Thursday, January 27, 2011

Singapore

Came across a blog entry "10 things I miss about Singapore" by a Singaporean woman living in South Africa.

I stayed in UK for about 2 years and I can tell you the only things I missed about Singapore are my family and friends and maybe cheap food. Thats all.

Now here is my list of :

10 things I hate about Singapore:

  1. Weahter. We get Hot, Hotter, #@$!%$!@# Hot.
  2. Lousy and expensive public transport system. Trains take forever to come and are always crowded even on weekdays off peak hours and good luck with the buses. Taxis are good a disappearing just before midnights and the fare structure can be in teh Guinness book of record for being the most complex.
  3. No freedom of expression and Goverment controlled media.
  4. Wold most expensive cabinets who still need 2 senior Ministers and 1 Minister Mentor to teach them what to do and they still don't take responsibility for their own mistakes.
  5. Automatic 10% service charges for ZERO service. If you want tips you better earn for it.
  6. People who can blooddy stand to the left side of the escalator.
  7. People who can #@#%@ let you out of the lift and trains first.
  8. Tissues reservation system (Must be a world first)
  9. No protection of privacy law. Your name and contacts are being sold out there to banks and housing agent and all those @!#!$ spammer who keep sending you SMS.
  10. Embracement of useless "Foreign Talents"

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Food for thought

Got this in an Email today. Not very accurate but it does remind us how greedy the goverment is and the significant gap between the rich and the poor in Singapore.

A minister takes home on average approximately $1,500,000 a year or $125,000 a month. A peasant akes home on average approximately $30,000 a year or $2,500 a month.

As 20% of the peasant’s pay has to go into CPF, the peasant is left with $2,000 in cash.

Assuming the peasant saves 10% of his cash for rainy days, he would be left with $1800.
If the peasant spends every single cent of his $1,800 and is taxed at the rate of 7% in form of GST, he will have to pay $126 in GST every month.

From here, we can conservatively gauge that it takes approximately 1000 peasants to feed one minister every month just from paying GST.

We have 20 ministers, which means about 20,000 peasants working their asses off to feed them every month.

Welcome to Singapore.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

2011

First workweek of the year just in case you guys don’t know the electric fee has gone up in January. (Just a reminder). We are in a new decade already!

So what do I expect in the year 2011?

Globally I think we are still in the recovery process since the financial crisis in 2008. I expect gone case US economy and China is the where investors are heading. Economy growth will definitely be slower then before and I predict it is a good year to invest and the system will reach it peak at 2013 before it starts crashing again.

Now for National issue.

Well guess there will be a presidential and General Election this year. I certainly hope I will be able to vote for the very 1st time! I also hope there will be more opposition being voted into the parliament to provide alternate views in National issues.

I also guess we will be have a new President and Nathan will be retiring to enjoy life finally.

Cost of living in Singapore will definitely continue to rise this year and do expect to see some “goodies” before the elections but everything will be taken back tri-fold after that as Singaporean are proven to have short term memories. I like to remind all out there remember the old NS guys got shit from the $10K pay out due to our expiry dates.

Personally I hope I will be moving on doing a different job scope. Hopefully within the company but shall not rule of new opportunities.

Will be going for my Aikido Shodan grading this year. After 10 years of training and “nua” I guess I will be stepping up my skill.

I will also be officially on Mindef Reserve this year! Still have not received any letter on my actual day but I think it will be by March as this is MINDEF closure of a financial year. Yipee no more MODS Manning and calling the stupid notification center every time I travel.

Mobile Phone contract will ends this year so will be getting a new phone as well! Andriod or Apple?

If I get a good bonus this year will be getting a new watch as well. (or 2?)

I will also put in extra effort to keep fit and will be watching my diet a little. (Only apply when I am in Singapore hehe…)

Will be continuing with my 八卦掌 training and hopefully will have some new discoveries in the martial world. : P

I also promise myself I will make more time for families and friends. Some friends I have not met for 10years!

Its time to catch up.