Even though I’m still a student, I’m feeling the pinch from the increase in food prices, transportation fares, and general goods and services. Especially during this economic crisis, people are losing their livelihood and settling for lower paying jobs, but prices of daily necessities does not seem to be lowering. I guess we can only do what we’re best at: whine, complain and blog about it. -shrugs-

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1. Money For Japan 2011
2. We are Singapore, Singaporeans – Are we?
3. Not Enough Foreign Workers in Singapore?

Sigh. I’m happy thinking about all the delicious wonderful food I’m going to eat, and sad thinking about getting fat

The week of decadence starts tonight, going to Pinetree club’s Chinese restaurant, followed by tomorrow’s New Years Eve steam boat dinner at home. Monday onwards, we’ll be having carrot cake, new year cake, pineapple tarts, chocolates disguised as money, and all kinds of weird food you only get to indulge in once a year.

I speculate that the ang baos this year would be less than previous years due to the recession period, but perhaps there will be more gambling

There’s going to be food, booze, gambling and all kinds of vices over this New Year period. Can’t wait

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Over the years, many people have told me that money’s not everything, or that qualifications are not important. Yes, richness can be subjective. If you’re brought up eating kopitiam, an occasional meal at Swensen’s or NYDC might be a luxurious treat, but if you’re brought up with a silver spoon in your mouth… you’ll want to taste all the delicacies in the world.

This trip made me remember how nice it is to have the spending power to eat whatever I want and buy whatever branded products. A slight consolation that appeals to my inner poor person was that most of the branded shops in Hong Kong were on sale! I can never resist shopping for bargain on sale items

Related posts:

1. Money For Japan 2011

Now it’s no secret that our government denies that Singapore is a socialist state, I assume because of all the stigma that comes with the word “socialist” and imagery of Karl Marx and WWII naturally pops into mind, but perhaps they should just come out of the closet! After all, America’s President elect Barack Obama believes in a more socialist America with his push for Universal health care, so why shouldn’t Singapore (oh, but we already are)? Or perhaps both Obama and Singapore wants to be that hooded Robin Hood like in the above picture, where his face is fully covered and you’re not sure who Robin Hood really is…

Let’s see if Singapore really fits the bill of the Robin Hood role in the recent financial crisis:

1. Singapore pumping $600million for upgrading skills and provide retrenched employees paid courses during this period.

Skills Programme for Upgrading & Resilience, also known as SPUR, will hopefully prevent local companies from sacking too many people. Singapore government pay these otherwise fired employees up to $6.80 per hour to study! Imagine Robin Hood, after stealing from the rich and the not-so-rich, then starts throwing money at random unemployed people spur of the moment. Hooray! [read article here]

2. Singapore pumping in $2.6billion in loans to businesses to tide over this difficult time.

Wait a minute… isn’t this whole loan thing the reason why we’re in this mess? My brain’s too small to understand how this loan thing really works…..

The Bridging Loan Programme allows all local enterprises with more than 10 employees to access credit of up to S$500,000. The default risk is shared equally by the government and the financial institutions.

Small businesses with no more than 10 employees will have access to SPRING’s Micro Loan Programme. The limit of this loan has been doubled to S$100,000, and the government will increase its portion of risk to 80 per cent to encourage lending to businesses.

To encourage start-ups, the government will be raising investment capital from S$300,000 to S$1 million under the SPRING’s Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme.

Its Business Angel Scheme will also be raised to S$1.5 million as a permanent feature.

The government will also temporarily increase its co-match ratio, which means that start-ups will receive S$2 from the government for every dollar an investor puts into the firm.

[read article here]

So I guess the Government is trying to give investors greater confidence in local businesses. I believe it is very important that our start-up companies don’t collapse overnight due to lack of funding, but are there sufficient checks on these companies to make sure we’re not loaning to companies that will bankrupt overnight? With the government taking up more risks, wouldn’t it mean that the banks would be less stringent about approving loans? I understand that that IS the whole point, but isn’t that also dangerous? Yeah, I’m being too skeptical and putting too little faith in our local businesses, but Lehman Brothers and many other big brand companies did collapse overnight, so why can’t they?

Of course, I have full confidence in our hooded government. He’s our hero and I’m sure his judgments are correct. But I’m just saying…. government’s money is our money too… =\

3. Robin Hood and his Merry Men are getting less bread and wine to bring home (as well as less holidays, cars, and condominiums).

Ministers and civil servants will be getting a pay cut of up to 19% ! If you’re currently bringing home a $3million, I’m sorry to inform you that your income next year might drop to SG$2.43million dollars! Oh dear, should we be fearful now that our ministers might become corrupted? I think it’s best we leave their salaries alone, can a minister really survive a half a million dollars pay cut without receiving bribery?? Except for Wong Can’t Sing, I think he should have a pay cut. But not my decision to make, Robin Hood will make the best choices after all. [read article here]

But wait a minute, where am I in this whole big picture of things?

I am neither 1. getting retrenched 2. being sent for skills upgrading 3. not getting subsidized school fees 4. not snobbishly rich 5. not pitifully poor 6. part of a dying start-up company 7. not a civil servant.

I’m basically ignored!

While millions and billions of dollars are spent to boost our economy, I won’t be the one losing or gaining anything. Robin Hood, I want my hand out too! *sticks hand out*

Some reading this might feel that I’m being selfish, he’s just trying his best to prevent the poor and unemployed people from becoming poorer and bankrupt. A Singapore not in crisis is a Singapore good for you and me. Although he doesn’t personally come to my door step and throw bags of gold at me (like he usually does on TV or story books), he’s magnanimous enough not to raise my taxes for 2009. We should be more than thankful for that.

Robin Hood redistributes wealth. Can we say that he is not a socialist or a communist? It also begs the question, is socialism the new democracy?

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3. Not Enough Foreign Workers in Singapore?

I agree with you completely about donating money. You never know which ones are lying to you. But what we do is between us and our God(s) and what they do with the money is between them and their God(s).

HOWEVER….

I disagree with you saying that Li Jia Wei and the likes are taking Singapore for a ride, or that they are mercenaries.

You see, when I see Li Jiawei, I see a foreign talent and not a Singaporean. Sure, she is a Singapore citizen, but I doubt whether her heart has any place for Singapore. I see someone who is a mercenary. Feng Tian Wei’s case is much less redeeming.

Part of my indignation stems from the fear that they are just taking Singaporeans for a ride. They are just trying to clean us out. Sure, some may argue that we are using them too. Wrong. The powers that be are the ones who are using them. The ordinary citizens foot the bills.

They are on the same level as our construction workers, our domestic maids, our rich ang moh expats… they give us what we don’t have, and in return, they earn a living in this safe and peaceful sunny island.

Is it really wrong of these people to come here to seek a way of life, to seek for opportunity, to seek for riches and happiness? Aren’t these the very reasons why our forefathers, our ancestors arrived to this land?

What more do you want Li Jia Wei to do to prove that she’s a worthy Singaporean? I can’t think of much. She earned us a medal, gained glory for Singapore in numerous table tennis championships, paid her taxes, contribute to the economy of Singapore just by living here. That’s more than what we can say of many “true Singaporeans” like the fake beggars that has been reported, or that you have met.

Sadly, we consider these scums of society, these Singaporeans that have hands and legs and con and cheat us of our monies, true Singaporeans. What? They’re shit but at least they’re our shit?

At least our “foreign talents” earn an honest living, working as athletes, lead a decent life and continue to fight for Singapore, despite getting spit on the face by other Singaporeans.

We keep whining and bitching about how these foreigners are disrupting our way of life. They talk too loud, they don’t speak English, they smell funny etc. etc. When push comes to shove, we’re Asians, us Chinese and Indians are practical and money driven people. If it was a choice between a failing economy and bearing with slightly noisier and smeller neighbours, I bet majority of the Singaporeans would still chose the later.

If you want to criticize these “foreign talents” for coming to our country to “steal” our money, fine, go ahead and stop living in houses, stop patronizing kopitiams that hire China aunties, tell the maids to go back to Indonesia and Philippines, and as a result pay, more taxes because of the decline in women wanting to have babies due to the lack in domestic help. Don’t be a hypocrite just because foreign talents in the sports field are earning much more than these construction workers or maids.

Yes, we are all here for one reason, money. Perhaps you should go find more Singaporeans that are willing to devote their lives to building houses, doing household chores, playing table tennis day and night… not for the money… then we start talking.

Sure, maybe we should question the policy that got them here, even review it, maybe change it, but since none of us really have the monopoly on the truth about the hearts of these individuals, now that they are here, we should treat them as one of us, as a Singaporean.

Let the sin be on them, not us.

The sin is not on them, but on us. We elected our government and gave them the authority to make these choices. I am not saying that the choices they have made are wrong or right, but don’t push the blame on these people that are here for the exact same reason why you and I are here. If anyone were to be blamed, it would still have to be us.

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Some people feels that if you accept any money, that you owe something to them, it’s called fair trade? How about when people are donating for charity? Do they expect the poor and the sick to be indebted to them and owe them something?

♥

I had a friend who had a crazy boyfriend, and when they broke up, he went insane(er) and even tried to stalk her. One night she was out with me and we were going to go clubbing to celebrate her ditching the loser. Lo and behold, the creep was stalking us! I confronted him and asked him to go away and stop following her but instead, he shouted in my face vulgarities and disgusting words. Luckily my friend pushed him away or he would have hit me. The next thing to do was of course to get as far away from him as possible, so we hurled a taxi. That creep took another taxi and followed behind us! So I told the taxi to drive us to the nearest police station.

The police took the two of them to separate rooms and questioned the both of them.

That creep had the balls to say that my friend owes him money and so he’s following her! During their 1year+ relationship, he had offered to subsidies some of her handphone bills, some of her school fees and also gave her a set of jeweleries that probably cost thousands of dollars. Now that things gone sour, he wants it all back! The best part was, my friend was actually paying him back small amounts of money every month as she felt bad back then.

After this police case, she felt stupid and cheated by this man. But you can’t give things away and ask back for them when you feel like it! Like that, I don’t dare to receive any more presents even on my birthday

The best part is, stalking is not under the police’s jurisdiction, not even if the man stalked us all the way to the police station. We have to seek legal help to sue him and get a restraining order. So unless this creep decides to rape/ murder/ rob/ steal from her, the police can’t do anything to stop him from stalking her!

Honestly, she felt that the police officers are siding his side of the story, that she owes him the money. Perhaps she was a little sensitive about what the police officers told her. But imagine a helpless girl getting stalked by an ex-boyfriend with a history of abusing her verbally and sometimes even physically!

Thank God that story ended well. She’s now happily married with another man.

♥

As for Jean, if you actually get to know her, you know that whatever names people are hurling at her are not true. It’s not that hard for you strangers to imagine what it is like if your loved ones were in her shoes. If it was your sister, or a dear friend, who got taken advantage of and in the process of trying to get justice, face with crowds of strangers screaming for her head, I’m sure you will be defending her and not yelling at her. I’m not asking you to pity her plight, but at least be kinder with your words or just keep quiet if you don’t have anything constructive to say.

*Note: the story about my friend happened many years ago and I wrote as best as I can recall the incident.

Related posts:

1. Money For Japan 2011
2. The Flaws of Singapore’s GRC System
3. My Vote Counts [Singapore General Elections 2011]