Author: Grievous

Coffeeshop Talk – Budget 2009

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I should have posted this a long time ago… since I attended this event hosted by the Young NTUC at the Wang Cafe in Basement 1 of NTUC Centre back on 05 Feb 2009. That’s like 10 days ago… and it’s a little stale to talk about the Resilience Package now.

The Guest of Honor: Mr S Iswaran, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry. (Also MP for West Coat GRC.)

This is the first time I had a close up with a minister. While I already had a good opinion of Mr Iswaran when he spoke up on the matter of NS dodger, the Penis Pianist Melvyn Tan, the way he handled questions at the event further reinforces it.

Mr Iswaran did not display disgust or displeasure even though I personally felt some questions were similar with earlier ones and the previous answers would have answered them to a great extent. He maintained a smile throughout the session, without a sneer on his face. This is unlike the elitist image some ministers or MPs like Mah Bow Mabok Tan, Lim HngGey Kiang, Ng Eng HenEng, Teo ‘You be grateful‘ Ho Pin or even Charles ‘You lesser mortals’ Chong have presented, even though that may not actually be who they are, or the message they tried to convey.

I noticed Mr Iswaran maintained eye contact with the audience who raised the questions, listened attentively and patiently repeat some of his earlier points without sounding like he was admonishing a child. This is very unlike Raymond Lemon Lim, and Iswaran gave me the impression he genuinely wanted to clear the doubts and engage his audience as an equal. At one point of time, he also tried to ease tensions by mentioning he’s checking whether anyone is taking off his shoes to throw at him.

I didn’t keep a record of the questions asked, so I will briefly touch on some of the topics which surfaced a few times.

GST
By the end of the session I believe most attendees understood why GST is not cut.

Going by the estimate that 1% of GST would be equal to roughly $750 million in revenue for the state, he pointed out that by cutting 2% of GST, most of that $1.5 billion will not be more than the sum of GST credits and other forms of assistance the government gahmen will be giving to Singaporeans. In fact, a larger amount of the GST credits will be actually going to those of lower income because they spent every cent they earn. Incidentally, this opinion that lower income families have low or zero savings and high spending, is also what Lin Yifu, the Chief Economist of the World Bank has once mentioned. In other words, there is no dispute that while the decision not to cut GST is probably unpopular and misunderstood by some, it is founded on sound, if not solid, economic principles.

Also on this topic, some also asked whether the gahmen has any intention to give cash vouchers like those of the Taiwanese gahmen or why the gahmen isn’t also doing that. It was pointed out that the objective of the cash vouchers in Taiwan was to encourage spending to drive domestic demand, and they can only be used for very selected purposes. On the other hand, ours is an export based economy and thus there is not much effect to issue such vouchers. On top of which, the GST credits is in itself a even more flexible than the cash vouchers as the recipient can use it any way they liked.

Jobs Credit
This is quite a novelty and I must say that some serious thinking has gone into this.

The primary reasons behind the decision to give jobs credits to the companies was because it was the fastest way to ‘pass’ money to the companies. Based on every employee that is paid CPF by a company, the company would receive the jobs credit. The main objective of course, is to encourage companies to keep their staff.

The main reason why the gahmen did not consider policies to discourage retrenchments was that such policies generally become detrimental in attracting foreign investments. This was a view that was also shared to me in a chit-chat I had with Mr. Gary F. Bell who is the best man at my friend’s wedding on Valentine’s Day. He mentioned that there is a country where the law requires that anyone retrenched be paid a full year in salary. While it becomes hell for any companies to consider retrenchments there, it also make it difficult for the country to invite investors.

Mr Iswaran and his NTUC hosts admitted that retrenchment is simply more convenient, and jobs credit does not stop companies from doing so. However, giving jobs credit would also encourage some companies to retain staff, since it will be a more sustainable solution than a retrenchment exercise. While no one could guarantee that jobs credit will prevent retrenchments, it is expected to reduce the number of employees being retrenched.

While on this topic, the matter of CPF cuts was also touched on and explained. The reason that CPF cuts is not considered this time round, was that back in 1997, it is a wage competitiveness issue and the quickest way for the gahmen to reduce wages was to cut employers contribution. On the other hand, the problem we faces today affects almost all regions and economies, cutting CPF would only goes further to hurt workers while contributing nothing much to the problems at hand.

Miscellaneous
There are also some other stuff that were brought up during the session. One of which is a survey conducted by the host and the question is: Would you pay 6% of your pay for a retrenchment insurance scheme?

The No vote outnumbered the Yes vote by a small margin of 6% (i.e. 53% – 47%). I find that understandable, since the general impression of this being a social welfare scheme instead of a personal insurance scheme. In fact, it was impressed upon the attendees that such a scheme would encourage workers to choose unemployment because of the easy money they can get out of this scheme.

While I had voted NO myself, I had a very different reason for doing so since no details of this scheme was really made clear. I would have supposed that if the attendees were told that this would be a personal insurance scheme, i.e. how much you can draw from the scheme will be equal to what you paid into it, then it might be acceptable. Anyway, we already have a mandatory personal saving scheme and it is called the CPF.

One of the audience also asked what avenue does he have if he is out of job, while he needs to juggle his bills, his housing loans, his kids educational fees, and also the fees for his retraining. Unfortunately, I could no longer remember what the full answer was to that, but I recalled certain points were made that there are definitely means for the person to seek assistance for all of the above, and some examples from the previous crisis were cited. Of course the main reason I did not record all of this was because I was getting quite… hungry.

Of course, among the questions there was also one that was quite amusing, if not funny. One person was asking why the NTUC did not consider setting up a bank to help SME.

It brought some laughter among the attendees and Josephine Teo gracefully thanked the person for his confidence in NTUC and pointed out that even if it was to be done, it would take years before a proper bank can be set up. She backed that up by referring to the time taken to set up Income Insurance, and also the Supermarkets. She then referred to the component in the Resilience Package which will stimulate lending to SMEs.

Here are some photos of the event.



Photos – Courtesy of Rachel

Random Discourse – Temasek Losses & Lui-sms

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Temasek Losses
Wow, man. Just what the fxxk happened here?! A whopping US$39billion (S$58billion) of losses. That’s S$58,000,000,000, if you are wondering how many trailing zeros there are. Just 0.01% of that amount and I’ll probably be able to live out the rest of my life quite comfortably.

That’s not mentioning, the amount is 2.83 times of the Resilience Package (S$20.5 billion) recently announced. No wonder they need to ask the President to let them use the reserves! Even though it’s said to be just paper losses, does anyone actually foresee the value ever returning to pre-crisis level? Maybe it will, but in what? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?

Either way, in case the amount is so staggering that you still couldn’t fathom how much that is, consider this: assume Singapore has 4 million citizens and each shoulder a part of that loss. That means every Singaporean – including that one day old infant – lost a nice sum of $14,500.

If you spend $5 on a number on each of the three 4D-draws every week, you can do that routinely for exactly 18.5 years without worries. Even if you don’t win a cent at all, you will still get a remaining balance of $70 after that!

Thank you very much, Admiral Ching Ho!! And take up PN Balji’s suggestion and go into philanthropy please… after all, that will be doing what you do best – giving money away. It is definitely a place where you can use your talent to its fullest potential.

But this time round, give it to our people, will you? At least, we’ll probably remember fondly of the Mother of all Charities, compared to the CEO who keeps losing our money.

Lui-sms
It would have been an example of the genesis of the first step towards a more responsible, a greater self-regulatory regime. – Rear Admirer Admiral Lui Tuck Yew.

A friend point out the absurdity of the above comment. In fact, I personally don’t know whether this is funny or stupid. This isn’t even the equivalent of ‘Mee Siam Mai Hum’, which is forgivable and can be excused as a slip of tongue. After all, Baby Lee isn’t a master of Hokkien, and he wasn’t trying to show off his proficiency in that language.

In Lui’s case, it was almost certain he was demonstrating that his ‘Engrand is veddy powderful’. It doesn’t matter that it’s almost the equivalent of the following:

This is the revelation of the exposed.

It was an ejaculating male orgasm.

The penetration of the insert caused the damage.

A fine example in the use of oxymoronic antonyms.

Orally performed fellatio and cunnilingus is a crime under Section 377 of the Penal Code.

In fact, when I brought the matter up with an old friend, Pip, he said this reminded him of a Mojo Jojo person from Powerpuff girls. Here are some of Mojo Jojo’s very own Lui-sms:

– Professor, Please disregard first note. I have Blossom. Come alone to my lair. Do not bring Buttercup or Bubbles. You must come without them! When you arrive, you must not be accompanied by anyone, especially Buttercup and Bubbles; they are to remain uninformed by you by not telling them anything

– In the grading system, I would have assigned you all with an “F”, which, if I had control of the grading system, I would make the lowest grade a “Z” since that is the final letter in the alphabet, which starts with “A” and ends with “Z”.

– I swear that today is the day that I will develop a plan so diabolical and evil that I will crush the Powerpuff Girls. But first… I must attend to the dishes that I have soiled with the food that I have eaten.

– Now to catch up on the world’s latest events that have happened that this paper has reported with the words that they wrote.

– Dear Powerpuff girls. I have kidnapped Professor Utonium. If you look for him in the places he likes to be, you will not find him. He’s with me. But not by choice! I took him and he didn’t like it. This letter is from and was written by Mojo Jojo.

I shall tell you a secret which you shall tell no one! They are to remain ignorant of it by not being told. Rear Admiral Lui is…

…

…..

* trumpet fanfare *

Mojo Jojo!!! (Picture on right)
Rear Admiral ‘Mojo Jojo’ Lui

Recommended Reads:
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Interactive Mathematics: Singapore TOTO

Satire – Admiral Ching Ho

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October 9, 2006
By Nuntawun Polkuamdee
Bangkok Post

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has suffered a paper loss of 41% since it acquired telecom giant Shin Corp earlier this year.

Shares of Shin Corp on the SET fell 0.85% in thin trade on Friday to close at 29 baht, well off the 49.25 baht per share paid by Temasek in its acquisition in January.

Fri Feb 6, 2009 3:18am EST
Kevin Lim and Saeed Azhar, Editing by Ian Geoghegan
Thomson Reuters

Temasek, which had S$185 billion ($123.2 billion) in assets as at March 2008, has been hit hard due to its 40%exposure to banks that have slumped in value due to the global financial crisis.

Its US$5 billion plus investment in Merrill alone has resulted in a loss of more than US$2 billion. The sovereign wealth fund’s key investments include 28% of DBS Group, just under a fifth of Standard Chartered Bank and about 3.8% of Bank of America (BoA) following BoA’s takeover of Merrill Lynch.

Feb 6, 2009
Ignatius Low, Money Editor
Straits Stooge Times

Temasek chairman S Dhanabalan said that the board had debated whether or not to proceed with such a major change, given the turbulence in the global economy.

*An ugly lycan appears on TV*
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Nelson Lycan of Lycan TV, a subsidiary of the Lycan Times… reporting to you outside the head office of Temasek Holdings.

*ugly lycan fades out, narration*
Do not confuse this Admiral with Grand Admiral Cheng Ho, a Ming Dynasty mariner who lived in the 14th and 15th Century.
*artist impressions of multi-mast ships and of Admiral Cheng Ho shown on TV*

Great Admiral Ching Ho, one of the many members of an extraordinary family, lives in the same era as mere mortals such as you and I.
*pictures of the Elected-Emperor Loong-Le, the hitherto unmatched father, and other happy faces of the current Imperial Family and the Great Admiral rolls past the TV*

*pictures of great ships starts appearing*
The voyages of the Great Admiral Ching Ho has brought from distant shores the ships from all over the world, beginning with the magnificent Shin from the Kingdom of Siam. This was followed by even more magnificent naval marvels of our times, the glittering treasure ships from faraway Avalon, the lands of the Swiss Cheese and the even the Holy Roman Empire of Angmonika. The titanic StandChart, Bars of Clay, SillyBen and Bow-Ah were once crowning glories of the illustrious Great Admiral, and a constant source of envy for lesser mortals.

Yet, in a recent coup in the Kingdom of Siam, attendant vessels of the Shin has been dismantled, and even possession of the great vessel itself is in doubt while its former owner now lives in exile in the happy shores of Cathay.
*soldiers in yellow armbands on tanks in streets rolls across the screen, short video of former owner waving to supporters in Shanghai*

*ugly lycan returns to screen*
Unfortunately, this is not the last of the Great Admiral’s worries, as a recent unnatural tsunami caused by the accursed Angmonikans sprung leaks in the StandChart, Bars of Clay, SillyBen and Bow-Ah. Unbeknownst to the Great Admiral and her fearless crew, these seemingly mighty ships have been rotting away internally. Minors leaks soon turned into gaping holes in the hull, and a disastrous amount of island’s treasures unimaginable to lesser mortals spilled from their hold and disappeared under the rolling waves of the Great Salt Water Sea [咸水海].

Just as the island’s inhabitants have great faith that the Great Admiral will turn things around, even while the unrelenting tsunami caused by the verdammt Angmonikans comes crashing down all over the world, the Great Admiral Ching Ho has abandoned the island of Temasek leaving the Angmonikan successor with the decaying fleet.

The island’s baffled inhabitants are left to contemplate a future without one from the island’s most super-talented family to run it’s great fleet, at the same time the once untouchable Imperial coffers are now opened to rush into existence barriers to protect the island from this cataclysmic tsunami. Will Admiral ‘Chip’ Goodyear be able to lead the remnants of the once glorious fleet back to its former glory, or *gasp* will the remnants of the fleet disappear into the mists of the uncertain and uncharted waters ahead?
*a picture of a smiling ‘Chip’ Goodyear appears on TV*

It is almost certain, that the Great Admiral has left behind shoes too big for the successor to fill. *coughs… fades out*

Daily Discourse: More babies or back to work

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Yet another piece from the Straits Stooge Times:

Reconsider 5-day week?
Feb 4, 2009
By Jeremy Au Yong

Excerpts:

Nominated MP Loo Choon Yong on Tuesday threw up the most provocative suggestion during the Budget debate when he questioned the benefits of the five-day work week.

Speaking on the second day of the debate on the Budget Statement, he said the move to a shorter work week by the public sector and then the private sectors in in 2004 could have eroded the Singaporean’s work ethic, while not improving the fertility rate in any meaningful way.

The number of live births only inched up to 39,490 in 2007 from 37,485 in 2003.

‘We should accept that as a people our procreation talent is not our forte – nothing to crow about,’ he said.

‘I urge the Government to take steps to determine whether our productivity and competitiveness have been affected by the five-day week and to review the policy, if necessary,’ he added.

Dr Loo had unleashed this stunner as he voiced concerns over what he called the ‘all life and very little work’ attitude of the younger generation.

He pointed to Straits Times reports on how to maximise leave by taking advantage of public holidays that fall near weekends as an indication of an erosion of the work ethics.

Hilarious! The first thing that came to mind when I read this was almost similar to what I used as title for this blog post but hell a lot more obscene. That is, “If you aren’t gonna fxxk and have more babies then you fxxking go back to work.” It left me ROTLMAO [Meaning: Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off! And it’s got nothing to do with Mao Tsetung, ok?]

All the more ridiculous is Loo’s claim that a 5-day week and Singaporeans ‘maximise leave by taking advantage of public holidays that fall near weekends’ as his example of erosion of Singaporean work ethics. As an employee, I would like to point out the fallacy of that argument, because all too often I heard from people who went on long leave talking about their dread in coming back to work after that. Their usual reasons: the hundreds of unread emails waiting for their attention and some of the work that piles up during their absence. When my friends displays such responsibility and commitment towards their work, how can Loo even say our work ethics eroded?

May I also point out that it is not always the case that there is ‘redundancy’ for a certain position or workload sharing in a company? As a matter of fact, most employees would actually prefer not to have redundancy in place for the tasks they perform, to prevent themselves becoming redundant. On top of which, employers may not necessary want to hire more staff to ensure redundancy anyway.

Here’s even more news for you ‘Jack’ Loo. A lot of us mere mortals go on packaged tours so we don’t have to be too concerned with lodgings, directions and places to visit. Tour agencies also pack the schedule of their packages as tight as possible, and a lot of people end up very tired after their holidays. While Loo himself may be going on free and easy tours or perhaps indulge in Bourgeois €20,000 cooking lessons like a particular civil servant, going on a holiday may not actually be a really enjoyable and relaxing experience for some of us in the psychological equivalent of ‘the lower realms of Samsara‘.

Furthermore, it is likely that even though we have a 5-day work week, some people still end up pulling the same amount of hours as if they are doing a 5.5-day work week to ensure that their work is completed. A 5-day or 5.5day work week thus makes no difference at all, because Singaporeans will still be too damned tired to have sex as a study showed back in 2002. In fact, a friend of mine once complained that her boyfriend actually dozed off in the middle of it. Now talk about the greatest turn off ever… and I hope he wasn’t ‘abalone tasting’ when that happened.

I wondered, when Loo shoots off about work ethics, did he do a survey among the employees of his very own Raffles Medical Group [RMG for short] to find out whether they are already overworked? In fact, if RMG has implemented a 5-day work week, Loo might want to look at how many of RMG’s staff end up pulling even more hours than they used to after the implementation.

I hope I am not misplacing my faith in Loo to expect him to already have the figures to justify what he is saying. Clearly, when the fact an apparent 5-day work and the actual amount of hours worked is not necessarily the same thing occurred to me, a simple man without even a common degree, someone with his qualification and position would have already thought of this way ahead.

But if he hasn’t, then he must be the epitome of an Hokkien saying which goes like this: 头大无脑，脑大生草。 [Literal translation: Head big no brains, brains big grow grass.] If that is the case, then all of us common folk must duly thank you for providing us with such comic relief in the midst of a serious debate in Parliament over our extraordinary, breath-taking national budget for 2009.

Daily Discourse – Cyberspace Self Regulation?

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On the Straits Stooge Times:

Minister rues poor conduct
05-02-2009 己丑年 正月十一
By Zakir Hussain, Political Correspondent

Excerpts:
RADM Lui was replying to Ms Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC), who had asked for his views on netizens’ response to the physical attack on Mr Seng, MP for Yio Chu Kang.

He said: ‘I do not think the community itself has done enough to rebut some of these unhelpful comments delivered by fellow netizens.

‘It is a squandered opportunity for a higher degree of self-regulation.It would have been an example of the genesis, of the first steps, towards a more responsible, greater, self-regulatory regime.

‘But many of those responses were not rebutted or answered, and I think it is not healthy for some of this to remain on the Net unchallenged, unquestioned and unanswered.’

First of all, I am rather amused with the correspondent’s comment that the attack on Yio Chu Kang MP has drawn many online attacks. I will not nitpick on this, but I politely disagree, as many or few depends on the yardstick used. Personally, I would consider the number of such opinion (i.e. the vicious attacks) to be in the minority when measured against the deafening silence or simple indifference from the majority of the netizens, if not the entire population itself.

I am even more amused with His Excellency, Rear Admirer Admiral Lui’s remarks. How does he define ‘self regulation’ in this case? ‘Self regulation’ as characterised by an uncountable number of flame wars between bloggers and forummers?

Here’s something on this matter perhaps His Excellency should hear about:

A friend of mine found it funny and couldn’t bring himself to sympathise with MP Seng when he read the news, even though he couldn’t bring himself to voice support for the old man who committed the atrocity. Some even felt sorry for the old man, when they heard he might be given a life sentence for his actions and I personally wondered whether some the vicious attacks weren’t in part generated by the very report stating this fact! In fact, even now it is still not clear to us whether he will still be charged for this attack and sentenced severely after he has been remitted to IMH.

On top of that, some simply pointed out that without more details on the matter, one has nothing to stand on to speak up for MP Seng, even though they felt indignant and agreed that no such thing should be committed against any human being. Among some, there is also the considered opinion that ‘there cannot be smoke without fire’ – i.e. they believed there is actually a ‘slim chance’ the old man has good reasons for the attack.

As to my personal opinion, I found no reason to play mata-mata (policeman) and a part in self regulating cyberspace. In fact, I was clearly under the impression that unabated flame wars was the reason why a decade ago, His Excellency George Yeo (is he still BG now?) said that the Internet is so full of rubbish and it is almost like reading graffiti on a wall!

Now, is His Excellency the Grand Rear Admiral Lui faulting some of us for taking your colleague’s words to heart and doing our part by not participating in flame wars? Or are we now to participate in such senseless and rather meaningless endeavors when there are ‘good moral reasons’? Whatever gave His Excellency the idea that mere words (a lot of them, actually) from other netizens will have any effect at all in stopping a vociferous muthafxxka the vicious comments? I suggest His Excellency hire someone to do this if he does not see the futility in doing so.

That’s not forgetting, most net denizens (aka “netizens”) dislike regulation, be it state implemented or even community enforced. While most generally try to abide by a set of socially acceptable net etiquette (aka “netiquette”), much is left to the netizen to ‘police’ himself. There is nothing much anyone of us could do if another netizen is being an irresponsible prick. As much as I would say no to state regulation, I would say no to community regulation or another person attempting to shut me up. Putting myself in another person’s shoes, when I don’t appreciate another self righteous prick enforcing his personal code of behaviour upon me, I don’t expect myself to do the same to another person.

Beyond that, His Excellency the Admiral might want to look at just why the general populace finds less reason to be indignant about the attack on a Member of Parliament compared to that of an old trishaw-man getting bullied by 3 foreigners. Is it because that the populace no longer consider respect a part of the package in view of the salaries of your esteemed colleagues are already earning? Is the numbers in the elections all there is to consider one as ‘having the mandate’?

We Chinese have a saying: 将心比心 [meaning: to treat another person as he treats you]. Perhaps it is time for the Tali-PAP to reflect upon itself whether its ‘heart-ware’ has suffered a catastrophic failure to the point the people no longer respond in kind.

In short, while speaking the truth frankly may be the best option at times, consider how the people would feel hearing it. I am not proposing implement popular policies or running the government gahmen by popularity, but a lot more humility when speaking to the very people who put you in power would go some way in gaining their respect.

Finally, with all due respect, it is my considered opinion that His Excellency will do better pondering about whether the trade off between monetary remuneration and the respect of the people is an acceptable one, instead of talking about how a failure on the part of netizens to self regulate.

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