Stupid & Stupider

Timing of HDB tax hike 'avoid bigger increases later'

Front Page headline of Straits Times on Monday, 23 Nov 2009 by Sue-Ann Chia, Senior Political Correspondent

Quote from ST:
Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui said: "The problem is, the longer you defer it, the larger the increase will be. . . if HDB prices continue to go up."

Hence, the Government has decided to raise the property tax "to reflect the prevailing movement of HDB prices and also to give rebates", said Rear-Admiral Lui. (emphasis mine)

In Hollywood, we have actor Jim Carrey doing "Dumb & Dumber." In Singapore, we have actor (wayanger) doing "Stupid & Stupider".

Is the the current batch of mintsters treating Singaporeans as morons or are Singaporeans stupider than stupid to accept such logic?

Last I remember the GST increase from 5% to 7% to was to help the poor. Not too long after that, PAP Ministers had their million dollar pay hike with much arrogance and shameless justification of their self worth [Link]. I think the 2% GST increase lightens the burden of the poor less but enriches the millionaire ministers in PAP Government more.

To be beaten again by another HDB tax hike is one thing but to have our faces rubbed in again with such stupid (I cannot find a more diplomatic word) reason is beyond me.

Increase the property tax . . . so that you can give rebates? This must be the mother of all reasons! Just how screwed up can one get? If this isn't another male cow manure from a PAP mintster, I don't know what is.

In the second half of 2009, Singaporeans have learned that:

• Singapore Pledge is merely an Aspiration
• Singapore is not a cuntry, but a city
• HDB Tax is increased so that the Government can give give rebates

And I thought "Mee Siam Mai Hum" was funny... or was it the $400,000 to rename Marina Bay... Marina Bay [Link]?

feedmetothefish.

A Few Good Men

Does it take cruelty to human beings (including founding brothers in arms of PAP) and the selling of one's soul to be a despot?

The last time that I was painfully emotional was when I woke up after a heart attack (and ventricular defibrillation) to be told by the doctor in ICU that one in one thousand may die from being fed Streptokines intravenously! Yes, that's the stuff the doctors used to clear clots in your blood vessels when angiogram wasn't so instantly available 10 years ago. I asked for my wife and kids and hugged and kissed them for dear life before I went for the procedure which lasted for 6 hours (if my memory serves me right). I survived. I'm grateful.

Dr Lim Hock Siew, in his revelation, [you must watch this video!] has created in me the raw emotion that the near death (or death) experience brought me. When I saw him speak in the video by Martyn See [Link], I asked myself of the time God has given Dr Lim Hock Siew, Chia Thye Poh, Lim Chin Siong, Said Zahari, the detainees of Marxist's Conspiracy and many others. Was God responsible for their loss of time and freedom? Or was it a power hungry despot (who aspires to be god) who was responsible?

I've read what's written by JB Jeyaratnam, Francis Seow, Vincent Cheng, Teo Soh Lung [Book Link] and others. I have seen "One Nation Under Lee" [Link]. I have seen Said Zahari's 17 Years video [Link]. They were raw. They were revealing. But to have Dr Lim Hock Siew said what he said in the video is to know and be convinced that "white" ain't that "white" after all.

This is what I saw and heard Dr Lim said of INTEGRITY:

• I stood firm and had to suffer 2 decades. That's the price I had to pay for Integrity.

• Where PAP is concerned, "Integrity have to be sustained by the Highest Pay in the World."

• This is the Immorality of the situation in Singapore today.

That touched my heart, my damaged heart. My broken Singaporean heart!

I believe Dr Lim did not die from the cruel incarceration because his job wasn't done. He had to survive to tell us this.

For what you've been taught in schools; what you have read, seen or heard in msm; what you have read from the Lee Kuan Yew's Memoirs; what you have read from "Men In White" book . . . Fair is fair. It Is Not What It Is until you have seen and heard THIS!

It is men like Lim Hock Siew, Said Zahari, JB Jeyaratnam, Francis Seow and many more including women like Teo Soh Lung who shows us, and put on record, the hidden Singapore story. With a Few Good Men and Women, we now have another version of truth, of Singapore's history before us.

Truth prevails and Truth hurts.

To every life a little rain must fall.

I appreciate and respect Dr Lim and Martyn See for telling it like it is.

Thank you for teaching us some!

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That's Such An Insolent Remark

We live, we learn.

I did not know of Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate from Nigeria, until I read an article where ST senior writer Cheong Suk-Wai interviewed him on "colonialism and human rights activists". Here are some interesting Q&A.

• Q: "On Singapore?"
  A: "I find it well laid out, very orderly with a kind of antiseptic atmosphere."

• Q: "With globalization leveling playing fields, it would appear that everyone might soon have an equal voice".
  A: "At the moment, Western powers have built up a tradition of commercial dictatorship with all nations, with the encouragement, very often, of leadership of our very own societies, who find it very easy to collaborate. They become the darlings of their trading partners but, in fact, they are degrading the collective worth of their own societies."
  
  
• Q: "But isn't being open to trade beneficial to their peoples?"
  A: "I've heard statements from so-called democratic leaders such as: 'I know what is best for my people.' That's such an insolent remark."
  
  
• Q: "Why so?"
  A: It's no different from the language of the former colonial masters. So you are quite right that we are still aspiring towards the level playing field.
  
  
• Q: So the colonialism still prevails long after the colonialists have left?
  A: It is so. The British, when they were leaving, decided which part of Nigeria was to rule over the rest.
  
  
• Q: What would you advise other countries with similar competing ethnicities and histories?
  A: The only advice that I can offer is exactly the formula which we are proposing for our nation, which is this: We know this nation was founded on a lie. But let us sit down now and decide the protocols of co-existence, because as long as we have not done that, we are fulfilling the mandate of our colonial masters. We are not yet free.
  

Singaporeans are always reminded by leaders of how lucky we are in not living in a peaceful fishing village but a vibrant city where providing gambling dens has become a pride and joy of a government devoid of other means and ideas of sustaining a country's (or is it city's?) economy. Some would prefer a laid-back fishing village than a over-crowded money-crazed $ingapore where friendliness, kindness and compassion give way to greed, power and insolence. Where everyone is just a cog in the wheel, a mere digit, to serve the gods of CBF. No, not the Face of the female sexual organ (in Hokkien) but be part of a Cheaper, Better and Faster cog in the wheel of Lim Swee Say!

Interestingly, I also read about MM Lee rubbishing opposition parties in Singapore. "Come election time, they talk a lot of things, which is rubbish," said Mr Lee. [Link] and singing praises of PAP's politicians.

"MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew yesterday hit out at critics of People's Action Party politicians, reiterating that the Singapore system works precisely because the ruling party takes great care when choosing its candidates, including some who forgo high-paying careers to become ministers.


To drive home his point, he pointed to the examples of Law Minister K. Shanmugam, an MP of Sembawang GRC, and Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Indranee Rajah.

Ms Indranee is a lawyer with one of Singapore's top legal firms, just as Mr Shanmugam was before he became an office-bearer last year.

Mr Shanmugam, Mr Lee said, could make $6 million a year while in private practice, but now makes $1.5 million a year as a minister.

'(Opposition MP) Low Thia Khiang says, 'Oh, so much money.' I tell you honestly, if I am not a minister, I myself could make two or three times what I am making now. Every time I talk to foreign companies, they offer me $100,000. What do I do with the money? I give it (away) for scholarships, donate to it schools,' he added.

Likewise, it was hard to find an MP like Ms Indranee - well-educated, earning a good living, but who yet took the time to nurture her constituency and push residents' interests and help improve their living conditions." [Link]

Shanmugam may lose some but does Indranee make more by being an MP?

Such self adulation makes the little guys in Singapore want to puke. Some swear. With money that may last till the world ends (but some Chinese say only 3 generations), what is one to do if not spread some around in some charity for good karma? With due respect to the MM, if he wants more money, he should just go do his thing, not stifle his son and give Lee Jnr the chance to prove his mettle as a Prime Minister.

Just because Indranee and Shangmugum earn less now (but still in the millions) does it mean that they are sacrificing their bloody selves? Hello, do we want to put them in the same league as Mother Theresa or Mahatma Ghandi next? Let's have a sense of proportion.

For goodness' sake, politicians chose to be in PAP for their own benefit. Whether it is altruistic (for the good of others) or for their own fame and glory, who knows? Only they themselves know. Maybe, just maybe, they want to be in the limelight so that they can get paid $100,000 as a guest speaker in a foreign company like their mentor. God knows!

"Come election time, they talk a lot of things, which is rubbish".
In the words of Mr Wole Soyinka, "That's such an insolent remark."

In the eyes of some, I'm may be equally insolent, as in disrespectful, to an old man. However, as "speak from the guts" Greatgrandma of my granddaughter teaches me, "Respect needs to be earned, not demanded."

feedmetothefish

Insolent: [Link]
adj.
1. Presumptuous and insulting in manner or speech; arrogant
2. Audaciously rude or disrespectful; impertinent.

"Exceptionalism" is to Ignore, Rebut or Engage?

Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Writer of Straits Times wrote this in "In defence of Singapore exceptionalism" on Friday, 6 Nov 2009.

"THERE are three ways to respond to critics: ignore them, rebut them or engage them.

For a long time, the Singapore Government's preferred response to criticisms levelled at the Republic's civil-political milieu has been to ignore them. Some ministers with a more combative nature - notably Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew - have chosen to rebut them robustly. Few have done the critics the honour of actually looking at their views and engaging them publicly.

Law Minister and Second Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam did so, as did Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, during the recent meeting of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) International Section in Singapore."

Law is law and we should respect the law of the land.

I have always respected Singapore Law until I read of how the Attorney General of Singapore in 1997, Chan Sek Keong wrote a letter to the then Law Minister of how law can be so cleverly interpreted. The issue was The Workers Party had complained to the police that Goh Chok Tong, Lee Hsien Loong and Tony Tan had been inside a Cheng San GRC polling station on Polling Day. [Link] After reading this story way back then, I have come to conclude that we have laws in Singapore that can be quite weird. It depends on who is interpreting it.

I wonder why Shanmugum, the current Law Mintster did not do the honour of engaging the IBA on this [Link] - International Bar Association Human Rights Report July 2008 on Singapore. To engage Reporters Sans Frontiers (which ranked Singapore's press freedom at 133) but to ignore IBA is "exceptional" indeed.

Ignore, rebut or engage? What the difference?

In trying to make Singapore 'unique' we now have the new term, 'exceptional'!

What is "Exceptionalism"?

• When Chan Sek Keong wrote in 1997, "There is a consistency in the rationales of the regulatory schemes governing activities inside and those outside polling stations on election day. Waiting outside a polling station is made an offence because it gives rise to opportunities to influence or intimidate voters: see paragraph 99 of the Elias Report. Hence, the Act has provided a safety zone which stretches outwards for 200 metres from the polling station. In contrast, the possibility of a person inside a polling station influencing or intimidating voters in the presence of the presiding officer and his officials, the polling agents etc was considered so remote that it was discounted by the Act." That's "Exceptionalism". I think a person may not be intimidating but to have the current SM, PM and former DPM in the same room where you put your cross on a voting slip can be quite "exceptional"!
  

• When MM said that the 'National Pledge' is just a high falutin' 'Aspiration', that's "Exceptionalism"!

• When Shanmugum said Singapore is not a Country but a mere City in defending government's restriction on press and other freedom, that's "Exceptionalism"!

Rule of law?
Rule by law?
Ruler's law? or
Lawyers rule?

In SinCity, who knows?

feedmetothefish

HDB: So where the hell did the money go to?

According to CNA, HDB suffers S$2b Deficit [Link]

Holy shit, lesser mortals are now treated like idiots!

Nobody competes with HDB. It builds and sells thousands of units every year at hundreds of thousands dollars per unit. HDB takes a cut from resellers when resale flats are transacted. How can a monopoly with so much freedom and free-play (charging hapless HDB mortgagees any price it fancies) end up with such a shameless account of itself?

With all the "pow ka leow" - "control everything" and "pow chiak" - "sure win" position, who on earth would believe that they can end up with a S$2billion defishit.

I've no idea how they cook and audit the figures, if they are audited at all. If HDB can lose money, then pigs should fly. Singapore should score #1 in press freedom. There should be no kangaroos in Singapore Courts and no judges in Singapore Zoological Gardens. LKY was never a PM, SM or MM in control of Singapore. My mother should take over Her Royal Highness Elizabeth’s post as the Queen of England and I'll be reincarnated after I’m fed to the fish and return as the POTUS!

Unless, of course, HDB went on a gambling spree like Town Councils which dabbled in toxic Lehman Bros funds or "Ah Long" (lend) $$$,$$$,$$$ to GIC or Temasek and can’t get them to O$P$. (Owe Money, Pay Money!)

Bloggers are wondering if someone should bite the bullet and answer to this sickening joke and knives are pointing at Mah Bow Tan, Mintster of National Development. THen again, if Wong Kan Seng can still keep his job after Mas can Selamat Jalan to JB, I doubt Mah Bow Tan will lose his million-dollar-job.

Will the Singapore accountant-general or auditor-general comment or will this be another PM's "what to do, it happened" swept-under-the-carpet issue.

Or will we get another FM's "the public is interested but there in no reason to explain" to "we-can-walk-all-over-these-lesser-mortals-who-are-too-stupid-to-know-the-difference" kind of answer.

Who knows?

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