TR EMERITUS

Speaking at think-tank Institute of Policy Studies's conference 'Scenerios for the Next Generation' in year 2008, MM had Lee said: "I have not quite been sold on the idea that we should have 6.5 million.... I think there's an optimum size for the land that we have, to preserve the open spaces and the sense of comfort.'" Instead, he projects for Singapore an optimum population size of five to 5.5 million for Singapore. MM Lee Kuan Yew A year ago in 2007, the PAP ruling party had announced that it is making plans to accommodate a population of 6.5 million people - up from the current 4.5 million - in the next 40 to 50 years. Taking the word of MM Lee at face value then, Singaporeans would have  expected the most another 1.0 million "imported talents and citizens" in the years to come and stopping at 5.5 million but it didn't stop there. Singapore's present population is approximately 5.0 million but according to PAP's new "projection", the ideal optimum population size is now 6.5 million, which would effective "wipe out" True Blue Singaporeans from the face of Singapore. (Relentless influx of foreigners will lead to universal autism, TR - 7th Sept) With General Election being months away, the increasingly unpopular PAP regime is OBVIOUSLY in damage-control mode, unleashing a series of short-gap measures to appease native Singaporeans and to add more new citizens to the electoral registry rather than to address the root cause of the problems. Whatever the PAP promises now can and will change immediately after the General Election if the PAP is returned to power with "overwhelming majority". Whatever U-Turns and promises they make now are all a short-term "wayang kulit" solely for the purpose of enticing voters to continue to vote for the PAP, giving them another 4 years (to screw you). To quote the words of National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan: "If you ask me if it has anything to do with the elections, the answer is "YES". Everything has got to do with the elections." If the past track record and promises of PAP is anything to go by, Singaporeans must remember that the PAP is not to be taken seriously insofar "carrot" promises are concerned,  (with the exception of promises to fix the opposition and dissenting voices). Singaporeans should know that too well, or are Singaporeans still DAFT?   Forecaster Extraordinarie II P/S: Singaporeans would need at least 34 opposition party members in Parliment to deprive the PAP of their 2/3 majority which would roughly equate to 7 GRCs.  Read More →

Dear TR, First of all, I'd like to apologize if my grammar is not up to certain standard. I'm not a scholar, which in my personal opinion, means in the eyes of policy makers in singapore, not a talent. I'd like to share my thoughts with the readers: "Foreign Talents" Whenever government mentioned the "Foreign Talents", I feel so uncomfortable because Talents should be someone whom is very good in certain field which we would like to tap their knowledge for fellow Singaporeans to pick up and further explore into that field, which will really benefit Singapore and local Singaporeans. I've came across industries with so many "foreign Talents" and in my humble opinion, we have many many more of such "talents" in Singapore which the company can employ in singapore but why import? Because they could be friends, classmates or relatives in their home country? Because of their wages being low? I really doubt so because from what I know, they are being paid far more than locals. are we missing something? Ideal way to increase population In my opinion, opening flood gate doesn't mean that we'll get morecitizens, worst of all, we might get a very little percentage of GOOD QUALITY new citizens. It seems to me that our government says we need to bring in "Foreign Talents" in Singapore, suddenly floodgate opens and there is a sudden increase of foreiners in singapore, be it really talent or not talent. When government says we need to increase population in Singapore, suddenly we see so many foreigners becoming PRs. My point of view is that inorder to be competitive, we might need a considerable amount of foreign workers to fill the empty positions but we need to ensure that fellow Singaporeans has the prority, HOW? that we'll leave the policy makers to seek opinions from the GROUND (not those up there whom has lost touch with the people on the ground), that's what tax payers pay them to do. OK, maybe from the groud here, I'd suggest minimum wage, plus ways to restrict foreigners otherwise employers will complain that locals are too expnsive to hire. AGAIN, Policy makers to go figure this out. IF government were to take good care of locals, provide fellow Singaporeans with good health care, try their best to ensure that we have good housing policy, transportation system and whatever they do and they think, true blue singaporeans comes frist. if this is what goverment practices, don't you think that foreigners will be really admiring and hoping to become sinagaporeans? After handing out PRs to so many foreigners, is there any system to check if they are really keen to become Singaporean? e.g a vality period of their PR status and to ensure that they stay in Singapore, how many days in a year etc.. otherwise it's more like exploiting the system of Singapore and taking away many previous resoures from the local Singaporeans who went through so many ups and downs here in Singapore. Difference between citizen and PR seems not too clear cut and if the policy makers can make a bigger difference, e.g PR paying more for whatever facilities, e.g medical, or if PR pays much higher for purchasing of houses etc, I believe those interested to become citizen will definitely apply to become real Singapore citizen, instead of hanging with the PR status and waiting to consume the resources here, then return back to the home country. There got to be a clear cut difference between locals and non-locals. The old and needy To BE Honest, when I heard that increase of subsidies for the needy is so little, I was wondering how the families survive? I've heard from some poor people staying in rented flats mentioning that the subsidy is not enough, everything is so expensive in singapore, increasing minister's wages go by hundreds of thousands a year, increasing of the subsidies to the needy goes by hundreds per YEAR. I believe many Singaporeans do want a job and with a reasonable pay, it's not like what the governments says, Singaporeans are shunning jobs and asking for more. CPF I'm really puzzled... is this our money or is it not? My personal experience... I have previously sold my house with X amount of cash above valuation and during my second appointment, I was told that all COV got to be returned to CPF... what the hell!!! It leaves me with no extra cash on hand for renovation and I ended up put all my money into CPF for the miserable 2.6% interest and I've to borrow from bank for renovation at 6 over percent interest. What do you think? Ok, if they can tell me that CPF money is not my money, I can only keep my mouth shut. I think overall the usage of CPF, the retirement age and minimum sum etc really got to be seriously look into in order to see how well it can be used by Singaporeans. **** A friend of my from norway once told me, if someone himself is dishonest, he tends to think others behaves the same way. Before criticising fellow Singaporeans, I really hope those criticising us to seriously think again, if they are in the same shoes as us. Lastly, just my little obervation for you guys to ponder... What could be the worst scenerio in life than the brain is thinking something and mouth probably talking something else, left hand and right hand don't know what each other is doing and worst of all... probably misread the signals transmitted from the brain. As there is too much to write and I wouldn't want to stress up fellow readers due to my poor knowledge and command of English, I'll stop here but once again it's like to urge local policy makers to feel for local Singaporeans and sincerely take care of all those who are in need.   BOTAK CHEY  Read More →

I came across this article and I thought it was very interesting. (http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/viewtopic.php?t=371208) On one hand, we are told of measures that will seek to cool the property market. Yet on the other hand, MND is continuing to allow private developers to get away with crazy bidding which will of course eventually be passed down to us. Whether be the buyer who buys a $1.6m 1ksqft condo or $1m 5rm HDB in Bedok Central. Why $1m and not 500k after the measures? You think Singaporeans really have short memories? When the time is right, the rulings on HDB will again be reversed.   JUSTIN LAU  Read More →