FT dorms scandal: Blame NIMBY S’poreans not the PAP govt

Not me but the Economist on Not In My Back Yard S,poreans:

Migrant workers are vital to Singapore’s economy, as they make up two-fifths of the labour force. But they are not a popular cause.

…

So it is brave of the government to pick a fight with voters on the subject, with an election expected within months.

On June 1st Lawrence Wong, co-chair of Singapore’s covid-19 task-force, announced plans to build lower-density dormitories for some 100,000 migrant workers. The new housing, he warned, would inevitably encroach on other residential areas. When the government built workers’ dormitories in one central district in 2009, the pap was subsequently thumped at the ballot box there.

https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/06/20/singapore-promises-roomier-digs-for-migrant-workers

And alt media and anti-PAP social activists keep blaming the PAP for the FT dorm problem.

Notice the deafening licence from the Wankers, Lim Tean and Goh Meng Seng and other oppos on the FT dorms’ problems?

The worst electoral showing for the ruling People’s Action Party (pap) was in 2011, when the opposition put a call for fewer migrants at the heart of their campaign.

Economist

Only the SDP has spoken out on the FT dorms’ problems.

S’pore: Where we really have choices

On her FB page, a friend (real life) who migrated to Australia (her genius of a son could not pass Chinese to save his life and ended up in neighbourhood “good” school: not good enough for mummy) in a conversation about purchasing power parity (The PPP is a macroeconomic tool that allows the comparison of what it costs to buy the same/similar basket of goods across different countries.) wrote: 

In my observation Singapore has a big range, so happily the options are many – in housing, transport, dining & food. If one is happy/limited to shelter in public housing, MRT/uber & airconed hawker centres/bistros you can have a pretty decent life. In Australia the range is much narrower, for instance, there isin’t that many ultra-expensive restaurants nor cheap and good food outlets

She also analysed the relative rankings of S’pore and Oz:

Surprisingly Singapore just scraped through at #50 of the world’s most expensive countries with a price level of minus 4% below average. Australia has the dubious honour of being #6 with a price level of +68% above average.

Whatever, we may be living in a de facto one-party state, but we sure can mix and match our life style choices.

Vote wisely: Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

But try to make sure PAP share of the vote juz exceeds 60%: Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP. If more sure to PAP and Pay

Pay And Pay

Articles and analysis of various “price increase” written by Uncle Leong* (Remember him?)

Water – “PUB: $1.1b profits last 7 years – how much last 53 years? (Feb 24, 2017)

Service & Conservancy Charges – “S & CC: A truly caring Govt?” (Feb 17, 2017)

Gas – “City Gas prices to rise by 4.5 per cent from Feb 1” (Jan 31, 2017)

Electricity – “Electricity: One of the highest in the world? (Jan 1, 2017)

Childcare fees – “Fee hikes at 200 childcare centres this year” (Jan 1, 2017)

Parking – “HDB car park rates increase 60%? (Dec 16, 2016)

Rubbish fees – “Rubbish fees up: NEA surplus up 32.9%? (Nov 8, 2016)

University hostel fees – “University hostel fees up 6.8% p.a. despite $1b surplus?” (Jun 28, 2016)

Taxis licensing – “Taxi drivers hit by triple whammy?” (Jun 24, 2016)

Hawkers’ misc fees – “Hawkers’ misc fees increased by ? %? (Jun 22, 2016)

Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later

————————————————

*PM’s defamation suit against Uncle Leong coming to court soon. Talk cock, sing song Lim Tean is defending him but charging a lot of money. Not pro bono work.

Sia suay! 24% of S’poreans are more PAP than the PAP on our reseves

Must be hardcore PAP MPs and other die die must support PAP’s Hard Truths like Liang Eng Hwa, Kate Spade Tin and Arthur Fong: PM aiming left, to hit the centre/ Axed? PAP MPs who don’t get it.

https://blackbox.com.sg/everyone/2020/04/30/covid-19-weekly-community-tracking

Think PAP govt really spending our reserves? Think again

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.

Fortitude Budget is Peanuts

Related posts:

Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later

S’poreans see Fortitude Budget no ak

S’poreans see Fortitude Budget no ak

That’s the conclusion I draw from the following slides from Blackbox dated 4 June 2020. S’poreans not that stupid: they know Fortitude Budget full of BS and smoke and mirrors.

https://blackbox.com.sg/everyone/2020/04/30/covid-19-weekly-community-tracking

Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat says better for S’pore to call for general elections as soon as possible Our next election must take place by April 14, 2021 and some leading Oppo leaders (Think Mad Dog) are more than happy for the PAP govt to continue ruling until the pandemic is tamed: Xia suay! SDP wants PAP to remain in power until after virus threat ends

But Heng said elections ought to happen soon as “the earlier we can rally everybody together to deal with these very significant challenges ahead, and also to deal with these very significant uncertainties in the months and years ahead”, the better to prepare S’pore for the future. He said the economy faces significant long-term challenges that need to be dealt with over the next five to 10 years, he said.

Heng, in response to a question if S’poreans will have to wait until Phase 3 of resuming economic activity before the election: “The sooner that we can deal with the longer term challenges, the better S’poreans will emerge out of this, and S’pore will emerge stronger. So I would say that, yes, elections are coming nearer by the day, and you have to be prepared for it.”

Here’s the point to note

“Our financial position will be a lot weaker in the coming years. And I’m thinking hard about this, about what we need to do, and how we need to continue to find ways that we can manage this difficult financial situation.”

DPM Heng

In simple English, “We got to find the money to pay for all the goodies”: Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget/ Hali tied of signing?/ Peanuts?. Remember that Mah Bow Tan (Remember him?) once said that that raiding the reserves is not an option?. Well Heng and gang have been raiding drawing down the reserves,

Once election is won by 70%, and Lim Tean, S/o JBJ, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Kin Lian and Mad Dog really trying hard to ensure that the PAP gets 80% of the popular vote, the taxes and levies will up.

GST might go up even earlier than promised: “No money to pay millionaire Hali and ministers salsries”, PAP govt will say.

And tariffs on utilities will go up. Remember VivianB had said in parly in 2015 (juz before GE) that there was no need to change the price of water because of PUB’s improvements in membrane tech and productivity and that the water tariff and WCT reflected the scarcity of water, but prices went up after GE 2017.

---

Pay And Pay

Articles and analysis of various “price increase” written by Uncle Leong (Remember him?)

Water – “PUB: $1.1b profits last 7 years – how much last 53 years? (Feb 24, 2017)

Service & Conservancy Charges – “S & CC: A truly caring Govt?” (Feb 17, 2017)

Gas – “City Gas prices to rise by 4.5 per cent from Feb 1” (Jan 31, 2017)

Electricity – “Electricity: One of the highest in the world? (Jan 1, 2017)

Childcare fees – “Fee hikes at 200 childcare centres this year” (Jan 1, 2017)

Parking – “HDB car park rates increase 60%? (Dec 16, 2016)

Rubbish fees – “Rubbish fees up: NEA surplus up 32.9%? (Nov 8, 2016)

University hostel fees – “University hostel fees up 6.8% p.a. despite $1b surplus?” (Jun 28, 2016)

Taxis licensing – “Taxi drivers hit by triple whammy?” (Jun 24, 2016)

Hawkers’ misc fees – “Hawkers’ misc fees increased by ? %? (Jun 22, 2016)

————————————————————————

And income tax and corporate taxes.

Remember after GE, the PAP’s 4G has their mandate ( Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP; Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power; and Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G? ) and can give voters the finger.

What better way than by increasing taxes and levies?

Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget/ Hali tied of signing?/ Peanuts?

Confused by the reporting of the constructive, nation-building media (“The PAP cares, they really do”) and anti-PAP alt media (“Kanna con” or “Give chicken’s head and take back the whole chicken”) on what the Fortitude Budget is all about? After all we got this yr

–‘Unity Budget’ (February 18): S$6.4 billion

— ‘Resilience Budget’ (March 26): S$48.4 billion. S$17 billion drawn from reserves

— ‘Solidarity Budget’ (April 6): S$5.1 billion. S$4 billion drawn from reserves

–S$3.8 billion economic stimulus (April 21), alongside extension of lockdown. Yes this had no name.

Now on May 26 got ‘Fortitude Budget’ worth S$33 billion, S$31 billion drawn from reserves. But S$13 billion is for “Contingencies Funds”: I suppose Hali doesn’t want to keep raiding the reserves?

So what’s in it?
— Jobs Support Scheme extended by one month until November, with firms that cannot reopen – such as shops, gyms and cinemas – to get 75 per cent wage support until August or when they are allowed to reopen
— S$2 billion for the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package to create 40,000 jobs, 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 skills training opportunities
— S$800 million for the Covid-19 Support Grant to give to those who lose their jobs because of the crisis
— S$18 million for social service agencies to maintain service continuity, retain staff, and adopt technology
— S$13 billion in the Contingencies Funds so the government can respond quickly to unforeseeable developments arising from the pandemic.

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.

Covid-19: Ang moh tua kees, cybernuts go bang yr balls

Ang mohs think we handling Covid-19 crisis pretty well.

Ang moh tua kees (and anti-PAP types) like Kirsten Han and that quitter in Finland (there because he can only afford a neighbourhood school education here for his kids) who KPKB about the PAP govt’s response to the pandemic should ask themselves why the ang mohs in Oz admire our response to Covid-19?

I won’t bother asking anti-PAP types to reflect as they are sotong.

PAP govt prudent? This prudence?

Our debt already so high. Still want to spend so much money?

How come PAP running dogs (Apologies to the real dogs) in parliament not KPKBing that PAP must be prudent and not pass on the sins of overspending onto future generations.

The PAP govt is throwing US$41.6, more than 10% of GDP to fight the economic and financial consequences of the pandemic in an election year.

Whatever happened to MPs like Liang Eng Hwa, Kate Spade (who else?), Hri Kumat and Arthur Fong: PM aiming left, to hit the centre/ Axed? PAP MPs who don’t get it.

When they so quiet?

Govt change policy, so they sit down and shut up?

Related posts:

Can the hard-hit spend their way out of a recession?

“Prudent banker” is an oxymoron

S’pore: Bottom of developed world

We bottom of the class in the developed world when it comes to accountability. We Third world.

A one time PAP apologist and PAP poster boy, Prof Tommy Koh’s comment, “The way Singapore treats its foreign workers is not First World but Third World,” can be rephrased “The way the Singapore government treats its citizens is not First World but Third World.”

Think the tai chi over the Covid-19 cases among our FT workers living in PAP govt approved dorms. The PAP govt screwed up, denies it screwed up (Not even willing to say “It’s an honest mistake”), and we are in lockdown.

But

Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Would the dorm workers prefer to be repatriated to India and Bangladesh?

Khaw’s got a point.

Something that a very disgruntled Quitter living in Finland (kids get free education there, can only get into neighbourhood “good” schools here and he can’t afford int’l school fees here); ang moh tua kees like Kirsten Han; anti-PAP activists and cybernuts; and frustrated wannabe Sith Lords (now trying to reinvent themselves as Jedi) like ex-ST tua kee Bertha Henson forget when criticising the PAP’s govt’s less than diligent efforts (F9, downright careless in my view) in looking after the welfare of our FT workers living in dorms.

Foreign workers in Singapore know they are currently safer in the city-state than elsewhere including their own countries, a minister said, even as a massive coronavirus outbreak among that community shines a spotlight on cramped and oft-unsanitary lodging provided for the low-wage employees.

The workers from overseas are “appreciative” of efforts that range from relieving overcrowding in current facilities, and measures to provide them with medical attention, food and remittance services, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said in a Facebook post on Sunday. Singapore is speeding up construction of additional dormitories, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/foreign-workers-safer-in-singapore-than-elsewhere-minister-says

Most (over 80%) of the almost 14,000 cases are work permit holders residing in dormitories. None has died of Covid-19, although one of dorm resident with Covid-19 was found dead: police are investigating.

Related post: Covid-19: Reason why no Indian or Bangladeshi worker has died?

India or Bangladesh got anything like this meh? https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-behind-the-scenes-at-the-changi-exhibition-centre-12677966

Yes our millionaire ministers screwed up badly by ignoring these FT workers, and we S’poreans are paying the price for their incompetence. But things are being rectified ASAP.

Related posts:

Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Point of lockdown: any lockdown

To buy time to prepare to contain future outbreaks.

Governments all over the world from India to states in the US to China and the UK have all imposed lockdowns.

The point of the lockdown was to accept short-term economic pain as the price of getting the virus under control.

Economist

But once the country brings its infection rate down, can they box in future outbreaks?

Only if the government had used the lockdown to prepare

itself—through widespread testing, an army of contact-tracers and infrastructure to support extended isolation and quarantine—to box in future outbreaks.

Economist

Is the PAP govt here and other givts (for example in India and Malaysia) extending the lockdowns to do this?

What do you think?

Xia suay! Tan Kin Lian has valid point

He not always Talk Cock, Sing Song King. I also wonder why the 4G leaders were not looking at the non-dom data only, as we can effectively lock up the dom workers: OK, OK it’s not a PC correct view.

My further tots after TKL’s piece

Bad judgment by ministerial task force

The ministerial task force made a bad judgment. In early April, they panicked and decided to introduce the circuit breaker. They closed down most workplaces (except for the essential ones), food outlets and schools and ordered the people to stay at home for four weeks.

Why was this a bad judgment?

The ministers panicked when they saw the large increase in new cases. The did not realize that this increase was due to the increased testing of the workers living in the dormitories which occurred as part of the contact tracing protocol. As more people are tested, more cases would certainly be detected.

There was no evidence of a large increase in the wider community. If there was an increase, it was small and manageable.

In such a situation, the ministers should just ask for the foreign workers to stop work and stay in the dormitories until they are tested. There is no need to lockdown the entire country.

They could have focused their attention on the real risk, rather than dissipate their resources over locking down the entire country.

The lockdown (or “circuit breaker” that is officially termed) has cost the country over $40 billion in the relief packages. This does not include the real losses suffered by businesses and households. Many families saw their income wiped out by the lockdown measures, and do not receive adequate compensation.

Several hundred thousand families and families were badly affected. The damage to their livelihood is horrendous. It will take several months for the damage to be repaired, even after the lockdown is lifted.

The $40 billion spent on the relief packages could have been used to waive GST for four years. That would have reduce the cost of living for the people. That would have been a better use of the money.

All of these economic harm could have been avoided, if the ministers had made the right judgement.

They should have ordered the workers living in the dormitories to stop work and isolate them from the community until they are tested to be “suitable to work”.

They can monitor the actual spread in the wider community, excluding the cases from the dormitories, to see if a lockdown is necessary.

They could have followed the approach that is successfully adopted in several countries, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam. These countries strengthen their social distancing measures. They asked their people to wear masks and to keep a safe distance from other people. Some closed schools but some did not.

These countries did not implement a lockdown. They managed to contain the spread of the virus and keep a low death rate.

We should have tried this approach first, before ordering a costly lockdown that had a bad impact on the economy and that may really be unnecessary.

The statistics from the World Health Organization showed that the death rate from the covid-19 is 2 per million in Singapore. It is 128 per million in America and higher in several countries in Europe.

The risk from the covid-19 is clearly much lower in Singapore than in other countries. If our death rate is 50 per million, it would be justified for the ministers to panic and lockdown the country. But it is poor judgement and and hasty for the ministers to introduce a lockdown when the death rate was only 2 per million.

To prepare for the possibility that the situation could get worse and a possible increase in the death rate, the ministers could have taken the following contingency measures:

a) Increase our capacity to treat more severely ill patients. This means more hospital beds, ventilators and hospital doctors and nurses. We can follow other countries in how they expand the capacity quickly.

b) Increase the isolation facilities to quarantine people for 14 or 21 days. These facilities can be set up quickly and do not need a high standard of medical equipment.

c) Arrange to take care of the elderly sick people who live alone and in nursing homes. We can get specially screened care givers to take care of their needs and severely reduce their exposure to the wider community

d) Conduct the covid test on all healthcare workers. This is to protect the health of the hospital workers and the patients. The results of the test can be used to estimate the community spread of the virus, as these workers can be treated as a representative sample of the population. This information is critical for planning the containment measures to be used in the future.

I believe that the first two measures have already been taken by the government. I suggest that they act on the third and fourth measures immediately.

I now come to the next test. Will the ministers extend the circuit breaker for another few weeks, beyond May 4?

It would be unwise and unnecessary to extend the circuit breaker. It would cause greater damage to the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousand of people that have been badly affected now. The damage will extend further and affect to the population at large.

I hope that the ministerial task force will review the situation and take the right decision going forward.

---

Unlike TKL, I don’t think the 4G leaders panicked. I suspect something about the data scared the hell out of them after their advisers interpreted the data for them.

Maybe asymptomatic cases could be a lot more prevalent?

Or hospital facilities maybe will be overstretched if there’s no lockdown? Remember even if non-dom cases are peanuts, cases grow exponentially. Combine that with the cases among the locked down FTs and “PM, we have a problem.”

Only time will tell if Tan Kin Lian is talking cock on the topic.

Related posts:

Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Minister Chan, who is the xia suay?

PAP govt or HK’s govt?

Remember Chan Kee Chiu made fun of HK’s clueless CEO for wearing a mask in public?

Well, Hong Kong reported the first day of zero infections in almost two months on Monday.

But,

Singapore reported a daily high of 1,426 new COVID-19 cases on Monday (Apr 20), bringing the national total to 8,014. 

The “vast majority” of the new cases are work permit holders living in foreign worker dormitories, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its media release of preliminary figures. 

Sixteen new cases are Singaporeans or permanent residents. 

Singapore is now the worst-hit country in Southeast Asia, surpassing figures in Indonesia and the Philippines.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-new-cases-1426-foreign-workers-dormitory-citizen-pr-moh-12658250

Btw, Vietnam reported no new Covid-19 cases on Monday for the fourth day running, raising hopes that the worst of the outbreak there may have passed.

But the PAP govt is really lucky. The people most vocal in KPKBing about its efforts are cybernuts Mad Dog, Lim Tean, Meng Seng. One P (olitician) Ravi is joining them.

He’s trying hard to be a MP candidate for Tan Cheng Bock’s party. Someone should advise him to sit down and shut up. He shouldn’t talk cock like Lim Tean and Mad Dog. Dr Tan is not pleased Moley (Secret Squirrel’s sidekick) tells me.

Related post: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power

S’poreans don’t trust Ah Loong’s govt isit?

Economist writes:

Contact tracing helps to direct testing more precisely at those likely to be infected. Using apps helps speed this up.

But only, though, if phone users are willing to adopt the app.

It goes on to cite S’pore’s example as a place where people are not downloading an app.

Here, Singapore’s experience is salutary. Its government rolled out a contact-tracing app, TraceTogether, on March 20th. So far, however, this has been downloaded by only a sixth of Singapore’s population—barely a quarter of the 60% epidemiologists reckon is needed if it is to be effective at breaking the local epidemic.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/04/16/app-based-contact-tracing-may-help-countries-get-out-of-lockdown

And this despite our app being praised by ang moh human rights activists.

Singapore’s TraceTogether, which has been praised by privacy experts for collecting a bare minimum of data, could provide a template for ang moh apps concerned about privacy. Rather than constantly tracking people, it uses Bluetooth to record the proximity to other app users so that they can be alerted if any app user later test positive for the virus.

BBC technology correspondent

Jeni Tennison of the Open Data Institute:

“[C]urrently, there’s very little transparency about what kind of design is being considered and implemented by the [UK]government.”

She goes on

[T]here are examples out there of good practice. She cites Singapore, which she says generally has a reputation for excessive surveillance of its citizens, but has developed an app which captures the bare minimum of data.

“So every time that you meet somebody with your phone, and they have the same app on their phone, it records the fact that you have met, but it doesn’t record anything about where you are or who those other people are. It’s only there so that if you catch the disease, those people that you have come into contact with or been close to you can get notified about that fact.”

Kirsten Han has unfriended all these ang mohs who show the lies she tells about the PAP govt.

South Korea’s and S’pore healthcare systems compared

S Korea is often held up to be the gold standard in the fight against Covid-19. If so, contrary to what Lim Tean, Goh Meng Seng, Mad Dog and anti-PAP alt media say, the PAP govt’s management of our heathcare system is world class in general , and in the fight against Covid-19 ((bar the advice on use of masks, now amended: Masterclass ). Remember Korea is a developed country.

S’pore has also on a per capita basis tested more people for Covid-19 than S Korea. I can’t remember where I read this. I’ll cite the source when I find it.

And we do spend $, even if its from our own pocket. But let’s remember that anti-PAP cybernuts say CPF is a tax. If it’s a tax, then this spending on healthcare is public spending, not “Ownself fund ownself”.

Vote wisely.

Covid-19: Ang moh tua kees: Swedish and PAP govts behaving in similar manner

Our ang moh tua kees like to compare S’pore unfavourably with the Nordic countries.

Well the Swedish govt is behaving in a similar manner to the PAP govt. Both are trying and succeeding (so far) in their attempts in allowing life to go on much closer to normal, like in keeping schools open.

While swathes of Europe’s population endure lockdown conditions in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, one country stands almost alone in allowing life to go on much closer to normal.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52076293

Lim Tean and P Ravi should stop playing politics in calling for a shut down of schools.

There are good reasons to try to avoid closing schools: Xia suay! Lim Tean wants to badly damage our healthcare system.

And P Ravi should remember that his party leader, Dt Tan Cheng Bock, has not called for schools to close. Rumour has it that Ravi wants the PSP to nominate him as its candidate in SMC Hong Kah North. In the last GE, he stood there for the Chiams’ party. This call is certainly a black mark against him in any decision to field him. The PSP is not Lim Tean. It’s a responsible party and tries to talk sense, even if at times it gets things wrong.

With enemies like Lim Tean and Ravi, how can the Oppo hope to deny the PAP a two-thirds majority in parliament: Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?.

Sad.

Will we see S’pore Girl working in hospitals?

Or in polyclinics?

In the UK

Thousands of easyJet and Virgin airline staff are being offered work in the new NHS Nightingale Hospital.

Those who sign up will support nurses and senior clinicians at the coronavirus field hospital in east London, the NHS said.

Virgin Atlantic said furloughed staff who help will be paid through the government retention scheme.

NHS England said many airline staff are first aid trained and already have security clearance.

The workers will be changing beds and performing other non-clinical tasks and helping doctors and nurses working on the wards, the NHS said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-52085701

Social distance: Go to polyclinic and get infected isit?

My friend has an appointment tomorrow for various annual tests and the quarterly visit to see the doctor. And as he’s within the vulnerable group (65, got diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol) he’s worried, of getting Covid-19.

(Btw, I told him that’s the price of being cheapskate, and not going private.)

Last week he went for a lab test and the the social distance markings in queue to get in didn’t look 1m. And the seating arrangements while waiting for the test was definitely not in line with those in pixs of what should be social distancea.

Go to polyclinic and get infected isit?

Safer to eat in food courts or hawker centres, judging by the pixs of social distance, than waiting in polyclinic for appointment isit?

Covid-19: Double confirm, S’pore not in East Asia

The BBC reports

Step outside your door without a face mask in Hong Kong, Seoul or Tokyo these days, and you may well get a disapproving look.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/03/27/coronavirus-and-leviathan

In HK

“HEY GWEILO, too poor to buy a mask?” Such handwritten signs around Hong Kong are evidence of growing impatience with foreigners who insist on going out in public without face masks during the coronavirus crisis

Economist

The BBC report goes on

Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak some places have fully embraced wearing face masks, and anyone caught without one risks becoming a social pariah.

But in many other parts of the world, from the UK and the US to Sydney and Singapore, it’s still perfectly acceptable to walk around bare-faced.

The BBC report is very clear that in East Asia, the use of masks is standard operating procedure, bar one country; that ang moh countries don’t follow the practice in East Asian countries; and that S’pore is the exception in East Asia, preferring the Western practice.

Looks like Kirsten Han and other woke S’poreans like Mad Dog, M Ravi ad Lim Tean are not the only ang moh tua kees. The PAP govt is also ang moh tua kee: Xia suay! PRC monkey see, S’porean monkey must do isit?.

Related posts: Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks and Kiasu? Get hold of the king mask/ Listen to expert on infectious disease.

I’ve got complaints from pedants that S’pore is in SE Asia, not East Asia. Well 70% of S’poreans are ethnic Chinese, not ethnic SE Asian. Many in the past have called S’pore, the third or fourth China (depending on how HK and Taiwan are defined.

(The last paragraph was added at 3.10pm on day of publication.)

Xia suay! “PA group activities dangerous for seniors’ health”

And the PA was only taking precautions after people got sick. It should not have been conducting group activities for seniors, let alone the public (still continuing), to be prudent

The above is how I interpret the following story from the constructive, nation-building media (Unreported facts around SAFRA Jurong outbreak is reported is after the longish quote):

COVID-19: People’s Association to suspend courses and activities for seniors

SINGAPORE: The People’s Association (PA) will suspend courses, organised activities and interest group activities in community clubs and residents’ committee centres that seniors regularly participate in, it announced on Tuesday (Mar 10). 

This will involve about 2,600 classes and 11,000 interest group activities, with about 290,000 non-unique participants, said the PA in a press release.

…

This comes after activities at seven CCs and RCs were suspended on Saturday, over links to COVID-19 patients in the cluster involving a private dinner function at SAFRA Jurong on Feb 15. 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-coronavirus-peoples-association-suspend-activities-12522382

After the Jurong SAFRA outbreak was reported by the media, a member of the IB, Grace Yeo, was KPKBing on FB that Jurong Safra should not have been identified because it gave the impression that a PAP govt related body was involved.

It was pointed out to her that people had the right to know that an incident happened at SAFRA Jurong and that it seems she’d rather people catch the virus to protect the reputation of the PAP govt.

She tried to censor these comments by deleting the post but the group administrators restored the post, to much cheering.

Another person then said RCs in the Jurong area were sending mass messages to tell everyone that it was a private event organised by a private person.

Someone then commented that the people attending were members of group activities organised by PA.

With supporters like Grace Yeo, the PAP govt does not need enemies.

 

Xia suay! PRC monkey see, S’porean monkey must do isit?

Not juz the PAP govt question masks’ effectiveness.

Public health bodies, including the World Health Organisation, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Australian Department of Health, question whether masks are an effective guard against infection and emphasise the importance instead of regular handwashing.

From Q&As on WHO’s official website on “when to wear a mask”.

• If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.
• Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
• Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.

Dr David Carrington, a clinical virologist at St George’s, University of London, told BBC News that “routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air” because they are too loose, have no air filter and leave the eyes exposed.

But to be fair to the mob of anti-PAP cybernuts and activists, WHO has no advisory on whether there is a need to wear a mask when going outdoor in a city as infected as S’pore, and the above advice is “general lah”.

Cybernuts point out that in Wuhan masks are worn. And in other cities in China, and in HK.

Chinese monkeys do, our cybernuts must follow isit? Monkey see, monkey do.

Jokes aside, as I wrote in Kiasu? Get hold of the king mask/ Listen to expert on infectious disease

 A very Chinese habit, the using of masks.

There’s widespread use of face masks among the ordinary population, whether or not they’ve been instructed to do so by the authorities.

• More than half a million staff working on public transport in China have been told to use masks
• There are reports that some shops, businesses and other public premises have told people to use masks if they want to enter

Culturally, it’s quite common for people in China to wear face masks, both as general protection and if they feel they are getting ill.

Same with Hongkies. And becoming the practice in S’pore among cybernuts as TOC and other anti-PAP activists spread the lie that it’s effective against the Wuhan virus; and KPKBing that the PAP govt is not giving out enough masks. (Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks)

There is very little evidence that wearing face masks make a difference. Experts say good hygiene – such as regularly washing your hands and certainly before putting them near your mouth – is vastly more effective.

BBC

And in said article I quoted SDP’s Chairman, Professor Paul Tambyah the only infectious diseases specialist in NUH, if not S’pore (No money in this line, so doctors avoid it. Remember the PAP MP doc who implied he did not respect people with low pay?) who explains the real purpose of the surgical masks:

Question: “Should we only wear a mask if we are sick? Wouldn’t a mask help to protect a healthy person too?”

Professor Tambyah: “Well, it does both. You see, the mask actually prevents or reduces the amount of virus you’re going to shed. But ultimately, you shouldn’t be walking around town if you’re sick because when the mask gets wet, it loses its efficacy. So ideally, you should put on a mask, go see a doctor and then get treated.”

“Now, the reason why [healthy] people wear a mask is because they are not sure that people who are going to be sick are going to be staying at home. And I think that is the message that needs to get across, you see? If you are sick, you shouldn’t go to the office, you shouldn’t take the MRT, you should get yourself evaluated. You should put on a mask, go and get yourself evaluated by your doctor.”

“And if everybody does that, then there’s no need [for healthy people] to wear a mask, right? Because then everybody walking in the streets is going to be healthy. And you don’t need to worry about some guy coughing in your face and infecting you. Right now, you see, too many people are worried that there are people who are sick walking around. And that, I think, needs to be addressed.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-qK7OeTRf8

What if GST goes up today?

I’ve predicted sometime back that GST will not go up this yr: Double confirm: No GST rise this yr.because the economy is weak.

Already, economic forecasts have been slashed:

After seeing its economy grow at a decade-low of 0.7 per cent last year, Singapore is expecting possibly even slower growth in 2020 and has downgraded its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast amid concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

Economic growth for this year is expected to come in at around 0.5 per cent, the mid-point of a new estimated range of between -0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Monday (Feb 17).

The previous forecast range announced last November was 0.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

Constructive, nation-building CNA

If the PAP govt, die die insists that GST must go up because as PAP supporter Grace Yeo‎ puts it

It’s a no brainer to be populist and say, tax less and give more. BTW, not increasing the GST is not even a new idea. For years and years, politicians hv campaigned against increasing of prices. I can also say to the government too. Mr Government, please don’t increase the GST or for that matter, any direct or indirect taxes. Also, give more and more money to help Singaporeans defray costs of living and to live a better quality of life, especially to the poor, the needy, the vulnerable, and the disadvantaged, and those who are suffering under unforeseen and uncontrollable distress. There, I hv said it – without much thinking and it’s highly popular and appealing, isn’t it? A non-political novice will propose solutions on how to generate more revenue and/or increase net investment returns (NIR). In addition, it’s one thing to get the private sector to fund Changi Airport Terminal 5 and in doing so, cede a degree of control to the private sector, but quite another to look into how to manage and control possible fallouts, including both intended and unintended consequences from having a public-private sector partnership. More importantly, what’s key right now is winning the battle against the virus … The time has come to compel our people to make hard, deep and inconvenient changes, including re-skilling, up-skilling, deep-skilling and multi-skilling themselves (quoted from the NTUC) and such changes will bring about unhappiness and dissatisfaction from many quarters of society …

the recent fall in the S$ will be “peanuts”: S$ tanks as GDP forecasts slashed and Why has M$ strengthened against S$?.

Japan increased its version of GST by 2 points in October last year and the result was that annualised GDP fell by a much steeper than expected 6.3% in October-December 2019.

Japan’s economy shrank at the fastest rate in five years at the end of 2019 as it was hit by a sales tax rise, a major typhoon and weak global demand.

As the PAP 4G needs 65% of the popular vote, I doubt they would listen to Grace Yeo‎ who die die advocates GST going up this yr even though when China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care.

PAP $G leaders not as stupid as her.

With fans like her, the PAP needs enemies like Mad Dog, Lim Tean, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Kin Lian, Tan Jee Say and that guy on Finland’s dole: Anti-PAP activists loi hei wish.

 

 

Panic? What panic?/ Anti-PAP activists loi hei wish

Social media and the internet are full of pictures of empty supermarket shelves here.

Must be the work of anti-PAP activists and others who wish S’pore ill doing their best to astro turf that S’poreans are panicking because the PAP govt has not done enough to contain the Wuhan virus. Just go to Goh Meng Seng’s FB page and see the lies he’s trying to spread.

---

Anti-PAP activists lot hei wish

Secret Squirrel’s sidekick Morocco Mole says that his second cousin removed working in the ISD tells him that when Lim Tean, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Jee Say, Tan Kin Lian, Kirsten Han, PJ Thum and Mad Dog loh heied last Friday, they loh heied that S’pore would go into a deep, deep recession because of the virus. He also reports that the host, Goh Meng Seng, claimed that his wallet was Wuhan virus infected and asked the others to pay. They ran out of the restaurant without paying the bill.

But the restaurant owner is not out of pocket. He knew Meng Seng’s reputation and told his staff to use only left overs and other unwanted stuff to prepare the yusheng.

—————————————————————————-

The truth is that the majority of voters trust the PAP govt to look after us. They are so trusting that as of the morning of the final collection date, which was 9 Feb, only 54% of households collected their masks, according to The Straits Times (ST).

Collection date for the masks now extended until 29 Feb.

Related posts:

Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks

Kiasu? Get hold of the king mask/ Listen to expert on infectious disease

Hard Truth about Old Guard’s insight on home ownership

It’s a myth that LKY and Dr Goh etc were geniuses for their insight into the importance of home ownership in building a nation and their public housing building programnes.

They were juz good in copying and pasting best practice of ang mosh. From the PAP’s bible*:

After the second world war … Governments across the rich world decided that they had to do more to care for their citizens—both as a thank-you for the sacrifices and to ward off the communist threat.

To this end, they vowed to boost home-ownership. A country of owner-occupiers, the thinking went, would be financially stable. People could draw down on equity in their house when they hit retirement or if they found themselves in difficulty. In the late 1940s and the 1950s manifestos of Western political parties became more likely to identify home ownership as a policy goal, according to research by Sebastian Kohl of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Over time, the notion that owner occupation was superior to renting became common, even apparently self-evident.

Policies to promote owner-occupation proliferated. In America the Veterans Administration made mortgages with no down-payment available to veterans in the mid-1940s. Canada established the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for returning war veterans. In 1950 the Japanese government established the Government Housing Loan Corporation to provide low-interest, fixed-rate mortgages. Changes to international financial regulations also encouraged banks to issue mortgages.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/how-housing-became-the-worlds-biggest-asset-class

Related post:If LKY were alive, PAP govt wouldn’t publicly admit that HDB leases end worth nothing

—————————————–

*PAP’s bible

I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy). It has been an Economist mantra that market pricing is “betterest” because it uncovers the “correct” price. It is also a PAP Hard Truth.

PAP’s bible

Double confirm: No GST rise this yr

Thanks to the Wuhan virus.

Remember you heard this here first.

During the recent CNY gatherings of the elites, I put my finger to the hot air being emitted from the BS I was smelling and sensed that the consensus was that the PAP govt would really, really like to defer the two points GST rise penciled in for this yr to make sure that it gets 65% of the popular vote needed to show that they have the people’s mandate.

Anything less is F9.

---

I wrote this late last yr

A GE late this year as expected by me in 2018 (Akan datang: GE in late 2019) even with vote losers like pending GST rises etc (PAP is like one armed swordsman) would have resulted in a PAP victory of around 62% (How the PAP can get 62% is explained in PAP fighting for every last vote).

But 65%? No way without more dropping GST rise ( How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote) or more goodies. Well a GST rise is set in stone, so got to have more bribes goodies, all with our own money.

Why no GE in Dec 2019

——————————————————–

Only the dogmas that the Hard Truth (Or BS?) that the PAP does not do populist policies ever

By addressing the issue of affordability, will he implicitly be sending the message that he is be ditching dad’s Hard Truth that populism is bad**?

Not if Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, the minister in-charge of Our Singapore Conversation (OSC), is to believed. He told the media this week that OSC is not a knee-jerk, “populist” policy-making exercise. It is not a “major meet-the-people session”, with the govt collating a wish list and then giving the people what they want. He emphasised that OSC does not sacrifice any strategic thinking on the part of the govt for the sake of showing empathy with the people.

Analysing PM’s coming rally speech

and does not admit making mistakes:

All the POFMA orders flying around before an expected GE next yr, reminded me that George Orwell

wrote that because totalitarian regimes insist that the leadership is infallible, history must be perpetually rewritten in order to eliminate evidence of past mistakes. Totalitarianism thus “demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.” Orwell added darkly that “to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country”; one simply had to surrender to certain habits of thought.

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/12/04/is-liberalism-really-kaput

Why PAP never admits to mistakes?

(Related post: Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng)

were preventing the PAP govt from doing what it wanted to do. Ownself sabo ownself.

Well given that the Wuhan Virus will hurt the economy (China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care), this gives the PAP govt a really good excuse to change its mind. PM or Heng can reasonably say:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?

Supposedly said by Keynes.

Don’t believe me? The way is being prepared by ministers and the constructive, nation-building media

ST Lite headline:

Worst hit by Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, tourism and transport sectors to get targeted help in Budget: DPM Heng

ST headline:

Key focus on protecting jobs and helping businesses: Chan Chun Sing

What better way to help tourism and transport sectors and help businesses in general, and protect jobs than by deferring the GST rise until the the economy recovers?

And still give out the Budget”goodies” (our money leh): sweeteners originally meant to make palatable the GST rise. “See how generous we are”.

Christmas 2020 and Chinese New Year 2021 will come early in Feb 2020

We’ll still get a GST rise but maybe next year the world economy will be worried by political turmoil in China as Xi has to explain why he has not lost the mandate of heaven, despite repeated market crashes, African swine fever, the Wuhan virus and H1N1 swine fever. There are credible reports of reports of the last occurring in China.

Other reasons that the PAP will get the votes to take it over the 65% pass mark:

• In a crisis, Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?
• Anti-PAPpists caught lying: Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks
• PAP listens: China ban after 100,000 sign petition asking for ban

Vote wisely.

 

 

 

 

Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks

S’poreans are not picking up their free masks.

When I read that each Singapore household would receive four surgical face masks via 89 Community Centres (CCs) and 654 Residents’ Committee (RC) centres, I tot we would soon know whether S’poreans are genuinely concerned about the shortage of the masks.

Or whether the comments on social media and the internet about the desperate of S’poreans afraid of the Wuhan virus looking in vain for masks are nothing but astro-turfing by the usual anti-PAP paper activists and cybernuts playing up the absence of masks in the shops as incompetence on the part of the PAP govt.

The evidence, so far, is that these anti-PAP types lied about the concerns of ordinary S’poreans

When the Hougang Community Club opened its doors at 2pm on Saturday (Feb 1) for the first day of mask collection, there were as many volunteers waiting as there were residents in line.

“We had about 10 to 20 people in the queue in the first hour so we cleared that very fast,” said Community Club Management Committee chairman for Hougang SMC Joel Leong. “It was a very small queue … We haven’t seen a big crowd (in the first two hours).”

These scenes were similar to those at other distribution centres across the island, during a largely uneventful first day of mask collection for members of the public.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/wuhan-coronavirus-singapore-free-surgical-mask-collection-queues-12380564

Of course, this could be fake news from the constructive nation-building CNA. But I doubt it. Ever since the really bad haze we had in 2013 (Remember this incident P Ravi’s reposting: What the govt should have done?), there is anecdotal evidence that the 60-70% of S’poreans who vote for the PAP have been prepared: some masks are stored away, ready for use.

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Plenty of masks

Haze: PAP govt cares, they really do

————————————————————-

Whatever, the attempt by the anti-PAP paper activists and cybernuts to use the Wuhan virus to show that the PAP govt is incompetent has failed. Worse they were caught lying.

And with a GE later this yr, the serious Oppo (Wankers’ Party , SDP sans Mad Dog and Tan Cheng Bock’s PSP) needs these anti-PAP paper activists and cybernuts like they need a hole in the head.

More evidence that these anti-PAP paper activists and cybernuts do not wish S’pore well.

Btw, my advice is to pick-up the free masks, and store them away for future use. Don’t know about you, but I can smell the haze

 

 

 

 

Iran’s “Ownself shoot ownself” reminds me of SGH tragedy

When I read sometime back that Iran’s president Rouhani saying that the shooting down of an airliner should not be blamed on one individual, saying “It’s not only the person who pulled the trigger, but also others who are responsible”, it reminded of

What really went wrong at SGH?

And why the reluctance to do more than issue letters of warning?

a piece I wrote in 2016 about an incident at SGH where 25 people were infected and seven deaths were possibly caused by the cock-up

The piece went on:

A regular reader and commenter of this blog who seems to have been  a medical doctor and administrator has an explanation.

Note he had already raised the issue of the use of shared vials here before the internal report came out. He goes further below presumably having read the internal report.

This WAS a systems failure whereby the major gap was allowing same vial of insulin for multiple patients i.e. shared vials, although supposedly using fresh, sterile needles & syringes. By using shared vials, this created a single point of failure if any of the 1,001 aspects of infection control was not strictly adhered to. E.g. lack of hand disinfection — between patients, before drug preparation, before administering insulin, after administering insulin; not disinfecting the rubber bung of the shared vial adequately before use; not using new sterile needles/syringes; using new sterile needles/syringes but leaving them exposed for too long or mishandling them thus rendering them no longer sterile; etc etc. The possibilities are endless.

And then the pathogen being introduced into the shared vial and subsequently being re-transmitted, even though subsequent usage all followed 100% infection control — the bug is already in the insulin/vial, no matter how solid & how sterile you prepare the subsequent insulin administrations for other patients, you’re simply injecting them with already contaminated insulin.

Who’s responsible?!?! The senior doctors, medical directors who came up with this protocol in the 1st place??? The CEO or chief medical officer who approved & signed off on this protocol?!?!? The infection control team & educators who didn’t educate the ground staff enough, and weren’t vigilant enough in their audits & random spot checks?!?!?! The external audit teams who couldn’t detect any shortcomings & signed off that the staff are following protocol?!?!? The actual ground staff/staff nurses who got careless or bochap or simply burnt out to overlook 100% of the by-the-book steps?!??! How many of these staff nurses??? 1, 2 or the whole lot of them?!?!?

Going by what he says maybe the Health Minister must commit hari-kiti? No wonder only warning letters were issued? And ST is wayanging?

(Related post: GCT believes in Jap values. But not for the elites.)

Seems I was right to ask if ST’s call for a public cyber-lynching of “responsible” staff is a lot of wayang aimed at distracting attention away from those that must take responsibility: the CEO of SGH and the MoH senior officer that delayed reporting the matter to the minister.

“Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.”― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

In this story, Father Brown, an amateur detective, deducted that a commanding officer hid his murder of a fellow-officer by sending his soldiers into battle in the area where the body lay. The dead bodies of the soldiers “covered up” the murder.

S’pore: Lessons for the West’s housing crisis

The Economist has a report on the West’s housing crisis

one of the rich world’s most serious and longest-running economic failures.

S’pore is praised four times (No other city or country is praised that much):

More than nine in ten Singaporeans are homeowners, a higher rate than in any other rich country. And what a nice place it is to live. The city-state is rich, stable and has virtually no crime. The streets are clean.

Singapore seems to confirm what conservatives have long believed: that home ownership makes for richer, happier folk. Lee Kuan Yew, its first prime minister, was a big fan, arguing that it gave ordinary people “a stake in the country and its future”. Margaret Thatcher’s “right-to-buy” programme in the 1980s, allowing Britons in social housing to buy their property at knock-down prices, is said to have been influenced by the Singapore model.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/home-ownership-is-in-decline

And

Boosting the construction of public housing is also welcome. Singapore, where 80% of residents live in government-built flats, is in some respects the model to copy. The state regularly renovates the buildings and, more controversially, promotes mixing of different sorts of people, to help prevent the emergence of ghettos.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/what-is-the-future-of-the-rich-worlds-housing-markets

And

Many of those activists argue that overtight land regulation is the root cause of high house prices. To get a sense of the argument, compare Singapore with Hong Kong. Singapore has a fairly elastic planning system. The government owns most of the land. When house-price growth is too strong or the population is rising quickly, the state can release extra land faster than a barman at the Raffles hotel can mix a Singapore sling. In Hong Kong, by contrast, the supply of developable land is controlled by a small clique of oligarchs. What will buy you a cramped bedsit in Hong Kong will buy you a decent-sized pad in Singapore.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/politicians-are-finally-doing-something-about-housing-shortages

And

Autocratic planning systems do a better job of boosting housing supply. Russia has raised its annual rate of housebuilding from 400,000 a year in the early 2000s to over 1m. Singaporeans who protest against development are routinely ignored, says one with a house located near Tengah forest, some of which will soon be razed to make way for apartment blocks.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/politicians-are-finally-doing-something-about-housing-shortages

Vote wisely.

60% of S’poreans always do: Why Oppo cock to think that HDB issues will affect the vote

(Last para added on 30 January 2020, at 4.10am)

 

 

What say u ang moh tua kees?

London’s Metropolitan Police Service has announced it will deploy live facial recognition to identify citizens across London.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51237665

China not only place using this system.

Kee Chiu admits PAP are failing

Singapore’s political system must evolve, deliver concrete solutions: Chan Chun Sing

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-political-system-chan-chun-sing-12289372?fbclid=IwAR25Ow1pWejGNvJL3ZBDZz6vDLMnie-fSrxuPJtzBLMuJTLOt3epfIHmHqQ

Well by saying “Singapore’s political system must evolve, deliver concrete solutions” doesn’t this imply that Singapore’s political system is not evolving, delivering concrete solutions? And as S’pore is a de-facto one-party state since 1957 when the PAP came into power with an overwhelming electoral mandate, the PAP cannot blame anyone for a political system that is not evolving, delivering concrete solutions: Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng

The word “implied” appeared in the POFMA orders against Brad Bowels and Lim Tean. Brad Bowyers

said the authorities had read the four points of his post “wrongly and then said my post ‘implied’ this and ‘implied’ that and so demanded it to be labelled as false”.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3043034/singapores-fake-news-law-protecting-truth-or-restricting-free

For further reading on the Alice-in-Wonderland world PORMA has created, read: Fake news law: Ownself judge where I wrote:

 “In the proposed fake news law, ministers are judge and jury.”

and

My main concern is that it makes ministers the initial (and in most cases the final and only) arbiters of truth about claims regarding the PAP government’s performance: “Ownself judge ownself”.

And

POFMA these ministers?

And

No, not fake news that deserves to kanna PORMA, but from the PAP’s very own minister for Malay affairs, a few weeks ago

Malay-Muslim community to be consulted on more issues that concern them: Masagos

Malay community not consulted enough about their concerns

And

Electricity tariff to rise 3.5% in January-March to hit 5-year high

Why MSM no kanna POFMA for spreading fake news?

You might also want to read:

“Black is white, white is black”: Our UK ambassador defends POFMA

Fact v opinion & “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”

Why PAP never admits to mistakes?

Fake news is in the eyes of the beholder

The one-party state and fake news

Why I no ak the Select Committee hearings on Deliberate Online Falsehoods 

 

4% growth for China/ Still want to raise GST?

Official figures show that the world’s second largest economy expanded by 6.1% in 2019 from the year before – the worst figure in 29 years. China has faced weak domestic demand and the impact of a trade war with the US.

But things could get worse for China and the world.

China’s GDP could only grow at 4%.

State Grid, China’s largest utility company, is bracing itself for the rate of economic growth to fall to as low as 4% the next five years in the world’s second-largest economy. If anybody has the finger on the economy’s pulse, it is the largest utility company that supplies the power needed to power industry and homes.

If this comes about, bad for world trade and really bad for us: S’pore: the canary in the coalmine

Still want to raise GST, PAP govt with so much uncertainty? But die die must want to be one-arm swordsman: PAP is like one armed swordsman.

The PAP govt should do itself and us a favour, don’t raise GST until there’s more clarity on global economic growth: How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote.

4G leaders should copy and paste this Chinese policy

No not on surveillance (Did Hali ask Xi for this app when they met?) but on the problems around an aging population.

Actually China is worse than ours on the issue of aging because there are fears in China that China may never get “rich” due to the weight of caring for an ageing population while still being a developing country. For that blame it’s one-child policy: borrowed from LKY’s “Stop at two”? Meanwhile, lest TOC forgets, we are a developed city-state.

Sorry back to China’s policy that the $4G leaders should copy and paste.

In November last yr, China’s State Council launched a national medium and long-term plan for proactively responding to population ageing.

The new plan specifically addresses five aspects of population ageing: 1) improving national income distribution by increasing the level of payouts and sustainability of the social security system; 2) improving the effective labour supply in an ageing society via better-quality jobs and life-long learning; 3) implementing high quality health and health-related education services; 4) enhancing the application of technology including assistive technologies; 5) fostering a social environment in which senior citizens are cared for and their rights are protected.

Introducing this policy should help it get 65% of the popular vote*: the pass-mark for the 4G team  which Kee Chiu and his sidekick Chee seem to want to sabo (Kee Chiu, Chee trying to fix Heng? Incompetent? Honest mistake?)

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*Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

Kee Chiu, Chee trying to fix Heng? Incompetent? Honest mistake?

Usually what gets anti-PAP ang moh tua kees and cybernuts into orgasms of frenzy are ignored by hard working S’poreans. But Bayee’s Pritam’s question in parly and Kee Chiu and his sidekick’s response* has had hard working S’poreans upset.

The following piece that appeared in TRE reflects very accurately what PMETs are saying around their office water coolers and pantries, blue-collar workers are saying in their factoty canteens, and S’poreans in general are saying around their dining tables, and in food courts and kopi tiams.

We can get you the numbers, but you don’t need to know

I refer to this article on Today.

Basically, in Parliament on 6th January, the PAP declared that Singaporeans are getting more jobs, 60,000 local employment. Mr Pritam Singh requested for the specific number in terms of PRs and Singaporeans.

However, Mr Chan Chun Sing vehemently refused to answer that question.
1) Mr Chan deflected the question, and instead questioned Mr Singh’s need for accurate, factual data.
2) Mr Chan made a one-sided universal declaration that ALL Singaporeans are getting good jobs, and ALL Singaporeans are getting increased wages. And he did so by not providing numbers to back his claim.
3) Mr Chan insinuated that there should be no divide between Singaporeans and PRs. He might as well just say out loud there is no difference between a Singaporean and a PR.

My thoughts:
I think it is fairly disturbing that ministers and MPs can evade answering actual questions, and taichi their way out of it. We’re asking for factual numbers and figures! Not a grandfather story! Just answer the goddamned question!

Secondly, we are just supposed to just believe what Mr Chan says at face value, without any evidence? If you are so confident of what you say, you wouldn’t mind showing us the numbers, right?

As Singaporeans, we have the right to accurate and factual information. We cannot allow ourselves to be denied of the truth, just because some politician thinks it is not beneficial for us to know!

We have a right to demand full disclosure of such reports.

Angry Citizen

Given that the PAP is struggling to get 65% of the vote (Ground is not sweet for an early 2020 GE) one can reasonably wonder if Kee Chiu and Chee are trying to sabo Heng, the PM in waiting?

But maybe the MTI ministers are juz incompetent? Or are are making an honest mistake?

What do you think?

Whatever, they should realise that S’poreans (not juz the really hard core 30%ers) are suspicious of the PAP govt’s FT policies: see point 17 in table in Not Fake News: S’poreans still very satisfied with PAP govt.

Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

---

*Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Chee Hong Tat (Kee Chiu’s side kick in MTI) saka his boss on 8 Jan in a Facebook post to caution against “driving a wedge in society” by differentiating between PRs and citizens, warning that all attempts to drive a wedge between different groups in society should be rejected, calling for people to “stand resolute” against efforts to “stir fear and hatred for political gain”.

Malay community not consulted enough about their concerns

No, not fake news that deserves to kanna PORMA, but from the PAP’s very own minister for Malay affairs, a few weeks ago

Malay-Muslim community to be consulted on more issues that concern them: Masagos

Malay-Muslims will get more say in Singapore’s policy-making, in line with the Government’s overall strategy for the future, said Mr Masagos Zulkifli in a media interview pertaining to issues to do with the community on Tuesday (Dec 17).

Ciptasama@M3, or Co-creation@M3, is the name of a new programme to encourage the community to participate in policy-making. It will be launched next year, led by Minister of State for Manpower and National Development Zaqy Mohamad.

https://atans1.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=49472&action=edit

OK, OK, he didn’t actually say that “Malay community not consulted enough about their concerns”: its shumething his comments and the constructive, nation-building headline imply. But then in the recent POFMA orders, the word “implied” appeared in the orders against Brad Bowels and Lim Tean. Brad Bowyers

said the authorities had read the four points of his post “wrongly and then said my post ‘implied’ this and ‘implied’ that and so demanded it to be labelled as false”.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3043034/singapores-fake-news-law-protecting-truth-or-restricting-free

So if PAP govt, can say facts can be implied, so can I: can’t I?

All things “Malay”

Watain fans: Muslims cannot be, but can Malays be?

Anti-PAP Malay that ungrateful meh?

Fake news law: Malays not stupid

The silence of the Malay Minister

NLB is very sensitive about Malays and Muslims

Legendary Malay hero was really Indian/ Blame Mendaki, not PAP

Why PAP thinks we need a Malay president?

Finally, “Malay” race: no such race

If you are wondering how this piece is relevant, think the row between MoM and SDP  Actually I was reminded of what minister said by MoM’s snarky response to the SDP. Look it up.

(Last paragraph added minutes after publication.)

Not Fake News: S’poreans still very satisfied with PAP govt

Further to Mad Dog, Lim Tean and other cybernuts are peddling fake news, BlackBox’s latest (December) Government Satisfaction Index fell 1 point to 79. The change over the last 12 months also fell 1 point. Looks like S’poreans are really satisfied despite what  Mad Dog, Lim Tean, Meng Seng, and TOC’s M’sian Indian goons (Terry and his “bunch of Indians”) and other cybernuts are saying: that S’poreans are so unhappy that the PAP govt will be overthrown by the Spastics League?

Vote wisely.

How to lessen GST impact rise and promote cashless payments

This is my constructive, nation-building X’mas present for our millionaire ministers and senior civil servants, wrapped in the form of a suggestion.

We know that in the coming Budget sure got incentives to make us less unhappy with 2 points GST rise.

Here’s an idea we can copy and paste from Japan both to lessen the impact of GST rise on consumer spending and, as a bonus, promote cashless payments. Remember Brownfacegate? Brownfacegate: Fake indignation? and Brownfacegate: The inside story?.

Its consumption tax (GST) was hiked by 2 points on October 1. Customers who transacted cashlessly in SMEs, are able to receive reward points to offset the tax increase.

 The response by the SMEs, revealed the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Monday has been unexpectedly strong. Since May, when the scheme was first mooted, 940,000 shops, restaurants and other consumer-facing businesses have registered for the scheme — a process that forced many of them to bring cashless payment terminals into their stores for the first time.

FT

And Japan is not the only govt. From next year, the Italian govt plans to offer financial bonuses to those who use cards or other electronic payment systems.

Btw, FT also reported that a Nomura survey of why businesses were reluctant to introduce cashless payment terminals found that the answer was high fees. Hawkers were KPKBing here too when e-payments were trialled in a few hawkers’ centres. Any idea of what happened since then? I never patronised any of them.

Fact v opinion & “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”

[I]t is hard to identify, whether a given expression is a fact or an opinion, as they are quite commonly juxtaposed by the writers. Facts are always one step ahead of opinions as facts can be proved to be right or accurate, whereas opinion may also be right but they cannot be proved as true.

Difference Between Fact and Opinion

And

 Harvard’s Claire Wardle [ ] says that “much of the debated content is not fake, but used out of context or manipulated, while polluted information also extends beyond news”.

What is “news”?/ “Fake news” is not “fake” says Harvard expert

(More on this point below)

Tan Kin Lian got it about right when he said

Wah. POFMA can now be used to handle “interpretations” and not only “facts”. Really? It is getting ridiculous.

Read this report in CNA:

PAP spends S$167 million on Grants & Bursaries for Singaporeans, but S$238 million on foreign students??” wrote Mr Lim, who is representing blogger Leong Sze Hian in a defamation case involving Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

This implies that MOE spends less on Singaporean students than on foreign students, which is “false and misleading”, states the Factually article.

The annual budget of MOE is S$13 billion, almost all of which is spent on Singapore citizens, and the S$167 million cited by Mr Lim refers only to bursaries for Singaporean tertiary students.

What Lim Tean said is factually correct. The two figures of $167 million and $238 million are factually correct. What the government objects is the “interpretation” of the facts.

Since when does POFMA law, as it is passed, apply to “interpretations”?

I disagree with the interpretation of the government in addressing the issue. It is clear to me that the government does spend more on the foreign scholars, compared to the local scholars.

I also disagree with the government’s approach to lump the full budget of MOE in the comparison. I think they are confusing the issue and misleading the public.

But, hey, this is just my opinion. Each person is entitled to his opinion.

POFMA is bad. And it has been abused against a few parties recently.

Tan Kin Lian

The spat between Talk Cock King Lim Tean and Ong Ye Kung’s MoE reminds of the saying “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”:

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.

The phrase derives from the full sentence, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”; it was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain and others, who mistakenly attributed it to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics#Books

In particular Lim Tean’s initial comments prove the point of Harvard’s Claire Wardle who

says that “much of the debated content is not fake, but used out of context or manipulated, while polluted information also extends beyond news”.

What is “news”?/ “Fake news” is not “fake” says Harvard expert

(Btw, last year, she made representations to the select committee on fake news.)

On Lim Tean BS artist

Look at Lim Tean’s record. Still no jobs rally after collecting money in 2017 for rally, and no picture, no sound after collecting money to sue CPF yrs ago: Finally Lim Tean called to account on a “broken promise”. To be fair, he did deliver on defamation video two years late. But it was BS.).

Can he be trusted to do anything but grab the money?

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

On Ong

I never was impressed by Ong Ye Kung (See Ong Ye Kung: A study in failure) and nothing since he became minister and a contender to be PM has changed my mind.

But anti-PAP paper warrior disagrees: Ong Ye Kung: “Is he the 4G leader with the killer instinct?”

More on “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”?: Mad Dog, Lim Tean and other cybernuts are peddling fake news

 

 

Why PAP never admits to mistakes?

All the POFMA orders flying around before an expected GE next yr, reminded me that George Orwell

wrote that because totalitarian regimes insist that the leadership is infallible, history must be perpetually rewritten in order to eliminate evidence of past mistakes. Totalitarianism thus “demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.” Orwell added darkly that “to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country”; one simply had to surrender to certain habits of thought.

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/12/04/is-liberalism-really-kaput

We are not a totalitarian city-state. We are either an authoritarian one-party state (Would this happen in a one-party state?) or An illiberal democracy?, but the PAP’s attitude that the “PAP is never ever wrong” makes Orwell’s comments particular relevant especially with POFMA orders multiplying like maggots.

 

Mad Dog, Lim Tean and other cybernuts are peddling fake news

S’poreans are not unhappy with the PAP govt. In fact, they are very happy with the PAP govt.

If you listen to what  Mad Dog, Lim Tean, Meng Seng and other cybernuts say, you’d think that S’poreans are ready to vote out the PAP because they are unhappy with the PAP. But Blackbox data tells us otherwise.

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/id/AQQkADAwATE0YzYwLWU2YjAtM2UzNC0wMAItMDAKABAA4AtiEIZDaEuAH0s0d8lzBw%3D%3D

Going more granular

 

18th century English philosopher, Edmund Burke, wrote:

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.”

Translated for the benefit of cybernuts, “Six noisy grasshoppers share the field with thousands of cattle. Do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.”

Vote wisely.

Btw, time to issue more POFMA orders?

 

Time to investigate Catholic Church here?

If the WSJ is correct, the Catholic Church has misled Catholics round the world, and misused donated monies. Worse than Kong Hee and pals. And they went to jail.

There’s something known as Peter’s Pence:

At present, this collection is taken each year on the Sunday closest to 29 June, the Solemnity of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in the liturgical calendar. As of 2012, the United States has donated the largest amounts, giving some 28% of the total, followed by Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Brazil and South Korea. US donations totaled $75.8 million in 2008, $82,529,417 in 2009, $67,704,416.41 in 2010 and $69,711,722.76 in 2011.

Wikipedia

This means the faithful donate millions of dollars to the Vatican. But only about 10% goes to charity according to  the Wall Street Journal. The rest is used to finance the Vatican’s budget deficit.

Time to get the police to raid the offices of the Catholic Archbishop of S.pore? Not only does he tolerate Marxists in his office, he helps cheat the faithful: Archie goofed? Saboed? Tea cup storm ensues with credit to no one

Related post: Harry, 2 popes, Spectrum and Amos

Kin Lian talks sense on HDB flat as an investment

Anti-PAP types are using the issue of “HDB lease decay” to try to get S’poreans upset with the PAP: home ownership is above 90% of the population because of HDB flats.

“HDB lease decay” is the term describing the situation where the value of the HDB flat is a big fat zero at the end of the 99 year lease with the value starting to drop very sharply after the remaining lease becomes less than 30 years: (Background reading for those who have not followed the problem with HDB leases of less than 60 years: HDB flats: 35 is a dangerous age) Related link: Older HDB flats: How much value is lost in under 2 yrs.

Tan Kin Lian, PAP cadre gone rogue, wannabe president (He lost his deposit) and the PAP’s useful idiot (He helped the PAP’s preferred candidate win just by standing), waded into the HDB lease decay debate recently. Surprisingly the PAP’s useful idiot said some sensible things.

He wrote that

The phenomenal growth in the value of the HDB flat during the past decades came from three sources:

a) The HDB flats sold prior to 1980 were indeed cheap. It was sold by HDB at subsidized prices, based largely on construction cost. The value of land was negligible then.

b) All property prices, HDB and private, has escalated during the past five decades to the high level today.

c) There was a large boost during the last 15 years due to the influx of foreigners. This has reached its limit.

All this meant a 5 room HDB flat in Marine Parade that was sold for $35,000 in 1975 is now

with a remaining lease of 50 years, [has an] asking [price of] $850,000.

He goes on to say that the above three factors that contributed to the growth in value

is no longer available to the buyer of the HDB flat today. The buyer has to pay the current price, which reflects the high market price today. There is a small subsidy by the government, but not to the same extent as in the past.

The buyer cannot count on the huge growth in property prices in the future. The current prices are beyond the “affordability level”.

The reality is that the buyer of a HDB flat pays a high price for their flat and faces the prospect of the lease decay. It is no longer a good investment. It should be treated as paying advanced rental of the HDB flat for the remaining term of the lease.

He ends

Did the leaders “lie” when they said that HDB flat was a good investment? No, they did not. It was a good investment at that time. But times have changed. It is no longer a good investment today.

He’s right. But do remember that he was Goh Chok Tong’s Organising Secretary in Marine Parade in the 80s. Organising Secretary was and is a tua kee PAP appoitment.

My view has been that for the coming GE (I now think it’ll be in mid 2020. I”ll blog on this soon.), the issue of the ultimate worthlessness of an HDB flat doesn’t matter: Why Oppo cock to think that HDB issues will affect the vote.

It’ll only start mattering in the late 2020s: Why 30-year old HDB flats difficult to sell/ Why PAP rule will end in 2029.

I’ll end with shumething to ponder If LKY were alive, PAP govt wouldn’t publicly admit that HDB leases end worth nothing?

Can toys protest here?

The report that police are investigating after a report that a foreigner participated in a rally organised by Gilbert Goh reminded me of a recent BBC story

A protest art installation involving toys “holding” banners in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka has resulted in the arrest of one of the organisers.

Stefan Blagic, the leader of NGO ReStart Srpska, was detained by police after he refused to leave Krajina Square, according to the Buka news portal. He was released later that day.

ReStart Srpska describes itself on Facebook as an organisation which “unmasks the wrong and abnormal processes” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-50558236

Only at Hong Lim Green, I suspect and if they are made in S’pore.

You might be interested in

Seelan Palay: Sylvia Lim was right: Jogging alone wearing the “wrong” tee shirt could be illegal.

PAP uses Lawfare against its opponents?

In S’pore we have rule by law not the rule of law

Fake news is in the eyes of the beholder

So far my attitude to the PAP’s govt use of POFMA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act) chimes with that of one Adrian Tan who posted on FB

Based on the Mindef law suit, I was sceptical about what ministers say in parly when passing laws. But so far POFMA couldn’t have been used on nicer people. 🤪 Restoring my faith in what ministers say. 🤣

(Note he was referring to the law suit against, Dr Ting Choon Meng and TOC brought under Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) which a minister had assured us, when it was a bill, that it vwas meant to be a remedy for the little people. Ultimately the courts decided that Mindef could not use the law to harass Dr Tan and TOC.)

But

Critics say the law threatens freedom of expression. Amnesty International said it would “give authorities unchecked powers to clamp down on online views of which it disapproves”.

BBC

But AI is no friend of the PAP govt. In fact, its motto seems to be “Die, die must say bad things about the PAP govt.”  They sound like our very own cybernuts.

Seriously, even we in S’pore live in a post-truth age (Race is BS or “post-truth” at work?) even though the PAP govt has passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.

Btw, one Paul Johnson a towering right wing intellectual in his book Modern Times blamed Albert Einstein for making the truth relative.

Whatever, there’s no truth out there to seek out because

Millionaire ministers watching wrong place

Above was what I tot when I read a constructive, nation-building headline that screamed

Singapore watches Hong Kong ‘with concern’; current situation at ‘breaking point’: Chan Chun Sing

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-hong-kong-concern-breaking-point-chan-chun-sing-12104088

As usual he’s clueless. Can he really be an RI boy? But then Tan Kin Lian is also an RI boy. As is Tan Jee Say and Lim Hng Kiang. Thank God, Peter Lim, Edmund Wee (Creative thinking at URA), Rashid Hussain (Remember him?), Dr Paul Thamby (makes sure Mad Dog takes his pills), Ang Yong Guan and Erika Poh are also from RI.

Seriously, Kee Chiu and his fellow millionaire ministers are watching the wrong place. They should be watching the riots in Chile with fear and trepidation because while S’poreans are starting to think like the Chileans who riot, the PAP govt is behaving like the clueless Chilean govt (headed by a billionaire president), prior to the riots. Btw, it Chilean govt is still clueless. But I want to emphasis what it and PAP govt miss about what the voters in both countries really want.

Let me explain.

Further to What riots can achieve, about how the Chilean rioters forced the govt to scrap MRT price rises, increase minimum wages etc, here’s a quote that TOC’s M’sian Indian goons and cybernuts will say applies here too

Most Chileans worry about “low pensions, lack of access to decent housing, health care and medicine, and of again falling into the poverty from which they escaped”, the rector of the Catholic University, whose economists dreamed up the Chilean “model”, wrote this week.

Economist

Here’s where the situation sounds like S’pore, giving the lie to what PAPpies like Kee Chiu and Kate Spade Tin (Remember her?) about poverty being absolute, not relative,

“Chile’s problems are more to do with the expectations that come from success. Standards have become higher and . . . the last administration and this administration do not offer anything fresh, any vision for the long-term economic future of the country.”

(Nicholas Watson, Latin America managing director at the consultancy Teneo talking to the FT.)

And

[P]roblems are more to do with the expectations that come from success. Standards have become higher

FT

Other than rising expectations, the really big problem in Chile that is very relevant in S’pore is

 the last administration and this administration do not offer anything fresh, any vision for the long-term economic future of the country

FT

Yes, yes, I know the PAP always has a master plan for the future. And PM and Heng have been talking about the latest. But as I’ve explained before, it’s all copy and paste.

———————————————–

Another decade, yet another copy and paste restructuring report

“I’m sorry but

“We are feeling the pains of restructuring, but not yet seeing the dividends of our hard work. But we are pursuing all the right strategies, and I am confident that given time these strategies will work for us.”

smacks of “Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day”

Pardon my cynicism.

We’ve been here before. How many times has economy been “restructured” since the 80s? And how many times have SMEs been helped to “restructure and tide through challenging times”?”

Economic restructuring: This time, it’s really different

And

Another decade, another restructuring report?

In the 80s, one Lee Hsien Loong as trade and industry minister headed a committee to recommend changes in the economy. In the early noughties when DPM he headed another committee on the same issue.

In 2010, one Tharman and his committee produced the 2010 Economic Strategies Committee (ESC). And now there’s the CFE. It’s a bit early, but then there wasn’t a report in the 90s: so maybe making up for lost time?

 

If Lee Hsien loong’s 1980s plan was so successful, why keep needing plans every decade? Plan succeeded, but circumstances change said people from constructive, nation-building media like Balji and Bertha then. Really?

Here’s a riposte to recent platitudes by Heng that Mad Dog Chee vetoed the SDP from using: “Pull the other leg Heng, it’s got bells on it”

—————————————————————————————————

What I’m really saying (in the box above) is that the time is coming soon that the copy and pasting will not work even incrementally.

Returning to what’s happening in Chile

This arson was part of a collective nervous breakdown in Chile, ranging from peaceful protests demanding a fairer and less unequal society, to nightly looting of supermarkets and feral criminality, with marauding delinquents robbing homes.

Economist

Turning to my comment that S’poreans are starting to think like the Chileans who riot.

Singapore citizens feel stuck in their social classes, according to a survey of 4,015 people aged 18 and above that was conducted between August 2018 and January this year by a state-backed research organisation.

Asked by the Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore if they felt their financial status would improve in a decade’s time, more than five in 10 said they would experience negligible financial mobility while fewer than one in 10 felt their fortunes would decline.

This pessimism persisted across education levels. Only 44 per cent of those with a degree were hopeful of upward mobility in 10 years’ time, with the figure falling to 40.6 per cent for Singaporeans with vocational training or a polytechnic diploma. For those with a secondary school education or below, such as food deliveryman Alroy Ho, 32, only 23.8 per cent expected to do better in future, with 10.6 per cent thinking they would be worse off.

No not Terry’s Indian M’sian goons trying to stir the pot for CIA or MI6 $ but the

The findings, released on October 29 in a paper titled Faultlines in Singapore: Public Opinion on their Realities, Management and Consequences, asked respondents for their views on five topics researchers thought could affect social cohesion. These were race, religion, immigration, class, and lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual issues.

South China Morning Post

And the SCMP goes on

Four out of five Singaporeans interviewed by This Week in Asia said their pessimism boiled down to salaries not matching up to costs, and a sense that wages were stagnant.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3037984/if-singapore-so-wealthy-why-do-its-citizens-feel-stuck?

 

(Note that the newsroom of the SCMP has lots of people from SPN’s newsrooms including the ex-Malay minister’s sister who was a tua kee in ST. Guess they are like Balji and Bertha Henson, the moment they stop getting their 30 pieces of silver, they turn against the hand that fed them.)

 

I’ll end with something that should really get Kee Chiu and his millionaire ministers worried:

Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, has pointed out that income inequality there has actually been narrowing.

Economist

The PAP govt has made narrowing the income inequality gap a priority and they and the constructive, nation-building media are trumpeting the fact that our Gini co-efficient is improving. Read: Why PM needs to get a grip on incompetency and inequality

Relate post: Stop being fascinated with HK riots, look closer home

 

Why PAP govt will use Huawel?

Despite the PAP govt trying to lick the ass of both Xi and Trump at the same time.

CSIS has a report on the “safe city” technology that Huawei is selling around the world. The facial recognition, licence plate recognition, social media monitoring and other surveillance capabilities it sells are generally being bought by authoritarian countries, raising the charge that Huawei is helping to “export authoritarianism”.

BBC story on surveillance systems that China is exporting often with the help of soft loans: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50348861?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology&link_location=live-reporting-story

Related posts

Where US has to buy from China

Did Hali ask Xi for this app when they met?: Hali’s welcome by the Chinese reminded me that the Chinese have an app that will help Heng and other 4G leaders keep S’pore a one-party state, like China.

S’porean Chinese parents will want this

Cybersecurity: “Ownself hack ownself”

 

Why delivery riders prefer e-scooters

Long before writing Cannot use e-bicycles meh? Now got PAP govt help, I’ve always wondered about the non-use of e-bikes for food delivery. I always tot it was about cost (Looking at  digital ads, e-bikes cost at least twice the price of the cheapest e-scooters) and because the use of e-scooters had (until recently) the advantage of being able to using footpaths. And the plebs must feel shiok, that they too can game the system, like millionaire ministers and other elite school kids.

Well I now know

Some food-delivery riders here who use electric scooters have voiced their safety concerns about plying the roads on bicycles or e-bikes, following the Government’s offer of grants for swopping their devices.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/delivery-riders-cite-safety-concerns-if-they-were-use-bicycles-work

So they are happy to bully other footpath users, while avoid being bullied by other road users. Sounds so S’porean.

I also learnt that some people always must complain:

Benjamin Goh has already changed to a bike for his food delivery job — but said his income would be affected as cycling is more exhausting, meaning he can complete fewer orders.

“It’s very tiring for me to use a bicycle,” said the 26-year-old single father, adding that he would also end up fatigued and potentially less capable of caring for his young son after work.

TOC

Die, die must KPKB. What about using an e-bike since ordinary bicycles are not very efficient food delivery vehicles

Ms Tan added that while she had tried to complete her deliveries with a bicycle over the last few days, it had been too tiring for her to reach the usual number of deliveries she used to make a day.

She used to fulfil 20 orders daily. Since the ban took effect on Tuesday, she has made a total of 30 deliveries over the past four days.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/delivery-riders-cite-safety-concerns-if-they-were-use-bicycles-work

There’s no excuse about the cost of e-bikes given the goodies on offer: Cannot use e-bicycles meh? Now got PAP govt help. 

But then Benjamin Goh must be a TOC reading cybernut.

I’ll end with this quai lan, garang guy. He must be a reader of TOC and other anti-PAP alt media

When asked what his next step would be, Mr Satria said: “For me, I’m going to continue fighting for the ‘unbanning’ of PMDs to be used on footpaths. As long as it takes, we (delivery riders) will continue to do so.”

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/delivery-riders-cite-safety-concerns-if-they-were-use-bicycles-work

Wonder if he’ll get detained under ISA, lest he becomes another Jihadist. I hope he realises that the ang moh tua jee human right rights kah pohs are 110% behind the PAP govt on the use of ISA to detain suspected Jihadist Joes and Jills: Human rights kay pohs don’t do “fixers” and “jihadists”

Cannot use e-bicycles meh? Now got PAP govt help?

Finally after  UK got this right, S’pore wrong, LTA: What a lot of bull and Another reason to ban e-scooters, e-scooters got banned from pavements (almost because got to wait until next year for offenders to be punished).

But the PAP govt extended a hand out to food delivery riders who used these e-scooters after they KPKBed about the PAP govt breaking their rice bowl or rather rice plate (from the pixs many are not Chinese):

Food delivery riders affected by a footpath ban on e-scooters can get up to S$1,000 in the form of a trade-in grant funded by the Government and food delivery companies, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced on Friday (Nov 8).

For riders who intend to stay on the job, the Government and three major food delivery companies – Grab, Deliveroo and Foodpanda – have set up a S$7 million e-scooter Trade-in Grant (eTG) for food delivery riders to switch to bicycles, power-assisted bicycles (PABs) or personal mobility aids (PMAs), the ministry said in a press release.

Under the scheme, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will match dollar-for-dollar the funding support of food delivery companies for delivery riders who trade in their e-scooters for LTA-approved devices.

Each rider can receive up to S$1,000 to trade in their e-scooter for a PAB or S$600 for a bicycle, MOT said. Riders who are eligible to use PMAs will also receive a grant of up to S$1,000, the ministry added.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/e-scooters-1000-trade-in-7-million-etg-food-delivery-riders-12076228

Following the ban of e-scooters from footpaths starting on 5 Nov, food delivery provider GrabFood had announced that customers could experience longer waiting time and cancelled orders due to this ban.

As you may be aware, the Singapore government will prohibit the riding of electric scooters (e-scooters) on all footpaths from 5 November 2019. This means that our delivery-partners who are currently using e-scooters to deliver your orders will need a longer time to do so as they are required to dismount and walk for a longer part of their journey.

Grab

Grab said that one in three of its delivery riders rely on e-scooters to send food around Singapore.

There are about 7,000 food delivery riders who uses e-scooters, and the majority of them are believed to be working for Grab, ST reported.

I had tot to myself: “Grab provide these delivery people with e-cycles”.

And there was Mr Wilson Seng, president of the PMD Retailers Association of Singapore, which represents about 20 firms, who sounds like a cybernut. he said

that the industry is shocked and “disappointed” by Monday’s announcement.

“How are you going to ask people to continue to use the devices for food delivery and stuff?”

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/e-scooter-footpath-ban-pedestrians-cheer-move-users-say-black-sheep-have-won

Hey cock, we juz don’t want them to use e-scooters. (Re “How are you going to ask people to continue to use the devices for food delivery and stuff?”). There are e-cycles.

No that the PAP govt has stepped in, Grab and Wilson Seng have sat down and shut up. Why didn’t they think of e-bicycles first.

Vote wisely. Vote PAP?

 

 

HKCon for HK? Imitating our NatCon?

Remember our National Conversation? And remember how skeptical I was of NatCon?

Many (self included) think that NatCon is Wayang. But could it be even more cynical? Is NatCon’s aim  to distract us from the govt’s mismanagement of the economy. This unworthy tot struck me when I read DBS’ analysis of the S’pore economy last week.

NatCon: More cynical than Wayang?

“Dialogue in the Dark (DiD) is a social enterprise that aims to educate the public on the experience of blindness, ” writes MSF S’pore (Kee Chui Chan’s ministry)

Tot it should be appropriated as a description of NatCon.

NatCon: Dialogue in the Dark

The door-to-door survey of 4,000 Singaporeans was conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) between November last year and February. It was carried out to validate the issues brought up in the 660 OSC sessions held over the past year …

[OSC committee Chairman and Education Minister Heng Swee Keat] noted that overall, the participants at the OSC sessions wanted the assurance that housing, healthcare and public transport will remain affordable.

Govt needed NatCon + survey to find these things out?

Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.

Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.

NatCon: PM should have tried driving a cab

Well a M’sian-born ethnic Indian living in HK (Seems he worked here too) wants to start a conversation that suspiciously sounds like NatCon the Hongkie way.

As for providing a platform for people to speak up, local businessman Chandran Nair, who runs independent think tank The Global Institute for Tomorrow, is touting his “Let’s Talk Hong Kong” project, which he hopes will provide a network of independent and neutral platforms “to bring the community together and find solutions”.

“Many are concerned about being involved in any way but I keep stressing that we are not taking sides and will be neutral,” he said, on the hunt for partners to raise funds and get started.

“Despite what people say, there is a positive path for Hong Kong after the protests. The first step on that path is dialogue: not just as a mechanism to narrow the political divide or share frustrations, but as a way to build real public understanding and trust across different social groups in the city.”

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3033770/there-silent-majority-hong-kong-yearning-speak-out

Let’s wish him luck.

Coming back to NatCon, the PAP govt will say its a great success. It won 70% of the popular vote in 2015. In 2011 it “won” only 60% of the popular vote.

PAP govt keeps us safe from terror killings, they really do

The Muslim ( He converted to Islam 10 years ago ) knife attacker who killed four of his colleagues at Paris police headquarters last week reminded me that London (Population of more than 8m) has more Muslims than S’pore, and Paris and Brussels have more in % terms : Muslims: Fun fact.

We know that violent Muslims have killed and maimed people (the Paris killings is just the latest example), and damaged property in all three cities and that in return there have attacks against innocent Muslims.

---

Over the past four years Paris has been hit by numerous large-scale and deadly attacks. In the deadliest Jihadist attack ever in France, Muslim extremists killed 130 people in an attack on the Bataclan theatre in November 2015.

—————————————————————– ————————

Meanwhile, things are peaceful here, despite being next door to Indonesia where there there have been Muslim terrorist killings and bombings.

The reason is that the PAP govt is very sensitive to the religious feelings of Muslims:

the PAP govt treats the sensibilities of the various religions: equal treatment of intolerant religious views.

Religious equality, the PAP way

A publisher said that the NLB didn’t buy a book because

NLB was concerned that the cover read “Why do Malays avoid pork?” Another problem was that the text implied that the prophet Mohammed founded Islam.

NLB is very sensitive about Malays and Muslims

The govt is also very careful about the feelings of non-Muslims

“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.”

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

Related posts:

Watain fans: Muslims cannot be, but can Malays be?

Indonesian riots prove minister’s point on zero tolerance of racist remarks?*

Another probable reason: very draconian laws work, though ang moh tua kees like Kirsten Han (Kirsten Han trying to defecate herself and PJ out of self-made crater) would disagree. They seem to be happy with mayhem so long as there’s freedom of expression.

[T]he Internal Security Act and the Criminal Law Temporary Provision Act.

They allow the govt to detain almost indefinitely people who never had the benefit of a trial. The former is nowadays used to detain alleged “Islamic” terrorists,  while the latter is used to detain Dan Tan (the guy alleged to have fixed footie matches) and alleged drug dealers …

Govt detains without trial S’poreans: No outrage meh activists?

I’ll end with why it’s not a good time to be a Muslim in America or in Oz and why there’s so much much fear of Muslims in these countries despite the lack of recent atrocities by Jihadists Joes and Jills.

An American Airlines mechanic charged with sabotaging an aircraft in July has possible links to the Islamic State (IS) group, US prosecutors say.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49753151

He said he had wanted to cause a delay or have the flight cancelled to get overtime work.

And

Two men linked to the Islamic State (IS) group have been convicted in Australia of plotting to blow up a flight using a concealed bomb.

Mahmoud Khayat, 34, aimed to bring down the Sydney to Abu Dhabi flight in July 2017, a jury found on Thursday.

His brother, Khaled Khayat, 51, was found guilty of the same offence in May. Both men had pleaded not guilty.

Their plan failed when the bag carrying the bomb could not be checked in at the airport because it was overweight.

Prosecutors said they had aimed to blow up the flight carrying 400 passengers with military grade explosives concealed inside a meat grinder.

After it failed, the brothers also planned to carry out a chemical gas attack in Sydney, prosecutors said. They were arrested 11 days after the airport incident.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49764450

All three are immigrants who became citizens of the countries they lived in.

Is it any surprise that “crew members did not feel comfortable flying with Muslim passengers on board”? Of course, in the land of the free, where the buffalo roam, there really shouldn’t be such discrimination, but still after 9/11 etc one can understand:

Muslim men blame racial profiling for flight cancellation

Two Muslim men in the US have demanded an investigation after they say they were subjected to racial and religious profiling on a flight home to Dallas.

Abderraoof Alkhawaldeh and Issam Abdallah allege their flight was cancelled because crew members did not feel comfortable flying with the men.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49764305

Related posts:

Why Muslims in USA are right to feel oppressed

Ban Muslims from driving?

What Americans can teach Saudis on combating atheism

Bottom line: a little repression (By the standards of Kirsten Han, S’pore is an “authoritarian paradise, where critics of the government are squelched and drug traffickers are hanged”, sounds acceptable in keeping people of different religions from killing or being suspicious of people of other faiths: Religious equality, the PAP way

What do you think?

——————————————

*More recently in Indonesia,

A new wave of violence has hit the restive Indonesian region of West Papua after hundreds of protesters, mostly high school students, set fire to several buildings in a town on Monday.

At least 23 people died in the regional capital Wamena, some of whom were trapped inside burning buildings.

The protests were reportedly triggered by a teacher’s racist comments – an allegation the police called a “hoax”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49806182?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world/asia&link_location=live-reporting

Is S’pore really Animal Farm come to life?

Or is it more like “Brave New World”? As elections are coming, sure got some cybernut sure to compare S’pore to Animal Farm.

But first, office workers are treated worse than animals in London:

“We don’t like the idea of animals in pens, but we’ve been happy to have people in them”, says Sir Stuart Lipton, the developer of 22 Bishopsgate.

Economist

(22 Bishopsgate is a 62-storey “vertical village” soon to be opened in London. 12,000 workers will work there.)

And likewise in Silicon Valley: Animal Farm circa 2017..

Coming back to S’pore and Animal Farm, read and decide.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

And

S’poreans live pretty decent lives even if housing is expensive, cars unaffordable for most S’poreans, and the price of water is going up by 30%. Look at all those travelling overseas for hols during the recent school holidays. And all the tech gadgets S’poreans buy: I mean even the TRE cybernuts are not criticising the end of 2G next month (Buffett uses a 2G handset and so did I until Monday). No wonder the Pay and Party administration keeps raising prices. The money is there and the people are not unhappy to be fleeced.

S’pore: Not “Animal Farm” but “Brave New World”

Related posts:

Animal Farm: What if the pigs were public-spirited?

Good description of life in Animal Farm

“The Gatekeeper”: Our home-grown “Animal Farm”,

More on our home-grown “Animal Farm”

 

IRAS help line betterest

Recently, I had to reorganise my HSBC bank accounts: closing one, and opening another with access to e-trading.

One of the things that resulted from the reorganisation was that I had to move the giro deductions for property tax to the new account. I decided instead to move it to an existing historical account in OCBC because because it and DBS were the only two banks that allowed me to do set up a giro account with IRAS via the internet. Yes UOB does not have this privilege (Wonder why? After all Wong Kum Seng is the chairman and the previous chairman was Temasek’s president. Its finech and e-banking is rubbish?), and so using HSBC entailed downloading a form (I don’t have a printer), filling it in, and posting it.

But there were a few things I needed first to clarify with the IRAS. I was pretty depressed about calling the IRAS up because of my really bad experiences with SingPass: SingPass sucks, really sucks (Cont’d) and SingPass technical support versus that of OCBC and HSBC

But I was very pleasantly surprised. Getting thru to an officer was a breeze (Getting to talk to a bank officer via the help line is so bothersome).

And the officer was really helpfully, even telling me things I hadn’t tot about.

Fyi, I’m told Li Hongyi is responsible for SingPass. If so

Li Hongyi got a lot to do before he is PM material. And grandpa and GCT didn’t set the bar very high for Hongyi’s pa did they?

SingPass sucks, really sucks

 

 

Where PAP is most vulnerable

In PAP is like one armed swordsman,I said I’d talk more about the election goodies.

“Ownself fund ownself”

We know the PAP has been doling out the goodies. But remember it’s all from yr own money.

In 2018, I wrote

[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?

In 2011 I wrote the following explaining how the money for our SWFs really came from us (When most probably Roy Ngerng was still wearing shorts and still coming to terms with his sexuality):

https ://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/how-we-fund-our-swfs/

Property sales also fund our SWFs

At the most, the PAP govt should be given credit for allowing S’poreans to spend more of our own money on ourselves. And even that was because in 2011, the voters gave the Pap an underwhelming ruling mandate to govern. And if not for Goh Meng Seng, his useful idiot Tan Kin Lian and Tan Jee Say (opportunists three), the PAP’s preferred presidential candidate would have lost to Dr Tan Cheng Bock.

So spread the word to those who think that they should be grateful to the PAP for the goodies that its our money the PAP is spending, but claiming credit for. Sadly, I doubt this will happen because cybernuts rather spread anti-PAP BS than the nuanced truth, even if the latter can persuade the PAP voters who think (about 35% of the voters: those who voted for Dr Tan Cheng Bock).

GST

In How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote, I pointed out that postponing the GST rise is the best to ensure a 65%+ share of the popular vote for the 4G leaders. But the 4G leaders think that the goodies doled out are sufficient for a 62% victory, if not more. (Btw, article lists most of the goodies)

Well this gives the Oppo a good chance to KPKB about the folly of increasing GST when the global and S’pore economy are weak, if not in recession (“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng). But will they do it? I have my doubts.

I’ll end with:

Countering PAP’s BS that taxes must go up

Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST

which show that really the PAP govt doesn’t need the GST to fund future welfare spending.

 

 

PAP is like one armed swordsman

Or like a polo team or a golfer with good handicaps: giving away big handicaps but still winning big time all the time.

Let me explain. The PAP is going to into a general election with public transport rises in the offing*, the economy in recession and still not changing its mind on raising GST next yr at the earliest.

S’pore is forecast to dip into a recession (two quarters of -ve growth) in the current quarter ending Sept 30, say economists at Oxford Economics.

The economy is the worst hit in region amid spillovers from the US-China trade war, slower Chinese domestic demand and a downturn in the global electronics cycle, according to the latest ICAEW report published last Thursday.

Trade-dependent economies such as us, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have been the most vulnerable to the ongoing global economic uncertainties.

We, in particular, has been the worst hit in the region. The affluent city-state saw its GDP contracting 3.3% q-on-q in 2Q19, while the other three countries have been growing below potential growth.

---

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

————————————————————————-

Meanwhile, M’sia (Dr M’s Chinese running dog fix the data?)and Vietnam have outperformed the region, with a modest deceleration in export growth and resilient domestic demand. Vietnam has been a key beneficiary of the trade diversion from the trade war, and is forecast to grow 6.7% this year.

In How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote, I pointed out that postponing the GST rise is the best to ensure a 65%+ share of the popular vote for the 4G leaders. But so far there’s no indication of this happening.

Yet it’s sure to win at least 62% of the popular vote and might even reduce Oppo to only Hougang: PAP confident of winning back Aljunied. Dr Tan Cheng Bock will only become a NCMP for all his efforts.

So it’s like one armed swordsman, a high goal polo team or a great golfer: can give Oppo a lot of chance and still thrash the likes of Mad Dog, Lim Tean and Meng Seng.

The PAP sure is confident that its bribes goodies will win it at least 62% of the popular vote. Fyi, in PAP fighting for every last vote, I list most of the goodies. More on the goodies tom.

Vote wisely.

---

*Someone on FB posted this

“Fare hike before GE so vote PAP out. No fare hike is election gimmick so vote PAP out.”

“PAP make mistake must be fabricated so vote PAP. PAP rectified mistake so vote PAP.”

 

 

 

Haze: PAP govt cares, they really do

Singapore – with a population of less than six million – reportedly has a national stockpile of 16 million disposable masks

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49737216

Vote wisely.

No reason for “P” (where “P” stands for “Politician”) Ravi to stir the pot like he did yrs ago when there was a really bad spell of haze and he kanna whacked real hard: P Ravi’s reposting: What the govt should have done.

Btw, PAP missed a trick. P Ravi shows how PAP govt policies when he was young helped him: The real Ravi Superhero.

PAP fighting for every last vote

The PAP govt is even trying to make sure that 1000 carers’ vote for the PAP? Every vote matters for the PAP it seems. Those were my tots when I read

The maid levy concession will be extended from Sep 1 to include the employer’s Singaporean extended family member or friend who lives in the same household, the Manpower Ministry (MOM) announced in a press release on Saturday (Aug 31).

Currently, levy concession is given to those whose foreign domestic workers are caring for an immediate family member in the same household.

The change is expected to benefit around 1,000 employers, MOM said.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/maid-levy-concession-to-extend-beyond-immediate-family-from-sep-11859716

———————————————

Where else is the PAP is also trying to shore up its vote?

Christmas, CNY coming early thanks to PAP: 7000 votes here

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP

Pioneer Generation benefits: Are you better off now than you were in 2011?

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

Consumers: Groceries: PAP cares for u, really they do

Even anti-PAP people getting money: PAP giving money to anti-PAP group

No need to try so hard: Juz postpone GST rise la — How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote

————————————————————————

Here’s a constructive, nation-building suggestion to help make sure the Merdeka Generation vote for the PAP: for those of us with degrees, help fund post grad studies, for those without first degrees, help fund first degree or diploma courses.

This ties in with the PAP govt’s plans to get us oldies to work longer so that CPFLife begins at 85 (More on 85 being the new CPF Life payout date) and its “knowledge economy”plans.

This idea came from reading

Master’s degree students over the age of 60 will receive a £4,000 bursary under a new Welsh Government scheme.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-49513183

In the article someone says”education should be available to people of any age who want it”. True especially for the silver-haired. Fyi, I’ve been comparing the costs of S’pore-based psychology courses and our public unis offer the lowest cost. But how to get in? I oldie and not FT.

 

Japan helps Africans to fight “Chinese debt trap”

Japan is hosting the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (Ticad) summit. And Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is the co-host.

He warned African leaders about the dangers of accumulating too much debt, the AFP news agency reports. His comments are seen as a snarky warning about China’s role in Africa as Beijing is said to favour its own companies for big infrastructure projects.

He told the leaders attending the development conference in Yokohama that Japan was promoting “quality” investments to be supported by Japanese institutions, the agency reports.

Unlike China, Japan says sound financial advice and support is behind its Africa strategy.

Tokyo plans to train experts in 30 African countries in the next three years on how to manage risk and public debts, it says. It wants to send financial experts to debt-ridden countries on multi-year missions to help them improve their finances and thus avoud the “Chinese debt trap”: overborrowing from the Chinese, being dependent on the Chinese for financing and having to sell assets to repay the debts.

He said more entrepreneurs should be encouraged to improve economies on the continent.

“If partner countries are deeply in debt, it interferes with everyone’s efforts to enter the market,” the Japanese prime minister was quoted as saying.

 

 

 

 

Line between living beyond one’s means and being mean is very thin

Argie president Mauricio Macri’s plan to delay payments on more than U$101bn of debt, is a de facto default.

Todd Martinez, director of sovereign ratings at Fitch debt agency, had earlier told the BBC’s Today programme that Argentina had three options to repay what it owes – most of which is in US dollars – and none of them “looks very viable”.

“It comes down to a simple equation,” he said. “Argentina can either (sic) dip into its savings, borrow new money or achieve a budget surplus.

True of a country, true of an individual. Over-borrowing and over-spending have consequences. Btw, a Hard Truth of the PAP is be prudent. Problem is this leads to the vice of being over-prudent and leads to meanness. Think PAP: Will PM, tonite, give peace of mind on CPF Life Standard?

But to be fair to the PAP: Reason why CPF Life so mean?

Vote wisely.

Why is China flooding S’pore with its “GPS” devices?

The Chinese version of the Global Positioning System, better known as GPS, has overtaken the US original round the world. But kook at the number it has here: why?

Is it because unlike GPS, which only sends signals and cannot identify the location of receivers, BeiDou’s communications with the ground are two-way?

The Chinese version of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has overtaken GPS and the Nikkei Asian Review says

The growth of BeiDou has profound implications and is raising alarm in the US national security establishment. Unlike GPS, which only sends signals and cannot identify the location of receivers, BeiDou’s communications with the ground are two-way. According to Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation, the Chinese satellites can jam signals in specific areas and raise capabilities in cyber attacks.

S’poreans should be asking why the PAP govt is allowing this probable threat to national security. Don’t believe me? Mamaland and Japan, both rivals of China, also got a lot of these devices?

But maybe it all has to do with the use of Chinese-made smartphone handsets?

What do you think?

Related posts on how cock is our cyber security:

Is Computer Security Agency CEO talking thru his ass about stolen info?

Memo to Paper General heading Computer Security Agency

MAS gives finger to CSA’s CEO

Infocomm Dysfunctional Authority

Cybersecurity: “Ownself hack ownself”

Why ang moh, Asean telcos love Huawei

And govt wants to encourage fintech?/ PAP is never wrong

 

Why Oppo cock to think that HDB issues will affect the vote

In Christmas, CNY coming early thanks to PAP, I pointed out that the loss of value for resale flats and the older flats has yet to be addressed by the PAP govt. And that there are S’poreans that are unhappy.

But all the KPKBing by cybernuts like Goh Meng Seng (If he still thinks HK better place to bring up his family, how come he so quiet nowadays and btw, I hear his daughter is studying here despite him saying that HK’s education system is better), and Lim Tean (He rents a S$15,000 black and white bungalow from the PAP govt) to stir more unhappiness and discontent, S’poreans are not fooled by their BS.

Our public housing policies mean that public housing is cheap, compared to other major cities, not juz “affordable”.

This table puts into context the issues of

— Falling resale prices causing a problem for the PAP with those who bot resale flats: Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP and Will this resale flat buyer vote for PAP in next GE?

— 99-year leases: Why 30-year old HDB flats difficult to sell/ Why PAP rule will end in 2029 and Older HDB flats: How much value is lost in under 2 yrs

Christmas, CNY coming early thanks to PAP

Things could be better, a lot better. But 60-70% of voters think (thanks   that housing would be be like in HK, if not for the PAP govt. And while taz not the real pix, they are not that wrong.

Look at our private housing, it’s expensive:

Buying homes the billionaire way: two luxury homes are better than one

Why S$73.8m flat is a steal

Why S’pore is so shiok for private property investors

And even in private property there are govt controls

Ang moh’s great insight on property mkt

PAP whacks greedy pigs

So when will the PAP start worrying about the problem of older flats? Read Why PAP rule will end in 2029.

Indonesian riots prove minister’s point on zero tolerance of racist remarks?

If a racist rap video was allowed to remain online, it could normalise offensive speech and such attacks against other races could become mainstream, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam.

Speaking at the CNM Leaders Summit organised by the National University of Singapore’s Department of Communications and New Media on Thursday (Aug 22), Mr Shanmugam expanded on why the Government acted to remove the rap video by YouTuber Preetipls and her brother Subhas Nair, which came in response to a controversial “brownface” advertisement.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/preetipls-subhas-nair-rap-video-normalised-offensive-speech-11834928

Constructive, nation-building CNA

Well the following article from the BBC about violent protests in West Papua province is evidence that he isn’t talking cock about the probability of violence when there’s official tolerance of racist language. Racist taunts aimed at a group of students from West Papua in Java have sparked violent protests in Indonesia’s West Papua.

What happened in Java last weekend

The groundswell of anger that has fuelled the latest demonstrators was sparked by an incident in the Javanese city of Surabaya at the weekend.

After accusing Papuan university students of damaging an Indonesian flag during Independence Day celebrations, nationalist groups surrounded their boarding house and goaded them with racist taunts, calling them “monkeys”, “pigs” and “dogs”.

Police in riot gear then stormed the dormitory to force the students out. Authorities said the students were briefly questioned before being set free.

This resulted in violent protests in West Papua

The area’s largest protests in years saw numerous buildings torched – including a jail and a market – and resulted in the Indonesian government deploying thousands of additional security officers to an area which is already the country’s most heavily militarised.

The internet has also been shut down to “restore security”, according to the Indonesian government.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49434277

But it’s more than racist taunts. Papuan students in Java, told BBC Indonesian they are often made to feel like second-class citizens.

“I have been turned away from student boarding houses and told that they will not receive boarders who are Papuan students,” said Benfa, a Papua student in Yogyakarta.

“We face discrimination and racism daily,” Aris Yeimo, from the Papuan student union, added.

Coming back to the spark that started the riots (the racial taunts),  a few Indonesian politicians are showing some sensitivity. The governor of East Java province apologised for the racism in Surabaya, and President Joko Widodo announced plans to visit Papua. But better not to have allowed the taunts in the first place?

Related post:

Brownfacegate: Did you know Shanmugam also said this?

Typical Chinese reaction to “brownface” ad/ Cina also can get upset

Brownfacegate: The inside story?

Christmas, CNY coming early thanks to PAP

HDB sales exercise pushed to September so buyers can benefit from upcoming changes: Lawrence Wong

CNA headline

Mr Wong said that his ministry and HDB have been reviewing how to extend further support to first-timers buying new and resale flats. He will announce the details in September. adding, “We are constantly looking at ways to help young families set up their first homes,” wrote the minister.

The HDB sales exercise is expected to offer about 3,300 flats in Punggol and Tampines.

And to make sure that everyone who has recently bot or is applying for an HDB flat that they owe the PAP one, he reminded S’poreans of

measures which have been introduced in the past years, such as the increase of housing grants for resale flats*, offering flats with shorter waiting times, as well as the flexibility given for students and national servicemen to defer income assessment for housing grants and loans.

“These changes have improved housing affordability and helped young families to secure their own homes earlier,” he added.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/hdb-bto-august-sales-exercise-pushed-september-lawrence-wong-11827238

Notice the two elephants in the room that are dancing on his shoulders, he isn’t mentioning?

— Falling resale prices causing a problem for the PAP with those who bot resale flats: Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP and Will this resale flat buyer vote for PAP in next GE?

— 99-year leases: Why 30-year old HDB flats difficult to sell/ Why PAP rule will end in 2029 and Older HDB flats: How much value is lost in under 2 yrs

If u read this far, suggest u might want read

— The real truths about public housing  my summary of piece by “Tan Jin Meng, a postgraduate from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He has an interest in social policy and economics.”.

— Exposed: Flaws in PM’s HDB spin

Vote wisely. My prediction last yr: Akan datang: GE in late 2019

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*Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP

 

Heathcare: PAP thinks its no longer a vote losing issue?

Taz the impression I get after PM didn’t seem to talk about healthcare (Am I right? Speeches like his make me brain dead after five minutes: now his pa could keep me interested) during his National Day Rally speech.

Maybe because he thinks, S’pore is not a bad spot to be in, despite concerns about old age healthcare (https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singaporeans-unprepared-on-rising-medical-costs-of-living-to-100-healthcare-survey-072434720.html) if one looks at medical inflation. But look at Korea, Taiwan and HK (But then the first two are democracies while HK is full of forceful and vocal people* albeit sometimes violent except when it comes to housing. They seem resigned to their expensive, rat holes.)

Seriously, he and PAP must think that the following measures have detoxified the issue

Pioneer Generation benefits: Are you better off now than you were in 2011?

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

Reasons why our healthcare should be better, a lot better:

Access:

Access to healthcare here: Below average

Controlling costs:

Healthcare: user fees drives up costs

See who’s telling govt to control healthcare costs/ What we be should be KPKBing about

Cost of medicine could be cheaper:

Healthcare: Who is subsidising whom?

But we ain’t as bad as anti-PAP cybernuts make it out to be:

Foreigner praises S’pore’s healthcare

Healthcare: France 1st, S’pore 2nd

Pioneer Generation benefits: Are you better off now than you were in 2011?

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

Finally, great idea to improve the system, while collecting more money: Healthcare: Gd lateral thinking in UK

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* “Tell everyone that we Hong Kong people are patient!We will get what we want, ”, shouted a protester at a 1.7m strong peaceful rally on Sunday at Victoria Park.

 

Long-term planning? What long-term planning? S’pore behind the curve in digital world

Recently Kee Chui Chan repeated the chant that the PAP govt pursues long-term economic strategies based on long term planning that would not be possible if S’pore were not a one-party state: Answering the PAP’s cock & bull about the “long term”.

Well here’s two examples where long-term planning didn’t help us keep up with London and Russia in the digital game. And we want to be a global smart city?

London is the test-bed for surveillance technology outside China. In operations across London, police have scanned everyone walking down the street using facial recognition systems. They don’t have to tell you what they are up to. They can stop you if you try to hide your face from the cameras. But then maybe S’pore has this stuff but the constructive nation-building media and alt media not telling us about it. Well since one TOC, the premier alt media publication, says

Our aim is to examine the issues that matter, or should matter, to Singaporeans and to reflect the diversity of life, of ideas and opinions, that is Singapore

has writers based in India writing about S’pore (Trying to stir discontent with the PAP govt?), what can one expect from alt media?

(Btw, why are Kirsten Han and friends not criticising the PAP govt for not being like the UK in the use of surveillance technology? They always telling us to ape ang mohs because ang moh tua kee.

Next, Russian tax authorities receive the receipt for every transaction across the nation’s 17m square kilometres within 90 seconds. This high-tech system could become a world standard, amid concerns that it will be a tool for “Big Brother and an oppressive state”.

But maybe the PAP govt is really squeamish about the misuse of digital tech. Note The Age of Surveillance Capitalism attacks Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others for extracting our personal data and turning it to profitable ends, preying on behavioural weaknesses.

Use foreigners to breed for S’pore

Further to Want S’poreans to have more babies?, here’s a constructive, nation-building suggestion for the PAP govt to implement. If as Kee Chiu recently said, there’s long term planning by the PAP govt, there would be no need for my constructive, nation-building suggestions on how to get s’porean wimmin to breed like rabbits: Answering the PAP’s cock & bull about the “long term”.

Rent foreign wombs for S’porean couples where the female partner doesn’t want to go thru the inconvenience and pain of pregnancy. Just pay foreigners to be surrogate mothers. If we can pay for foreigners to study here (S$130m a yr), why not pay for them to breed for us? TOC can’t KPKB because it pays Indians in India to write on S’pore: TOC: A lot of bull. At least FTs work here and pay GST and other taxes. Terry’s team work overseas. And TOC and its cybernut readers criticise the PAP govt for allowing in FTs?

The tot of using foreigners to be surrogates struck me when I read:

Until a few years ago, India was known globally as a hub for commercial surrogacy. Childless couples and individuals from India and abroad were ready to pay good money to have a child, and poor women were available to rent their wombs. Thousands of infertility clinics sprung up all over India to facilitate the multi-million-dollar industry. But the government has been cracking down on this practice. In 2015, foreigners were banned from seeking commercial surrogacy in India, and now a bill is in the parliament aiming to ban the practice completely, including for Indian citizens.

Proponents of the ban say that the industry flourishes at the cost of financial and medical exploitation of the surrogates, and that commercial surrogacy poses serious questions around medical ethics. The government is pushing for altruistic surrogacy instead, which offers no financial compensation, comes under certain conditions, and excludes single parents and homosexual couples. On the other hand, supporters of the rent-a-womb industry, insist that surrogates are treated fairly, and it is a win-win situation for both surrogates and childless people seeking an alternative.

Extract from BBC

Watch the video: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cmj34zmwmy4t/surrogacy

 

 

Brownfacegate: Did you know Shanmugam also said this?

In cyberspace, and in particular anti-PAP sites where cybernuts infest, urinate and defecate, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam’s comments on the video up-loaded by local YouTuber and comedian Preeti Nair (known as Preetipls) and her brother, rapper Subhas Nair, have been given a lot of publicity and scorn. The Nairs were superheroes, the cheering cybernuts said.

The video was said by the Nairs to be their response to an ad for a NETS E-Pay campaign tot by many to have committed the offence of “brownface”: a Chinese guy dressed up to be caricatures of the four major racial groupings. (Read this about how S’poreans got divided into four racial groupings: “Malay race” created by ang mohs, not the Malays)

He was quoted as saying, “When you use four-letter words, vulgar language, attack another race, put it out in public, we have to draw the line and say not acceptable.”

And “This rap video insults Chinese Singaporeans, uses four-letter words on Chinese Singaporeans, vulgar gestures, pointing of middle finger, to make minorities angry with Chinese Singaporeans.” (Btw, wow treating us Chinese the way he treated Christians, protecting our sensitivities: in Religious equality, the PAP way, I said Minister Shan treated equally offended Christians as the equals of easily offended Muslims by banning Watain from performing, here he treated us Chinese as being as sensitive as ethnic Indians. Fair chap, this minister.)

Seriously, he also said

Let’s say a Chinese now does a video attacking Indians, Malays using four-letter words, vulgar gestures, same kind of videos,” he told Channel News Asia. “And let’s say there are hundreds of thousands of such videos. How do you think the Indians and the Malays will feel? Would people feel safe? Would the minorities feel safe?

No alt media publication seems to report this. But to fair to alt media, the constructive, nation-building media (that alt media copies and paste from) don’t give much prominence to these remarks.

He has a very valid point about the possibility of Chinese attacking Malays and Indians verbally, hurting their feelings: or worse if they physically attacked them. Doubtless there will calls to protect them, and I’m sure anti-PAP sites like TOC (with writers based in India, not S’pore because of the cost here: TOC: A lot of bull) will say that the PAP govt is not protecting minorities.

Fyi, I have no problems with the ad or the video. Live and let live, I always say. And I’ve lived as part an insignificant minority in London, Sydney and Melbourne: those were the days when Red China didn’t allow its people out. Life was really good as a Chinese in ang moh places. Us Chinese were considered to be model members of polite society, those Hongkies and spit on pavements who cut queues excepted.

How the establishment view the ad, video and Shan’s comments: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/preetipls-ministers-religious-leaders-rap-video-brownface-ad-11766998?cid=h3_referral_inarticlelinks_24082018_cna

How s/o JBJ views the ad, video and Shan’s comments : https://kenjeyaretnam.com/2019/08/01/we-need-to-talk-about-race/

How the BBC views the ad, video and Shan’s comments   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49205225. And in case you don’t read thru to end, I’ll post the concluding paragraphs:

The country is no stranger to satire, but the liberal use of swear words in K. Muthusamy, and its sharp, direct and caustic tone in discussing racial discrimination, is unusual and would be considered shocking to mainstream Singapore.

But a small and growing number of Singaporeans – many of them young, voracious consumers of online content that has a similar tone to the video – see nothing wrong with it.

This is a group that yearns for a franker and bolder conversation about race, and is frustrated with the careful tones of the discourse in the tightly-controlled local media. They are not content with how mainstream society and the government get to impose a certain definition of racism, and rules on how Singapore should discuss race.

The decision to censor the video and investigate Preetipls and Subhas, coupled with a perception that those who came up with the “brownface” advertisement got off lightly, may only stoke that frustration.

Related post: Indian lady takes issue with charge that Nets ad was “brownface”

Creative thinking at URA

From selling books online to publishing local literature, Epigram’s latest venture is the Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop located in the URA Building at 45 Maxwell Road.

Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop, with its 11-metre long bookshelf, is so laid-back and cool, you’ll feel super cool just being there.

https://www.littledayout.com/2019/06/23/huggs-epigram-coffee-bookshop-hold-singapore-in-your-hands/?fbclid=IwAR14l4NC4R7KErbWJNRZhxbtQeuDK9a-MIiiih3YfL219edAjRxlnLnrk3g

There’s an interesting backstory to Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop.

Edmund Wee (Quiet activist looking at his bank statement and smiling and Sci-fi can help defeat the PAP?), the publisher of Epigram Books almost persuaded senior URA managers to lease him space at the URA building for a bookshop selling books published here or on S’pore at a rent he could afford i.e. below commercial rates: book shops here are struggling because of the rent.

But fear of the cybernuts’ hero (AGO’s report: “Ownself can check ownself”), the Auditor-General made them hesitate. they didn’t want the anti-PAP cybernuts accusing them of corruption and favouritism and quoting the AGO’s comments against them.

But someone from URA (Must be RI boy or MGS gal) had a brilliant idea: rent the space to an upmarket coffee shop at market rates, on condition that the coffee shop subleases part of the place to Epigram. The end result of talks between Huggs and Epigram is Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop.

The picture in the first link shows how the books and coffee tables shared the small space. Even Queen Jos to would have problems having sex here.

PAP cabinet at work?

At GM, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is go hire a consultant on snakes. Then you get a committee on snakes, and then you discuss it for a couple of years. The most likely course of action is — nothing. You figure, the snake hasn’t bitten anybody yet, so you just let him crawl around on the factory floor. We need to build an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it.

Ross Perot who died recently. He was a billionaire (computer services), GM director, and US presidential candidate. He failed to be president but his agenda of balancing budget and cutting welfare, was taken up by Bill Clinton who won.

Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng

Heng’s recent comments on the need of GST to rise by 2 points soon despite a weakening economy (Btw, How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote), his earlier comments that we must have FT’s by the cattle-truck load (OK population of 10m) and so on show that die-die he must defend all the actions of the previous PAP govts.

He cannot blame predecessors for cock-ups because “PAP is always right, PAP never wrong”. This is said about Xi but applies to Heng and other 4G, 3G and even 2G PAP leaders and ministers (Emphasis mine):

Not only might the horizons of the leaders of the Chinese Communist party on matters of jobs and economic growth be just as short as those of democratic politicians, their choices may be more circumscribed. A democratic leader can blame a sequence of errors by previous administrations for the current parlous state of the stock market and the economy. Mr Trump can (and does) blame his predecessors for negotiating bad trade deals …

By contrast, even though Mr Xi inherited an over-leveraged economy, he cannot blame his predecessors for the difficult hand he was dealt or for the current slowdown. They too were from the party, and if the party is fallible, does it not follow that people should have the right to vote for a different regime?

He has to maintain the fiction that the party has always made the best decision under the circumstances. That means the Chinese administration has to rescue the stock market if it tanks, and flood the economy with stimulus if growth slows significantly. In fact, it has very short horizons when reacting to potentially adverse economic developments. Chinese investors, confident that the government will bail them out if too many fail, pile in to risky assets without adequate diligence or fear, preventing Chinese markets from allocating capital appropriately.

Raghuram Rajan, author of ‘The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind’

Mr Rajan was head of India’s central bank and was also a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

That is why no 4G minister can blame the 2G and 3G leadership for cock-ups they inherited and got to solve: Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh’s retired. Think the HDB lease issue

Will resale flat owners still vote for PAP in next GE? contd

Exposed: Flaws in PM’s HDB spin

The real truths about public housing

Why 30-year old HDB flats difficult to sell/ Why PAP rule will end in 2029

And why changes in policy take so long and the explanations for change so convoluted: example welfare for us oldies, Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do, and minor changes in education, No more streaming? Really? What a load of BS.

Here’s another reason why Lee, Heng and other PAP millionaire ministers always blame world economic conditions, never their policies:

Mr Xi’s tight control over policy also makes it hard to diffuse blame. He must defend his own departure from his predecessor Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that to prosper, China should hide its capabilities and bide its time. From his early days in power, Mr Xi asserted that “the Chinese nation has gone from standing up, to becoming rich, to becoming strong”. Some argue his actions have been tantamount to waving a red rag at the Americans, and are directly responsible for today’s trade imbroglio. To quell criticism that he has dragged China’s growth down by challenging the US geopolitically too soon, Mr Xi needs a positive resolution to the conflict.

(Rajan)

 

PAP really makes case for banning tobacco and alcohol

Our Pet Minister* (The PAP sees voters who own pets as an important constituency*) likes to draw attention to the scientific literature that show that cannabis and other drugs are harmful, as the reason not to decriminalise them.

Well there is plenty of evidence that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful.

So why PAP no ban them?

Ang moh tua kee at work (West’s ‘human rights superiority complex’)? Our colonial masters didn’t ban alcohol and tobacco but banned these drugs, so their PAP running dogs followed blindly isit?

Fyi

[A] report published today by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent group of 26 former presidents and other bigwigs. They conclude that, as far as the scientific evidence is concerned, current drug laws have no rhyme or reason to them. The commission blames the UN’s drug classification system, which sorts some 300 psychoactive substances into “schedules” according to their harms and benefits. Some, such as morphine, have medical uses. Others, such as psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), are used mostly recreationally. Drugs without any apparent medical utility are automatically placed in the most dangerous category—and subjected to the strictest criminal penalties—regardless of the risk they pose.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-the-most-dangerous-drug

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*He and his side kick Louis Ng (PAP MP still sore at childhood failure?) got more power then the ministers responsible for Malays, Indians and Eurasians combined. Says something about the power and influence that pets who really own their so-called masters have in S’pore. Minorities can only envy these dogs and cats.

Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options

Winter is here and the White Walkers are expected to land at Changi Int’l or the port any time soon.

S’pore’s recent gloomy economic data

— Electronics exports, a major driver of Singapore’s growth over the past two years, saw their biggest decline in more than a decade, hit by a global downturn in the semiconductor industry, data showed last week.

— Overall exports in May declined the most in more than three years as shipments to China slumped.

— The number of retrenchments rose 40% in the first quarter of 2019 from a year ago, driven by cuts in the manufacturing sector, according to official data released this month.

The authorities have to act if there’s going to be a GE this yr. Problem is that there are no good options.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore closely tracks data and there is a growing chance it may ease its currency-focused monetary policy for the first time in nearly three years.

Some say the central bank could even ease outside of its bi-annual meeting schedule as it did in January 2015 when it sought to counter deflationary pressures amid slowing growth.

But a more accommodative stance won’t be enough to reinvigorate the economy, said CIMB Private Banking economist, Mr Song Seng Wun, as a weaker Singapore dollar will not necessarily push up exports.

“Singapore businesses won’t suddenly become so competitive that we are going to be selling a lot more of our goods and services,” he said.

The finance ministry also has limited space to help given already-low tax rates, along with numerous incentives and cost offsets and an expansionary budget this year.

…

Further stimulus could come in the form of tax cuts and more rebates but factory operators aren’t waiting for the government to come to their rescue.

Reuters

Reuters also reported Mr Sam Chee Wah, general manager at Feinmetall Singapore, whose products are used for testing semiconductor wafers, as saying

[H]e’s been bracing for a tech slowdown since last year – holding back hiring and major capital investments. He’s now considering offering discounts or delayed payment terms to customers.

With US-China hostilities showing no signs of abating, Singapore will have to weather the storm for some time to come.

We are not out of the woods yet,” said Ms Sian Fenner, lead economist at Oxford Economics. “We haven’t seen the worst.”:

— Winter is here, how big will the anti-PAP vote be?

— S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP?

How 4G leaders going to get 65% of the popular vote( the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate)?

Remember

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

And there’s the promised 2 percentage points GST rise coming possibly, when the economy’s in a recession. This when the PAP govt has huge budget surpluses.

Next week, will forecast what the PAP govt will do.

 

 

S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP?

In Europe once upon a time, every team of coal miners going underground carried a caged canary. If the canary died, they got out ASAP because it meant that there there were poisonous gases that could kill them.

S’pore is the world’s canary when it comes to trade. We suffer earlier than other countries or cities when there’s a global trade slowdown.

As the FT reports,

A trade canary sings — Singapore’s non-oil exports recorded their third consecutive double-digit fall in May, with electronics shipments falling 31.4 per cent (the largest decrease since late 2008) after a 16.3 per cent drop in April.

Marc Ostwald at ADM says the slide in electronics exports sends a “dire signal” as it represents “a generally very reliable proxy for the semiconductor and telecoms sectors worldwide”.

Oxford Economics note that their “coincident and leading global trade indicators are continuing to trend downwards, and the latter has fallen to its lowest level since 2009”.

“While this does not mean that a global recession is around the corner, it suggests that global growth will remain sluggish in the near term and that export-orientated economies will continue to struggle.”

Heng has to do better than talking about cock about natural aristocrats (PAP ministers) partnering us plebs to make S’pore a better place. His 4G team needs 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

What are the headwinds other than a lousy economy going into a GE

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

And there’s the promised 2 percentage points GST rise .coming possibly, when the economy’s in a recession. This when the PAP govt has huge budget surpluses.

But the PAP has a good vote bank because Why S’poreans continue voting for the PAP to have 2/3 of parly seats;  PAP genius at work and Why grumbling about PAP govt, doesn’t mean S’poreans are disaffected and rooting for change.

Where the PAP votes are coming from

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP (But balanced off by above 34,000+ retail investors in Hyflux who could lose 90% of their investments)

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

Why Milliennals will vote for the PAP

Merdeka Package shows how smart scholars are

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

CPFLife: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

TOC’s “Correspondent” shows that PAP govt really cares for S’poreans

Vaping: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

Groceries: PAP cares for u, really they do

CPF interest rates: PAP govt cares for u, they really do

Oh I nearly forgot, civil servants especially the plebs are getting ang pows.

 

 

CPF interest rates: PAP govt cares for u, they really do

The US 10-year real yield — a barometer of future growth expectations for the economy — has dropped below 0.4 per cent, eyeing its September 2017 nadir of 0.25 per cent.

FT a few days ago

CPFers get a better deal from the PAP govt.

Our inflation rate is about 1.37%.

But

Savings in the Special Account earn a guaranteed 4% while savings in the Ordinary Account only earn a guaranteed 2.5%. The lower interest rate offered by OA is due to its wider usage. For instance, funds in OA are allowed to be utilised to fund child’s tertiary education as well as CPF member’s property purchase. Such uses of the CPF funds are not applicable to the Special Account and a higher interest rate is therefore provided to compensate for its restricted use.

How to Optimise Singapore CPF: Ordinary Account into Special Account

2.5 – 1.37 = 1.13. 1.13 is the real return assuming that the CPF interest rate is only 2.5%. and we know it’s higher, don’t we?

And taz not all. Read, the bits I bolded

The interest rate on Ordinary Account (OA) monies is reviewed quarterly. OA monies earn either the legislated minimum interest of 2.5% per annum, or the 3-month average of major local banks’ interest rates, whichever is higher.

The OA interest rate will be maintained at 2.5% per annum from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019, as the computed rate of 0.60% is lower than the legislated minimum interest rate.

And​

The interest rate on Special and MediSave Account (SMA) monies is reviewed quarterly. SMA monies earn either the current floor interest rate of 4% per annum or the 12-month average yield of 10-year Singapore Government Securities (10YSGS) plus 1%, whichever is higher. In view of the continuing low interest rate environment, the Government has decided to further extend the 4% floor rate for interest earned on all SMA monies for another year until 31 December 2019.

Consequently, the SMA interest rate will be maintained at 4% per annum from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019, as the computed rate of 3.37% is lower than the current floor interest rate of 4% per annum.

And

The interest rate on Retirement Account (RA) monies is reviewed annually. RA monies credited each year will be invested in newly-issued Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) which will earn a fixed coupon rate equal to either the 12-month average yield of the 10YSGS plus 1% computed for the year, or the current floor rate of 4% per annum, whichever is higher. The interest rate earned by RA monies is the weighted average interest rate of the entire portfolio of these SSGS, which is adjusted in January each year to take into account the coupon rates payable by the new SSGS issuance. In view of the continuing low interest rate environment, the Government has decided to further extend the 4% floor rate for interest earned on the RA for another year until 31 December 2019.

The average yield of the 10YSGS plus 1% from November 2017 to October 2018 is 3.38% per annum. As this is below the current floor rate of 4% per annum, new SSGS issued in the year of 2019 will pay a fixed coupon of 4%.

Consequently, the RA interest rate from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 will be maintained at 4% per annum.

Above from CPF website

Vote wisely.

Related posts (Even an anti-PAP TOC writer appreciates that the PAP govt cares):

CPFLife: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

TOC’s “Correspondent” shows that PAP govt really cares for S’poreans

Vaping: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

Groceries: PAP cares for u, really they do

SingPass sucks, really sucks: Saga continues

I have yet to receive my new one-time password, despite KPKBing last Monday and doing the necessaries: SingPass sucks, really sucks (Cont’d)

But to be really fair, Wednesday was a public holiday, and SingPass promises a response within five working days. If by this evening, I don’t get my password via the post, I go KPKBing tomorrow morning. Doubtless Singpost will be blamed.

Another reason to ban e-scooters

Further to UK got this right, S’pore wrong and LTA: What a lot of bull, another reason to ban e-scooters

Motorised versions of children’s kick scooters are notoriously unsafe. Their silent motors catch pedestrians and other road users unawares. A study by the Portland Bureau of Transportation concluded that e-scooters get into accidents 22 times as often as cars do, and 44 times as often as motorbikes. Another, by the city of Austin, found that one in three users is hurt on their first go. They are also increasingly unwelcome.

https://www.economist.com/business/2019/06/06/electric-scooter-startups-are-becoming-more-cautious

SingPass sucks, really sucks (Cont’d)

Further to SingPass sucks, really sucks (where I explained that I was given an invalid one-time password by SingPass to reset the password of my dormant, unused SingPass account) when I called the SingPass call centre this morning, what I was told had my blood pressure up to 180/100.

I was told that I could not have been given the password I was given because it was all numeric: it should be alpha numeric. I was then told that it would take another 10 days before I could use my SingPass account. Of course, it was explained, I could go down to the Marine Parade SingPass counter and sort the issue out on the spot: which defeats the purpose of a digital nation, doesn’t it?

The Chinese (local or M’sian, I’m not sure) gal could also not answer my question, “What assurance do I have that the single-use password I will given again, is not rubbish: like the one sent to me?”

I demanded to talk to someone more senior. It took 10 minutes before someone dared pick up the phone. The Malay lady who came to my assistance assured me (after receiving my reset request digitally), that there should not be a mistake this time in the password provided (Let’s wait and see) and that by next Monday, I should be able to use SingPass to do stuff (Let’s wait and see). I also found out that one-time password can be all numeric.

Says a lot about quality of staff training, that I was given wrong info.

Morocco Mole (Secret Squirrel’s sidekick) assures me that his second cousin removed working in SingPass tells him that a true-blue anti-PAP cybernut working in IT forgot to ensure that when the password was sent to me that the system would accept it. Has happened before because the cybernut spends almost all his working time reading TOC, TRE and The Idiots, and posting comments on these sites.

 

Older HDB flats: How much value is lost in under 2 yrs

Windbag Tan Kin Lian who lost his deposit in 2011 PE but who helped the PAP’s preferred candidate become president has provided some interesting data on how fast a flat can lose value.

A Miss X, he reports, has a HDB flat in Telok Blangah … with a market valuation price of $322,000 as at Dec 2017. The property agent told her that the market price had dropped as her flat had passed the 40 year mark. Later, the market became worse after Lawrence Wong (Fixing Sabo King minister) announced that HDB flat will have no value at the end of 99 year lease.

Miss X could not sell her Telok Blangah flat within 6 months. She had bot another flat nearer her place of work. But HDB did not press her to sell the flat.

She was finally (In late 2018 or early 2019, we are not told) able to get a buyer willing to pay $292,000. HDB gave a lower valuation of $275,000 for the flat. The buyer opted out.

Worse, an agent she had used) is marketing her neighbours’ flats at around $250,000.

From $322,000 to $250,000 within one and a half yrs: a 23% fall. Vote PAP?

The ground is not sweet for the PAP: Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP and Will resale flat owners still vote for PAP in next GE? contd.

How to get 65% of the popular vote liddat?

Answer: How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote.

Vote wisely.

 

SingPass sucks, really sucks

I ‘ve been making the move to the e-age. I’ve activated or setup e-banking systems (Tot of finally voting for the PAP govt because of the free (so far) same day funds transfer) etc.

As a final step, I decided to reactivate my SingPass. As I had forgotten my password, I applied for and got a new one-time password so that I can reset my password.

Guess what? Earlier this morning, I tried to log in with the SingPass given password. Cannot get in.

I wasted half an hour retrying (maybe my typo mistake or I went to wrong login page). Called call centre and it only works during office hrs.

Got to wait until Monday morning to sort out what went wrong at SingPass’s end. I think someone didn’t change the password.

Li Hongyi got a lot to do before he is PM material. And grandpa and GCT didn’t set the bar very high for Hongyi’s pa did they?

Data protection the PAP way

S’pore has begun a public consultation on proposed changes to its Personal Data Protection Act.

There are also proposed changes to allow a business to use personal data for business innovation purposes without needing consent.

FT quotes Anne Petterd, a principal at Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, a law firm

Data protection? What data protection?

Related post: Welcome to S’pore: Mall BSing on data protection law

LTA: What a lot of bull

With Singapore’s ageing population, roads and paths in residential towns must be updated to reflect the needs of seniors who may have difficulty traversing the streets, LTA said in its report.

To this end, it has committed to complete road safety installations at 50 mature estates, or “Silver Zones”, by 2023.

These safety installations include narrower roads, speed humps and two-stage crossing that allow people to pause safely in the middle of the street crossing.

Today

If the PAP govt were really conerned about the safety of us senior citizens, it should ban electric scooters from pavements. They can kill or injure badly because they are heavy metal “monsters” designed for speed.

They are banned in the UK, France and in Madrid, all first world places.

Related post: UK got this right, S’pore wrong

Religious equality, the PAP way

Yesterday was Vesak Day and this reminded me of the way the PAP govt treats the sensibilities of the various religions: equal treatment of intolerant religious views.

Recently minister Shan gave the lie (in the religious context) to the view that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” 

The Christian preachers, when they talk to me, say ‘you are very, very strict when it comes to anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic messages…They said: ‘You treat the Muslim community differently than the Christian community.’

Minister Shanmugam

True, very true in my opinion. I had always tot that easily offended Muslims found it very easy to obtain satisfaction from the PAP govt compared to easily offended Christians. (Declaration of interest: I was once upon a time a very liberal Methodist. Didn’t believe that God created the world in seven days; didn’t believe that bible is the only record of what God says; tot that it didn’t matter if Christ never rose from the dead; and relaxed about LGBTs and divorce etc.)

So what did this PAP minister do after hearing out the Christian preachers?

I looked at it and I thought that there is some truth to what they say, I won’t say that it is completely true but it is an approach.

Result Watain’s performance was banned, upsetting its Malay fans.

“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.”

Watain ban: playing the easily offended game can backfire

He’s being very fair in trying to ensure that all easily offended zealots of all religions are not offended, and if as a result of his actions, others are offended, juz too bad. No longer true (if it ever was) that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Remember what George Yeo once infamously said, “Christians are less likely to riot”?

But what this even handed illiberal attitude does to S’pore’s aspiration to be a global city on par with London and NY?

As intolerant as M’sian Talibanites? Uniquely S’porean solution

S377A: Ex-ST tua kee thinks Christians won’t harm him?

 

PAP govt one up up on repressive central Asian republic?

In S’pore, a few years ago, a person was arrested for holding a mirror. So did someone from Kazakhstan study our laws and decide to imitate us?

The Kazakh police took a young activist into custody after he decided to test whether he could get away with standing in the street holding a placard with no writing on it.

Aslan Sagutdinov took the placard to the central Abay Square of his native city of Oral in the west of the country, and held it up opposite the central council offices.

The video blogger took the precaution of having a colleague capture the whole thing on film, which the local Uralskaya Nedelya news site embedded in its report.

“I’m not taking part in a protest, and I want to show that they’ll still take me down the police station, even though there’s nothing written on my placard and I’m not shouting any slogans,” the 24-year-old told reporters who’d turned up to see what happened.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48187353

Here is what I wrote in 2017 about the guy carrying a mirror who was arrested.

Seelan Palay: Sylvia Lim was right

Here I made fun of Seelan Palay’s latest attempt to test the OB markers: he crossed a red line after the police tried very hard not to arrest him, but he persisted, “After several failed attempts by the Police to persuade Seelan to leave the area, he was arrested by the Police at 3.20pm.” (TOC report)

Two years ago I wrote about how one person can be arrested for an illegal assembly

Jogging alone can be illegal?

If wearing the wrong tee-shirt or singlet?

Try walkng or jogging alone* wearing a “Free our CPF” singlet: remember that any public assembly of more than one person** needs police permission.

And jogging in a group of two or more”Free our CPF” singlets will be like jogging in groups in Burundi: illegal.

Running is a national pastime in Burundi, with hundreds of people out jogging on weekend mornings. But in March [2014] the authorities banned jogging in groups – unless permission was sought from the authorities. It affects all group sports in the capital, which can now only be played in designated areas.

The restrictions followed the arrest of some opposition members who were out jogging and chanting political slangs. Police officers tried to stop what they regarded as an illegal march and the situation deteriorated into clashes. More than 40 Movement for Solidarity and Democracy (MSD) party members received sentences ranging from five years to life.

Burundi: Where jogging is a crime

Wonder what about wearing a tee shirt with a Oppo party logo, drinking teh tarik as social media celebrities Ravi and Jeannette Chong used to do when they were NSP tua kees.

And what about the crowds assembling to pay their respects to LKY? What about the crowds at the National Museum LKY exhibition?

Seems anything the PAP administration or the SPF doesn’t like can be an illegal assembly.

Related post: PAP uses Lawfare against its opponents?

———‘

*Auntie Sylvia was absolutely right in 2007 and 2009 when she spoke out publicly:

“The change in definition of “assembly” and “procession” is more disturbing. As the Explanatory Statement to the Bill says, these words are no longer restricted to gatherings of 5 persons or more. This means even ONE person alone can constitute illegal assembly, thus giving the State complete control over an individual citizen’s freedoms.

‘First, to say that 1 person constitutes an assembly is certainly an abuse of the word. Secondly, is the government making the change because there had been incidents involving less than 5 persons which had disrupted public life? Unless there is compelling evidence to prove to us that expanding the definition of assembly and procession is needed, this expansion does not deserve our support,”  Sylvia Lim in parly in 2009.

Earlier, in 2007, she had said:

“This refers to clauses 29 and 30 of the Bill. By clause 29 of the Bill, we are removing the heading “Offences Against Public Tranquility” and replacing it with “Offences relating to Unlawful Assembly”. By Clause 30, we will be deleting “mischief or trespass or other offence” and replacing it with “to commit any offence”.

S 141 has been amended to bring it in line with a recent Court of Appeal case: PP v Tan Meng Khin [1995] 2 SLR 505. Now, an assembly will be unlawful if people intend to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment of 6 mths or more, even if it is peaceful and does not disturb public tranquillity. Under our law, a person who organizes a procession or assembly after the police rejection of a permit can be punished with max 6 months jail under the Miscellaneous Offences Act. Hence 5 or more people who gather to do so will become members of an unlawful assembly.

As our society continues to evolve, the time is surely ripe for us to allow peaceful outdoor protests as a form of expression. By all means, we can have rules about how, where and when such processions may be held, but wider law reform is needed. S 141 should be restricted to offences which threaten the public peace, and other laws such as the Miscellaneous Offences Act which require permits for peaceful assemblies should be modified.”

**Two men between the ages of 24 and 25 were arrested by police outside the Istana on Saturday afternoon (Apr 4).

Police said the duo had turned up in front of the Istana with placards at about 4pm. Channel NewsAsia understands that the men were holding signs that read “You can’t silence the people” and “Injustice” for about half an hour. They were clad in identical red hoodies and dark blue jeans.

Police also said both of them had refused to stop the activity despite requests from officers. As such, they were arrested for organising a public assembly without a permit, under Section 16(1)(a) of the Public Order Act, Chapter 257A.

Seelan Palay: Sylvia Lim was right

And there’s this more recent event: Jolovan’s latest problem shows Sylvia Lim’s and my prescience

“There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech”

Did Minister Shan say this?

No. But he could have and still may soon. Or some other minister may say it, if Shan is taking a break, because this is the philosophy behind the new law. Ministers can publish corrections alongside claims about public institutions that it deems false. Those who publish false statements with “malicious intent” face criminal sanctions, including fines of up to S$1m and jail sentences of up to 10 years.

Don’t believe me? The law differs from laws against the spread of misinformation in other jurisdictions, which typically focus on taking down problematic content from online platforms.

Still don’t believe me? Read The one-party state and fake news where I quoted from Fake news law: Ownself judge ownself

The problem about lies or “fake news” is who gets to decide what is or is not a lie or “fake news”.

In liberal democracies, even the president of the US cannot get his view of what is or is not a lie or “fake news” accepted by even a majority of the voters. There’s some sort of consensus (“conventional wisdom”) driven (manipulated?) by the elites and media about what is or is not a lie or “fake news” in which facts often play an important part.

In a one-party state (de facto or de jure) the ruling party decides what is or is not a lie or “fake news”

— Keeping power in a one-party state

— Would this happen in a one-party state?

— Coldstore: Why Harry’s narrative or the highway

The planned tackling of “fake news” is a smokescreen for muzzling further netizens, not juz cybernuts. The internet and social media has made it a lot easier for S’poreans to share facts, ideas, and criticisms of the way we are governed by the PAP.

— Minister wants his cake and eat it/ PAP doesn’t get the Internet

— Ingratitude, uniquely S’porean? Blame the internet? Not really

— Us Netizens: Comancherios of the Internet?

This freedom (relative) to share facts, ideas, and criticisms of the way we are governed by the PAP worries the PAP (juz like the CCP worries about the internet and social media in China), hence the plan to further muzzle the internet and social media.

And then read

Why the PAP is really afraid of Facebook?:

The PAP is trying to intimidate Facebook not really because of fake news but because Facebook can be used to turn sheep into wolves.

Other relevant posts

Silencing fake news and inconvenient voices: two sides of the same coin

Fighting fake news while raising revenue

What is “news”?/ “Fake news” is not “fake” says Harvard expert

Btw,

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

was said by Idi Amin

a Ugandan president best known for his brutal regime and crimes against humanity while in power from 1971-1979.

Idi Amin – Facts, Life & Uganda – Biography – Famous Biographies

https://www.biography.com/people/idi-amin-9183487

Social mobility depends on structure of economy not education

When I read the following excerpts from the FT’s chief economics columnist, Martin Wolf, I couldn’t help but think about the so called abolition of streaming and other attempts to make good education less exclusive  (Examples: Lower- and middle-income students at independent schools to receive more financial aid: Ong Ye Kung and “abolition” of streaming for the plebs.

---

My take on our education system

No more streaming? Really? What a load of BS: It’s only for the plebs not gd enough for RI, MGS, St Nick and other so-called elite schools.

Don’t blame kiasu parents, blame PAP govt

Hard truths about elite schools

Doublespeak on “Every school a good school”

Minister Ong wants a camel?

Akan datang says minister: Non-grad minister

——————-

Martin Wolf:

The chief determinant of social mobility [the writer had earlier used UK data to show the relationship of the UK economy to social mobility], then, is the class structure of the economy and its rate of change.

…

Education has only second-order effects on mobility. It influences, but does not determine, the structure of the economy: that is why graduate unemployment is quite common across the world. It is, in fact, more of a positional good: relative education matters. While some from working-class backgrounds will get more of this good, professional parents will always help their offspring to outcompete them.

In sum, if we really care about social mobility, it is on the economy that we should focus most of our attention.

 

Fake news?

A proposed law against fake news narrows, not widens, the Government’s powers, the Ministry of Law said on Thursday (May 2).

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/online-falsehoods-bill-pofma-fake-news-narrows-government-powers-11496172

The article goes on

The Law Ministry’s Ms Teo reiterated the point …. that that the powers to be given to the Government under the Bill, and the public interest grounds on which the Government can exercise its powers, “are actually narrower than the Government’s existing powers”.

“In key areas, the Bill narrows, rather than extends, the Government’s powers,” she said in the letter that was also provided to CNA and published in the Straits Times.

But as has been pointed out by the public

[The] proposed law is also broad and vague in how it can and will be implemented. Clarifications and amendments are needed to make it more focused on its real purpose.

FB post

And

But more clarifications and more amendments might mean more restrictions which the G is not willing to impose on itself.

If and how the G reacts to criticism will be very telling on where its comfort zone is.

Another FB post

Related posts:

The one-party state and fake news

Why the PAP is really afraid of Facebook?

Silencing fake news and inconvenient voices: two sides of the same coin

Fighting fake news while raising revenue

What is “news”?/ “Fake news” is not “fake” says Harvard expert

 

 

Buffett “responds” to our PM presumptive

Heng said last Saturday our time

It is “not a given” that having an opposition party, or having multiple parties, will “result in the best outcome for our society” …

“So the question is this: As our society becomes more diverse, as our people are better educated, better exposed all round the world, how do we harness the energies of everyone in a constructive way and to take Singapore forward? Rather than spend time scoring political points, debating for the sake of debating.”

Buffett said last Saturday at his co’s AGM:

In the end Berkshire should prove itself over time. There are no perpetuities and it needs to deserve to be continued in its present form.”

Since the time GCT and Ah Loong took over, the one-party state leaders have run into one problem after another: asset inflation, MRT breakdowns, immigration etc etc. The younger leaders have not proved themselves. They have been living off the legacies and ideas of the Old Guard.

PAP has lost “output legitimacy”

The PAP govt has lost “output legitimacy”: Discuss

Memo to Paper General heading Computer Security Agency

Even PAP voters don’t trust the PAP to tell the truth

But because there’s some form of Opposition, the PAP govt is forced to spend more of our money on S’poreans (not on foreign investment bankers and other advisers on our reserves) to keep its share of the popular vote above 60%.

Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

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

Imagine if there was no Oppo candidates to vote for? We’d have to eat bitter while our reserves pile up.

Vote wisely. Vote tactically.

 

Why grumbling about PAP govt, doesn’t mean S’poreans are disaffected and rooting for change

The first anniversary of regime change in M’sia is coming. This reminded me how happy the ang moh tua kees and their cybernut allies were last yr, saying that regime change was coming here. PJ Thum even asked Tun to bring change here: PJ Thum cares about S’pore?

The ang moh tua kees and their cybernut allies should have read, “Unpopular Culture: The Ritual of Complaint in a British Bank”, published in 2004, was written by a John Weeks, a US academic.

He spent six years observing NatWest (a UK bank, and since 2000 part of RBS, with retail and commercial operations in England and Wales ), investigating why the staff (from the CEO to the tea-ladies) spent so much time grumbling about it.

Their gentle KPKBing, he found, was a sign of affection for NatWest and of loyalty to each other: they were not unhappy with their employer.

An outsider might have assumed the complaining meant the staff disliked the bank, they did not.

Likewise “outsiders” like Kirsten Han, Mad Dog, PJ Thum, s/o JBJ etc, and their cybernut allies like Ozzie-based “Oxygen” (He fled S’pore yrs ago butcan’t get S’pore off his mind: he still has a CPF account and it’s alleged he uses it to evade Oz taxes) think that S’poreans dislike the PAP govt: when in fact our KPKBing about the PAP govt is a sign of affection for the PAP govt and other S’poreans.  No wonder, our Harry called us affectionately “champion grumblers”.

Related posts showing why ang moh tua kees and cybernuts are not real S’poreans but clueless”outsiders”:

Cluelessness of ang moh tua kees

10- 20% of voters are anti-PAP cybernuts

What the anti-PAP cybernuts have in common with US progressives

Kee Chiu Cybernuts who want to migrate to Bangladesh

 

Meritocracy? What meritocracy? How our PMs are chosen

But first, where Heng and Tharman failed.

Further to  what was reported in London trashes S’pore, London in 2019 is still the king of the offshore renminbi payments market according to the Chinese.

The UK (i.e. London) accounted for 37% of renminbi foreign exchange transactions outside of China in January.In the final quarter of 2018, average daily trading volumes of the Chinese currency in London reached £76.6 billion, up nearly 50% on the same period in 2017, according to a report published on Wednesday by the City of London Corporation and the People’s Bank of China’s Europe Representative Office.

I ask again

Tot PAP govt said we had plans to be a leading off-shore renminbi trading centre.

What went wrong? After all we are already a leading global FX trading centre.

London trashes S’pore

And Heng is DPM and PM presumptive? While ang moh tua kees and some anti-PAP types want Tharman as PM?

Failure is being rewarded?

Thinking about it our PM became PM after failing big time:

Another decade, another restructuring report?

In the 80s, one Lee Hsien Loong as trade and industry minister headed a committee to recommend changes in the economy. In the early noughties when DPM he headed another committee on the same issue.

In 2010, one Tharman and his committee produced the 2010 Economic Strategies Committee (ESC). And now there’s the CFE. It’s a bit early, but then there wasn’t a report in the 90s: so maybe making up for lost time?

If Lee Hsien loong’s 1980s plan was so successful, why keep needing plans every decade? Plan succeeded, but circumstances change said people from constructive, nation-building media like Balji and Bertha then. Really?  Since that plan, new plans that are a copy and paste from the previous one: Economic restructuring: This time, it’s really different.

(And anyway can believe Bertha and Balji, now that they telling us how they helped PAP govt fix JBJ?)

Meritocracy? What meritocracy?

Related articles

Connecting SMRT failures, 4th gen ministers & change of PM (Another Heng cock-up)

Why do we keep getting mediocre ministers?

Why cabinet can’t do bold new ideas

 

PAP genius at work

The middle classes in developed nations are under pressure from stagnant income growth, rising lifestyle costs and unstable jobs, and this risks fuelling political instability, a new report by the OECD has warned.

FT

As we are a “developed” city state, while S’pore’s middle class has stagnant income growth relative to “affordable” public housing, rising lifestyle costs (think CoEs or public transport fares), and unstable jobs (all those retrenchments and “new age” “sharing economy” jobs), no sign of political instability here despite the attempts of TOC and other cybernut publications, Mad Dog, and Lim Tean.

These articles show why there’s political stability here even though Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP:

Merdeka Package shows how smart scholars are

Great IB riposte to Mad Dog and P Ravi etc

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

Did u know S’pore graduated to “Flawed democracy”?

Why Milliennals will vote for the PAP

Keeping power in a one-party state

Why ang mohs will vote for the PAP

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP

So what if S’pore is very low on democratic accountability?

 

2 must reads: NUS voyeurism balls-up

Or is it cock-up?

Sorry. Can’t help the flippancy. What happened is really black comedy at it’s blackest. After the police, AGC and NUS washed their hands (OK sort of) over a voyeur (Maybe taking the attitude “From poor family; must pang chance.”?), the unhappy victim got the voyeur crucified on the day the Christ was crucified or thereabouts.

If the system fails her, she cannot be expected to behave like a meek and mild lamb, can she? Power to her for having the balls to demand publicly that she gets her retribution. Note I said “retribution”, not “justice”.

Here’s a link to a very good commentary on the perspective that the police, AGC and NUS missed: a damning indictment of their failure to understand how gals feel.

Commentary: Here’s what zero tolerance towards sexual misconduct looks like

The NUS voyeurism incident offers lessons for all education institutions, says AWARE Executive Director Corinna Lim.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/nus-sexual-misconduct-zero-tolerance-toilet-filming-monica-baey-11472002

Even better is this comment from someone who seems to know how prosecutorial discretion works in practice. What he says bring back memories of the days when the then head of Crime section in the AGC and I chatted about the role of his team. Where he is wrong, is the person making the decision is supervised and the head of the crime division has to sign-off.

Heng Choy Yuen

I agree with the contents of your article. But the OVER-dependence on protocols and routine thinking may become too dogmatic. Here’s why I say so …. the RESULT of any interview by counsellors, investigations led by the SPF depends on whose desk the case file lands inside the AGC. He/she at AGC is the one who decides whether the legal process stops at his/her desk or be sent for arraignment. Due to the peculiar nature of sex-related and sexual crimes (stealing underwear, peeping tom, filming videos, physical outrgae of modesty, rape), sometimes a less-experienced AGC legal officer may make an error of judgement, not due to lack of factual evidence but simply because the analysis of cases involving sexual crimes require a deeper and thorough understanding beyond what is written in the Penal Code and statutes. Yes, there are more than sufficient precedents to guide towards a judgement (from 2015-2018 there were reportedly 20 cases of sexual misconduct handled by NUS alone) but I think in MIss Baey’s case, the person at AGC charged with deciding the punishment of MIss Baey’s offender perhaps made an error of judgement – by showing leniency (protecting the offender’s future) by itself is not ‘wrong’ when weighed against the evidence and facts gathered – but the ‘high probability of being remorseful” is an ASSESSMENT, not a fact. THe AGC officer in this case should have also considered a more potent FACT backed up by global research on the mental health of sex crimes victims – the FACT that Miss Baey, along with countless victims of similar sex crimes, will live with her mental trauma, fears and anguish. In all probability for the rest of her life. No amount of remorse, a single letter of apology can erase the mental scarring that has already occurred. Therefore while it is commendable to show leniency for ‘remorseful first-time offenders’, the LIFE-LONG irreversible mental damage on the victims of sexual misconduct MUST be prioritised – the victim had no say but … the perpetrator (unless mentally ill) made a wilful, perhaps even premeditated, decision. He was also reportedly under the influence of alcohol but how drunk he was we do not know …. so how does a drunk man summon enough soberness to go from cubicle to cubicle (captured on CCTV) ostensibly to film a naked woman bathing? Obviously his vision was not impaired by alcohol in making his directorial debut …. Isn’t it ironical that the efforts by the law enforcement authorities and NUS to show leniency just so the offender’s future is not destroyed, is producing the very opposite aftermath? Did they anticipate that their ‘merciful’ punishments would generate such public uproar and media attention? A few days ago, Great Eastern put the perp (who was working there) on suspension, but he chose to resign. But while he may recover some semblance of normalcy say after 4-5 years, the mental trauma he caused to MIss Baey is etched in her memory perhaps forever. THAT is a LESSON no victim would ever want.

(Emphasis mine)

PAP ant oppo can learn from world’s richest man

Our PAP govt is very risk adverse (Got to check with list of Hard Truths or call up Harry’s spirit before proceeding?) and everytime something does do wrong the anti-PAP types are out screaming at the PAP.

In his latest annual report to shareholders, Bezos is keen to remind investors that failing one reason for long-term success at Amazon: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/11/1554989596000/Bezos-on-why-failure-is-not-failure/

Maybe the anti-PAP types scream at govt failures because they want S’pore to fail? They hope that that by screaming, they can prevent govt from experimenting its way to success for S’pore.

The one-party state and fake news

In Why I no ak the Select Committee hearings on Deliberate Online Falsehoods in April last year, I wrote about the above. I tot that as this is the season about

disaster and even death as the doorways for redemption. It’s about apparent failure and ultimate success. It’s about vivid appearances and unsuspected realities.

Tom Morris

, I’d resurrect the piece given that a very draconian law is going to be enacted soon (Fake news law: Ownself judge ownself)

The problem about lies or “fake news” is who gets to decide what is or is not a lie or “fake news”.

In liberal democracies, even the president of the US cannot get his view of what is or is not a lie or “fake news” accepted by even a majority of the voters. There’s some sort of consensus (“conventional wisdom”) driven (manipulated?) by the elites and media about what is or is not a lie or “fake news” in which facts often play an important part.

In a one-party state (de facto or de jure) the ruling party decides what is or is not a lie or “fake news”

— Keeping power in a one-party state

— Would this happen in a one-party state?

— Coldstore: Why Harry’s narrative or the highway

The planned tackling of “fake news” is a smokescreen for muzzling further netizens, not juz cybernuts. The internet and social media has made it a lot easier for S’poreans to share facts, ideas, and criticisms of the way we are governed by the PAP.

— Minister wants his cake and eat it/ PAP doesn’t get the Internet

— Ingratitude, uniquely S’porean? Blame the internet? Not really

— Us Netizens: Comancherios of the Internet?

This freedom (relative) to share facts, ideas, and criticisms of the way we are governed by the PAP worries the PAP (juz like the CCP worries about the internet and social media in China), hence the plan to further muzzle the internet and social media.

In a recent FB post, I commented that I can see the good of getting Lim Tean and Goh Meng Seng (Meng Seng: fake news propogator) off the air: Chris K that my view was the equivalent of thinking the SS were right to kill everyone in a village when a few SS troops were killed nearby. He has a point.

Since you have read this far, you may be interested in

Why the PAP is really afraid of Facebook?

Silencing fake news and inconvenient voices: two sides of the same coin

Fighting fake news while raising revenue

What is “news”?/ “Fake news” is not “fake” says Harvard expert

Local academics propogate fake news?

 

What about the pink elephant in the corner, DPM Teo?

I couldn’t but think the above, when I read in the constructive, nation-building CNA:

Despite their vast difference in size, Singapore and China have common issues to tackle, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said on Monday (Apr 15) as he hailed the good bilateral ties between the two countries.

These issues cover areas like economic transformation, skills retraining and managing an ageing population.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-china-have-common-issues-to-tackle-dpm-teo-chee-hean-11447412

Funny he doesn’t mention the area where both ruling parties have a common interest: suppressing fake news.

Our very own, pending, draconian law on fake news ( Fake news law: Ownself judge ownself) sounds very much like what China already has: the ruling party decides what is fake news. But to be fair to S’pore, the PAP govt says that there’ll be an appeals procedure making the judiciary the decision-maker. In China, the judges are subordinate to the party. According to our Constitution, our judiciary is independent.

The CCP way is the PAP way: The PAP way?

 

So what if S’pore is very low on democratic accountability?

The KPKBing about very draconian laws further restricting the space on the internet and social media is evidence, anti-PAP activists say, that the PAP govt is very authoritarian with very little democratic accountability. Very true: look at the area shade pink. Among developed “countries” only HK (Remember Goh Meng Seng thinks HK is paradise), is worse.

So what? Look at the area shaded pink in these two charts, and vote wisely and tactically.

 

 

 

 

Fake news law: Ownself judge ownself

Or in posh English, not Singlish, “In the proposed fake news law, ministers are judge and jury.”

This is a seriously good reason to be concerned about the proposed bill introduced on Monday, which gives the government very sweeping powers in the name of regulating fake news propogators like Goh Meng Seng and TOC’s Danisha Hakeem.

My main concern is that it makes ministers the initial (and in most cases the final and only) arbiters of truth about claims regarding the PAP government’s performance: “Ownself judge ownself”.

That is most unfair and unnatural because it makes a minister the judge and the jury in his own cause. Worse although there is some sort of a right of appeal, the burden of establishing the truth lies on the appellant, not the minister. I do not think a minister should have the power to regulate comments made about them or their department in the same way as the government having the power to regulate hate speech or even seriously offensive speech against race or religion.

There is an obvious potential for serious conflicts of interest here, like “Ownself check ownself”.

Related post: Fake news laws give SPH biz advantage

 

 

PAP giving money to anti-PAP group

In creative hubs such as London and New York, contemporary art has been born in the underground and, eventually, syphoned from the top. “Singapore’s art scene is not organic,” criticised Lorenzo Rudolf, founder and president of Art Stage Singapore in an interview with Southeast Asia Globe. “A successfully sustainable, functioning art scene can only grow from the bottom up. Never in history have you seen an art scene which has been built from the top down functioning.”

So what? Artists are getting paid by the PAP govt, even if that group, usually defines itself as anti-PAP.

[T]here is evidence that emerging artists are benefiting from state-funded initiatives. In 2018, the National Arts Council launched the SG Arts Plan, as well as Orthodox, which was held during Singapore Art Week (SAW) in January – an exhibition focused on work inspired by issues surrounding faith and belief exclusive to 20-something artists. The seventh edition of the Singapore Art Week ran for nine days and staged events and openings across the island, from galleries and museums to art precincts, and independent art spaces. Alongside this came the announcement of a partnership between the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Frieze, which included S.E.A. Focus – an initiative set up by STPI Creative Workshops & Gallery as a platform for Southeast Asian artists to present their work in the pop-up spaces. There is also ART SG – a new art fair for Singapore and Southeast Asia debuting in November and coinciding with the Singapore Biennale which aims to spotlight young artists.

https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/43563/1/singapore-reality-growing-contemporary-art-scene-sarah-choo-su-en-wong-art-week

Money talks, BS walks.

PAP is really trying hard to get 65% of the popular vote: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote.

Vote wisely. Remember that a GST rise is coming: How to ensure no GST rise.

Vote tactically (I tell how soon) because at worse PAP will still form govt:

But the cybernuts like bapak should not be raising their hopes of their hero Mad Dog forming a coalition govt of spastics. At the very least, the PAP will get only 60% of the popular vote (a 10 point fall) and retain a two-thirds majority and not win back Aljunied. No GRC will fall even to Team TCB.

Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP

 

TRE: “Clueless Alternative Parties” & Thinking about VERS

Let me declare upfront that I am neither an Incumbent Party supporter or an Alternative Party supporter.  I will cast my vote to the party whom I have confidence will work for the betterment of Singapore at the ballot box. And I will try to be as discerning as possible.  There are Incumbent Party members who have work for the betterment of Singaporeans, just as there are those who have not.  Likewise, there are Alternative Party members who are likely to work for the betterment of Singaporeans, just as there are those who won’t.

There is one sombre message that I believe all Alternative Parties members need to bear in mind.  They cannot, should not and must not think that they can win the General Elections because the electorates dislike or no longer trust the Incumbent Party.  Rather, they have to showcase their abilities and capabilities, that is, what they can actually do for the people if they are elected into the Parliament.  Furthermore, they must act in a way to be above reproach at all times.

As of this moment, I can honestly say that I have lost almost all faith in the Incumbent Party and I am very much inclined to cast my vote to an Alternative Party.  However, some recent behaviours of the Alternative Parties leave much to be desired, so much so that I could not help wondering whether I would be making a wise decision.

I will describe an incident below which I hope will serve as wake-up calls for the Alternative Parties members.

Lack of Thinking and Planning

The first incident revolves around NSP, which apparently held a rally last weekend.  (Surprise!  Surprise!)  A friend of my boyfriend attended the rally and we were quite surprised as none of our other friends are aware of that rally.

However, the worst is to come.  NSP members started telling the small group of audience (apparently only about 20+ people!) during the rally that NSP deserved to be voted in because they will be the voice of Singaporeans and they will do whatever is necessary to improve the lives of Singaporeans.  One member of the audience asked the following 3 related questions and requested NSP to use them as an example to show how NSP intends to act for the betterment of Singaporeans.

1. Why are HDB flats priced so high despite having zero value at the end of the 99-year lease?
2. How is the Incumbent Party intending to resolve the problem of tenants when the lease of their flats expire?
3. What will NSP do differently to resolve the problem?

Our friend told us that apparently none of the NSP members have any clues on how to answer those questions. NSP members simply mumbled some incoherent responses and it became quite obvious after a while that they have never thought through the issue of the HDB 99-year lease at all.  Hence, the none of the NSP members have any ideas on how to resolve the problem of the tenants when the lease of their flats expire.

To be fair, I do not know how true is the above description since I was not physically there.  The only thing I can safely say is that our friend, despite being an Alternative Party supporter, was definitely not impressed by NSP. He left the rally feeling disappointed and disillusioned.

I found the above narration quite disturbing.  The HDB 99-year lease issue is a topmost issue affecting the lives of 80% of all Singaporeans and basically everybody knew about this issue for more than six months.  This is a most important and critical issue that has significant impacts on the lives of many Singaporeans.  If NSP is serious about being the voice of Singaporeans and it will do whatever is necessary to improve the lives of Singaporeans, how is it possible that nobody in NSP thinks through and works out some plans on how to resolve this critical issue?  If they are not concerned with such a critical issue, how exactly does NSP intend to be the voice of Singaporeans and to improve the lives of Singaporeans if they get elected into the Parliament?

To the credits of other Alternative Parties, both SDP (Chee Soon Juan) and PVP (Lim Tean) have clearly laid out their plans and thoughts on how this issue can be resolved.  This is what Singaporeans want and need from the Alternative Parties.  If these Alternative Parties members get elected into the Parliament, they have concrete plans to know what to do for the betterment of the lives of Singaporeans.  Of course, some plans may not be entirely feasible and need to be refined.  But it is at least a good start in the correct direction and it goes to show that these Alternative Parties are serious about improving the lives of Singaporeans if they are elected.  Indeed, prominent members like Pritam Singh/Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong/Lina Chiam, Tan Cheng Bock, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Jee Say, etc should also make known how they intend to resolve this issue if they get elected into the Parliament.

Incidentally, a recent post indicates a very plausible method on how the Incumbent Party intends to resolve this issue – to finance VERS using a combination of tax hikes and price increases.  And the article was apparently written by a supporter of the Incumbent Party!

http://www.tremeritus.net/2019/03/25/why-vers-will-work-but-it-is-still-a-bad-idea/

I have performed some analysis in the past which shows that the government needs to fork out at least 3 billion every year to finance VERS, even if the average payment is merely $250,000 per flat.  The more probable financing cost is likely to be in the range of 4 to 5 billion every year.

At that time, I was adamant that VERS cannot work simply because it is too huge a financial burden – remember that this is not a one-time payment but a recurring cost year after year.  However, the above article throws some light on how VERS is to be financed – the monies generated by the tax hikes and price increases are easily in the range of tens of billions every year and these are more than enough to finance VERS, as well as to cover up losses in Temasek Holdings and GIC (the latter point was contributed by other writers).

Alternative Parties need to showcase how they intend to resolve this particular issue (and many other issues) to allow all Singaporeans to compare their plans against the Incumbent Party’s plan of financing VERS through tax hikes and price increases.  Then Singaporeans can make informed choices at the voting booths during the General Elections.

The only thing that is worse than showing a plan to finance VERS through tax hikes and price increases is when an Alternative Party does not even bother to think through this issue and has no plans on how the issue is to be resolved.  In such a situation, how are Singaporeans expect to trust that such an Alternative Party to run the country to improve the lives of Singaporeans if it is elected into the Parliament?

Cheryl Gupta

Alternative Parties seriously need to get up to speed

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

(Part of an occasional series meant to burst the blood vessels of cybernuts like pork-eating, alcohol drinking “bapak” aka “Jihadist Joe”, and tax-dodging grave-dancer “Oxygen”).

Taxi driver Lim Ee Teh, 66, usually spends between S$10 and S$20 when he visits the polyclinic for his monthly diabetes check-up.

Mr Lim, who is eligible for the newly-announced Merdeka Generation Package, learnt on Sunday (March 24) that he could soon be paying less for this visit. This was after he attended a briefing organised by the Silver Generation Office (SGO) at the ComfortDelGro’s Cabbies’ Carnival.

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What’s expensive, what’s cheap in diabetes treatment

If Mr Lim is seeing the polyclinic doctor monthly, his must be terok case. As the consultation fee is $12+, he’s only paying $7 for the blood test and medicine. But the blood test is pretty expensive: $13+ each time. So the numbers don’t add up: unless he’s seeing a nurse, where the consultation fee might be lower.

My friends’ monthly medicine bill for diabetes average between $4-5, they tell me. They see the doctor once every three or four months. They pay $12+ for the consultation, and $13+ for the blood test. Assuming, they see the doctor once every three months, their monthly cost is around $12.

Seeing the doctor and blood tests are the expensive bits.

—————————–

Whatever, this is what he (and me) are getting

Under the Merdeka Generation Package, which is eligible to all Singaporeans born between 1950 and 1959, beneficiaries will be entitled to Chas subsidies from November regardless of their household monthly income per person or the annual value of their homes.

Beneficiaries of the package will also receive an annual topup of S$200 into their Medisave account under the Central Provident Fund (CPF) until 2023. They will also receive an extra 25 per cent discount on their bills at polyclinics and specialist outpatient clinics, on top of prevailing subsidies.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/more-medisave-top-ups-merdeka-generations-wishlist

Wow. How not to vote for the PAP? Still prefer BS from Mad Dog, Lim Tean and Meng Seng, Jihadist  Joe aka Pious Joe?

And taz not all, from NTUC Fairprice, there’s this

And for a one-year period from July onwards, customers who belong to the Merdeka Generation will enjoy a 3 per cent discount on all purchases every Wednesday.

Merdeka Generation individuals are those who were born from 1950 to 1959 and obtained citizenship in or before 1996, as well as seniors who were born in or before 1949, became citizens in or before 1996 and did not receive the Pioneer Generation Package.

Mr Ng Chee Meng, the secretary-general of NTUC, said that this was done because of feedback from workers that they needed more help to cope with the cost of living.

“So NTUC, as a social enterprise, we were trying to see how we could help in meaningful ways. Essentially, what we wanted to do was help people cope with the rising costs, in ways we could afford,” he said.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/prices-ntuc-fairprice-house-brands-cut-remain-same-for-15-months

PAP is really trying hard to get 65% of the popular vote: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote.

Vote wisely. Remember that a GST rise is coming: How to ensure no GST rise.

Vote tactically (I tell how soon) because at worse PAP will still form govt:

But the cybernuts like bapak should not be raising their hopes of their hero Mad Dog forming a coalition govt of spastics. At the very least, the PAP will get only 60% of the popular vote (a 10 point fall) and retain a two-thirds majority and not win back Aljunied. No GRC will fall even to Team TCB.

Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP

Watain ban: playing the easily offended game can backfire

Easily offended Muslims are paying the price for being easily offended and making police reports etc, and getting other S’poreans into trouble. Their actions have had consequences. When social media took after here, all those years ago, some easily offended Muslims were forever making police reports or complaining loudly publicly about posts they found offensive. Well easily offended Taliban Christians (minority here thankfully) were watching and listening, and learning.

The govt said Watain targeted the Christian religion specifically and hence the ban. Fair point given that if the band insulted Muslims, it’d have been banned because the authorities didn’t want easily offended Muslims to be upset, and making known their unhappiness.

But because “Christians don’t riot” (BG Yeo said this when he was a minister: remember him?) some civil servant tot it fine to let them in to perform? I’m glad the govt is being even-handed in its illiberal attitude*, which I personally disagree with.

I note the band also targets Jews.

But they don’t insult or diss Islam or Muslims. Why, despite Islam being an Abrahamic faith too? I can only suppose because jihadists even in Sweden kill or threaten to kill those who mock Islam or Muslims. Christians and Jews in Sweden ain’t so violent against those who insult their religion, I suppose.

This is another reason to ban them: for having only the balls to insult those who they know won’t kill or threaten to kill them for the insults. Christians don’t riot remember? Ditto Jews? The Jews only file law suits.

And I agree with the Minister with responsibility for the welfare of pets, among other duties, 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.”

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*Minister Shanmugan said, “The Christian preachers, when they talk to me, say ‘you are very, very strict when it comes to anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic messages…They said: ‘You treat the Muslim community differently than the Christian community.’ I looked at it and I thought that there is some truth to what they say, I won’t say that it is completely true but it is an approach.”

Added 21 hrs after first publication.

 

 

 

No more streaming? Really? What a load of BS

Going by alt media reports, the cybernuts have bot into the SDP’s message that the PAP followed the SDP’s recommendation to abolish streaming. But has the PAP really abolished streaming as the SDP claims.

I think not. The PAP govt has actually refined streaming, while saying it has abolished streaming. Stupid SDP, stupid cybernuts. But what to expect from the best enablers the PAP have: with enemies like these, it doesn’t need real friends.

Roy Ngerng is absolutely right. Extract from: PAP’s changes on the education system is nothing but a cosmetic joke

Under the new system, G1 subjects correspond to the Normal (Technical) standard, Ong Ye Kung said. G2 subjects correspond to the Normal (Academic) standard and G3 subjects correspond to the Express standard.

Take the hypothetical situation that students take 3 subjects for their ‘O’ Levels at Secondary 4, with the different G-subject combinations and grades according to the following:

[1] G3 (A grade), G3 (A), G3 (A).
[2] G3 (A), G3 (A), G2 (A)
[3] G3 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A)
[4] G2 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A)
[5] G2 (A), G2 (A), G1 (A)
[6] G2 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A)
[7] G1 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A)

Instead of 3 streams, now do we have 7 streams?

An extended version with 4 subjects would look like this:

[1] G3 (A grade), G3 (A), G3 (A), G3 (A)
[2] G3 (A), G3 (A), G3 (A), G2 (A)
[3] G3 (A), G3 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A)
[4] G3 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A)
[5] G2 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A)
[6] G2 (A), G2 (A), G2 (A), G1 (A)
[7] G2 (A), G2 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A)
[8] G2 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A)
[9] G1 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A), G1 (A)

Does this now make 9 streams?

Now, take this and multiply by the number of subjects students have to actually take (6 to 8, at least), and then by the more refined grading (A1, A2, B3, B4, etc.).

As such, the ‘Express’, ‘Normal (Academic)’ and ‘Normal (Technical)’ streams have been removed in name, but have they only been replaced by a more refined way of streaming, as outlined in [1] to [7 or 9, or more] above?

Strange, no, why the PAP government announced that streaming will be “removed” but did not say how students will be streamed into the junior colleges, polytechnics and ITEs?

I suppose the good thing now is that students will not have to live with the label of being from certain streams, but will it only be replaced? I was from 8 G3s, or I am from 5 G3s and 3 G2s?

There were two perceptive comments among the usual rants

It will likely work like current JC to University, where there are basic subject prerequisites to take up a subject or course combination.

The impact is that students will likely have to decide career paths much earlier than in the past and pick the G3, G2 subjects early working on their areas of strengths.
The divergent will happen later, students will go to JCs, poly or ITE based on the level and choice of subjects.

And commenting on the above comment

bro, there is a difference between removing streaming and refining streaming.

what the clown pap ong Lj has done is NOT remove but refine.

unless he is so ffffing stupid he cannot say remove streaming when he can only say refine streaming.

under g1 g2 g3 there will still be many in g1 who zero chance right off the bat from poly or U. so actually even without S$m paid to us we know g1 is for ITE and g2 is for poly and g3 is for U.

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP

I refer to Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP where I talked of falling resale prices causing a problem for the PAP with those who bot resale flats. But this is not an issue for those received this special government grant for buying a home to live with or near their parents or children. A friend drew my attention to (emphasis mine):

The number of households that received a government grant for buying a home to live with or near their parents or children has nearly doubled, said the Housing and Development Board (HDB) on Friday (Feb 8).

Since the launch of the Proximity Housing Grant in 2015, about 20,100 households have benefited from the scheme as of end-2018. This compares to the 11,000 households that received the grant between 2015 and 2017.

The grant was increased in February 2018 to encourage more families to live near each other.

In total, S$377 million has been disbursed under the scheme. An additional 300 families will receive their grants once their resale transactions are completed.

Under the scheme, all Singaporean citizen families who buy a resale flat to live with their parents or children enjoy a grant of S$30,000. Those buying a resale flat to live near their parents or children receive S$20,000.

Eligible singles who buy a resale flat to live with their parents receive S$15,000, while singles who buy a resale flat near their parents receive S$10,000.
Advertisement

The proximity condition of “near” is defined as within 4km.

All Singaporeans are eligible for the Proximity Housing Grant once, regardless of their household income, ownership of private property or whether they have enjoyed housing subsidies before.

Those who own private properties will have to dispose of them within six months of the resale flat purchase.

As of Dec 31, 2018, about 20,400 households have applied for the grant. Of these, 53 per cent did not qualify for other housing grants, HDB said.

Families made up 83 per cent of the applications, while the remainder were singles.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/hdb-proximity-grant-number-doubled-live-near-parents-children-11222086

why will they not thank the PAP govt by voting for the PAP?

FYI, I got the headline number based on “Families made up 83 per cent of the applications, while the remainder were singles.” and “An additional 300 families will receive their grants once their resale transactions are completed.”

Every vote matters for the PAP.

Vote wisely.