Is Li Hongyi on it? Secret Squirrel alleges that he’s on it and is one of its shining lights. But Secret Squirrel often gets things wrong.)

But first, some introductory comments:

The adoption of the TraceTogether app and tokens stand at more than 60 per cent, getting closer to the 70 per cent target required to move to Phase 3

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/tracetogether-app-token-adoption-phase-3-13748714

CNA went on to say that SNDGG said a possible reason (one of several SNDGG gave) for not adopting TraceTogether

may be the belief that SafeEntry is sufficient, stemming from a lack of understanding that TraceTogether and SafeEntry are complementary tools that serve different functions.

Constructive, nation-building CNA

Excuse me Smart Nation and Digital Government Group, if liddat, why u/m statement?

No need to collect the token if you have the TraceTogether App

https://token.gowhere.gov.sg/

The statement implies that the token is an alternative to the app.

There’s more from the :

Contact Tracing

The TraceTogether Token complements the TraceTogether App by extending the protection provided by digital contact tracing tools to those who may not own or prefer not to use a mobile phone.

https://token.gowhere.gov.sg/

OK, OK, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group didn’t issue these statements, the S’pore govt did.

But surely the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group must have approved these statements. So why so cock, unless it didn’t vet the site.

Btw, I’ve been told that I cannot collect the token yet. Originally the date for collection in my area would have begun on 14 December. No new date has been given.

How to get to target of 70% liddat? So don’t suka suka blame public like the the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group implied in the CNA article.

How to have confidence in the $4G leaders? But let’s be far, PM and other 3Gs are still calling the shots. So 3Gs also are a bunch of mediocrities, not withstanding the million $ salaries: Ex-PM’s money obsession causing PAP problems.

For the record, the 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)

And based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter

But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.

Part of Tharman’s FB post

HK ordered 22.5m doses of Covid-19, waz PAP govt’s ordered?

When I read

Singapore will invest S$25 billion – or 1 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) – in research, innovation and enterprise for the next five years. 

The Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan (RIE2025), announced by Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat at a press conference on Friday (Dec 11), includes a new national programme to prepare for future epidemics.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-invest-25-billion-research-develop-talent-13751100

I remembered reading that Hong Kong has ordered 7.5m doses from Pfizer and BioNTech, and 7.5m doses from the Chinese pharmaceutical group Sinovac. It’s planning to order a similar amount from AstraZeneca.

Meanwhile, as for S’pore’s orders, S’pore won’t be last in the queue for any vaccine, according to PM.

Myth PAP cares more for GDP than for Sporeans?

Millionaire ministers prefer to lock down economy to save lives seems to be the implication of u/m.

What do you think?

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Dr Goh and his merry men

For all their academic brilliance Ah Loong and team have not advanced beyond tinkering with the framework that Dr Goh Keng Swee, Hon Swee Sen and Albert Winsemius devised. Evolution is fine to a point. But surely the world has undergone revolutionary change. When they were constructing their model of serving MNCs as a path to grow the economy, serving MNCs was “neo-colonialism”. Today even Red China serves as as the MNCs’ factory.

Problem S’pore, PAP face

Related posts

— Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh retired

— Dr Goh’s HK counterpart had similar views on MRT and other major issues

— Why S’pore industrialised in the 60s

— SG50: Three cheers for Goh Keng Swee

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Remember, the 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)

And based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter

But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.

Part of Tharman’s FB post

How PAP can win 70% of the vote again

Rediscover what LKY, Dr Goh and the Other Guard instinctively knew. GDP growth is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The PAP govt can no longer deny the fact that the fortunes of the rich, MNCs and even retirees like me (asset rich, cash rich and users of SingHealth and bus concession passes: LOL), and those of workers and the poor do not rise in tandem. 

So for starters the PAP should stop behaving like the old Wankers’ Party (now under new mgt and showing that the “W” stands for “Workers” not “Wankers”). The PAP should stop wanking and do shumething about helping the poor: Do the following show how of touch and uncaring are union leaders, PAP MPs and millionaire ministers?

Sadly it won’t as junior minister Zaqy Mohamad argues that take home pay is “not meaningful”. It’s meaningful if after employer and employee deductions, there’s not enough to pay the food and tpt bills.

But a millionaire like Zaqy Mohamad wouldn’t know this, would he?

Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE

Shumething I predicted recently: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE.

Since then there’s these two headlines from last week

COVID-19 downturn to be more prolonged than past recessions, slow recovery for jobs market: MAS

S’pore’s recovery from downturn set to take 18 months, twice as long as earlier recessions: Economists

Recent headlines in the constructive, nation-building bmedia

Before these, there was what Heng said in mid October

A hike in Goods and Services Tax (GST) cannot be deferred indefinitely because it is necessary to support future needs such as preschool education and healthcare.

However, the Government will continue to study the timing of the increase in GST rate carefully. In doing so, it will take into account the pace of Singapore’s economic recovery, its revenue outlook and how much spending can be deferred without jeopardising the country’s long-term needs.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/gst-hike-cant-be-deferred-indefinitely-govt-will-carefully-study-timing-increase-dpm-heng

Going by the next PM’s choice of words,

Government will continue to study the timing of the increase in GST rate carefully. In doing so, it will take into account the pace of Singapore’s economic recovery, its revenue outlook and how much spending can be deferred without jeopardising the country’s long-term needs.

if there’s no V-shaped recovery, but a K-shaped recovery (What’s a K-shaped recovery? Recovery is K shaped), as is likely. there be no GST hike until after next GE. PAP doesn’t believe in suicide.

But next time GST rises, it might be up 4 points? Because

it is necessary to support future needs such as preschool education and healthcare.

PM Lawrence Wong circa 2028

Three cheers for the PAP govt: it must be doing shumething right

The whole nature of protest is shifting across South East Asia, says Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham in Malaysia.

She goes on according to the BBC, “Democracy activists in Thailand and Hong Kong, as well as countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, are “adapting to growing authoritarianism in a globalised world” with fast-changing tactics that harness the power of technology and visual representation.”

Meanwhile S’pore is really peaceful, and S’poreans really contented (Remember 60% voted for the PAP in last GE.), despite the efforts of Terry’s Online Channel, M Ravi and their cybernut allies to get S’poreans to behave like Thais and Hongkies.

Double confirm: Why the PAP die die wanted to hold GE earlier this yr

Economy is really in a bad way. (Btw in May I wrote this: Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later)

Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said as much as 20% of the city-state’s economy faces “deep scarring” from the coronavirus pandemic.

Aviation and tourism industries are a worry, especially with an expected slow recovery in travel.

S’pore’s trade-reliant economy, already in recession, is facing its worst contraction on record — about 5% to 7% this year. The government has allocated about S$100 billion in stimulus to cushion the blow for businesses and help save jobs:

MAS has kept monetary policy unchanged tomorrow. Fiscal measures will do the heavy lifting in getting the economy back on track, unlike in the US. Sometimes good to have a one party state.

But the bad news is that Heng thinks PAP govt has done enough: Did u know Heng said no more additional round of support measures?

Can believe or not? Or juz PAP BS?

A third of Singapore’s 18,000 street hawkers let consumers pay by scanning a qr code in July, a boost of over 50% in just two months.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/10/08/how-the-digital-surge-will-reshape-finance

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I can’t stop laughing. The hawker centres I visit to tapow food don’t have this facility. They don’t even take the CDC vouchers that have been given out and which expire in December.

Anyone know which hawker centres have stalls that let customers pay by scanning, or that accept SDC vouchers?

Then there’s this

[N]early 201 new F&B entities have been formed in the three months (June to August) after the reopening of the economy based on Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority data.

There was also a net increase of 96 F&B entities in the first half of 2020 alone, which include restaurants, cafes, food caterers, food kiosks and bars, according to data analysis firm Handshakes.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/singapore-homes-become-workspaces-huge-changes-work-home-13220992

Pull the other leg, its got bells on it.

Existing F&B outlets are the new zombies, yet new outlets are opening? Want to BS, pls BS sensibly? Don’t tell tall tales.

Did u know Heng said no more additional round of support measures?

On Oct 3, DPM Heng announced via Facebook that there will not be an additional round of support measures. I did not read about it in the constructive, nation-building: but maybe it was tucked away in somewhere. I read in an article in the Edge. (Details of the how the $100 billion is being spent: Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget.)

At this stage of the crisis, my team and I are fully committed to support our workers and businesses by refining our policies, expanding outreach and improving implementation, to make the most of the $100 billion committed to the fight against COVID-19. We hope that businesses and workers can make the best use of the measures that have been committed.

FB

But note out of 33 billion in Fortitude Bugget, S$13 billion is for “Contingencies Funds” Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget.

And the btw use of reserves is peanuts:

From the above mentioned link:

Whatever, all the budgets means the government’s total fiscal injection will be S$92.9 billion, almost one-fifth of the country’s S$500 billion economy. Only Germany and Japan spend more than us when it comes to pandemic stimulus packages as a percentage of GDP. Germany 31.6% and Japan 19.6%.

The government has so far drawn down S$52 billion from our reserves to fund the packages.

Impressive?

“Peanuts”: our reserves estimated to be worth over US$710 billion or S$1 trillion by ang mohs. Only 5% of our reserves drawn down and do remember that S$13 million is for “contingencies”. Exclude that S$13 million and only 4% of reserves will be spent.

Bah humbug, a reasonable man may say.

Liewgate: TRE writer makes constructive suggestions on improving the administration of justice

But first what the CJ said about prosecutors being “ministers of justice” is nothing new. Many yrs ago, the head of Crime in the AGC said the same thing to me in describing his role. It’s based on an English legal tradition

Prosecutors are more than advocates and solicitors. They are “ministers
of justice” assisting in the administration of justice (see R v Banks [1916] 2 KB621 at 623). As a “minister of justice”, the duty of the prosecutor is to assist the court to arrive at the correct decision. It is neither the prosecutor’s duty to secure a conviction at all costs nor to “timorously discontinue proceedings the instant
some weakness is found in their case” (see Kadar at [109]).

137 A prosecutor must always act in the public interest and it is generally
unnecessary for the Prosecution to adopt a strictly adversarial position
criminal proceedings (see Nabill v PP at [37]). Steven Chong JA speaking extrajudicially to Legal Service Officers and Assistant Public Prosecutors on 10 November 2011 put it in these terms:
The accused, the Court and the community are entitled to
expect that in performing his function in presenting the case
against an accused person, the Prosecutor will act with fairness
and detachment with the sole and unadulterated objective
to establish the whole truth in accordance with the law.
… The role of the Prosecutor therefore excludes any notion of
winning or losing a case. … His role is to seek and achieve
justice, and not merely to convict. The role is to be
discharged with an ingrained sense of dignity and integrity.

CJ menon in Public Prosecutor v Wee Teong Boo and other appeal and another matter [Emphasis added in bold italics]

Well a long standing tradition can always be improved given the allegation that the prosecutors in Liewgate misled the judge that a dvd player was functional when it was note (Note that one of the prosecutors’ is the daughter of a retired senior civil servant who was rebuked by Teo Chee Hean, then DPM and civil service minister yrs ago, for flaunting his wealth publicly amidst a recession).

So the suggestions made by a TRE writer are worth considering.

Justice And Prosecutorial Misconduct

Our legislators at all levels of government as well as the administrators of a plethora of governmental agencies have created an oppressive blanket of laws, rules and regulations designed to forcibly control the behavior of its citizens. But it takes a non-citizen to file an originating summons under Section 82A of the Legal Profession Act, which governs disciplinary proceedings against the legal service officers or non-practising solicitors.

I always thought that the Prosecutor’s main job was to gather and weigh all the evidence (both the damning and the exculpatory) before deciding whether or not to press charges. Prosecutors should be required to sign a statement that all exculpatory evidence had been provided to the defendant’s advisors. A false statement should have the same consequences as perjury.

In cases of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in which evidence is omitted, manufactured, or misrepresented, the prosecutors and judges should face a trial of the facts and, if convicted, in addition to disbarment, serve individual mandatory sentence for perjury–period. No escape from justice–you know, the in-house exemptions and protections among the legal professionals–for the betrayers of justice.

Next step would be to extend the same requirement to investigating police. Failure to provide possible exculpatory info to the prosecutors would be malfeasance and a firing offense.

So is it hopeless? Well, if our politicians had the intelligence and honesty to recognize and take the action which undoubtedly would reign in official cover-ups, lies and brutality — i.e., a zero-tolerance policy. In other words, those who do not hold justice and decency (towards EVERYONE) above “winning,” would be gone. Faith in the system is the bedrock. Without it, our system is drained of its inviolable authority.

SojoüRner

S’poreans want to work from home

An article in the constructive, nation-building ST about S’poreans slowly returning to work in offices reminded of an FT chart in late August or early Sept.

Black mark or slap in the face for the PAP govt’s handling of Covid-19?

Compared with Europe, S’poreans don’t want to return to offices. They all want to skive is it?

Seriously maybe S’poreans think the PAP govt mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic?

The FT reports that whereas the continental European countries think their govts handled the pandemic pretty well, the British and the Americans think their govt’s mishandled the pandemic, hence their reluctance to return to offices.

But then there is this survey: Criticism of PAP govt’s handling of Covid-19 is really “noise”. It shows that S’poreans think the PAP govt is doing a good job in containing the pandemic.

Say one thing, but do another thing isit?

What do you think?

Liewgate: TRE, junk can be stolen

I think the u/m Why would anybody want to steal junk? by TRE’s Augustine Low needs a serious correction.

Even if the stuff taken is junk, the maid cannot suka suka take it: taking it can still amount to theft.

Consent must still be sought. Such consent can be implied if the owner throws the stuff into the bin or tells the maid to throw it away. I’ve a spoiled printer and a laptop: junk. I’ve yet to dispose of them because I want to dispose of them responsibly. But if the maid takes them without asking my permission, it’s still technically theft.

Btw, I’ve also got a few watches that could be considered junk. One’s a IWC perpetual watch that needs to be repaired, another a Seiko watch that has it plastic face cover damaged , a Cartier Santos and Rolex that have faulty clasps. If the helper takes them …

Finally, an observation about the High Court judge’s decision. The High Court judge could have acquitted her on the basis of the police’s failure to secure the evidence. And left it at that. That he went further to make comments about Karl etc seems to show his unhappiness over the decision to prosecute. that he had serious concerns about what actually happened. (Note this change was made on 16 September 2020 at 11.30 am.)

The one question that could have saved Parti Liyani much earlier: Why would anybody want to steal junk?

It was a basic question that took four years to be asked.

Had it been asked earlier, it could have saved Parti Liyani from all her troubles and trauma, from languishing in a shelter for four years while awaiting the conclusion of her case of stealing from the home of Liew Mun Leong.

Defence lawyer Anil Balchandani who acted pro-bono for Parti and successfully secured her acquittal, appears in a video put up by HOME (Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics), the non-governmental organisation which provided shelter, food and financial assistance to Parti for four years. The video was shot a week before the High Court ruling on 4 September.

Balchandani spoke of the breakthrough: “I think the maybe memorable or most lucky point that we had was we asked the (high) court to have all the items presented before it . . . . and the court agreed. And that allowed us to present to the court what you can’t see in pictures.”

Once the “stolen” items were presented in court, the effect was telling, said Balchandani: “So the condition of the items, the clothes, the rags, the very old DVD players, the earrings, the jewellery that was outdated – you could see it in a photograph but you will not appreciate it until you see it. And slowly we were, you know, we were able to inch forward. And we have to basically convince the judge, why would someone steal junk?”

Indeed, why would anyone go through the trouble of stealing things which even the rag-and-bone man might reject?

And why wasn’t it a question the police, prosecution and district judge all thought of asking?

Only at the High Court was this question finally addressed. In his lengthy 100-page judgement, Justice Chan Seng Onn pointed to some aspects of this, including the case of a Pioneer DVD player which was allegedly stolen by Parti. She denied the theft, saying it was disposed of by the Liew family because it was “spoilt” and she kept it to bring home to Indonesia for repair.

Justice Chan believed Parti: “As its name suggests, a DVD player’s main function is to play a DVD . . . a DVD player that is unable to play DVD can reasonably be described as ‘spoilt.’”

The judge applied common sense. As was the case when Parti was accused of stealing clothes belonging to Karl Liew, the son of Liew Mun Leong. This strangely included women’s clothing apparel. When asked at the trial if he “had a habit of wearing women’s clothes” Karl actually said that he sometimes wore women’s T-shirts. Justice Chan found this assertion to be “unbelievable”.

So the Parti Liyani case is now to be reviewed by multiple parties because something has “gone wrong in the chain of events”, according to Law Minister K Shanmugam.

They could start by reviewing why nobody thought of asking the most basic questions – such as why would anybody want to steal junk, and how could a man have clothes “stolen” from him that included women’s apparel.

Liewgate: Was Liew Mun Leong that untouchable?

Below is another well written piece by TRE’s Augustine Low: if one is an anti-establishment (especially anti-PAP) pleb.

However, the piece misses a very important point. If Liew was that untouchable (“too big to challenge, too big to be disproved and too big to do any wrong”) why wasn’t his wife and son protected for illegally deploying the wife’s maid, and why was (as alleged) his family afraid of not being able to employ another maid.

Let me explain.

If Liew was that untouchable (“too big to challenge, too big to be disproved and too big to do any wrong”), how come MoM gave his wife a warning and his son an advisory for illegally deploying the maid?. Secret Squirrel tells me that plebs who illegally deploy their helpers also get warnings and advisories for the first offence.

The online narrative is that the family was afraid of being unable to hire a maid (by way of a MoM ban on employing a maid) to clean their two bungalows: something a second complaint would surely bring, they say. Hence the alleged “false” police report to fix the maid.

If Liew was that untouchable (“too big to challenge, too big to be disproved and too big to do any wrong”), he could have easily called up the MoM minister and tell the minister that his family needed a maid, so could the minister help him by not charging his tai tai for the second offence?

For the record, like the mob, I too think that the Liews, father and son, should be crucified. I also believe that Mrs Liew should be made to clean the two bungalows herself, then crucified.

Their offence? Bringing the establishment into disrepute.

Whatever, here’s what Augustine Low wrote.

The system that brought success to Liew Mun Leong also brought him down – does the PAP have the will to fix the system?

The spectacular downfall of Liew Mun Leong is a shock to the system – the People’s Action Party system.

It was the PAP system which set up Liew for stardom – he became an upstanding member of society and a darling of the establishment. As elite and entitled as they come in this country.

Liew’s every word and action became the gold standard. His Chancery Lane address alone bestowed him prestige and respectability.

As an entrenched member of the establishment, Liew became too big to challenge, too big to be disproved and too big to do any wrong. There are many like him. This is the hallmark of the PAP system.

The High Court judgement lays bare the stunning details. Had investigators and prosecutors done a thorough, professional job, had they not given Liew the benefit of the doubt every step of the way, things would have turned out differently.

The case might not even have gone to trial. Liew and his family would then have been spared the eventual outcome – the bombshell High Court findings, too damning to sweep under the rug.

Instead of reining in the excesses, Liew was treated with kid gloves and given a free pass.

A runaway train, when not reined in, will self-destruct or cause twisted wreckage. Ironically, the system that Liew profited from ended up causing his downfall because it was not robust enough to keep him in check.

Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said something has “gone wrong in the chain of events.” More important than that, how did the system crack in such breathtaking fashion? What happened to the checks and balances?

The downfall of Liew ought to prompt the PAP government to do soul searching. Unless the PAP has the will and wherewithal to fix the system, trust and confidence in the system will not be restored.

Augustine Low

Why the PAP lost Sengkang: “It was an honest mistake”

In response to Anti-PAP activists: Apologise to the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee, Gary, a reader gave explanation for the WP’s famous victory.

As it chimed with what Secret Squirrel told me about what PAP leaders tot led to the defeat and what Morocco Mole (Secret Squirrel’s side-kick) told me his second cousin removed working in the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee told him, below are Gary’s comments:

Sengkang GRC was a gerrymandering blunder. They tried to stop WP from winning back Punggol East by merging it with other parts of Sengkang. The problem in that plan was that the Sengkang area as a whole has mostly younger voters – a demographic that PAP cannot count on as reliable support. The PAP’s initial loss in Punggol East had already showed its weakness in this region with the same demographic. In Sengkang GRC, the WP only had to persuade young families to support them. Contrast that with East Coast and Marine Parade GRCs where the WP candidates would have to win over a larger share of older voters if they intended to close the gap. The average Merdeka or Pioneer generation Singaporean is not very easy to persuade. On the other hand, a highly educated and younger population in Sengkang could be won over with just charismatic opposition candidates and ground engagement.

It also helped that Lam Pin Min became very unpopular after banning the PMDs – the dude was a MP in Sengkang – an area where PMDs are commonly used by the younger electorate. This is a lesson for any politician. Don’t oppose your constituents’ even if you think they are wrong on an issue. The PAP also scored an own goal by moving Amrin Amin and Ng Chee Meng from Sembawang GRC and Pasir Ris-Punggol GRCs to Sengkang. The PAP trusted that these fresh faces of the 4G – both office holders – would have the pull factor to get votes and beat back the WP challenge in the first tough battle of their careers. The problem was that these two were from other GRCs and didn’t have a high profile as leaders. Charles Chong and Teo Ser Luck would have done better, had they stayed on.

Trying to to stop WP from winning back Punggol East by merging it with other parts of Sengkang the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee helped the PAP to win a GRC?

Buy the members of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee an abalone and sea cucumber meal. They deserve it as I don’t think they’ll be getting any pay rises soon.

Btw, I doubt ASP Lim and the DPPs in the debacle involving Liew Mun Leong will be getting any pay rises soon. Rumour has it they are already sending out their cvs.

Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE

The govt will take steps to strengthen its revenue position like raising the Goods and Services Tax (GST), said PM in waiting Heng Swee Keat on Friday (Aug 28).

I’m sure he knows -that

[T]wo ill-timed increases in the consumption tax, in the name of fiscal probity, both of which pushed the economy into recession.

Economist on Abe’s legacy

So that’s why maybe Heng also said the govt will “carefully monitor” the timing of such moves by considering the state of the economy and spending needs. “Carefully monitor” is his get-out-jail card of being the public face of Pay And Pay.

I mean with the next GE scheduled by end 2026, a recession in 2024 induced by a GST rise in 2023, is a vote loser. The way the economy is tanking (6% contraction expected), GST can only be raised in 2022 (Economy forcasted to grow by 5.5%) at the earliest. But based on the Japanese experience doing it then is risky. That leaves 2023 and, in turn, carries the risk of a recession in 2024.

Any later than 2023, the PAP is dicing with only 51% of the popular vote in the next GE.

And anyway, fiscal tightening should be resisted until recovery’s well underway: not to be nipped in the bud by a Hard Truth that was BS in the first place.

Casting my Chine fortune sticks, I prophesie that there’ll be no GST rise before the next GE. PAP knows the trade-offs and being Mr PAY And Pay could mean that its share of the popular vote falls below the pass mark: 60%.

In the context of a 60- 61% share of the popular vote being mud in the eye for the PAP, anything less than 65% will be seen as less than a smooth transition by the PAP and the voters.

Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote

Related post: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And remember I predicted this before the analysts: Double confirm: No GST rise this yr.

CECA: Good TRE article

A friend asked someone who has written on CECA on FB in the past whether the u/m allegations of Foong Swee Fong are correct. The person replied that “MTI is using a very strict definition, almost strawman definition of what a lot of citizens are concerned about.”

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MTI’s interpretation of CECA: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/mti-ceca-indian-nationals-citizenship-pr-employment-pass-13059698

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Foong Swee Fong’s understanding of CECA:

Misleading on CECA

Again, the authorities are painting one side of the picture to mislead. This time, it got the MTI to do the dirty work.

It starts off stating authoritatively that there is “no provision under CECA for Indian nationals to become PRs and citizens”. That’s true and actually obvious because this agreement pertains to investment, not citizenship. But we all know that PMEs form the pool for future PRs and citizens, unlike Work Permit holders.

It then says that it is “not true that CECA requires the Singapore authorities to automatically grant employment passes to Indian PMEs who want to work here”.

It gives the impression that Indian nationals are treated no differently from other nationals, but it is not true. All applications for Employment Passes must satisfy the minimum qualifying salaries as well as other standard requirements like educational qualification, employment offer from a company etc. So in that sense, approval is “not automatic”, but it is again stating the obvious.

What they didn’t say is that the Singapore authority is obligated under CECA to grant an Indian applicant an Employment Pass once he or she satisfies the various criteria, whereas, it has no such obligation for other nationals.

If the qualified Indian applicant is rejected, he can seek recourse via his government as provided under CECA.

Let me quote Article 9.3.1: “Each Party shall grant temporary entry to natural persons of other Party,…in accordance with this Chapter.”

Unless I have a different understanding, “shall grant” means “must grant”. And this include 127 different categories of professionals.

MTI goes on to say that “all companies must comply with rules on fair hiring”.

Again, this is misleading because although all companies are subject to the Fair Consideration Framework, that requirement is not applicable if the applicant is an Indian national.

Let me quote Article 9.3.3: “Neither Party shall require labour market testing, economic needs testing or other procedures of similar effects as a condition for temporary entry in respect of natural persons upon whom the benefits of this Chapter are conferred.”

Economic needs testing basically means the employer must ensure that there are no suitable locals before employing a foreigner, hence, MOM’s Fair Consideration Framework. But Indians are exempted.

I stand corrected because the text in Free Trade Agreements is meant to obfuscate rather than clarify because if the public understands and realise that the odds are stacked against them in favour of businesses, they would be thumping their pitchforks in front of Parliament House, after all, FTAs are actually Investor Rights Agreements. Hope the authorities can clarify.

Foong Swee Fong

And to end, the guy my friend asked also said “And not everything is addressed. Eg. Look at 9.3 i think in ceca, the bring your family clause. No equivalent in japan fta and a few others.”

I think Foong Swee Fong is correct. What do you think?

Sia Suay King and Queen talk cock yet again

Singapore is putting focus on “quality, rather than quantity” with the latest increases to the qualifying salaries of foreigners on Employment Passes and S Passes, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing on Saturday (Aug 29).

Constructive, nation-building MediaCorp freesheet

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Background

The Ministry of Manpower announced that the minimum salaries for new Employment Pass candidates will be raised by S$600 to S$4,500 from September. Holders of the S Passes will have to meet a S$2,500 threshold, instead of S$2,400, from October.

For the first time, there will also be a separate salary criterion for Employment Pass holders working in financial services: The minimum qualifying monthly salary for these workers will be further raised to S$5,000 later in the year.

—-

Well, he surely can’t have got feedback from the ground because

Companies said they can live with higher operational costs …

Those interviewed said the impact on them is quite minimal since they already pay their Employment Pass holders higher than the minimum requirement

…

While higher manpower costs would be inevitable with the latest changes to salary requirements for work pass holders, companies contacted by TODAY said that the impact on costs is not something they are too concerned about.

Constructive, nation-building MediaCorp freesheet

Quality over quantity? What quality over quantity when employers say they already pay more than minimum? And are happy to absorb additional costs because FTs are betterest.

But to be fair to Kee Chiu, Jos, MoM minister, also talking cock

As for jobs for S’poreans, the constructive, nation-building media also reported that businesses and “expers” questioned whether the policy directions will achieve the desired effect.

Anti-PAP activists: Apologise to the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee

Tidying up loose ends of GE2020 analysis.

Since the advent of social media and alt media the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee has been a favourite scapegoat for the Oppo’s failure to win more parliamentary seats:

Prof Tambyah, who is also chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party, had asked Mr Heng if there was a “good reason” that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) was not completely independent of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

“The election boundaries currently are decided by independent civil servants, but ultimately the reporting officer is somebody in the PMO,” he said.

ST ST 1 oct 2019

In reply

The committee that reviews electoral boundaries is independent and not politically motivated, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said …

To do the electoral boundaries properly, population, demographic and other changes have to be looked at, and this requires the views of independent experts, said Mr Heng, who is also Finance Minister.

ST 1 oct 2019

The PM in waiting would say that wouldn’t he, defending the PAP’s running dogs, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee? Btw, apologies to dogs.

But then Cheng San was put (back?) into the East Coast GRC by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee. When I learnt about this this, I went “Wow, PAP govt must think Cheng San Fengshan is now like Tanjong Pagar”. For the sia suays, in the last parliament, a Wanker NCMP came from Cheng San Fengshan .

And we now know that our PM in waiting did not win a clear mandate in the East Coast. And in the next GE, East Coast is in play if Cheng San Fengshan remains within the East Coast GRC.

Then there was the new Sengkang GRC. Although I didn’t realise before the GE that the PAP’s running dogs Electoral Boundaries Review Committee had made the new GRC a Wankers’ dream GRC

All in all the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee deserves an apology. Wrong to say they are running dogs of the PAP.

But maybe the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee made two honest mistakes.

Why we need to know PAP govt’s projected investment returns and why it’s a secret

Look at this table

It shows that its assumed return targets are BS. Fyi, Calpers is the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a major global investor. As of 2018, the agency had U$360 billion in assets.

Before I go further, some defining of terms. From shumething I wrote in 2018

[O]ver the last 10 years, Singapore’s net investment returns (NIR) contribution (NIRC) to the Budget has more than doubled from S$7 billion in FY2009 to an estimated S$15.9 billion in FY2018.

…

Waz this NIRC and NIR BS?

NIRC consists of 50 per cent of the Net Investment Returns (NIR) on the net assets invested by GIC, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings and 50 per cent of the Net Investment Income (NII) derived from past reserves from the remaining assets.

In other words, we spend 50 per cent of the estimated gains from investment, and put the remaining 50 per cent back into the reserves to preserve its growth for future use.

Associate Professor Randolph Tan is Director of the Centre for Applied Research at the Singapore University of Social Services, and a Nominated Member of Parliament.

Under PAP rule will S’pore become like UK or Venezuela?

Now to why I think we need to know PAP govt’s projected investment returns. In 2016, a reader asked

A Qn: The NIR used for the budget is projected returns. If the projected returns did not materialize, then how? It seemed like insurance agent selling us a policy on projected returns which never materialize.

Am I comprehending the NIR correctly? Because this seemed to me that there might be hefty tax increase down the road if the projected returns did not materialize. This will also affect all the social spending currently on Singaporeans

NIR, Budget untruths, & the President

That is why we need to know the projected Net Investment Returns (NIR) on the net assets invested by GIC, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings. Remember NIRC — Singapore’s net investment returns (NIR) contribution (NIRC) -consists of 50 per cent of the Net Investment Returns (NIR) and 50 per cent of the Net Investment Income (NII) derived from past reserves from the remaining assets.

For your info this is what ex-TOC star commentator, Chris Kuan (Today, he seems to be too objective for the team running Terry’s Online Channel: they look to be the ST of S’pore’s cyberspace), wrote:

Your reading of the Constitutional NIR rule is correct – the NIR Contribution is calculated on the expected long term real rate of return (LTROR) on the government’s net assets (assets in excess of its liabilities). Pls note it is REAL returns we are talking about – that is the actual dividends and market valuation of the net assets minus the inflation rate. Therefore not all returns are spent. Then the rule limits the spent to 50% – therefore more than half of the actual or nominal returns are re-invested. Again pls note this is nothing unusual, Norway’s GPF and university endowments permit up to 100% of the returns to be spent.

NIR, Budget untruths, & the President

As to why the PAP govt wants to keep the projected Net Investment Returns (NIR) a secret, I’m sure you are thinking what I’m thinking LOL.

Halimah trying to tell jokes? $1m++ not enough isit?

I had to laugh when I read

Discrimination has ‘no place at all’ in Singapore society and the workplace: President Halimah

…

“People should be assessed solely on their merits and their ability to do a job and nothing else,” she said in a Facebook post, adding that workplace discrimination is “particularly disturbing” as it deprives the affected person from earning a living.

So someone who became president because only Malays could become president the last time round, has the gall to tell us that

“People should be assessed solely on their merits and their ability to do a job and nothing else.”

Pull the other leg Hali, its got bells on it.

#hardlymahpresident forgot how she became president? (Elected President: Oh, what a tangled web we weave cont’d). Or now disowning discrimination?

No, she’s joined the list of wannabe comedians:

Property: Tharman trying to crack jokes again

ST, Today editors trying to be like Tharman

Telling coc jokes: Ministerial CoC needed

Another minister tries telling jokes

The strange case of the missing $18b in “Contingencies Funds”

In https://atans1.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/cheat-sheet-for-fortitude-budget-hali-tied-of-signing-peanuts/ in May, I pointed out that $18bn was in “Contingencies Funds” in the then latest “Fortitude Budget”.

So when I first heard about the latest $8bn in corporate welfare (OK, OK there’s trickle down to the plebs), I tot “Only $5bn left leh”.

But then I learnt

Fresh S$8b Covid-19 measures funded in part by no mid-year bonus for civil servants, lower military spending: MOF

Constructive, bation-building media

So it seems that the entire $13bn has already been spent, and this new $8bn in corporate welfarism is being funded by squeezing civil servants (not that they don’t deserve having less Bismati rice and chicken thighs in their iron rice bowls) and spending less on the military (Can cut meh? Tot our paper generals need every cent in their budget to keep S’pore safe?) and on the development of infrastructure?

An Adrian Tan commented on FB

Smoke and mirrors. They drew down $13bn more than they needed for contingencies: https://atans1.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/cheat-sheet-for-fortitude-budget-hali-tied-of-signing-peanuts/. Now they say the extra $8bn coming from savings. What am I missing? 

Did these now billionaire foreign scholars do NS?

Both Chen and Ye arrived in Singapore as teenagers under a government effort to recruit foreign talent through scholarship programs that began in the 1990s. Chen studied computer engineering at the National University of Singapore, while Ye, also originally from China, went to Hwa Chong Institution and Raffles Junior College, and later got bachelor degrees in computer science and economics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

…

The lives of Sea’s three founders are now deeply rooted in Singapore. They’ve all become citizens, and Chief Executive Officer Li is a board member of the Economic Development Board, the government agency charged with promoting growth and positioning the city-state as a global center for business.

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/how-singapore-nurtured-foreign-trio-who-became-billionaires-023434141.html

The background stories of two of founders of NASDAQ-listed Sea (bigger market cap than our biggest listco DBS) is juz the kind of thing that the MoE needs as anti-PAP cybernuts question the need to give $238m annually to foreign students to study here.

So far until this story from Yahoo, not the usual propaganda mouth piece of the PAP govt, this is the best the PAP govt can say about spending $238m annually on FTs

“While MOE (Ministry of Education) spends about on foreign students a year, as stated in a parliamentary reply on 5 August 2019, the significant majority of these students are still required to pay fees higher than those of local students and/or fulfil a bond obligation after graduation,”

The Government said on its fact-checking website Factually.

But I repeat, do these really smart FTs turned locals do NS? I give Li (the third Chink) a pass because

Li, who was born and raised in China’s port city of Tianjin, followed his wife to Singapore after finishing an MBA at Stanford University.

Think PAP minister, Puthu, who was proud he didn’t do NS. He parachuted in after being born to a subversive exiled from S’pore after Coldstore, and after going to Angmoh land: “I’m invested in S’pore”.

Btw, when I was with a start-up in the early noughties, we had one of these scholars. A really pretty Chinese gal. She was a good programmer. The start-up went bust. Also met over the yrs, a few other scholars who worked with start-ups. Hard working, smart gals.

S’pore = Chinese, PA is saying?

Remember local YouTuber and comedian Preeti Nair (known as Preetipls) and her brother, rapper Subhas Nair? To refresh yr memories: Brownfacegate: Did you know Shanmugam also said this? and Brownfacegate: Fake indignation?

Well they and that other Woke, P(olitician) Ravi, will surely be KPKBing about

Chinese privilege?

“S’pore got no Indians, Malays, Eurasians isit? Part of China isit?” they sure to rave and rant. And they have a point.

Seriously, govt agencies used to very racially and culturally sensitive in their pictorial or photo depictions of S’poreans? Whatever happened?

An honest mistake?

Chinese tua kee?

Or is the PAP sending a very subtle message to China? “S’pore is Chinese, not a running dog of Trump”.

Remember

On 30 December 2009, our nation building, constructive ST reported MM Lee as saying of the Chinese officials who come here to study the governance of S’pore,“They discover that the People’s Action Party has only a small office in Bedok. But everywhere they go, they see the PAP – in the RCs, CCCs, and the CCs.”

https://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/what-mm-lee-said-of-the-cccs-december-2009/

Is Cheng Bock, like the PAP Old Guard, a believer in Mao’s continuous revolution

When I recently read that Francis Yuen Kin Pheng was taking over from Leong Mun Wai as Assistant Secretary General. Last month it was announced that Mr Leong Mun Wai and Ms Hazel Poa from the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), who are set to become Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMP), relinquished their leadership posts in the party.

From the very beginning of the party (the party was officially registered on 28 March 2019) last year, Dr Tan Cheng Bock has been chopping and changing his team.

At first, I was happy with the changes. When he announced his first team, I was distinctly unimpressed. A bunch of retreads or nobodies. I asked myself, “Why bother setting up a new party with these guys in leadership posts?” Another one man-show party like Chiam See Tong, and Mad Dog (until Dr Paul came along).

Then when he brought in Leong Mun Wai and Ong Seow Yong as part of a reshuffle in January this year, I was impressed. In the early 80s, I had dealings with them and was impressed. Their subsequent careers double confirmed my initial impressions of them. They could get things done.

I was also happy that he reshaped his team in the light of feed-back from new members.

When Michelle Lee quit as chairman, I was even happier as I tot she’s a waste of time. Her new party double confirmed that view.

But with the latest changes, I’m left wondering why the latest changes? It’s not as though being NCMPs is a full time job. Btw, I’m impressed with Francis Yuen, and happy that Ong Seow Yong has is in charge of communications.

Fyi, Mao’s theory of continuous revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_revolution_theory

Actually the Old Guard of the PAP believed in it. In the 70s and 80s, Dr Goh Keng Swee went around restructuring Mindef, MoE and the central bank (I was there then and worked directly under the chief operating executor)). The Old Guard tot that these institutions had become lazy and complacent. They all went thru bloodless Cultural Revolutions that were traumatic on those leaving and the survivors.

The 2G team led by GCT and Lee Jnr were kinder to bureaucrats, a practice that the £G and 4G followed. Good for the bureaucrats, but detrimental to S’pore?

What do u think?

Why PAP ministers are not fat

And why they are “dangerous”.

First the “fat” bit:

The more overweight the government, the more corrupt the country, according to a new study of 15 post-Soviet states … found that the median BMI of a country’s cabinet is highly correlated with its level of corruption, as measured by indices compiled by the World Bank and Transparency International (see chart).

Economist

It’s a fact that S’pore ranks highly (least corrupt) on the corruption indices mentioned. Even Lim Tean and Goh Meng don’t go round saying that PAP ministers are corrupt.

As to the “dangerous” part:

 Let me have men about me that are fat,Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare

Though to be fair, one wishes Jos Teo thinks a bit more even though she’s so thin. Could do better. Time to lose more weight so that she can have sex in the HDB’s flat’s “bomb shelter”?

Covid-19: FTs from India reinfecting S’pore

Not me, but the constructive, nation-building propaganda arm of the PAP govt ST

More than 100 such cases confirmed in past month, with over half from India

ST headline yesterday, somewhere in the middle of yesterday’s paper

A lot more than half, 62 to be precise, ST reported on Thursday.

From June 30 to last Tueday, there were 107 cases of infections from abroad and they were imported from nine different countries, with more than half – 62 cases – coming from India.

Another 23 cases were imported from the Philippines, while the rest came from countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and the United States.

Most of the imported cases – 27 – are work pass holders, while 23 of them are S’poreans. There were 20 permanent residents and 19 dependant’s pass holders among the imported cases.

Given that India is full of Covid-19 cases, third behind the US of A and Brazil, why let people from India? Btw, PeenoyLand also saw a recent coronavirus surge, so why let Peenoys in?

Why not impose stricter quarantine rules, if they are that impt to the economy?

These FTs tua kee isit?

Btw2, FTs are also a problem in HK: Covid-19: Silence of Lim Tean, Meng Seng and TOC is deafening.

Covid-19: Silence of Lim Tean, Meng Seng and TOC is deafening

Hong Kong – which had early success against Covid-19 – is now regularly reporting over 100 new daily cases. Less than a month ago, the average number of new daily cases was under 10.

Now

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has warned that the city’s hospital system could face “collapse” as it grapples with a sharp rise in coronavirus cases.

She said the city was “on the verge of a large-scale community outbreak”, urging people to stay indoors.

BBC

And Lim Tean, Meng Seng Seng and other cybernuts, and TOC and anti-PAP alt media were shouting that the PAP govt should follow what HK was doing?

Hong Kong this week introduced its toughest lockdown restrictions in response to its worst outbreak. New regulations, including mandatory face masks and the closure of dine-in restaurants, and only two people from different households can meet, under the toughest rules Hong Kong has adopted so far.began on Wednesday.

It was earlier announced that spaces like bars, gyms and beauty parlours would be closed.

At the start of the month, public gatherings of up to 50 people were allowed – but that was reduced to four, and now two.

When the FT dorms were infected, Lim Tean, Meng Seng Seng and other cybernuts, and TOC and anti-PAP alt media were shouting that the PAP govt should follow what HK was doing.

Now that the FT dorms are almost clean and Covid-19 from the dorms didn’t leak out to the HDB heartlands, while HK is having a serious reinfection problem, why are Lim Tean, Meng Seng Seng and other cybernuts, and TOC and anti-PAP alt media not praising the PAP govt?

But at least , Lim Tean, Meng Seng Seng and other cybernuts, and TOC and anti-PAP alt media are not shouting that the PAP govt should follow what HK is doing.

The truth is that Vigilance is eternal when it comes to fighting Covid-19 and people like Lim Tean, Meng Seng and other anti-PAP paper warriors will always say “PAP is always wrong”. SAD.

Btw, PRCs from China are being blamed for the resurgence of the virus inHK.

Criticism of PAP govt’s handling of Covid-19 is really “noise”

Not me but Blackbox.

Interesting that the PAP govt’s standing has not been diminished by the cock up over FTs that resulted a lockdown (albeit a soft one) circuit breaker being imposed. If you read TRE and other anti-PAP alt media or social media, you’d think that the only reason S’poreans are not rioting over the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is fear of further govt repression.

Reasons why S’pore give the PAP govt the benefit of the doubt on the FT dorms?

FT dorms scandal: Blame NIMBY S’poreans not the PAP govt (Ownself blame ownself)

Covid-19: We have our FT Indian workers, Poland has its coal miners (World wide problem)

Ang mohs rioted meh? Not South Asians? Workers’ dorms are multi-racial? (Pay-back time for rioting)

Covid-19: “Well-off” local family living (almost) like manual workers from India (Many S’poreans live like FT dorm workers)

Would the dorm workers prefer to be repatriated to India and Bangladesh? (Better here than back home)

Schematic on how Covid-19 affects the body explains why infected Indian dorm workers are still alive (Btw Covid-19: Death loves diabetic ethnic Indians in hospital and Covid-19: Ethnic Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis got higher death rates in UK)

Covid-19: PAP govt praised by US expert

On Monday, Dr Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, warned that the US is not responding like other countries who have shown success in containing the coronavirus, and has allowed the virus to spread much more widely and rapidly.

“We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control,” Dr Schuchat said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

…

New Zealand declared the country infection-free on 8 June, and since then has had to contain several cases that came from international travellers. South Korea has aggressively employed contact tracers, and since 1 April has recorded fewer than 100 cases per day. Singapore’s outbreak peaked in mid-April when 1,400 new cases were reported in one day.

BBC report

OK, OK, she didn’t juz praise our PAP govt, but going by what Lim Tean, Goh Meng Seng and TOC and other anti-PAP alt media are saying, The PAP govt is mishandling the pandemic.

Btw, staying safe is all about avoiding the three Cs: closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded places with many people nearby and close-contact settings, such as close-range conversations.

Will the PAP govt ensure that these things can be avoided when we vote?