"Keep the administrative procedures simple"

So, it is really no big deal, it is just 14 million dollars that is spent to subsidize foreigners on medical bills. 
Q: And why can't we stop subsidizing them and spend this 14 millions on needy Singaporeans? 
e.g. those those old folks that cannot decide if they want their "three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant" (google this if you do not understand what i meant)
A: Oh, applying standard medical subsidies for Singaporeans and non is to "Keep the administrative procedures simple"
This definitely justifies the 14 millions dollars spent. 


I am sure we can take a step further by simplifying the administrative procedures for conscripting youths into the armed forces. 
http://www.straitstimes.com/Parliament/Story/STIStory_736369.html

"Foreigners make up 18 per cent of the 780,000-plus Accident and Emergency (A&E) patients treated at public hospitals each year, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong in Parliament on Monday. But government subsidies given to foreigner A&E patients at $14 million yearly is less than 1 per cent of the annual $2.2 billion government subsidies given to public hospitals, he added.

Mr Gan gave these figures in response to parliamentary questions from Tampines Group Representation Constituency Member of Parliament Baey Yam Keng on the reasons behind the government practice of providing subsidies for all A&E patients, regardless of their nationality.

In his reply, Mr Gan said those seeking A&E treatment in public hospitals pay a flat attendance fee but get a 50 per cent subsidy, regardless of their nationality.

The reason is to keep the administrative procedures simple given that A&E departments serve patients with critical, life-threatening medical conditions or require emergency attention, he added"

Long term capacity

In my line of trade, I implement and design IT systems for my customers. One fundamental question which never failed to be discussed and debated over is "how many users are you expecting to be using the system over the next 5 years", a.k.a. capacity planning.


But it seems that, for our policy makers who are over-seeing 'systems' that are directly impacting hundreds and thousands of lives, this simple thought never actually crossed their mind. I find it hard to believe they lack such basic sensitivity over an item that, to me, comes right out of a book like 'Urban Planning for Dummies'.


Or they chose to ignore it? over things like cost-effectiveness or basic dollars and sense. Is every living and breathing commuter that passes through the transportation system tagged with a certain statistic that is directly linked to the profit and loss chart of the transportation companies?


Now that the trains are bursting at their seams and noses pressed against train doors, they finally decided that it is time to 'consider' adding capacity.
 " two-car trains were being considered as part of a review of the long-term capacity needs of this system"? 


So, all along the policy makers were not looking at long-term capacity of when they started to dump millions of dollars into building houses and train stations? 


Then why are we dumping millions of dollars to get these people to be in-charge? 




http://www.straitstimes.com/Parliament/Story/STIStory_737088.html

"To address overcrowding on the Sengkang-Punggol LRT system, the Government is considering converting the current one-car system to a two-car one.

This will allow more passengers to board the LRT, especially during the morning peak periods.

Minister of State (Transport) Josephine Teo said this in response to a question from Dr Janil Puthucheary (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) on whether the Land Transport Authority was working with LRT operator, SBS Transit, to implement two-car trains on the Sengkang LRT system.

Mrs Teo said two-car trains were being considered as part of a review of the long-term capacity needs of this system"

You call this 'more protection'?

The way I see it, this is nothing more than a tweak in the administrative process. It is the same pool of retirement fund that you have built up, nothing more nothing less, just a tiny bit more control over how you can now administer - ironically - your very own money.


To families with children with special needs who are already struggling to make ends meet and seeing their CPF depleting away for the roof over their head, I am not sure how this kind of half baked policy is going to further protect them?


one thing for sure, in the ivory towers, there are no such families.




http://www.straitstimes.com/Parliament/Story/STIStory_736604.html

"The CPF Board is stepping in to help provide a measure of financial security to children with special needs, when their parents are no longer around to care for them.

This will be done through a new Special Needs Savings Scheme (SNSS), through which parents can arrange to have their Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings disbursed in monthly payouts to their disabled offspring after their deaths

The scheme was one of several changes to the CPF Act passed by Parliament on Monday

Usually, the savings of a CPF member who dies are distributed to his nominees as a lump sum.

"

Working

My work desk for the day.

Healthy lifestyle

You know you are heading towards the right direction when the fruits
bought after lunch cost more than the lunch itself.

Views

Not the sight i get to see when i need that break from work. But i do

envy my colleague for the open spaces and touches of rivers amidst the

mangled mess of cold concrete buildings right out of his window.

I don't even sit near to a window ... but if i bother to look out of one, this is what greets me......

One army, 2 systems

Remember how you were screwed upside down by your enciks when you
wore that paper thin vest under your no.4 to ease the prickiness and
moist that make you so uncomfortable under the hot sun?

It seems to be ok to do so now, judging from what i see on national
TV, during an interview on morning prime time. Pardon the poor
quality of the pics. It represent the kind of examplary conduct we
are seeing.

Golden words.....

About a year and a half back, MM Lee said that we are in a 'golden period' which can 'stretch out over many years', 'If there are no wars or oil crises'. Words of wisdom I must say......except that he forgot to add 'if there are no subprime crisis' and look at the state we are in now?

And now, he is confident that we can 'weather the storm'.... oh no....

Integration

So... the gahment is going to setup a National Integration Council to 'integrate new immigrants' as reported in reports here and here.

Don't understand, even in jia lard times like this they still can think of such money wasting ideas to create more job... hmm wait... create more job? ok it is not such a bad idea after all then. But I still don't know why we are so hard up to get them 'integrated'? For a start, what is the definition of being 'integrated'? they can speak good singlish? or they can share a same piece of memory of this land (good or bad) that we have for the last few decades?

Actually I have a better idea, that is to get all the new male immigrants to start serving NS, go for their yearly obligatory IPPT , ICT blah blah. This will serve a few purposes, firstly the new immigrants will join in the cursing session of the bloody gahment over tea break easily and bond with the locals in no time ("#$%@, fail my 2.4 again, must go RT liao .... dunno want to geng or not", "$#%@ waste my bloody time, every year call me back, now economy so bad...."). Secondly, the local boys will not be so resentful about the new immigrants freeloading on this country's sound military defence framework, supported largely by the poor boys all these years, which will make a positive impact towards welcoming the newbies.

How about the female new immigrants? They can now share the pain of our wonderful spouses who have been quietly shouldering the sacred duty of nation building all these while.......
"Er Boss, I cannot take the conference call tonight as I need to fetch my kids from the childcare centre.... my hubby is away on ICT...."

see? what National Integration Council?? Just make everyone suffer together and we will see true integration happen....

lunch

the late morning downpour that did not show any signs of stopping signalled that I am in for another round of unhealthy lunch treat again. After 2 rounds of KFC meals last week, I originally wanted to have fish soup at the foodcourt to breakout of the vicious fastfood cycle but unable to get a seat as the wet weather is keeping every one in. In the end....... Another round of fast food.

live from indoor stadium....BEYOND LIVE 2008

with wifey at this old school canto rock band concert. Times must be real bad, our cheapest balcony tics got 'promoted' to a terrece seat, very likely due to lousy sales.
The gals are at home, under the care of granny. Show gonna start soon....

Assortative mating

MM Lee was repeating his same old story of how Asia will emerge stronger after this crisis at some Summit. I am really impressed by his insightful visions of the 'golden years' and the growth we can expect in this region except being a little puzzled why his visions simply chose to exclude foreseeing the financial crisis that hit us.

Anyway I didn't know why the news editor has decided to add in something totally irrelevant to the same news article that totally tipped the focus. The concluding paragraphs of that news article goes like this :

On a lighter note, the Minister Mentor touched on what he calls assortative mating, that is, finding a spouse at your level - something he strongly believes in.

He said: "I have explained this. I think I lost votes after I explained the awful truth. Nobody believed it, but slowly it dawned on them, especially the graduates, that yes, you marry a non-graduate, then you worry about whether or not your son or daughter is going to make it to the university.

I am no population genetics expert to start a discussion on 'assortative mating', but from a perspective of a human being, I can only say that , to me, such feudalism thinking goes against very basic values like respect and love for a fellow human. I am not surprise, that's how we are in his eyes, numbers, statistics, grads or non grads, merely figures that he took into consideration when he is meticulously designing and implementing his social engineering project to create his efficient yet emotionless system.

But then, ultimately, whether our sons or daughters can make it to the university is very largely dependent on how many scholarships are being given away to foreigners' sons and daughters.

Oh, and I better double check the education level of my parents, all along I have this impression that they only received primary school education but with all their kids being university grads, something must be wrong somewhere. Of course not MM Lee, he cannot be wrong.

怡乐千

[source:www.everystockphoto]

I think the gahment is right, we are running out of local talents, why else is the mediacorp so busy and enthusiastic to come up with so many crappy collaboration projects with overseas (or rather over-straits-of-johor) actors and actresses?
I hate to be politically correct but I think a disclaimer now is appropriate: I personally find their accent abit overwhelming BUT the real issue here is most of them are speaking outright broken mandarin. And with such crappy verbal expression, it turns every episode of the show into a comedy and the actors/actresses into comedians.

However the biggest joke here is actually our "Speak Mandarin Campaign"..... I wonder how by banning those wonderful dialect shows with properly spoken Cantonese or Hokkien but yet allowing those lousy broken mandarin on TV helps us to"To improve communication and understanding amongst Chinese Singaporeans. "???

Anyway we Singaporeans probably deserve such insults to our media intelligence, after all we voted bands that cannot sing, cannot play music instruments, cannot harmonize as the champion in a nation-wide band competition..... TWICE in a row. And if that isn't enough, we even have crappy host that cannot even differentiate the words 'yu' 鱼 and 'yi' 姨 and yet is still hosting show after show as if Singapore is really lacking in ah bengs that CAN speak decent mandarin.

You see it now? our local 怡乐千 is hopeless.

FX

Forex is such a crazy trading mechanism, I made 1125.47 USD in 1/2 an hour (10.45 - 11.15 pm) just by following some simple textbook theory observing the charts plus a huge dose of speculative luck. Of course the leverage provided by the 50,000 USD plays a part in accumulating the spoils of the night.

But I am still very rational over the whole thing, firstly, this is just an demo account, which means the dollars are virtual. I did not batt an eyelid when I short 400k of USD against the Yen, something that would have weaken my heart and knees in real life.