TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent A YPAP activist and probable Indian new citizen/PR by the name of Sinha Shekhar had resorted to name-calling after losing a debate with a Singapore male citizen on the YPAP Facebook. Sinha Shekhar had made the headlines earlier by calling on a Singapore NSman to make himself more "marketable" in the face of increased competition from cheap foreign workers: [Source: YPAP Facebook] In another discussion thread, Sinha Shekhar tried to please his political masters by plucking figures out of thin air to claim that "nine in ten Singaporeans own their own homes." His fallacy was demolished by a Singapore male citizen Zixu Li: It is quite obvious that Sinha has mistakened Singapore "households" for "Singaporeans", but he quickly twist his words to wriggle himself out of trouble: Another YPAP activist Peili Teo joined in the discussion: To the shock of everybody, Sinha Shekhar asked his fellow YPAP activists to ignore those who disagree with them and describe them as "dogs". Is this the behavior we expect of YPAP members and activists? Is Mr Sinha Shekhar a new citizen or PR? If he is a new citizen, then he should show some basic respect for the native Singaporean males who have served two years of National Service to protect his life and wealth. If he is a PR, what right does he have to comment on the domestic politics of Singapore? What has YPAP Chairman Teo Ser Luck got to say this time? Is this the way YPAP engage netizens? By flaming and calling them names? Will Mr Sinha apologize or will he make a police report like Eric How claiming that he had been "impersonated" again? The PAP seems to rely more and more on foreigners, PRs and new citizens to defend its dismal performance as local-born Singaporean citizens continue to abandon it in droves. Not only is it spending millions of dollars of taxpayers' monies to make the immigrants feel accepted, welcomed and happy in Singapore, it is also actively roping them into grassroots organizations. Under the new Singapore Citizenship Journey, all prospective new citizens must attend a "sharing session" with grassroots leaders, many of whom are PAP members and branch secretaries. PAP's octogenarian leader Lee Kuan Yew told a visiting delegation of China officials a few months ago that "all CCs, RCs and CCCs are part of the PAP." Singaporeans should open their eyes big and witness the arrogance of these new citizens who think they can lord over us with the support of the PAP which should change its name to "Foreigner Action Party" soon. Unless Singaporeans vote out the PAP in the next election, they will soon be relegated to being second class minorities in their own country of birth with the males having to serve two years of National Service to protect the likes of Sinha Shekhar who has no qualms calling them "DOGS".  Read More →

By Hurr Riyahi Singapore is one place, probably the only place, I have seen whereby the survey or ranking information of practically anything is always spectacular. There is hardly a time you can find Straits Times publishing any results of surveys or rankings which shows any imperfections in the Singapore system. If one takes a look at the reports put out by government ministries, statutory boards, government linked agencies etc, you will find a same trend. This then makes the average Singaporean believe that there are far fewer imperfections in the Singapore system than any other system in the world. But why is survey or ranking information in Singapore always so spectacular? To illustrate I will use a recent Channel News Asia article which claim that a HDB survey found that elderly Singaporeans have sufficient income for daily expenses. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1043152/1/.html 1) Response Rate This is the first question to ask about any survey. In the case of the HDB survey, one should ask how many elderly Singaporeans were invited and how many eventually responded. The minimum response rates that a survey should have vary but for a survey like this, you need to have sent several thousand invitations and have received at least 60%-70% response. In many Singapore surveys the invitation numbers are low and more importantly the response rate is often less than 50%. Using the replies from less than half the number of people invited to participate in a survey, one can easily find spectacular findings which will then hold no value or meaning. In some types of surveys, 40%-50% response rate is still acceptable but given Singapore's small size and other factors, there should be very few surveys for which we can accept 40%-50% response rate. In the HDB survey, 80% said they have sufficient income for daily needs, 97% are satisfied with their flats and more than 80% are proud of their homes. Such high proportions are likely due to low response rate. If only 200 people responded out of 1000 invitations, its more likely that you get 160 (80%)  people giving positive responses. If instead 600 people had responded, it will be less likely for you to get 480 (80%) positive replies. This is assuming all the people who responded answered all the questions in both situations. In reality, that is not the case which then actually will push up or pull down the rates extremely when few people respond to a questions. In fact the high 90% rates mentioned in HDB report suggest that extremely few people answered those questions. Imagine 200 people responded out of 1000 invitations. When only 30 answer a question, its easy to get a 27 Yes (90%). But if 600 people responded and only 100 answered a question, its unlikely to expect a 90 Yes (90%). 2) Pathetic sampling Singapore surveys rarely meets the standards of sampling needs. Often the sampling is pathetic. In the HBD survey they claim 8 out 10 elderly Singaporeans have sufficient income for daily expenses. In surveys like this, the people conducting the survey should know beforehand that the lower income are likely to be underrepresented in the survey. That is because they are working long hours that they dont have time for this, their literacy maybe low and they dont understand it, they maybe sick and are unable to spend their effort on it, they are lonely and care less for it etc etc. Hence if you end up sampling the more affluent elderly Singaporeans you end up with such spectacular results. Combined with the earlier case of low response rate and poor sampling, one will get spectacular findings. 3) Selecting those who can make the results spectacular Another way to get spectacular findings is through flawed selection criteria. For instance the findings claim elderly Singaporeans having sufficient income for daily expenses. But those selected for the survey is elderly in whose household they or their spouse is the head. This is silly. The survey must include all elderly Singaporeans. 4) Mixing up terms The HDB survey findings is about income. Yet they cite savings and CPF savings as source of income. An income is amount of money one receives for labour, services, sale of goods or from investment. The interest from savings is income. Savings itself is not income. So by wrongly including these, the income is inflated. What the reality could really be is that majority of elderly Singaporeans are not having sufficient income and are relying on personal and CPF savings. 5) Omitting findings that are not sexy One of the most hilarious things about Singapore survey findings is that there is hardly much findings reported. Having spent such a large amount of money doing a survey, it is a waste if the survey can only yield that single one line of finding or a few.  Actually what really happens is that the study does yield other findings but are not shared with the public as they show the imperfections in the system. Likewise we only see the spectacular findings of rankings. The other findings are omitted. But it is these findings which really are required to be shared with the public so that the cracks in the system can be rectified.  A young girl who continually choose only  to keep looking at her glamour studio photos to judge her beauty even when she reaches retirement age, will never be able to do anything about her ugly wrinkles and will be instead be growing uglier by the day.   Other articles by Hurr Riyahi: >> PAP's model: Starting ahead and finishing last >> What is the PAP's long term economic vision? >> Security threat posed by foreigners versus Muslims >> How often is there tolerance in Singapore or Malaysia  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent An irate resident tipped us off on a floor party organized by his Residents' Committee lately to "promote and enhance understanding, respect, mutual support and interaction among residents of different backgrounds." He felt that the money used to organize the party could be better used to help the poor and needy in Singapore. Floor and block parties are becoming more common in the HDB heartlands as the PAP continues to pour in taxpayers' monies to rectify a blatant mistake of their making and to court the votes of the new citizens by making them feel welcomed and happy in Singapore. Too many foreigners were allowed into the country within too short a period of time and Singapore is now experiencing a major headache on how to integrate all of them into society. Minister for Community, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan unveiled a mega $10-million dollar Community Integration Fund last October to sponsor "integration" programmes such as free language classes for foreigners and HDB floor parties. It is most naive of the PAP to think that they can promote "interaction" between native Singaporeans and the immigrants by organizing such parties. They will simply come for the free food and leave without knowing one another. The foreigners will tend to stick within their own cliques because there are simply so many of them here in Singapore now that they have few incentives to reach out to the larger community of Singaporeans. Attached below is the flyer promoting the floor party and an account from our reader: "My RC recently organised a floor party outside my unit at the lift lobby. I said to one of the RC members that I had been staying here since 2001 but there was no such floor party before. He replied me that only since last year 2009 that they had "the fund" to organise floor party for the residents. But he did not say why previously his RC did not have the fund? Was it due to the recent massive influx of FTs, PRs and new citizens that his RC decided to organise this kind of floor party? I really had to thank these FTs, PRs and new citizens for the "free" buffet dinner.   The RC "wayang" prior to the commencement of floor party by getting town council cleaners to use "high tech" cleaning machine to clean up the dirty floor tiles of my lift lobby in which the floor party would be hosted there. Never before that the cleaners use such a "high tech" cleaning machine to clean up the lift lobby dirty floor tiles, what they normally did was just sweeping the floor using a broom, only once a month that they use high pressure water jet machine to wash corridor and lift lobby.   The buffet dinner as expected did not taste good since it was "free". The floor party as expected turned out to be a "free" dinner meal for the residents here, not much "interacting" between the residents, most residents left the floor party after filling their hungry stomachs.   I feel that as a resident who "benefited" from the "free" buffet dinner, the RC or the ruling party should use the floor party fund for the poor and needy people of S'pore instead of using it on the residents who may not be "grateful" after eating a "free" buffet dinner."  Read More →