TR EMERITUS

Under Project Adore, HDB dwellers are allowed to adopt bigger dogs. I like dogs, however, I still like to sound a word of caution and I sincerely hope that HDB can take heed this time and not continue to wayang. On paper, this is a good idea but my decades of living in HDB flats have made me aware of some very, very inconsiderate behaviours among some dog owners and such inconsiderable behaviours have led to numerous arguments among neighbours, bad relationships among neighbours and even scratching of neighbours' cars in retialiation etc. To begin, a very large numbers of owners do not bother to pick up their dog's droppings. Some owners, when they bring their dogs out for walk are completely oblivious to their dogs urinating right outside shops, against walls, pillars of buildings and even lamp poles but not on grass patches. Some dogs bark very loudly at every or any noise even when kept within the flat and right into the night. Worse still, some fcuk type owners bring their dogs out to hawker centres or coffee shops, pull a chair over and put their dogs on the chair while they consume their food or chat with their friends. I envisage that the situation will become worse with the keeping of bigger dogs. It is good that the subject of keeping dogs in HDB flats has come up again. I hope that the government can do better this time, resolutely and effectively to tackle the issues of inconsiderate dog owners and not wayang again or shy away again for whatever agenda even though our GE isn't too far away. Regarding the subject of inconsiderate dog owners, this useless pap government has wayang for far too long alearly and too many of our HDB residents have suffered in silence for far too long too! I believe that those superbly well-fed pap ministars must realised that non dog owners are in much bigger numbers than dog owners at the polls. Think.   Simon Lim        Read More →

I tot the above when I read [I]dea of unemployment insurance to help retrenched older workers has ‘serious downsides’: Josephine Teo Constructive, nation-building media The report goes on: Mrs Teo said that the Government will “keep an open mind” on unemployment insurance, but pointed out that there are serious downsides to having such a provision. These include reducing workers’ motivation to find work as well as decreasing the willingness of employers to pay retrenchment benefits. Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/workers-partys-idea-unemployment-insurance-help-retrenched-older-workers-has-serious?fbclid=IwAR3ODcCR7Oac220dDid0OpipeOJ5KMaLbGVhDPVjEhQc-nFoI_KCagZipvA I’ll let Chris Kuan and Yeoh Lam Keong explain why Jos’ mouth is full of cock as usual. Chris Kuan Contrary to what the Minister said, there are plenty of countries with unemployment insurance and yet low unemployment rates. In my view, there is no universal evidence that it reduces a worker’s incentive to find re-employment, So the whole establishment narrative that unemployment insurance (and jobless benefits) leads to high unemployment is not a universal fact. It is just another moral panic button. However she might be right that unemployment insurance may prove unworkable in Singapore. Why? Because as long as there is easy access to foreign labour, such a scheme may not make it any easier to find re-employment or more importantly provide for better job matches to skills, experience and qualifications which is what it is meant to do. That’s what the establishment failed to mention – that employment protection / stabilization schemes run against the principal policy of growing the economy through access to cheaper labour. It is far easier to say to the plebs that unemployment insurance leads to high unemployment and not say why a labour market with such a hugh foreign worker content, makes it so. https://www.facebook.com/chris.kuan.94/posts/1282587465264672 Yeoh Lam Keong Unfortunately, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo does not seem to have a sufficient understanding of labour market economics required to see the important need for unemployment insurance ( UI ) in Singapore for at least three reasons. First, Minister Teo’s portrayal that countries with UI “usually have persistently high unemployment “ is inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. Of the 27 member OECD developed countries, 25 operated an unemployment insurance systems including many countries with low unemployment eg Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan including some much more competitive export economies with lower unemployment than Singapore ( Germany and Japan ). Second, there is little evidence of an inefficient reduction in incentive to work in properly designed UI systems as Minister Teo claims . In fact, the labour market evidence shows that UI for about 3 months enables optimum job search that prevents workers from jumping at the first job that may not be such a good match for their skills or experience. Third, Minister Teo seems oblivious to the trend that artificial intelligence is already increasingly replacing both unskilled and skilled workers and consigning them to a gig economy of much more frequent job shifts, often with lesser paying work. There are currently an estimated 25-30,000 households who fall into absolute poverty at any one time because of such involuntary unemployment. Without an automatic unemployment protection system , many fall through the cracks of our Commcare and skills retraining systems. Not putting in place an intelligent unemployment protection system is thus short sighted, inhumane and just poor manpower policy, imho. More at https://www.facebook.com/lamkeong.yeoh/posts/3512139472194428 But not having unemployment insurance is a Hard Truth and PAP ministers die die must hold onto. It’s not a matter of economic pragmatism. The Hardest Truth: 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): PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”) Hard Truths How PAP can make S’poreans happier but won’t Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST The PAP way is the American corporate way We have to move on: Moving on from Hard Truths To Hard Choices. The problems are Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G? Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins     Cynical Investor Cynical Investor blogs at Thoughts of a Cynical Investor .  Read More →

The other half had a fit with me on Sunday. She saw a few messages between myself and a few ladies and wanted to know what I was doing messaging other ladies. While I protested my innocence, she made the point that I am a married man and marriage is about being committed to a single partner. Coincidentally, the news has come out that Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend Indiana, just withdrew from the race to be the Democrat’s choice for President in this November’s Presidential Election. Just as I read the news on the wire services, I got a text from one of the cuter and moretalented people I know saying that the young mayor, “reminds me of better times, back with America had decency and respectability.” I think of this statement because Mayor Pete is probably as close as it gets to being a picture-perfect candidate. He looks good on TV; he communicates clearly and is capable of doing so in more than one language. He’s served in a combat role in the military (Afghanistan) and is a devout person. He’s been faithfully married to the same partner for a few years. As Trevor Noah of the Daily Show remarked, “Even his skeletons have nice things to say about him.” You’d think that and America that claims to believe in things like family values would vote him in a flash. There is however, one particular issue with Mayor Pete as he’s popularly known. He’s what most women would call, the man who is too good to be true. He checks all the boxes that women look for in a man except one – he’s openly gay and the person he’s been faithfully married to happens to be another man. As much as find Rush Limbaugh repulsive, I do believe he has a point when he claims that America may not be ready to elect a “gay” president (America has yet to elect a woman, unlike several majority Muslim countries and it took them 200-years to elect someone who is shade darker than pink) While America may not be ready for an openly gay President (unlike conservative catholic Ireland, which has an openly gay Prime Minister of Indian decent), we should be grateful to Mayor Pete for highlighting one great issue – the definition of marriage. One of the greatest achievements of the Trump Administration has been the way it has gotten conservative evangelical Christians to support it for the mere fact that the Trump is as close to the opposite of Christian as it gets. Leaving aside his race-baiting rhetoric, and description of the lowest forms of humanity as “fine people,” Mr. Trump’s personal life is a mess. He’s been married three times. His current wife is so much younger that most right-thinking minds would make the motivations behind the marriage for both parties cannot be based on pure love. In addition to his three marriages, Mr. Trump has had numerous mistresses and once remarked that if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter, he’d probably be dating her – as a dad to a good looking 20-year old, my only reaction is – eww. The biggest surprise in Mr. Trump’s personal life is the fact that his children are surprisingly normal or as normal as it gets given the circumstances. Yet, despite all of that, the “conservative” element accepts Mr. Trump has being a man from God because despite his various marriages, mistresses and paid off porn stars, Mr. Trump’s relationships meet the “one-man and one-woman criteria, even if some of his relationships involved a certain amount of coercion. Mayor Pete’s relationship by contrast has been spectacularly monogamous and yet it fails to meet the one-man, one-woman criteria and so its panned as “immoral.” Singapore’s conservatives would even say that accepting that a marriage like Mayor Pete’s is wrong because you’re accepting the “gay lifestyle,” which apparently the majority of people don’t accept. Yet, the question remains, shouldn’t our concept of marriage be more like Mayor Pete’s than the Trump’s various marriages? After all, shouldn’t marriage be a case of two parties wanting to be in committed relationship rather than a case of one party getting everything out of the other without giving anything in return? The question of “Gay Marriage,” has focused too much on the “Gay” part. Too many of us are obsessed with whether its between “one-man and one-woman,” rather than what actually goes on in the marriage. Mayor Pete may not be in a “one-man, one-woman” relationship but as he rightfully said, his marriage didn’t involve paying off porn stars. I go back to the fact that I’m a dad of a young girl. Yes, ideally, I’d be more than happy if my little girl found a decent guy to spend the rest of her life with. However, if her preference was for another woman, so be it. Better to have a same sex marriage of equals rather than a series of abusive “normal” relationships.   Tang Li *The author blogs at http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/     .      Read More →