72 year old granny punched by 40 year old woman in foodcourt for being too ‘slow’ in clearing plates

A 72 year old granny was punched in her left temple by an unknown 40 year old woman in a local foodcourt for being too ‘slow’ in clearing the plates.

She would have proceeded to rain more blows on the granny if not stopped by a few men sitting nearby.

[Source: Hardwarezone forum]

The episode sparked an outcry among netizens with many condemning the woman for using violence on the granny.

 

Khaw Boon Wan defends government’s liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies

In a surprise twist, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan was tasked with defending the government’s unpopular liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies implemented in 2005 which led to disastrous results for Singaporeans now.

In an extensive interview with a propaganda government mouthpiece, Khaw said it was necessary for Singapore to attract investments in the aftermath of the SARS crisis in 2003 when the economy was still mired in recession.

“People forgot those were trying times for Singapore….when the future was uncertain and the country struggling to attract investments, then suddenly they came in a bunch. Do we take them or miss them?” he asked.

Khaw used the same old PAP argument that had it decided to be ‘populist’ and limited the inflow of foreigners, the country may still be in a state of recession now.

Though Singapore’s economy may have grown by leaps and bounds during the last few years, the cost of living has escalated while the median wages of the average Singapore worker has remained stagnant.

The widespread public unhappiness at the relentless influx of foreigners contributed to the ruling party’s worst electoral result last year where it lost a GRC for the first time in history.

SHOCKING: Singapore is one of most indebted countries in the world despite large govt surpluses

Singapore has become one of the most indebted countries in the world despite supposedly running large and sustained government surpluses, wrote Professor Christopher Balding (pic left) from HSBC Business School, Peking University Graduate School in a landmark paper on Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings.

In the paper, Professor Balding revealed that there is a “minimum of $350 billion SGD or $275 billion USD unaccounted for from historical surpluses and financing operations” based on publicly available economic data on Singapore finances.

“Singapore has become one of the most indebted countries in the world. According to recent IMF data, when taking a moving average of the 2008-2011 period, Singapore is the 13th most publicly indebted country in the world relative to GDP. Singapore has a higher debt to GDP than Iceland, Ireland, Portugal and Belgium and is only a little behind Iraq and Italy,” he wrote.

Professor Balding added that what makes this level of indebtedness even more concerning is that Singapore has managed to accumulate such high levels of debt while supposedly running constant surpluses.

“Singapore is the only country to have managed to average a surplus fiscal position and increase its overall indebtedness to nearly 100% of GDP. All other countries with high levels of debt such as the United States and western Europe, have long term public finance deficits which adds to total public indebtedness. There appears no valid reason for a country to incur large and sustained public surpluses and increase their total public indebtedness to such high levels.”

Read Prof Balding’s article in full here.

Retired SPH editor set up Facebook page calling for boycott of SPH

A self-proclaimed retired SPH editor has set up a Facebook page calling for the boycott of media giant ‘Singapore Press Holdings’.

In the page’s introduction, he wrote:

“The page owner is a retired SPH editor. “Like” my page to acknowledge that we are sick of censorship and biased media towards the ruling government. I do not mind being thrown into prison for what I say since I’m already a 65 year old man.”

Though he did not reveal his identity, he promised to share with the public his working career as a SPH editor for 30 years in his subsequent posts.

The Facebook page has garnered more than 300 ‘likes’ so far and was set up a few days after Straits Times Chief Editor proclaimed publicly that being ‘professional’ journalists, SPH journalists do not see themselves as ‘cheerleaders’ of any political parties.

Meanwhile, netizens have called for a ‘No Newspaper Day’ on 23 June to protest against the mainstream media’s apparent bias towards the ruling party:

VIDEO: Is this my home, Singapore?

An updated parody of Kit Chan’s home which reflects the reality in Singapore today with relentless influx of foreigners:

A personal experience: How a jobless PMET managed to start his own business

I graduated with an economics degree 3 years ago from SIM, and i took 6 months sending out resumes and earned zero interview. It’s not just sending out resumes blindly, but in the course of the 6 months, I’ve been actively refining on my resume and gathering opinions and feedbacks from friends so as to ensure that my resume is presentable. But yet, I didn’t manage to secure a single interview.

It’s not that I’ve been choosy towards the type of position that are available, in fact I applied for almost all the positions available related to my studies, and many of which only require diploma level.

In the end, fortunately, opportunity struck and I ended my search for a job — I ended up starting up my own business. After running my own business for the past 3 years, then I realized what’s been going on in the job market.

Everytime I post a job ad, I will receive 70-80% of applicants from foreigners. And out of which, more than half are pinoys and the rest a mixture of PRCs and Malaysians.

I received a number of impressive resumes from locals, but as an SME employer, employment cost is highly sensitive to us. Hence, by the fact that majority of the applicants are willing to accept the job at a much lower wage, the seemingly ‘fair’ wage expectations of the local applicants would by contrast be a lot more expensive.

Yes, we don’t have to contribute levy, but to us it’s entirely trivial. Whether is it levy or CPF contribution, it’s the same. It’s a cost for our firm. We might end up paying lesser if we get a foreigner if his wage expectation is so much lower than the local!

As long as our quota permits, naturally we will go for foreigners. Few reasons: 1) it’s really alot more cheaper. Paying a PRC $800, after deducting his shared room rental of $200, their take home pay is easily RMB3,000. But Paying a Singaporean SGD1,000, he might not even able to survive (hello, a newly launched 3 room HDB flat in matured estate already cost you $1.3k in installment) 2) you don’t have to worry about RT, IPPT and ICT commitments.

We don’t have to worry who is going to stand in for the chap’s duty when he’s called back for NS commitments. 3) they’ve got no family commitment here, so you get them to work OT, come back during weekend, there’ll be a lower chance that they’ll come up with all sorts of excuses.

With so many perks and benefits of employing foreigners, which employer in their right mind would employ a local? But in the end, I still manage to maintain a team consists of all local employees, perhaps it’s my stereotype towards the integrity of foreigners, so I don’t mind paying more for someone with better integrity and trustworthiness.

K C BOO

*The above was first posted as a comment on Facebook

Peking University Prof casts doubts on Temasek Holdings’ annual return of 17%

An economics professor from Peking University Graduate School, HSBC Business School Professor Christopher Balding has cast doubts on the reliability of Temasek Holdings’ proclaimed annual return of 17 percent.

In a landmark article titled “A Brief Research Note on Temasek Holdings and Singapore: Mr Madoff Goes to Singapore”, Prof Balding asked if Temasek Holdings really achieved such a high annual return for the last 35 years:

“Temasek reports an average annual return of 17% for 35 years despite Singaporean stock returns averaging less than 8% during this same time period. Given the range of stock market returns and its portfolio companies’ returns, it is highly improbably that Temasek has earned the returns claimed in its annual reports.”

He argued that the figure is unlikely based on a review of all public financial and economic data.

“The Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings states in its 2010 annual report that it has earned since inception an average annualized rate of return of 17%. This number, however, claims such a high level of sustained returns as to warrant closer examination. Based upon publicly available market data on Singaporean stock indexes, there appears to be a rather significant discrepancy between the returns claimed by Temasek and the returns produced by domestic equity markets.”

Prof Balding concluded that there is no  evidence of 17% annual returns from either Singaporean or global stock markets or from the portfolio companies owned by Temasek and the figures may be due to injection of funds from Singaporean government surplus:

“Given the returns claimed by Temasek, if it was created with a one-time initial capital endowment, given its current published assets under management, it would have started with between $750 million and $1 billion SGD.3 Consequently, any further government surpluses would have been accumulated elsewhere.”

Temasek Holdings is one of the two major sovereign wealth funds of Singapore supposedly owned by the Ministry of Finance. Its current CEO is Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Read Prof Balding’s article here.

NTUC FairPrice: ‘Only’ 10 percent of our staff are foreigners (excluding new PRs)

Following our exposure of NTUC FairPrice supermarket chain of organizing job fairs in China to mass recruit cashiers and storekeepers, NTUC was forced to issue a ‘clarification’ via the state media that only a ‘minority’ of its staff are foreigners.

In an article published in the papers last week, NTUC FairPrice director of human resource Rebecca Teo said only 10 percent of its staff are from overseas.

She added that there is a ‘need’ to hire foreign workers from China and Malaysia because of a ‘labor crunch.’ However, she did not reveal the percentage of Singapore PRs and new citizens among the 90 percent who are ‘locals’.

Under Singapore’s labor laws, companies need to maintain a quota of ‘locals’ before they can hire foreigners. Both Singapore citizens and PRs are lumped under the same category of ‘locals’ which provide a loophole for companies to exploit by ‘fast-converting’ foreigners to PRs so as to free up more ‘slots’ for them to hire more foreigners.

The Assistant Manager (Corporate Communications) of NTUC Fairprice, Mr Winston Ng had earlier written to us explaining that it has always been a policy of NTUC FairPrice to hire Singaporeans ‘first’.

Attached below is a recruitment ad put up by NTUC FairPrice in China:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Related articles:

NTUC replies: Our recruitment policy has always to hire Singaporeans first

PHOTO: NTUC mass-recruiting cashiers and warehouse storeman from China

Pre-U seminar fiasco: Teo Chee Hean should have done better

What a disgraceful episode. A leader of a nation could not explain and convince the young when asked for his opinion and advice. Teo Chee Hean the DPM is a complete disgrace.

As a DPM is expected to give his opinion and views objectively especially to these students who are curious and very interested to know of the leader’s ideas and vision for the country.

Particularly, like hot issues as mentioned by the students to the DPM. Regrettably, The DPM avoided all those questions directed at him and digress the subject pointedly.

The students got frustrated and so annoyed by the DPM negative response. What is the point holding such seminars if the students were not given the opportunity to discuss and asked questions to the DPM and in return gave them a diligent answers.

It seems he was bombarded with sensitive questions from the students and the DPM did not reply directly but change the subject abruptly.

It shows he was caught by surprise with the students’ reaction. So it’s again proven that Teo Chee Hean is not fit to be a DPM because he is not a real leader material. He is useless and hopeless.

In fact most them in the PAP are non-leader materials. It was very unfortunate for the students did not gain what they are looking for, that the knowledge they are seeking from the supposedly state politician that they thought can taught them better in the seminar’s discussion, but it turn out to be a big let down.

ABERDYN LEE

*The above was first posted as a comment on The Temasek Times

East Coast GRC residents ‘bond’ with their PAP MPs through games

About 1,000 residents of East Coast GRC spent Sunday morning together during an event organized by the PAP grassroots organizations to promote ‘bonding’ between themselves and their PAP MPs.

The event, YOUth FUNtastic @ East Coast GRC, covered a range of activities such as an Amazing Race Competition as well as the Singapore National Games (SNG) Community Celebration Road Shows.

The Games, which are currently under way across the island, are aimed at connecting the community through sports.

Residents were also invited to participate in the Inter-Cluster Mascot Customisation (ICMC) Contest, and vote for their favourite Cluster Mascot design.

East Coast GRC was only narrowly won by the PAP in the 2011 General Election by 54.5 percent of the votes.