matrix0405

Lim Hwee Hua waylaid by heckler By Leow Si Wan ALJUNIED GRC MP Lim Hwee Hua was at the launch of a scheme to maintain prices at Chomp Chomp food centre in Serangoon Garden yesterday when she encountered a heckler. The 45-year-old man, who wanted to be known only as Mr Hum and who said he was a former Serangoon resident and civil servant, accused her of making her rounds only during the election period. Mrs Lim, who is Second Minister for Finance and Transport, was walking around the food centre to present labels to 33 food stall owners who have agreed not to raise prices for six months in appreciation of their patrons' support. This is the third cluster of food stalls in the Serangoon area to join the scheme by the Retail Price Watch Group to help ease the pressure of rising costs. Earlier this year, the Serangoon Garden Market and Food Centre and stalls in Serangoon North had made the same pledge. Speaking to reporters later, Mrs Lim said she was 'very glad the operators have joined the scheme'. On the heckler's remarks, she said she makes routine visits and covers about 150 HDB units or 100 private households once every two to three weeks. She was last at Chomp Chomp for the New Year countdown. When asked how confident she felt about contesting against the Workers' Party in Aljunied GRC this coming election, Mrs Lim said she is 'looking forward to a contest' so residents can have a choice. 'We had a good five years working with them, developing the programmes that we have indicated earlier on, so we would very much like to continue the next five years with them,' she said.

Guinness world records for being a MP for 20 years without winning a single vote. http://./wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tune_in1-96x300.png Mr Koo Tsai Kee, Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC is retiring. I would like to offer him my heartiest congratulations. He’s been MP for 20 years – since his maiden foray into electoral politics in 1991. I am congratulating Mr Koo for doing what – as far as I can see – no other MP has done. This is why I find the rather toned-down announcement of his retirement and the inconspicuous reports by the media has done him a great disservice. So, what is it that this great man has done or achieved? Mr Koo is the only MP who has – in all of his 20 years as MP – never won a single election outright. More remarkable is because he has never fought an election, he also has never won a single vote. No one in Tanjong Pagar had to cast a single vote for him – in all of 20 years. 1991. 1997. 2001. 2006. All walkovers uncontested. It is indeed, whichever way you look at it, an astounding achievement. Mr Koo has singlehandedly demonstrated what it means to be a successful “Walkover MP”. The Straits Times, in its own small and humble way, tried to pay a well-deserved tribute to Mr Koo by telling us that “he has served residents in two wards in the GRC: his own Tiong Bahru ward as well as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s Tanjong Pagar ward, where he stands in at Mr Lee’s Meet the People sessions.“ You may have stood in at MM Lee’s MPS’s but remember, its his coat-tails which you have hung on for two decades. Even so, and just for “standing in” at MM Lee’s MPS’s, this alone deserves recognition. Mr Koo is also Minister of State (MOS) for Defence. Which means he bags home some S$1.2 to S$1.6 million a year? At S$15,000 a month as MP and that insane salary as MOS, Mr Koo can retire happy – and very rich indeed. Not a bad deal for not having to contest any elections ever, eh? Well done, Mr Koo! I salute you! And I also salute the miracle of the GRC system! http://./2011/04/04/congrats-koo-tsai-kee-20-years-unelected-mp/

HDB acquires 39 flats from owners for infringing subletting rules By Mustafa Shafawi | Posted: 12 April 2011 1204 hrs SINGAPORE: The HDB compulsorily acquired 39 flats from their owners last year as they had blatantly infringed the subletting rules. One of the flats acquired was at Pinnacle@Duxton. The owner had sublet the entire flat without HDB's approval in the guise of subletting of rooms, shortly after the flat purchase in January last year. During its night inspections in May and June 2010, HDB found that the owner was not staying at the flat. HDB's investigations revealed that the owner did not have any intention to stay in the flat and had bought it purely for monetary gains. In another 56 cases, HDB warned or fined the owners. HDB said it stepped up its enforcement against unauthorised subletting last year. It carried out 7,000 flat inspections, up from 3,000 inspections in 2009. About 1,800 inspections were the result of public feedback. This is almost double the number of public feedback received in 2009. HDB said it takes a very serious view of any unauthorised subletting and will take stern actions against owners, including compulsory acquisition, even if it is the owner's first infringement. This is especially for cases where the flat owners had bought the flat purely for monetary gains, with no intention of occupying it. There have also been cases where flat owners try to circumvent HDB's rules by locking up one room and subletting the rest of the flat without physically staying in it. It said such cases will be treated as unauthorised subletting of the entire flat. Flat owners who wish to sublet their entire flats must meet the Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) and obtain HDB's approval before they can do so. -CNA/ac

SINGAPORE : He has been called the Workers' Party's 'secret weapon', but corporate lawyer Chen Show Mao said the true weapon would be the votes of Singaporeans during Polling Day. He wants to help build a strong opposition to provide checks and balances on the government. Mr Chen made a public appearance at a walkabout in the single ward of Joo Chiat on Sunday. Moving from coffeeshops to cafes, the Workers' Party eagerly showed off its much-talked about candidate - Chen Show Mao - to residents in the suburban neighbourhood of Siglap. Even though he has lived abroad for some 30 years, Mr Chen had little trouble connecting with the residents. Based in China, the Taiwan-born lawyer plans to relocate to Singapore. The 50-year-old took up citizenship in 1986 and has degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford Universities. Mr Chen said he disagreed with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's comments that Singapore should pool its best political talents into one team. Mr Lee had likened this to how countries only fielded their best team to compete in the World Cup. Mr Chen said: "The team that we are sending to the World Cup is the national team. It is the team that wears red and white, it is not the team that wears white and white. The government certainly has a big part to play on Team Singapore, but they are not all of Singapore. "We feel that to have the best kind of policy, it is no good to put all of our talent, however limited they may be, into one team and have the rest just watch them warm up, because this team is not going to be able to play matches and improve." Mr Chen said a team only improves and sharpens its skills if it plays against strong opposing teams. When asked if the Workers' Party planned to unveil another 'secret weapon', Mr Chen said this is in the hands of Singaporeans. He said: "The votes of Singaporeans will become the Workers' Party secret weapon...our greatest secret weapon." The Workers' Party's secretary-general, Low Thia Khiang, also took issue with the role of the People's Association, saying he will disband it if the Workers' Party comes to power. Mr Low said the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) uses the PA to do its outreach work to residents. He said: "We will first of all remove the PA, because the PA is basically part of the PAP's grassroots mechanism. We would want to see a more level-playing field in political competition and I am sure as a party, you have to reach out to the ground rather than depend on a mechanism which is funded by the government in the name of grassroots." The Workers' Party has been busy working the ground and meeting residents from constituencies like Nee Soon, Moulmein-Kallang, Hougang and now Joo Chiat. This is a strong indication that they plan to field over 20 candidates to contest these areas in the coming General Election. - CNA/ms

Wow, STI had 8 sessions of Green. Can it continue this way this week? STI Weekly preview

Not enough good people in Singapore? Friday, 08 April 2011 Vincent Wijeysingha The PAP view that politics is about getting skilled people to run an administration is based on a wrong presumption. Politics is a perennial debate around values, about the important things in a community: whether we look after the elderly or buy guns; whether we house people or see public housing as a means to make a profit; whether we keep the cost of living manageable or award ourselves millions of dollars in bonuses. The administration of a country is the next step in the political process: once you have determined the things of value, then you seek out the best civil servants to operationalise them. The idea that Singapore only has a few hundred people capable of serving the nation is an old idea propagated by former PM Lee Kuan Yew, and is based on his now discredited eugenic views. If the current PM is saying that we only have a few people able to lead this country, he is implicitly saying that our education system, which the PAP has presided over for the last fifty-two years, has failed. The political arena is a contest in which different parties put forward alternative scenarios for society which the people then choose at a general election. In Singapore, the PAP repeats this same argument: That we don’t have enough skilled people to go around. And yet, throughout its history, it has used the Internal Security Act and other means to silence even its own party members, let alone the skilled and intelligent people who have tried to express alternative views. This is not a party that has managed to attract the best people to itself. It is a party that attracts like-minded people and consigns those who challenge it with new ideas to the wilderness. It is a party that has never been confident of its views, its philosophy, or its policies. Not 'screwed up' yet? The idea that the PAP has not yet, to use his unfortunate expression, 'screwed up' has now been shown to be false. It has presided over the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of our investment money. The bilingual education policy, by its own admission, has failed. The population policy has thrown up significant social problems. Public housing is unaffordable. The expansion of the CPF portfolio has meant that people in old age are left with no money to survive. People are putting off medical treatment because healthcare is so expensive. The ERP and COE systems have not managed to reduce traffic jams. Twenty-seven years of measures have not yielded any discernible improvement in labour productivity. The SME sector has still not gained a foothold in the economy. In fact, the only new idea it has brought onto the economic landscape in the last several years has been the building of casinos. International observers note our GDP growth throughout the years have been achieved through increasing inputs rather than through productivity and innovative goods and services. PM Lee says that in the event that the government becomes wrong or incompetent, then the time has come to look at alternatives. I am sorry to say this, but that time has come. His government is wrong because it no longer places the people of Singapore at the centre of policy-making; it places it own interests there. And it is incompetent because in every single area of policy, it no longer has the energy, the verve and the creativity to develop policies that will carry us through the next phase of development, policies that will serve the people of Singapore. No, this government is not doing a good job. Just ask every old person who has to work into their eighties. Ask every one of the 70,000 children who go to school without pocket money every day. Ask the clinic nurses, the secretaries, the salespeople, the technicians who have seen their wages decline. Ask the young couples who are postponing marriage because they cannot afford a flat. And what does it do when confronted with the idea that the people of this country will one day vote them out? It threatens us with our army. It is significant that in the pages of today’s Straits Times devoted to the activities of the PAP, alongside the article on the so-called quality of the PAP, there was the inevitable article defending its huge remuneration of the ministers. The PM said that the US President does not receive a high salary because once out of office, he is able to continue to command a high income. This is a reprehensible argument which essentially says that politics is about making as much money as you can on the back of your political service. No. Politics is about the service of the people, so many of whom have struggled so long under a now discredited government.

Just received a letter from my bank DBS, new interest rate for next year for my housing loan is 1.91% (previous 1.25%). I was expecting it to be less than 1.25%. My loan package is 12-mth-Sibor (or sor??) package. Is 1.9% high or reasonable? Any house slaves or bankers can kindly advise. Thks.

It better to keep him busy with opposition, else he will have ample time to think how to fix peasants.

The election rally is here.

No, it is not like PM has pm me or anything like that. It is from application of charting. STI is going to do some retracement this week but if it can hold it breath above 3000 for this week and next, we cld move into a multi-weeks gain phase. The down trend started in Jan 11 is now in danger.

STI is at a critical week. If this week it can hold on to last week's gain, then we are going in for election rally.

Shd be more than enough paint. If white wash (1 color white ), why not buy 7L paint; its cheaper.

STI may stage some rebound in the initial part of the week but the down trend in still intact.

The charts say Earthquake + ME + PIGS still unable to shake STI. singapore-marketwatch.blogspot.com

Just go for the cheapest u can find. The tasks are very procedural and usually perform by law clerks. The lawyer just sign and collect money. As long as they have done it before they will know what to do.

STI did rebound from the low but has lost its strength to go up further going into the new week. Trend: Sideway. singapore-marketwatch.blogspot.com

Is it easy to replace the water storage tank if we get back the same model? Any body tried DIY replacement before?

After consolidating around 3000, STI has decided to move upwards.

1.5%, will that be cheaper than car loan? If it is might as well take secured loan instead of car loan. What is the interest rate for car loan now?

Still holding strong at 3000. http://singapore-marketwatch.blogspot.com

Can get it from paint shop.

Yesterday big drop. Today even bigger drop by 51pts. Broke MA200d support convincingly. Can 3000 spartans hold back the onslaught?

EPF declares 5.8% dividend PETALING JAYA: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a dividend of 5.8% for 2010, up from 5.65% declared the year before. It will pay out a total of RM21.61bil to members, an increase from the 2009 dividend payout of RM19.37bil. EPF declared that the rate, which was approved by the Finance Minister, was the “highest dividend payout amount ever”. EPF’s total investment assets stood at RM440.52bil as at Dec 31 last year while its gross investment income was RM24.06bil. “The dividend rate underscores an impressive year in which gross investment income reached a historical high of RM24.06bil, reflecting a 39.76% increase over the RM17.22bil recorded in 2009,” EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said in a statement yesterday. Samsudin said last year’s investment income was especially driven by the per­formance of equity investments boosted by improved financial and economic conditions. “The dividend amount paid out is derived after deducting net impairment allowance on financial assets, investment expenses, operating expenditure and statutory charges as well as dividend on withdrawals,” he said. Equities, the statement said, was EPF’s largest investment income contributor at 45.45% or RM10.94bil, followed by loans and bonds, Malaysian Government Securities, money market instruments and property and miscellaneous income. According to the statement, two-thirds of EPF’s total investment assets last year remained in low risk fixed-income instruments with stable streams of income. “As a retirement fund, our primary objective is the preservation of capital while adding value to members’ retirement savings. Members may check their EPF account statement for the crediting of the 2010 dividend via EPF Kiosks, counters or i-Akaun, from today.

Agreed, compared with FD its tokong. But compared with inflation rate it is not so tokong. Throw in time-value-of money, u put in $1K today , if you live to withdraw 40 years later, the $1k is like $100.

I think this is accurate, $1.2K/mth is comfortable. Do remember that when u are older, u lose interest in going to disco or movie etc, many expenses go down. Even want to eat also unable to eat much. Many financial planner put the figure at 80% of last drawn pay, this figure is inaccurate and high. The purpose is to convince consumers to buy higher premium policies. So before u part with your money, it is better u make your own estimation or consult bepgof.