Gimme Rs300

A trading mentor shared with us this story, which reminds me that I should not forget what I am working so hard for.

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door...

Son: "Daddy, may I ask you a question"

Daddy: "Yeah sure, what is it?"

Son: "Dad, how much do you make an hour"

Daddy: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?" he said angrily

Son: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?"

Daddy: "I make Rs. 500 an hour"

"Oh", the little boy replied, with his head down. Looking up, he said,

"Dad, may I please borrow Rs. 300?"

The father was furious, "if the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or other nonsense, then march yourself to your room and go to bed. Think why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior"

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions.

How dare he ask such questions only to get some money? After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:"May be there was something he really needed to buy with that Rs. 300 and he really didn't ask for money very often!"

The man went to the door of little boy's room and opened the door. "Are you asleep, son?" He asked.

"No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy.

"I've been thinking, may be I was too hard on you earlier", said the man, "It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the Rs.300 you asked for" The little boy sat straight up, smiling "oh thank you dad!" He yelled.

Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled some crippled up notes.The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at his father.

"Why do you want money if you already had some?" the father grumbled.

"Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied."Daddy I have Rs. 500 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you"

MORAL

It's just a short reminder to all of us working so hard in life. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts.

If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our familyand friends. An unwise investment indeed!

More on housing,inflation and FT

Expensive public housing is a pain in the ass indeed.

The housing problem was made much worse by the incoming hot money from the foreign printing presses. Ours are not so bad, China, Australia and Hong Kong are over heating to the point of craziness. The common people are not talking about buying properties but renting them instead. This is inflation playing itself out plus property speculation.

So why do prices go up, and have to go up?

This one you have to go back to the basics of Keynesian economy policy implementation. You need a slight inflation to keep the game of fiat currency going. This is a game we all play. Due to the effects of inflation, the price of everything goes up.

The game is over when prices actually goes down, which is a situation that Japan has been facing for the last few decades. Let's use the scenario that prices actually falls for new flat. What will happen?

Older flats losses value as a new flat is cheaper, effectively wipe out billions in value meant for retirement for ALL home owners.

People will perceive that buying a flat is a negative asset, it depreciates over time and losses value. So the only way is NOT to buy a flat but to rent housing instead.

This also creates a downward spiral momentum on public housing prices. Why do current home owners want to hold on to their loss making flats when they should go and buy a cheaper and newer flat? This will cause the depreciation in value to accelerate, creating the first made in Singapore housing crisis.

The problem is more like the prices are increasing too rapidly, and COV is something that needs to be tame. If there is a party that saw this, and have a practical solution to it, I am all ears. Unfortunately, as I kept humming, the opposition didn't understand economics, have a poor grip on reality and in turn have terrible short sighted populist policies. The impact is very serious. People are going to lose jobs, life savings, and worse yet, in the current global economy climate, this is a mistake we cannot afford to make.

Personal background
I am a IT engineer, whose field is flooded with foreigners. We are out numbered 1 : 20 or maybe more.

In my department, the number of PRs, new citizens and EP holders completely out numbered born-in-Singapore Singaporeans. Does that mean I should go around bashing foreigners for jacking up prices in resale flat, taking up space in MRT or stealing your potential life partner? No. As I said, these are the new Citizen in the making, well over the majority settled down here. Singapore is a country made up of foreigners workers and immigrant.

I got a colleague who was also cursing and swearing at PAP all the time for years. Then this week, he announced happily that he is going to marry a PRC, going to sell his flat to a new citizen making a handsome sum in the progress. I was like WTF, people changed over night.

Again to talk about opposition policies, many of them are not new, and have known undesirable effects too. There is little information on how to handle the various issues that are bound to happen if the policies are implemented. This is akin to sell first worry later, very irresponsible. It's like the iPhone 4 with the antenna problem.

FT

More foreigners keeps the game running. Someone else's loss is another's gain. Look the other way, does losing 1.5 million FT solve the problem? It will only create a new set of problem, probably more undesirable in the long run.

A loss in advantage over our neighbours will send us downwards relatively. Once pass the tipping point where the upward momentum in price, deflation and stagflation will kick in and that is something we cannot afford. The effects comes in only after many years.

Take a look at my favorite beating dummy, the US, the land of the free. Not that we will be like them if we vote for the opposition but this is what bad policies can do. After 911, they had tighten immigration policies, kept the same policies that the opposition are selling and where are they now?

http://www.shadowstats.com/

1) A housing bubble that had not completely deflated since 2008
2) Real unemployment over 20%
3) Real inflation well over 6%
4) Obama care remained unfunded, a promise that cannot be kept
5) FT brain drain crippled their knowledge industries
6) Heavy taxes drove out their rich and large companies
7) SME were wiped out
8) Food stamps use had grew to ...
http://www.dailyjobsupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/Food-Stamps-Nations.jpg
9) US dollar had plunged to toilet paper status.
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/

After reading wider and gaining a big picture view, I had arrived to the conclusion that we should always vote for the best policies for our country. There is no way to teach economics or fiscal responsibility over a short time. I didn't like to take things at face value, I do my own research.

In time, you will understand drawing 60 billion for the reasons raised by SDP is unsustainable and likely to be wasted.

PAP will make a bunch of very bad salesmen complete with equally bad PR skills despite their merits. They are not selling their achievements, current projects or their future plans.

Turn the question around and ask the opposition, not the achievement or projects but just the future plans. I find that their populist policies could not met my expectations.

I don't see a future with them at their current state. I am not pro-PAP but the opposition need to have more substance over form. It is very easy to attack one and the burden of proving innocence lies with the victim. Also everyone can complain with 20/20 hindsight.

Did the opposition demonstrate an understanding of global challenges and how we should tackle them? Or go back in history and understand how we had arrived with the current policies? Or study the impact of the very policies that they are selling?

Out on the streets and internet, PAP looks like a piece of crap, as painted by the opposition. Somehow, I didn't see people starving, loses a job, got no place to stay, flats collapsing, stop buying their next car, go for the Xth holiday for the year, get a new pet, going for fine dining, buy a new designer bag, drop out of school because school fees are too high and so on and so forth.

Who are the foreigners?

I knew of many foreign students and foreign talents who eventually became PRs and then later Singapore citizens. Providing education actually helps a lot to sell Singapore a lot too. So far, for the foreign students that I knew of, only 1 went back to Malaysia. The rest settled down here and eventually contributed to the economy.

My work place is full of foreign students and foreign talents who did the same thing. They ended up as citizens, and they brought the rest of their sisters, brothers and friends. They don't send much money back home any more as their immediate family are now in Singapore and the next generation is all Singaporeans.

Can you imagine how much did their country of origin lost? They had lost healthy, educated and productive people in their prime to join our country, first as a foreign worker, later as a PR then a citizen. Their government had invested in them in many ways, education, health care etc. What did they got in return? Nothing much except maybe a good bye.

That's what we are, Singapore has and will always been full of foreign workers and immigrants. Look at history, it was the British who built a port with foreign workers on Malaysia land. Those foreign workers later vastly outnumbered the locals and eventually declare themselves as a nation. The same foreign workers are from all over the world, India, Indonesia, China, Europe etc etc.

I do not understand why suddenly we have to be so adverse towards foreign workers. During different periods, the source of people changes, be it Malaysia, Indian, or China, it will still be the same for us. We learn to integrate and work as a nation.

The populist idea that foreigners are taking our jobs and using our resources is nothing but distorted truths in the perception of history of Singapore. Can you read aloud your pledge and be reminded what Singapore is about?

We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.

This is one of the many reasons, that the more I heard from the opposition's populist, short sighted and ignorant policies, the less I am willing to cast my vote for them.

This was what we had done since 1819. Come 2011 and more, why will it be different when it had served us well?

Why I started writing politically charged articles suddenly when I usually don't even care less

I felt that the problem is that people voting for opposition to give them a "voice" for "change" without understanding how much power is actually given to them and question their ability to deliver.

Voting for a party does not just give them a "voice", but a chance for them to deliver on their policies (if it's good, i don't mind). But what if the policies are unsound? And the voice becomes noise?

Sure PAP is not perfect, they have questionable policies sometimes too, but we are here today because they done their job mostly well so far.

I don't score 100% for my exams but I don't get penalised for losing 25 marks either because it's still a distinction. (Ok, I lied, I am a lousy student)

Fiscal responsibility

For me, I will vote for the best policies offered. Unfortunately, the opposition are just offering populist policies which are unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible. How can those programs be funded without incurring a mountain of debt, how can the budget be balanced, without causing disruption to the economy and even hurt the very people that the policy is suppose to help?

Almost every country in the world with state welfare, pension schemes, minimum wages ended up worse off. Every policy and program needs to be paid for. For the majority of the people who do not understand much about economics, little did they know that the debts will be simply be incurred and kick down the road.

The opposition could not demonstrate any understanding of budgeting and fixing the root of the very problem that they are burning PAP with. Inflation.

The root of many of the issues is inflation. Can a government "control" inflation and reduce prices? Did the opposition ever mention the cause of inflation and how to handle it?

When I heard of plans such as drawing from our reserves, magically conjuring money out of the air, without thoughts on how to replenish the money spent or even getting value out of it, I knew the opposition policies will doom us as a nation.

I seriously doubt the opposition are actually evaluating the cost of implementation and the returns of the policies that they had borrowed from the rest of the world. The ideas are not original, nor are the problems associated with them.

Using SDP's "solutions" as an example,

The SDP’s solutions

To overcome this problem and help Singaporeans meet daily expenses, the SDP proposes the following measures:

1. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by:

• reducing the GST from 7% to 3% and abolishing the GST for essential items such as rice, oil, medicines, etc,
• lowering your PUB bills by at least 50%,
• making sure that our public hospitals reduce charges and stop making a profit from Singaporeans,
• bringing down bus and MRT fares by at least 20%, and
• ensuring that the government increases public expenditure for the poor.

2. Increase the wages of workers and employees through schemes like Minimum Wage.

This will put more money into the pockets of Singaporeans. Higher incomes mean greater spending power for Singaporeans. This will benefit businesses and help the economy to become stronger.

3. Implement the Singaporeans First Policy.

We want to rely more on Singaporeans and less on cheap foreign labour. The high number of foreign workers presently in Singapore will only lower wages further because if there are more workers in the country, then employers can pick and choose the ones who will work longer and longer for less and less.

We must stop the PAP from raising our population to 6.5 million because this island cannot cope with so many people.

So help us to help you keep the cost of living to an affordable level. Support the Singapore Democrats for a more secure and brighter future.

1. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by: reducing the GST from 7% to 3% and abolishing the GST for essential items such as rice, oil, medicines, etc,
   
   The money spent in the programs and the tax not collected requires another source. The countries which implemented such policies ended up increasing other taxes and personal income taxes. Eventually the expenses kept ballooning out of control.
   
   
2. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by: lowering your PUB bills by at least 50%,
   
   Populist policies like subsidising energy costs such as fuel, water and power had already caused big issues with budgeting in neighbouring countries. They had quickly learn that even if they do process the natural resources, subsidising the cost only promote wastage and increase the squeeze on supply.
   
   
3. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by: making sure that our public hospitals reduce charges and stop making a profit from Singaporeans,
   
   Public hospitals need to be subsidised to reduce charges. The taxpayers will have to foot the bill. If you squeeze margins, without subsidising the cost, the good doctors, nurses and equipment will move to the private hospitals, who have no obligations to make it any cheaper when they knew public hospitals are slums.
   
   
4. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by:bringing down bus and MRT fares by at least 20%, and
   
   Same logic as point 2. As what I had written in a previous blog post, the operators will not want to see reduction in profit from previous levels. They will cut manpower, employ more foreigners, reduce frequency and kill off unprofitable routes.
   
   
5. Lower prices of our daily use of various items and services by:ensuring that the government increases public expenditure for the poor.

Too generic to comment on.

Their policies were also native and laughable. I will rather call their boomerang policies because I I see that they will just come around and hit our ass.

1. Re-calibrate our tax structure.

Singapore should bring up its tax bracket for top earners closer to the 30 percent mark like Canada, Germany, and Japan. The increased revenue collected from higher tax rates could go towards funding social programmes such as increasing the Public Assistance Scheme for the poor.

In addition, we should lower and vary the GST rate for different goods. Purchase of basic food items as well as other basic necessities should not be taxed while the GST for luxury items should be increased.

In 2008, the PAP Government abruptly abolished taxes on estate duty. Inheritances are taxed when individuals die and pass on their possessions. The Singapore Democrats propose the reinstatement of the estate duty tax for the wealthiest 20 percent in Singapore, both for citizens and non-citizens. Revenue from such a tax can be used to pay for programmes like retrenchment benefits described below.

Unfortunately, the wealthy are also the smartest people around when it comes to tax evasion. Putting such laws in place only drive them to get creative. For a good example, look at again my favorite punching bag, the United States. Many of the wealthy simply migrate to another country with more favorable laws. Personal gains can be creatively managed by using the cover of off-shore companies etc.

What happened in US is that instead of gaining any tax from the wealthy, US actually LOST taxes in the long run. The tax burden ends up where? The not-so-smart public who do not have the means or ability to dodge the bullet.

Such laws only served to make things look pretty to the majority to us but instead the wealthy will just take it as a we-are-not-welcome-here law.

2. Introduce Minimum Wage.

Paying indecently low wages in high-cost Singapore not only dehumanises our workers, it also creates insecurity among the workforce which threatens productivity.

Minimum wage is the lowest amount of wages an employer may legally pay to an employee. Based on a wage level of $300 per week, the official minumum wage for Singapore would work out to $6.80 per hour. This amount would be applicable to the lowest of the low-wage income earners.

Some fear a minimum wage policy because such legislation would drive wage costs up, cutting into profit margins. But increasing the wage levels of workers increases the spending power of workers which will stimulate consumption, benefiting businesses.

Minimum wage also increases the productivity of the workers as they can focus on their jobs instead of being distracted with having to find supplementary income because of low and inadequate wages. It also reduces poverty and want which can breed mistrust and resentment towards management thereby lowering quality output of work.

Most of all minimum wage prevents workers from being exploited and allows prosperity to be shared by all.

Today over 90 percent of countries across the world have minimum wage in one form or another. The few countries that have no laws or regulations on minimum wage are Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Tonga, Brunei, Somalia, and, of course, Singapore.

Most economists today agree that the negative effects of such a policy to employers as well as employees are relatively minor. Even Hong Kong has just passed a minimum wage bill.

The flip side of such policies is that the minimum wages will become effectively the maximum wages. Jobs will be lost to foreigners who will take up the jobs for minimum wages which locals will shun. Prices of goods and services will soar as businesses pass the cost to the customer. Price inflation kicks in and ends up hurting the very people the law is suppose to help.

Worse yet, the number of illegals and over stayers will also climb to fill in the positions which the minimum wages is too high to be paid for. Why pay $6.80 for a cleaner when you can pay $3?

How about reducing the number of workers and demand free overtime? Someone else will take the job if compliance is not met.

I can go on and on but in the end, please open your eyes and read deeper. Populist policies are easy to sell, but impossible to implement and run. If complaining, finger pointing and populist policies are all the opposition parties are about, I should start my own too !!!

Announcing the ...

AXIS OF EVIL AND FINANCIAL DOOMSDAY PARTY !!!

Featuring ...

1. Completely abolishing national service
   Why waste our precious youth? The SAF will be manned by cheap labour from across the world who will gladly die as cannon folder.
   
   
2. Doing away with GST AND income tax (Also name any tax you hate)
   The smart way is to sell more government bonds to MAS. The tactic is simple. Government needs money? Issue bonds which will be purchased by MAS who in turn uses the bonds as an asset to generate more credit to buy more government bonds.
   
   
3. Cheaper public healthcare
   We will recruit cheaper doctors and nurses who may or may not understand or speak English to serve you. Biopolis will now produce drugs at cost price with complete disregard to international patents for the public! We will also legalised the purchase of organs from foreign countries to make sure that our citizens stay alive longer.
   
   
4. Free public transportation for all
   All transport companies will be nationalised except for taxi companies. As a sweetener, ERP and COV will be removed since public transportation should be more attractive as it will now be free.
   
   
5. CPF will be abolished
   We trust our citizens to be able to manage your own savings and will not need the government to babysit you and risk insufficient returns on your compulsory savings known as CPF.
   
   
6. No need for minimum wages or pension scheme
   As long as you are a citizen, you get a monthly amount credited into your bank account. You only need to prove that you are alive and kicking.
   
   
7. Cheaper public housing
   Why wait for BPO? Or pay for sky high COV? The forested area will be cleared to build more flats and it will be faster than buying sand to reclaim land.
   
   
8. Even cheaper and better education
   We will employ more foreign talents to incubate our own young talents. This way we can use the same budget and still reduce the teachers to student ratio per class. And better yet, we will revert to 2 school sessions a day to DOUBLE the efficiency of the teachers.

Oops I did not hand in my papers in time to sign up for this election 2011. Please vote for me next time !

What will happen to the public transportation system if the foreigners disappeared today?

WARNING, TWISTED MATHS AHEAD.

While discussing on the topic of the impact of foreigners on public transport with my sister, I did some crazy maths and arrived at an another of my dark side theory.

The complaint revolves around that the fact that 40% of the people in Singapore are foreigners, which contribute to the over crowding in public transport in Singapore.

What will happen if they suddenly disappear? The $$$ minded train operators had to do something to retain profits at the current levels. Once you are used to good profits, you will want to keep going, no matter what. How?

1. Decrease the frequency of trains by 40% to keep the trains filled as much as possible. The trains will still be packed, and we are all going to be late.
   
   
2. Increase the train fares by 40% to boost revenues back to previous levels. A 40% hike with additional hikes due to inflation is going to be a killer.

There is also another way to solve the problem.

TURN THEM INTO CITIZENS ASAP.

Just 2 generations ago, we are all foreigners too. It wasn't long ago when this was a quiet fishing village until the British came along. Read your history people, Singapore has always been full of immigrants and foreign workers.

Election day holiday ruined

I was hoping that Ang Mo Kio will be uncontested but my hopes were dashed when the The Reform Party sent in a team. PAP is doing a good job but it doesn't hurt to see what's the offering from an opposition party.

So I went to their webpage and poke around. I found their manifesto and my blood turned cold as I read on.

The Reform Party believes that Singapore belongs to its people and that government should serve the people and not the other way around. We want to build a first-class modern nation, in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world. We believe that Freedom and Prosperity go hand in hand.

Without freedom of expression and a climate of ideas fostering innovation and creativity we will not only fall further behind the already rich nations of the US, Europe and Japan but also the new, and considerably freer Asian states such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Even our customary advantages in education and infrastructure are being eroded by India and China as well as many of our ASEAN neighbours.

The people who had written this must have no knowledge of global economic at all. If anyone in the party would, they could have updated their manifesto quickly.

So what's wrong? Here's why.

1. "We want to build a first-class modern nation, in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world."
   
   Sorry for bursting your bubble but rich and advanced democracies are as rare as hens's teeth in the world. Due to the wealth effect, most of the "rich" countries are actually dead broke. Many people got no idea that we are now in a new currency war since 2009, the on-going European sovereign debt crisis and the upcoming collapse of dollar of the United States.
   
   We living in the age of Keynesian economics, which in simple turns allow governments to please their people by pushing off the debt incurred to the next government. It is like a credit card on the national scale. The western governments at this point had already busted their accounts and on the verge of not being able to even meet the minimum payment.
   
   No. I do not want to want to be anywhere "in line with the rich and advanced democracies of the world."
   
   
2. "...we will not only fall further behind the already rich nations of the US, Europe and Japan but also the new, and considerably freer Asian states such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong."
   
   Please replace the term "already rich nations" with "already bankrupt nations". Take a look at the World Debt Clock and tell me again, who is rich? Does wearing a nice suit and driving a new car makes you feel rich and wealthy? This is the wealth effect playing in our minds.
   
   I am not expert in freedom of expression so I will not be commenting on that.
   
   
3. "Even our customary advantages in education and infrastructure are being eroded by India and China as well as many of our ASEAN neighbours."
   
   Actually our real customary advantage is our way of governance, something that is not perfect but mostly done right. With the fall of the Western powers in full swing, and the ascendance of China, we still have a good advantage over our ASEAN neighbours.
   

Let's look at their policies pledges

1. Providing Cheaper and Better Lower-Income Housing by releasing more land for house-building and allowing the private sector a greater role.
   
   I must agree that our housing prices are soaring really fast recently. Providing cheaper housing (assuming public housing) has also a flip side of reducing the value of the existing housing, both private and public housing.
   
   Let's look at the scenario as the prices of housing actually falls. The private housing sector prices will first dip and then bounce right back as both foreign and local buyers will take the chance to enter the property market.
   
   Morever, as the currency war rages on, the flow of hot money will enter Singapore and take advantage of the situation, pulling the gap between private and public housing even further.
   
   The net effect will be that the prices of all existing public housing will fall a bit, making existing owners fuming and unable to upgrade to private housing as their existing housing will now fetch a lower price and the private housing will still be, if not more expensive than now.
   
   
2. Universal health insurance to be funded through current CPF contributions replacing current Medisave and Medishield schemes.
   
   This might be a good idea. While it might not replace the current schemes, complementing them may be a viable option.
   
   
3. Basic Old Age Pension payable to all provided they have worked and paid into CPF for a sufficient number of years.
   
   No no and no. This is a 1000% bad idea sold by politicians all over the world to get themselves elected, then passing the cost to future generations to come. Due to the effects of inflation and overly optimistic investment gains, the cost of the pension scheme will always overrun the ability of the sources paying for it. Almost every pension system in the world is on the verge of blowing up.
   
   
   Please no pension scheme of any sort, they will just bankrupt us all. There is no free lunch. You cannot get something out of nothing.
   
   
4. Reform of CPF to make contributions above those necessary to fund health and unemployment insurance and basic pension voluntary.
   
   Need to check whether this is sustainable. Is there any maths for this?
   
   
5. Universal child benefit scheme (as part of Guaranteed Minimum Income) to replace current tax breaks that heavily favour women on higher incomes.
   
   Raising children is indeed expensive in Singapore. This might help.
   
   
6. Guaranteed Minimum Income for those in work to replace current Workfare system and to be integrated with child benefit and tax system.
   
   This will certainly appeal to the lower income groups.
   
   
7. A Minimum Wage to encourage businesses to raise productivity.
   
   While it sound good, this policy got the potential to backfire really badly. How? As a business, the priority is to manage cash flow and reduce overheads. With a minimum wage law in place, what will a business do? For jobs that are already paying below the minimum wages, the permanent staff will be retrenched and the positions filled with temporary and contract workers!
   
   Any jobs paying slightly above the minimum wage will simply pay the minimum wage. I will trust businesses to be creative and employ more foreign workers to take up the jobs that the Singaporeans refuses to get paid for.
   
   Worse yet, the jobs simply disappear as they moved to neighbouring countries since we are now more expensive. Instead of helping the poor, this policy will kill them off.
   
   Check this article, "The miniumum wage" from Freedom Daily.
   
   
8. Reforms to Foreign Worker Policy to ensure that business gets the skilled labour it needs but that our own citizens come first.
   
   I am in the IT industry and the number of foreign workers is simply huge. Singaporeans are completely out numbered here. While interviewing people for open positions, the foreign skilled labour are usually cheaper, highly skilled and more experienced then Singaporeans. From a business perceptive, it's getting hard to be a patriot.
   
   
9. Reductions in or exemptions from GST for certain categories of goods like food that form a higher proportion of total expenditure for those on median incomes and below.
   
   The problem is not GST but inflation. It is inflation that bumps up food and energy prices not GST.
   
   Inflation and fiat money
   The key point that I must stress that the money you have in your bank and wallet isn't really money after all. No, it does not represent real money, nor it's a IOU of any sorts. It's call fiat money. It's pieces of paper that a country's government prints and declare the value of. The intrinsic value of fiat money is the value of the paper and ink used to print it. It is not tied to anything except pure faith that the next person recognise it. Any gain or loss of confidence in the fiat money in a country causes exchange rate changes.
   
   Since fiat money can be printed at will, there is practically no way to measure the value of the dollar bill that you are holding. It's like hot potatoes been passed from one to another. The problem is that eventually, the fiat money loses it's value over time because all government simply prints more and more. The act of printing money like this causes inflation. Because of the globalised ecomony, this actually became a weapon of mass economic destruction.
   
   Quantitative easing and inflation
   Since World War II, the United States had screwed up on their economic policy very badly, and by any definition, completely bankrupt. Since 2008, to buy more time, and leveraging on their position as the world's reserved currency, they had printed money so fast that their printing press could not print any faster, and they had to resort to adding zeros to bank balances.
   
   This caused the net effect of exporting inflation to the whole world. If you are demanding for an explanation of why things are getting more expensive, I will squarely blame the United States. As goods and services, commodities are all priced in US dollars, the appearance of newly created-out-of-thin-air-money caused the prices of everything to soar.
   
   While our government can control inflation to a certain extend, things are going to get worse.
   
   
10. Universal free and compulsory education from pre-school through to secondary level.
    
    Sounds good.
    
    
11. Expanded university enrolment and increased investment in improving quality of education for everyone.
    
    I didn't like it when I need to pay for my Australian degree with my own cash. But I blame myself for slacking too much in my first 20 years of my life too.
    
    
12. Increased assistance for older workers and women re-entering the labour market to retrain and acquire new educational qualifications.
    
    Similar to my comments at policy #7, this might turn against the people which the policy was meant to help.
    
    
13. Reduction in NS to 18 months initially with aim to reduce it to one year as soon as feasible.
    
    We all heard how NS was meant to secure our future blah blah blah. I must agree 2.5 years is too long, 2 years? How about 1.5 years?
    
    
14. Requirement for new citizens and PRs to do NS or to pay lump sum tax instead.
    
    Most new citizens are adults. Getting them to perform NS and to pay lump sum tax will only drive them away. This is economically a bad idea. I rather entice them to stay, integrate with us as citizens, and their children will serve NS.
    
    
15. Privatization of Temasek and GIC and distribution of equity to Singaporean citizens of more than five years standing.
    
    Temasek and GIC represent Singapore and the wealth are not for distribution. The role of the two entities are a lot more than companies making a quick buck.
    
    
16. Continuing Business and Foreign Investment Friendly Environment coupled with low tax rates.
    
    Yes! This is our rice bowl too. By the way, Singapore is also notorious for being a tax haven in the business world. Naughty but we need every edge we got.
    
    
17. Greater help and support for local SMEs to grow world-class companies.
    
    Great. Such things can always be improved on.
    
    
18. Abolish restrictions on freedom of expression to encourage creativity and innovation necessary for a 21st century knowledge-based economy.
    
    Catchy but doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's like stringing several buzzwords together. Let's assume the freedom here refers to political freedom. Political freedom of expression had little to do with encouraging creativity and innovation. The 21st century isn't all about knowledge-based economy either. Is there a serious restriction on freedom of expression in the first place? In the Internet world, you can say all you want. We don't have a Great Firewall of Singapore.
    
    
19. Reduce waste and inefficiency in government starting with slashing ministerial salaries and replacing it with performance-linked earnings tied to indicators directly related to your welfare.
    
    Let's face it. Politics is always tied to money. Money always corrupts. This government is not corrupted and had done a good job. If this is the price of running things as they are, it is not expensive at all.
    
    Singaporeans growing up in Singapore had lived a fairytale all their lives. You actually have to dig hard before you can find any signs of corruption. Corruption is what bring down governments, societies and countries. It's a serious problem all over the world. Ask your foreign friends and you will understand how bad corruption can affect everyone. If their lawmakers and government can work like the Singapore government does at this price, they will gladly do so.
    
    Indicators tied to your welfare...we are not a welfare state. Politicians are not stupid. If they cannot get their money upfront, the squeeze it out of you elsewhere. From there on, it will be a slippery slope which will only end up in tears.
    

I have always regard the following as the golden rule in my life, borrowed ironically from a Citibank advertisement that I have seen when I was in Secondary school.

"Money is power"

And later I learn that the opposite is also very true.

When a party is in power, the must absolutely know how to handle money. This is very important. Extremely so.

When you are getting married, you will want to make sure that your partner is healthy, with common goal in life, has good track records and can make sound decisions, especially financially. There is no Mr or Mrs Perfect but there is always Mr or Mrs Right. Will you want to get married with a partner who promises a lot but has no track record of delivering and has no foreseeable way of doing so? Will you stake your future because you feel you want to take a leap of faith, taking a risk when the odds are against you?

How many stories did you hear about couples with horrible financial management? Your savings will be wiped out, your bright future gone and only doom awaits.

The economy is the lifeblood of the country. There is no way, I will vote for a party that has no idea how to handle the economy, selling populist ideas which sound very nice but will lead us to the path of doom. There is no way I will take risk like this, for pile of chips Singapore has is the only pile we will ever have. There is no second changes in this brutal world.

I am voting for my country based on the best interest of my country, not some short sighted populist policies that will only lead us to the dying economies of Europe, Japan and United States.

The Reform Party have to seriously get their priorities right. You need to sell policies, and implement them in a way that is sustainable and desirable. While their policies have good intents, the directions are mostly populist tactics and increase expenditure and reducing our competitiveness.

There is no prize for guessing who I am going to vote for. The party with the best proven track record and best plan for the future will get my vote.

Almost bought a few 1kg "coins"

I was on the verged of getting a few of those shiny silver "coins" for myself. Damn this guy in the picture got so many of ... my preciousssss.

After staring at pictures of silver coins on Monday night, I had decided to add on more silver @ USD$43.44 using the UOB silver savings after deciding against buying the physical coins and bars. The premiums for physical silver is 20% to 50% on top of the spot price! That's wicked! According to Gary (the guy who got me interested in silver), I had decided that it is worthwhile to risk buying more from UOB as the risk of default is low.

Not long after, silver hit a new high at USD $43.8, which was truly amazing. It took only 2 days to break the $43.5 resistance level. Give it a bit more time for gold to crack the USD $1500 barrier and it will drag silver to another new high.

For those waiting for a better price to buy, good luck with that.

Silverish shiny rocks got even more shinier

While looking for an image for shiny rocks, I ended up with a "Sexy Shiny Silver Metallic Short Catsuit Costume". Ahem, back to the topic, and forget the distraction above (stop staring), the shiny rocks that I had bought in proxy via the UOB silver savings account had made a unrealised gain of 25% in less than 6 weeks.

And here is the not so sexy version of the silver chart

While preaching the all goodness of the ever more shiny rock which kept getting shiny while doing basically nothing on its own, I came across a few common questions.

1. Q. Silver is very expensive now. Experts says that you should buy only on a substantial retracement / correction in price.
   A. Ever since the price left the $19 range in Sept 2010, the price had moved on to $43 in a blink of the eye. If this is a regular fiat currency, stock, bond, some other non-silver/gold commodities or whatsoever, it might actually have a meaningful retracement / correction. However go open up a silver chart and it will take a 126% retracement to go back to the last major support at $19. The last retracement 18 days, and then the next only 8 days, and who knows how long is the next one. Looking at the chart, you will almost never be able to get a better price from buying at a retracement.
   
   Frankly, I was also thinking of buying more on a retracement, but I am already wanted to /wrist myself for not believing in myself and bought more when it was $34.4.
   
   
2. Q. I don't believe you. I bet that you will lose $$$ in silver.
   A. If you are so sure, go and take a short position silver now. I will take the other end of the trade by taking a long position. At the unbelievable pace it is climbing, the year end $49 target is not a joke. If silver is a fiat currency, I would have already done a massive short on it, but nope, shorting silver on the long term will bankrupt you for sure.
   
   
3. Q. But people lost money in gold and silver!
   A. Did the same sources tell you those people were also doing leveraged speculative trades on gold and silver, and probably did not have the knowledge on how to manage a trade?
   
   
4. Q. $49 is impossible! $40 is already very high and more than double of $19. It's unsustainable and will collapse. Expert all says that.
   A. Those are the same experts who claimed the same when silver was at $10, $20, $30, $40. If these experts are so spot on, then why are they so damn broke and still working for a pay check to write nonsense?
   
   Here is my expert source whom I regretfully did not heed his advice 2 years ago on taking a long position on commodities. Jim Rogers!
   
   
5. Q. Ok, then how do I buy?
   A. Since there is almost no best time, and it is impossible to time the entry, you might as well do it blindly. I am talking about an unleveraged saving accounts dominated in silver, not much to risk here.
   
   
6. Q. What happens when it hits $49? Will it stop and roll over and take a dive? Should I sell then? Will it be the end? A cliff? Doomsday?
   A. In reality, $49 is the nominal high based on the previous high in 1980s after adjustment for inflation. Does it mean it will stop there? I got no idea frankly. I probably hold till it reached the moon's orbit.
   
   
7. Q. I still don't know what to do.
   A. Get out of anything denominated in US dollars at the very least. It is destined for eternal doom in the pits of hell. Frankly Euro also looks like the same case too.
   

Buying the poor man's gold

During the get-a-life-day (WoW maintenance day) on 1 March, I went out for a steamboat dinner at Ang Mo Kio central with Jia Lun. As usual, the topic was on how bad our job sucks and the doom and gloom in the world.

So it eventually boiled down this. With all the bad stuff happening in the world, is there anything we can do to take advantage of the situation? It wasn't long that the topic shifted to gold and silver, and particularly silver.

While trying make comparisons between FX, commodities, gold and silver, I found myself selling the idea of investing in silver more and more.

Why buy shiny rocks?
1) But shiny rocks are not sexy! Nobody buy rocks! They have limited industrial uses, and do nothing but shines! Gold and silver are the REAL money acknowledged by civilisations across the world for thousands of years. Fiat currencies are not, which lead us to...

2) While you can mine gold and silver, you can print paper currencies even faster. In the age of computers, you don't event need paper to print "money". Some broke central banks can go to a computer and add a couple of zeroes. Can you do that with gold and silver? Nope. Ever heard of quantitative easing? Money supply? Or the scale of the rampant money printing? US, UK, China, Europe and Japan...just to name a few are printing money out of the air faster than ever. Hyperinflation will come, it's a matter of time.

3) While the golden brother is obviously the most popular choice for investment, silver price movement is closely correlated with gold. This correlationship lead us to ...

4) Silver has more upside to it. The gold silver ratio will send it higher. Silver is a lagging brother behind gold, and the pull towards gold is not over yet.

5) And of course, I cannot afford to buy gold. At USD$1400+ per ounce, it's way beyond my means. The poor man's gold, still shiny without the golden halo works well at USD$34ish.

6) Nay, putting my $$$ in the bank is safer...until you realise that due to inflation and the useless saving rates, you are actually losing money by doing so. By the power of inflation, for every $100 you have in the bank, you automatically lose $2.80 annually (2011 projected 2.8% inflation rate for SG). Ouch? Or put it the other way, if you don't get at least a 2.8% pay raise this year, you are actually working for less. Everything you own, cash in bank, property etc loses value in the same way. What else can you do? Demand a pay raise! Bang tables, flip tables, smash something!



Finally the next day, I ran out of reasons not to buy silver. I went to UOB and opened a silver savings account with some of my savings which were rotting in my POSB account. So enjoy the chart below of my journey with the shiny rock.