Singapore way

Electricity prices to go up 29.06.2009
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_395836.html
From Wednesday, 1st July 2009, electricity will cost households about 19 cents per kWh, without the goods and services tax, up from the current 18 cents. SP Services said the average fuel oil price over the last three months went up from $60.47 per barrel to $76.24 per barrel. After going up 21 per cent in the last quarter of last year, electricity tariffs fell 25 per cent in the first three months of this year.

To reduce the likes of such wide quarterly swings in electricity prices, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) here, which regulates the electricity and gas industry, will now use a new formula to calculate tariffs. - ST

Question: If our electricity is run by natural gas, why does the newspaper quote us oil prices? Since they have already told us that price hike has no relation with oil prices, why tell us oil prices ah?
Answer: If pegged to natural gas, how to make money? So they have special formula ... the greed formula. Oil goes up - hike! Oil goes down - hike! Best formula ever, even the most honesty, hard working scientists cannot decipher. - Ern

The ErniesUrn Weblog

Monday, 13 July 2009

  • Some thoughts about being Left Behind

    Don't Be Left Behind


    Got this picture from the Ministry of Manpower website. I don't really know what I should make out of it. Should I be happy or should I be worried for my future. There seems to be a trend towards upgrading oneself in almost all face of recession in Singapore. It happened in 1997, 2002 and now 2009. And I believe this cycle will continue as long as I live here. This is something I have come to accept but not try to forget. It's denial/ignorance of this Singaporean life cycle that makes one unemphatic about being Singaporean.

    Singapore is thus indeed unique in this sense that livelyhood and employment trends are always critically depandent on how well the ecomony does. Singapore makes a living through importing and exporting goods. When the economy slums, for whatever reasons, like the recent the meltdown of the global financial system, we, Singaporean will be like very naked shores. For our tides brings in wealth but also tsunamis. We are easily exposed.

    Which also brings up the question of most importance, education. Does the education policy of Singapore fit into the economic shceme of things? Is Singapore too ambitious of supplying too many fields of study that it doesn't consider what the employment market actually requires? And is it because of this arrangement, that some Singaporeans choosen to migrate not only because of field of work but also because of fierce competition and the lack of political freedom or, all of the above?

    What then does it say for those who have been left out by the economy? What does it say for stayers? How does retrenchment impact those, from construction workers to bankers and have their lives come to a halt? How does one after years of good education or employment, reconcile with the fact that his or her fate is a good as the economy gets? Why has the Singapore system been so?


     

Friday, 10 July 2009

  • HDB offer 8,000 flats


    http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_400852.html

    THE Housing and Development Board (HDB) will offer 8,000 new flats this year, or more if the pickup is stronger, said National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan on Wednesday. He said the board is monitoring demand and will 'calibrate its supply of new flats' to meet some of that demand - but not all.

    He also said the HDB will continue to supply new housing units but 'we cannot be building new flats to cater to every last person who wants a new flat...because if you do that, then obviously you are over-building'

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    Here we have our dear Minister for National Development, Mr Mah Bow Tan, telling you something about how his HDB sees providing affordable homes as it is. (Flat prices are now 200K average per unit. Effing cheap!)

    Wow, he said can't cater to everyone who wants a roof over his head. If we supplied people with roofs over their head, we over supply! Talk about econmic forces man! This Minister should be an great businessman! A great business man need not worry about customer satisfaction or whether anyone buys his product, when his company has monopoly. Clap Clap!

    No wonder they always build HDB in small batches, keep demand high, sell it high. Simple supply and demand forces. Read the whole article if you want your blood vessel to burst. :)

    * 4.8 Million is the current population.
    There were about 24,600 marriages in 2008 
    http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/marriages.pdf
    80% live in HDB flats.
    You work out the math.


    Mah Bow Tan - Leader of the House
    Mah Bow Tan
    http://www.parliament.gov.sg/AboutUs/Org-Leader.htm

Thursday, 09 July 2009

  • PM Lee: Singapore's Education Reforms

     

    ... Singapore's leaders not only placed heavy emphasis on education - providing the funds for it and garnering parents' support - but also shielded it from politics. 'Teachers can do what they need to do and not have their work disrupted or confused by extraneous political considerations which are educationally unsound,' he said to applause from 1,500 principals and teachers from 40 countries who were at the opening.

    Other key factors accounting for the success of Singapore's education system were: having capable principals backed by competent teachers; giving schools the means to customise programmes to students' needs; and providing strong, but not too heavy-handed central support and guidance.

    Mr Lee spent the bulk of his speech laying out Singapore's experience in reforming its education sector - underscored by what educators see as a managed, but responsive approach - as well as taking stock of what the changes had achieved.

    Mr Lee said the reforms, particularly the second wave, took a long time and required persistent efforts to take effect. But they have borne fruit. Schools are developing their own identities and expertise, there is a high standard across the board in all schools, and a number of outstanding schools and many models of success have emerged. Students are also well-educated, employable and have a sense of social responsibility.

    Efforts to improve the system will continue, Mr Lee said. These include recruiting more teachers, who must be graduates, from 2015; having a stronger body to champion professional development; rebalancing the curriculum to emphasise 'soft' skills; and creating more pathways to success.

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    This one, I have to agree with PM Lee.

    When I was in school my teacher introduced politics to me. Bad teacher. Look at me now, a bad citizen.

    He is right about the cents sense of social responsibility. I believe we should not need students who grow up with politics in their heads. Students like... SIEW Kum Hong, Slyvia LIM, LOW Khia Thaing, CHIAM See Tong, Dr CHEE Soon Juan and JB Jeyaratnam. Look at them, they are not making money for Singapore.  

    Q: How does one, through an education system which sheilds it's students from politics, help groom leaders of tommorow?
    A: Why groom real politicians when our country focuses on GDP, Meritocracy, Market Conditions and Pegged Salaries to Millionaires. We need business tycoons to run this country. Econmic Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, Education Tycoon, Police Tycoon, Singing Song Tycoon and one CEO and his son, and maybe grandson, to run this country. Democracy for you. Singapore Inc for you.

    And we need "students are also well-educated, employable and have a sense of social responsibility" to run this country, not run away from, so that you and I can stick up more Phua Chu Kang + Rosy posters in buses and MRT.