protrait of the monster

handsome but he was series of cold-blooded killer.

like politicians, they are no differences between him and them.

they are the same.

the price of happiness

"Cheaper, better, and faster "....its the same old story. The last time they promised Swiss cheese if we worked harder and faster but this time they don't even bother to promise anything.
All they can say is we will get to keep our jobs to service our HDB debts if we can keep up with their system.

first things we asked ourselves: despite our 3rd quarter of 15% growth, did we get the share? are we happier now or then?

they said we are choosy of the jobs, they told us foreigners would not take away your jobs. they said that the foreigners would create jobs in return.

they gave PR like free candies and when they became so big, and create problems, they asked us to solve their shit for what they created in the first place.

can you believe them?

not anymore.

the buck stops here.





all lies and more lies.

quake strike twice in indonesia

the price of S'pore PR

zero loyalty

Argentina through the world cup 2010

For those who didn't believe in this team, for those who treated me like shit, today we are in the World Cup,"

"That's it, we've suffered, but we've made it", said Veron calmly after the match. "From the President of AFA to the last player, we all want to see a better team. Working it out together, there are a lot of things we can improve on"

market plunge

it is coming.

vietnam bride

wonder why singaporeans choose Vietnam brides?

harmony with new immigrant singaporeans

UBS survey shows Singapore slipping in standard of living

In a nutshell, it showed that Singapore is ranked as one of the world's more expensive cities to live in, but people here earn only middling wages.
The result is that our purchasing power is far from sterling.
Compared to the last time the survey was carried out, in 2006, it also shows a worsening trend.



Our economy is to be one where we have an extraordinary gap between the powerful and the powerless, even by Asian standards -- countries not known for soft-hearted socialism.

Average wages for Singapore as a whole are pulled down the city rankings because our low-paid are so lowly paid.
why? influx of foreigners.

Meanwhile, one suspects that our prices seem to be kept up not so much by labour costs but by profit-taking and the government's share.

With the resulting degradation of purchasing power, one can then ask:

Is the average Singaporean really having it so good?

integrate with foreigners

Now we know where we stand

confirmed: singaporeans played second fiddle to the foreigners

Of course, it does not really surprise me.

For years, Singapore has been moving steadily in the pro-foreigner / anti-citizen direction.

Another writer said: “Now we know where we stand. The policy has downgraded Singaporeans to below foreigners.”

we're not the only country in the world with stupid politicians. Each of us just needs to find a way to move on, adapt and survive - notwithstanding the government's errors.

No point complaining about it.
Just take the PAP as another challenge in life you need to overcome.

Take your small, steady steps to deal with it.

people before profit?actually it was the reverse

Japanese Govt Ban "Amakudari"

descent from heaven.
the japanese praticed that, they are not alone.
singapore also have the same policy of allowing top civil servants when they retired, they will chaired as one of our statuary boards.

they have done it, why not singapore?

the moment of TRUTH

we wonder when politician stood for the reality show,"the moment of truth", how much that they stand to "win" and "strengthened" the ties with the people.
we wonder.

refresh

Search: National captain Noh Alam Shah slams local football

Singapore football captain Noh Alam Shah has slammed Singapore football, saying it is stagnant.
also, the referee standards has also gone down
third, poor attendances at S.League matches.each match averaging 2,500 while in indonesia it was 30,000.

four, the prize monies in indonesia is far bigger than in singapore.

lastly,good players have been left out of the league because of the Football Association of Singapore's insistence on them passing the beep or fitness test.


he is the brave soul who told the truth.
welcome to the dream of ex-FAS chairman that singapore to be competing in 2010 world cup

Speak Good English Movement

speak simple English: make it simple

world economy

long u shaped

let them win

health care: step down care

back to square one

: you have to take care of your elder parents by yourself.

foreign immigrant:

double-edge sword

you solve one problem but gave rise to a dozen of other problems as well, cheers to the great leaders.

no money for retirement in singapore

you have to work until you are dead.
life's tough in singapore where our leaders did not tell you that.
they only care for themselves.

they care for the people

read they care for themselves

singapore in 2010 world cup soccer

someone has said that singapore will in 2010 world cup soccer, competing with the countries like Brazil..

recession :The beginning of the end

still far away from recovery

we like new immigrant

From the Straits Times: "Helping foreigners fit in"

With his trademark grin, [MP Charles Chong] added: "When you ask Singaporean residents for feedback, they will complain that they have to wait more than 15 minutes for the bus. But when you ask new immigrants, they are happy that the bus comes in under 30 minutes."

MP Charles Chong was told what he was told

. and he told us what he was being told.
it was confirmed that they have preferred new immigrants than local singaporeans..

they are much easier to please and serve them. and they do fit in the overall great plan..to eliminate singaporean from their comfort zone and let them "venture" to oversea.

sleeping on the job

first, the lehman brother: they did not expect it to fall. town councils invested in exotic structured product which they did not fully understood them and suffered great losses. including the ordinary investor who trusted our banks and in the end, were played out. dirty people.

then came the losses made by Taemasek holding when they sold BOa shares, which we could not understand what they are doing?

then came the private school which offered fake degrees in 2007 and closed down only two years later.

we asked ourselves: what are they doing in the first place?

What's Love Got to Do With It?

it was just more than love alone.

It found that a husband who is nine or more years older than his wife is twice as likely to get divorced.

Children also influence the longevity of a marriage or relationship.

A couple's parents also have a role to play in their own relationship.

Not surprisingly, money also plays a role, with up to 16 percent of respondents who indicated they were poor or where the husband -- not the wife -- was unemployed saying they had separated, compared with only nine percent of couples with healthy finances.

more companies hired older workers

we have heard older workers being retrenched as the companies shift to overseas and they have a hard time in getting jobs, just because they are over 45 years and have no certificates.
they are experienced people and yet not fully maximized their potential.
the companies, even GLC employed young and inexperienced foreign talents, eliminating the locals.

and the older worker who still able to work found idling at home, doing nothing to contribute to the economy.

it was the failure of the tightly control labour market.

painless punishments

MAS has banned 10 institutions from selling structured notes for periods of 6 months to 2 years.

the finance companies got away scotfree with painless punishments while the investor who trusted these companies suffered huge losses while their whole life saving vanished in the air.

in the end, trust no one.

cherish each day

Michael Jackson's sudden death reminded us of how fragile life is.
two days ago, he was rehearsing for the live concerts in London, alive and full of energy.
two days later, he has passed away, at the age of 50 years.
he has so much things to do, and things have not been done yet.

luckily he has prepared his will 5 years ago in 2002. he has at least left behind something for his sons and daughter.

these things we should planned ahead, and not to rush when things are needed urgently.


so, cherish each day.
plan ahead.
you will never know what will happened the next day.

Machael Jackson's Last will

student

have met some of the students from polytechnics recently.
they have commented it was getting more and more difficult to get a position which they liked. the market is highly competitive with the influx of the students from asia and the import of foreign talent to boost our population.

at one hand, they have solved the aging population, but on the other hand, they have caused great discomfort for the job market for the new graduates, especially those who are local-born as they lost the edge to them.

tough as the recession is yet to recover although we saw signs of pick-ups.

Michael Jackson

from economist:

FOR a life so extraordinary the manner of Michael Jackson’s passing on Thursday June 25th was utterly banal: a middle-aged man succumbing to an apparent heart-attack. (There was speculation that an alleged dependency on prescription painkillers may have been a contributing factor.) During his progress from child prodigy to the self-styled “King of Pop” and, more recently, an eccentric semi-recluse, no part of Mr Jackson’s private life had given any other hint of normality. But behind the mask that plastic surgeons had made of his face was a keen brain for wringing cash out of pop music—and for spending it.

Mr Jackson first performed on stage at the age of six, accompanying his four older brothers. The Jackson Five, under the strict stewardship of their manager and father, signed to Motown Records in the late 1960s and began producing a string of hit records—a sequence of success that Mr Jackson continued in a 30-year solo recording career. It is reckoned that his final tally of album sales is around 750m—the most that any artist has sold. And one of those, “Thriller”, released in 1982, became the most successful yet seen, shifting 65m units. This record may well remain unchallenged: sales of albums have suffered as pop fans these days prefer downloading individual tracks from the internet.

The length of Mr Jackson’s career ensured that he experienced, popularised and even pioneered many of the techniques that help artists to profit from their musical talents. At the beginning of his career, touring was a vital component of performers' incomes, though a shift to earning money from selling records was well under way. By its peak, in the 1980s, touring had come to be seen by the music industry as a loss-making promotional tool to shift albums.

Mr Jackson did not invent the pop promotional video, as he is sometimes credited with doing. But he took this art form to new heights with the lavishly expensive video he made in 1983 for the title track of the “Thriller” album. He brought in one of Hollywood's top directors, John Landis (best known for “The Blues Brothers”), and spent an unprecedented $500,000 on the 14-minute miniature epic. But it was money well spent: the launch of MTV, two years earlier, whose format was being copied by other broadcasters, meant that videos had rapidly become one of the most valuable tools for marketing recorded music, and more cost-effective than concert tours. The “Thriller” video was broadcast incessantly all around the world, pumping up the album's sales.

At the height of his success Mr Jackson and his team of managers made the shrewd calculation that the value of pop music was wrapped up in the publishing rights to songs just as much as in record sales. In 1985 he paid $47.5m for ATV Music, which owned the copyrights to most of the Beatles' songs. Ten years later he sold half his interest for $150m to Sony. The value of his stake was probably around $500m when he died. This was roughly equal to the upper estimates of the debts he was struggling to refinance, which he had amassed funding his increasingly bizarre style of living.

Despite his vast earnings Mr Jackson was forced to borrow huge sums against his stake in ATV and his future earnings (recently reckoned to be about $19m a year) to pay for his huge shopping sprees and the upkeep of “Neverland”, his ranch in California. Last year he announced plans for a long series of concerts in London to boost his income and pay off his creditors. Playing live has re-emerged as the way to make money from pop as falling sales, rampant piracy and digital distribution have slashed revenues from recorded music.

Despite having built himself an extravagant fun palace, with its own zoo, fairground and elaborate topiary, Mr Jackson cut an increasingly lost and lonely figure in his later years. Though twice married and with three children, his closest relationships appeared to be with a chimpanzee and a succession of young boys. The questions raised by these unusual friendships continued to hang in the air until his death. He was acquitted in a Californian court in 2005 on charges of molesting one 13-year-old boy but reportedly paid $20m out of court in 1994 to head off other allegations of child abuse.

His status as a pop genius may well always be tainted by the strangeness of the life he chose to lead. Elvis Presley, still the unchallenged King of Rock’n’Roll, is increasingly remembered for his music, as memories fade of his own unusual private life. Mr Jackson would doubtless have craved to be held in the same public awe and affection (his dynastic ambitions even stretched to a brief marriage with Lisa Marie, Presley’s only child). But, sadly, for now he will be remembered by many as “Wacko Jacko” rather than the King of Pop.

home

there are so many things in life that you have wanted, but you knew that it will be difficult to get it.
and you went far away to search for the things you have been hunting for.
years after years, you have found none.

until you have reached your home and finally found the things you have looking is all the while in your home.

cared for the old, aged and the ugly

whether the political system tilted a bit or changed slightly, the bottom line is the care for the old, aged and the ugly was still much desired for improvement.

Things such as free ride for buses and MRT for the old as a respect to their contribution to the economy when they are young, but we did not see it coming soon, not now or this year.

when do they get 50% discount for the food or necessities for those who still can worked but lower wage? but they cannot get the subsidy as their wage was deemed too high.

for those who earned ten thousand dollars a month, a bread that cost S$2 is the same as those who salary of S$700 a month.

Full knee replacement operation

My mother went for knee replacement operation at NUH by one of the ambitious and young orthopedic doctor. He was also the head of the department. Since then, he has left NUH for private practice.
as he was new to the position and did not have much practical experience, he called for full knee replacement operation.
i was opposed to the operation, but he has persuaded our mother to do it. and she agreed to do it.

i should have asked for second opinion, but did not. i asked sister and she also agreed mother to do the operation.

few years, our mother found her operated leg was much longer than the normal one and she walked with a limp.

trust

my sister told me that you just cannot trust certain type of people.
i did not believe her and challenge her instead.
in the end, i lost the bet and have to take back my words instead.

yes, certain type of people whom you trusted will ended up betrayed by them.

i have no doubts about it and since then, have changed my perception on them.

they can't be trusted, no matter how good they are

the success of singapore

Taemasek on BOA (bank of America):
It was a long-term investment.
The sold them at the loss in 1Q2009.

The Singapore flyer’s breakdown for month in 2009.
They said, “It was good so that more people will know and come for the flyer.
What rubbish they are talking!

Town council invested on exotic structured products such Lehman brother and made a loss.
They said, “Overall, we are still earning profit for the past 10 years.
A loss is a loss, just admit it.

screening

A H1NI flu virus originated from the swine, surprising.
WHO has raised the level to 5, signaling a long draw battle and we estimated it will last for at least one year before MOH to lift the code yellow.
it was not like SARS, more like influenza, where it will infected many, but the casualty low.

still, it will be sometime before code yellow turn to green

change

change is everything.
last time we heard:
foreigners create jobs for us, singaporean and we owed them our livings to them.
instead, it was one singaporean supervisor and 40-50 foreign workers. a few years later, the singaporean supervisor got retrenched due to restructuring.

now, integration with new foreign-born singaporean. they sure changed the things fast. black become white and white turn black.

why the need of integration? because they are huge: roughly 1 million of them. you can imagine the social impact by their sheer numbers.

already 60-70% of the singaporean to be retrenched first.. they are not spared.
now they do regret taking up citizenship and should stay at permanent resident.

passed away

we have not seen our neighbour for sometime.
then we heard from other neighbour that he has passe away two weeks ago.

he has been staying at the same block as us for 20 years.
and he likes to drink beer.
when we saw him, we always greeted him and he also greeted back.
his wife divorced with him and his sons and daughters left him too.

he rented his rooms to foreign workers for S$150 each.

we are surprised to hear the news

Manchester United through the final:Rome

with 1-3 win over Arsenal on the second leg, Manchester cruised to the final of the Champions league to face either Chelsea or Barcelona.
Cheers!

MANCHESTER UNITED 1-0 ARSENAL

John O'Shea's close-range strike in the 17th minute was all the defending champions had to show for their efforts on a night when Almunia was in inspired form.

The Arsenal goalkeeper had set the tone for the night with a fine reaction save to deny Wayne Rooney in the opening moments, before also denying Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo.

each day passed is each day earned

one of our colleague was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
she had her whole stomach removed few months ago.
Her gut was directly connected to the small intestines.
But the cancer cells have spread to lymph nodes and she has to go for radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

it was the most uncomfortable periods for her.

she was the person who likes to eat. now she has to chew properly before swallowing. she also complained the connection points between her gut and intestines was the painful when she ate her food.

we met her cousin and she told us her story.
we told her that each day she live is each day she earned.

she used to be such a humorous person whom everyone likes and she has changed completely after she knew she had cancer.

beautiful things never last.

And we told ourselves that we should treat each day as our last so that we can value life and cherish the wonderful moments, which changed eternally.

what comes around goes around

Mr Wang Says So in his 25th April's blog told us something about AWARE.
he said:

Founder member and former nominated member of parliament Kanwaljit Soin said: 'It is not just a woman's issue but the whole issue of how civil society actors behave in Singapore.

'If the new members do not agree with Aware's issues, then they should not join. There is plenty of room to start another organisation.'

He agree fully with her. In his opinion, the new Aware ExCo has no credibility. They deserve no respect.

Yes, the new ExCo team employed a certain strategy and they won the Aware election. And yes, their strategy was constitutional and legally "correct".
But it merely reminds him of the

PAP's gerrymandering tactics - the way they brazenly redrew the maps, changed the electoral boundaries to their own advantage, and forced their way to election victories.

Those PAP tactics were also constitutional and legally "correct". But those tactics carry no sense of integrity and deserve no respect. At any rate, they won't gain his respect.

He feel exactly the same way about how the new ExCo members have invaded Aware. Their tactics are as honorable as a terrorist attack.

As you probably know by now, the new ExCo chairperson is Josie Lau. She works at DBS, marketing credit cards. Today, for what it's worth, Mr Wang is going to make a small, symbolic gesture as a DBS customer.

He will call DBS and terminate his credit cards. The DBS person on the line will ask me why (they always ask for that kind of customer feedback). And he will say that it's because of their Head of Marketing, Josie Lau.

He will say that he have a very poor opinion of her behaviour in the Aware saga, and that for that reason, he has decided to stop using DBS credit cards. Furthermore he will request for his feedback to be given to DBS's senior management.

what comes around goes around

the sweetest win: 2 goals down to roar back 5-2

Manchester United moved a step closer to the Premier League title after coming from two goals behind to beat Tottenham 5-2 in a superlative second-half performance at Old Trafford on Saturday.
But it was the half-time introduction of substitute Carlos Tevez, the Argentine international who was quoted this week in his homeland bemoaning his lack of first-team opportunities, which was the catalyst for the crucial victory

family

when you are feeling down,
when you are out of job,
when you take bus, MRT, or drive to home,

family matters most

they are there to help you,
and it is the place where you feel most relaxed,
and you speak everything under the sun or moon,

and when you faced difficulties and have no one to turn to,

you family will standby you, no matter how or come what may.

family

Retrenched: Singaporean first to go

according to the press release by MOM on 24th April 2009,

Redundancies in 2008 rose faster in percentage terms for foreigners (153%) than locals (72%).

Although locals formed the majority for 61% of the redundancies in 2008, their share came down from 70% in 2007.

Correspondingly, the foreign share of total redundancies rose to a new high of 39% in 2008, slightly more than the proportion of foreigners in our workforce which was 36% as at December 2008.

it meant in 2007, singaporean formed 70% of the retrenched while foreigners only 30%.
in 2008, singaporean still occupied 61% while foreigners 39%

face the truth.

food poisoning

down with food posioning this morning.
it has been a long time since we have that pain and fever.
no appetite too.
just like to lay on the bed and rest.

still not recovered until the late evening that we took the anti-food poisoning medication that our fever subsided.

seen the doctor and took the chacoal plus lot of salt water..

recovered..thanks God.

during this traumatic period, thought of many things and also realized many things as well.

alas..

Weather

is Hot...!

Manchester United through the last 4

Manchester United's Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo shoots to score a goal against Porto during their Champions League quarter-final second leg at the Dragao Stadium in Porto. Manchester earned a 1-0 win on the night, 3-2 on aggregate, to set up an all-English semi-final tie with Arsenal.

maid

happycitizen on his article on maid, posted his blog:

Before I discuss this topic further, I have to clarify that I've employed 3 maids in the past 10 years.

There were all very different in terms of character, work attitude, honesty and intelligence. I was quite hesistant at first to hire a maid because I was worried about having a stranger in the house whom I wasn't very sure if I could trust but the household chores were getting harder to do as I got older. I got a few tips (mostly warnings and advice on how to 'control your maid') from my colleagues and found what I was told was a 'responsible' maid agency to employ the maid.

My first trip to the maid agency was a bit of an eye opener - the owner of the agency was quarrelling with a couple....I could hear bits and pieces : "If you don't like the maid, just bring her back ....you don't HAVE TO TREAT HER LIKE THAT...I really don't want your business". The maid agency owner spoke to me later apologising profusely for keeping me waiting ...she explained that the couple had struck one of the maids on the head for making a mistake and that made her angry. She told me if there was any reason I didn't like the maid I was assigned, I can just bring her back and she would assign me another one.

The first maid I hired was highly competent....not just competent, she was more intelligent than most Singaporeans - spoke 4 languages (Malay, English, Chinese and Korean). The only reason she was working as my maid was because she was retrenched from a S. Korean factory that paid her 2.5 times the salary she was getting from me. She had very high EQ and was very well liked by parents. All my fears and reservations about hiring a maid were totally unfounded. I almost never had to give the maid instructions - she was full of initiative and seemed to know what to do. I felt that she was completely underpaid and made up for it by giving her ang pows during Chinese New Year and a lump sum when she completed her contract. The day I sent her off at the airport, my mom had tears in her eyes....that was how much she was part of my family. I hired my 2nd maid from the same agency but things were quite different this time round. The first day I hired her, I found her eating on the floor of my kitchen floor...I knew I had to reset my expectations.

The 2nd maid spoke little English, didn't know to operate common appliances and didn't know how to do many things that maids were supposed to be trained to do. Still I decided not to send her back to the agency and let her complete her contract. It took some time to train her and I encourage her to learn some English after she completed her chores. It took some time but she did get to the point when she was quite helpful around the house....along the way, she broke my computer speakers, washing machine, many dishes, etc ...I did tell her firmly to be more careful but did not deduct her pay or punish her further ...over time she did improve and was quite helpful around the house. When she completed her contract and was ready to go home, she had this happy look on her face because she would be bringing back what would be a substantial amount of money to help her family - I hope that she has good things say about her experience in Singapore.

My 3rd maid who is still with me is average and sort of in between the other 2.
.
Maids are paid about $300 per month yet some Singaporeans have high expectations of them - some even expect the maid not to make mistakes and punish them severely when they do. How would you like to be treated if you're paid $300 a month to do a job? Lets put it this way, there are people who make millions and get away with mistakes simply by calling them 'honest mistakes' or blaming others for their mistakes.

I've heard of people deducting their maid's pay when the maid breaks something....you have to remember how painful it is for the maid when you deduct her pay ...she gets only $300 a month.

Others are very suspicious of their maids after reading those dramatised juicy stories on the New Paper about maids bringing men to the house or maids having boy friends outside. For this reason many still refuse to give their maids one day off per week. I'm sure many of these stories are true because maids are also human beings - they can go astray just as married men, married women and teenagers go and do things they are not suppose to do....but how many of you lock up your husbands, wives and teenage children for the same reasons. You can't just jail people in your house because you think they might do something wrong. However, all these can be considered minor compared with the cases of maid abuse we read about so frequently in the newspapers....

Why are there so many maid abuse cases in Singapore??? I had coffeeshop discussions with a number of people and these were the reasons cited....

1. High Levels of Stress. I believe we have the highest number of massage chairs sold per capita in the world ....hmm we frequently rank the highest in surveys on stress levels. There are not too many outlets for people's frustrations and stress...hey they can't just go out on the streets to protest and let go. So things can happen when they get home all stressed up and find that their maid has broken something at home ....they might just explode.

2. High Expectations. Some people expect their maids who are paid $300 to operate at the same level of efficiency as themselves (who are paid $8k?). They become terribly disappointed and upset when their maids does something they think is 'stupid'...

3. High Levy. The govt takes a chunk (40%?) of what is paid to hire a maid. Our govt takes in one month for each maid what the Malaysian govt takes in one year as maid levy...and they don't have maid levy in Hong Kong. What the maid levy does is to accentuate the expectations gap - the employer pays a total of $600...but gets an inexperienced maid who is paid $300. This gap causes many problems.

4. Lack of Respect for Human Rights. We are taught to read and count in school...but how many have been taught what human rights are? I remember moral education in my day was about Confucian ethics - respect leaders, respect elders...nothing about human rights. Given that human rights seems a 'dirty phrase' and respect for human rights seen as religious fanaticism [Link] in Singapore, it is not inconceivable a small number people have no clue that people coming from 3rd world who are less educated and poorer than us have basic rights as human beings....they may not hit another Singaporeans but they think nothing of physically punishing their maids.

Our maids earn the lowest pay in the world and suffer from high cases of abuse....what does that say about Singapore as a society?
A failure or success after 40 over years of nation building?

you should know the answer..?

cats

i loves cats.
they are adorable.
they like to clean themselves whenever they have the time.
that's why they looked the same.

unemployment 1Q 2009

we expected a rise from 3.7 for resident of 73, 2000 to rise to 4.0 to 90,4000.
they are interested in numbers but for us, we are more interested in every each of the individuals.

They tell us the 'big lie' that "the figures don't lie", as they treat us as categories and not as individuals.

However, category is not truth, but merely an act of choice driven by hidden agendas and prejudged priorities.

Categories are intrinsically ambiguous.

They can be distorted so that most of the data is 'on message', while awkward numbers are ignored.

Reduced to statistics, both human problems and problem humans are made anonymous.

Brutally insensitive decisions and actions are reduced to bookkeeping.

As a paper exercise, otherwise unpleasant acts are purified.

Treated as mere statistics, the unemployed, homeless, hospital waiting lists, alcoholics and other drug addicts, the mentally ill are all made invisible.

Through statistics, society becomes well-behaved, tidy, controllable.