Let's look at our President. He is paid almost S$1 million per annum. Does he deserve it? I don't think so. I did not vote for him on two grounds: he is too much of a PAP party man (heck he was the PAP party Chairman and no amount of stepping down will hide that); and secondly, we will end up paying for his medical bills since he was diagnosed to be suffering from cancer before the election. What has he done so far for us? He is supposed to be looking after our coffers from thieving governments. He is a very expensive key-holder. There is NO reason to pay the Prez more than the ministers. I propose that he be paid what the US Prez gets.
LKY's comment that the factory worker should sacrifice pay rises because there are thousands who can replace him and to accept the high salaries of ministers is not so much an emotional issue as one of relative sacrifices. For a man earning S$1.5K per month to forgo a 10% increase (S$150) compared to a S$150K earning Minister to forgo a 10% increase (S$15K) is bad comparison. The 150K man would not feel the difference the 15K will make, but the 1.5K man will notice the 150 difference. So, if the workers sacrifice, so should the ministers and perhaps more so.
What's happened to our former President Devan Nair. I hear that he is nearly a bankrupt and is living in Malacca. He played a big role in getting Singapore to where it is today. And yet, what kind of reward do we give him? What kind of a heartless government do we have? It is so damn disgusting and childish of the government to deny him a pension he rightfully deserves. Heck, even though Nixon left his presidency in disgrace, at no time did the US government deny him his pension and assistance befitting a former president. We should be ashamed of this government in how calculative and cold it is.
August 1996 - The I-Have-Bad-Hair-Everyday-Man Ling How Doong is another buffoon who brings upon the legal profession more bad name that it needs. This man who changes his mind more frequently than he changes his undies, cannot be certain if there is or there isn't a health care subsidy. For a lawyer, he cannot think congruently. His premise was that there is overcharging in the govt medical establishments based on a case of a patient who was overcharged. This patient upon hightlighting his misfortune, was reimbursed and things were corrected. Instead of Doong following up and asking how many such administrative screw-ups have been made thereby exposing the govt, has choosen to change his mind. Like the clown CSJ, Doong, I think, has undergone lobotomy.
August 1996 - Loong, in a breast-beating rhetoric, has said that the PAP is on top of all issues in Singapore. Yeah, right. I think the PAP is on top of issues that they choose to show interest in and for which their feeders have fed them what they WANT to hear. The ground is not sweet for them. As long as the Internet goyanglines nonsense is still around, they WILL loose more votes especially from the intelligentia who are pissed off with the PAP. Smearing the PAP is not worth the while - they do a good job PAP smearing themselves. The PAP needs support from the intelligentia more and more given where we want to head towards. Their bungled handling of the Net regs have lost them more ground than they can imagine. Ooo, I can hardly wait for the general elections!
May 7th 1996: I just recalled a jail-bird Phey Yew Kok (sp?) who absconded after being convicted of corruption, has yet to be found. If we can track and find Michael Vana, why are we so incompetent in finding Phey? I had an e-mail exchange with a YPAP wannabe to whom I asked if he truly believed in his preferred party, has he taken the trouble to make sure that his puppetters don't have skeletons in the cupboard in the name of Phey Yew Kok. His reply, in his classic "3/4" legal training, was that he is not interested in exposing his party, but to find fault with other parties. Talk about stunted intelligence!
May 21st 1996: Well, SM and 2nd DPM (I prefer him as 2nd :-)) have stated their story about the purchase of apartments at a discount. I grant them their story. I have no reason to think otherwise. With SM saying that we citizens are not people who can have the "inside track" which MPs and other govt honchos can have, tantamounts to him implying that people and business *can* show favour to the ruling elite or did he? I am confused. It was interesting that The Commercial Station had to allocate ONE whole hour to air an edited version of this afternoon's parliament session and during this ONE hour the silly station could not run an ad! What a novel idea! Let there be more solid one hour programs like this.
July 1996: Yet again one of the highly-paid ministers has started to sing the song of threat. "If you vote the opposition, the investors will go out and we will decline". Alas, a familiar and typical refrain. Funny that inspite of having 4-6 opposition MPs we still sustained economic growth. Why are such highly paid Ministers saying such dumb things?
July 1996: Another SDP nonsense and debacle. Ling How Doong, an unremarkable opposition MP keeps changing his stand about the amount of subsidy the govt grants for medical services. Doong's fumble is like what J B Jeyaretnam boo-booed a few years ago about police brutality. Does he not realize that he is made to look absolutely uncredibly by his statements and turnarounds? Sometimes, the statement that he has been bought out by the PAP looks more and more plausible. His party colleague, Soon Juan is yet another washout. For a holder of a PhD, his arguments do not hold water nor stand up to enquiry. I wonder where he got his PhD and who was on his committee. Any one know? He should endeavour to gain credibility first before trying to take on the govt - perhaps some spin doctors can help.
It is indeed refreshing to read Cherian George's commentary on the MITA fiasco in the Sunday Times of August 4th 1996. He is spot on in arguing that MITA is silly in their decision as this only gives added ammo to the SDP in the forthcoming general elections.
The funny thing about this is that there is a very simple solution:
a) Keep the CATV system in place and put in the cable in parallel.
b) With two outlets, the redundancy is maintained and reinforced. What's
so bad about it?
c) I know that there will be a "official" statement that it costs $X to
maintain the CATVs. Yes, agreed. But isn't that justified? Let the
people living in the block decide by voting whether to continue with the
CATV and it's associated low-dollar-value annual maintenance.
d) The IT2000 plan envisions a wired up Intelligent island. In the process
of becoming an intelligent island, let's not do braindead and stupid things
like disconnecting CATV systems in HDB buildings!
Here's my stand - I will NOT allow the cable TV people into my house to put in their cable if they are going to rip out the existing CATV system.
Now I hang my head in shame and disappointment that we cannot do the same here in Singapore. Why is that so? Some stillborn, braindead policy has to take blame. We do not have domestic skillsets in satellite technology at all. All our people have to get trained on the job or are imported. Why? It is so senseless. When can we tinker with these technologies for fun? Think of how much Singaporeans are losing out in this field.
To add insult to injury, we have reserved 4 orbital slots for satellite? For what purpose? We are domestically neutered in the skills required for running and managing satellite systems and yet have orbital slots reserved. How ironic!