Silly/Odd News Stories from around the World

[Cosmic Eagle]

It's more like he's using such language to people who don't care for it...

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Whither PAP, whither the elite, whither Singapore?

Less is more, lah.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Less is more, lah.

Not until to the extent of giving the shell without the oyster right? That is bait-and-switch.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

how the heck do you think I manage to get into electronics without a relevant diploma or degree?

embarrassing pictures of the bosses with lolis?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

embarrassing pictures of the bosses with lolis?

I don't have that level of resource. Nor the patience to take photos of that.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Not until to the extent of giving the shell without the oyster right? That is bait-and-switch.

Talk more, say less.

P N Balji took a whole essay to get everything George Yeo wanted to say completely wrong.

As the saying goes, empty vessels make the most noise.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Talk more, say less.

P N Balji took a whole essay to get everything George Yeo wanted to say completely wrong.

As the saying goes, empty vessels make the most noise.

I am more inclined to think that George Yeo actually has nothing to say, and the essay was written on the premise that nothing is said.

So basically, it is an empty work.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I am more inclined to think that George Yeo actually has nothing to say, and the essay was written on the premise that nothing is said.

So basically, it is an empty work.

On the contrary, a lot was said. Much depends on what you know about George Yeo, who is literally a walking encyclopaedia, an ardent student of history and a firm believer in sound governance. He chose those two words for a very important reason, and if you don't know what he wanted to say, well, you should ask yourself why you don't know.

Hence, whither Singapore?

There are no easy decisions, only a lot of hard choices.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

On the contrary, a lot was said. Much depends on what you know about George Yeo, who is literally a walking encyclopaedia, an ardent student of history and a firm believer in sound governance. He chose those two words for a very important reason, and if you don't know what he wanted to say, well, you should ask yourself why you don't know.

Because he talks around in circles?

I am not a follower of George Yeo, neither do I follow the local politics as much as Singstat. However from his expression during the defeat of Aljunied GRC, there was some resentment in his look that "I could have done better if only......ah well". He is a man of respect, but it seems that he is bogged down either bureaucracy or reversed flow of decision types (by right, stupid decisions go up, good decisions come down. Seems that it was reversed).

He has a sensible stance, but he makes too much effort not to offend others, even the wingnuts. Why not spend that amount of knowledge in his head putting those blindsided idiots six-feet under?

Hence, whither Singapore?

There are no easy decisions, only a lot of hard choices.

You should be glad that you no longer have to be called back to shoot your fellow citizens. I hope I get to rope down into a building held by protestors and literally burn them out with my machine gun and teargas, at least I put my skills in training into good use. Plus it would look cool to have blood caked onto my black fireproof battledress I stuck in my cupboard for 2 years. [/sarcasm]

As much as I want a civil war so we can finally start taking everything apart for renovation, we have progressed and come too far to have one. Engineering 101 is a bitch - it always take alot more to fix something than to damage or destroy it, and we have made so many mistakes in the past 10 years that the good work is getting undone one by one.

Given the patience level of the populance, the lack of competency of rising political opponents and the lack of time, a societal breakdown is inevitable. We need more people with good ears, a moderate belief and understanding to take over the parliament, not a bunch of plutocrats or magic gunners we have, or soon to have.

[RRW]

“They’re going to cook the sanguma mama!”
The shout went up from a posse of children as they raced past the health clinic in a valley deep in the Papua New Guinean highlands. Inside, Swiss-born nurse and nun Sister Gaudentia Meier — 40-something years and a world away from the ordered alps of her homeland — was getting on with her daily routine, patching the wounds and treating the sicknesses of an otherwise woefully neglected population. It was around lunchtime, she recalls.
Sister Gaudentia knew immediately the spectacle the excited children were rushing to see. They were on their way to a witch-burning. There are many names for dark magic in the 850 tongues of Papua New Guinea, sanguma resonating widely in these mountains. The 74-year-old sister hurriedly rounded up some of her staff, loaded them in a car and followed the crowd, with a strong foreboding of what she would find.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature...g-witches/558/

[Skane]

Born in the early 80s, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of the generation gap in Singapore. I was raised after the turbulent early years of independence, but before the "easy life" of the late 90s. Having travelled around the world, from England, to Australia, to USA, etc... I just get the sinking feeling that most younger Singaporeans do not simply grasp how fortunate they are, compared to most of the world; and how fragile this "fortune" is.

The Singapore "Miracle" didn't just happen out of wishful thinking. It took a lot of sacrifices to fast-track our nation from 3rd-world slum status to 1st-world wonder. Given our fragility though, it wouldn't taken much of a screw-up to revert back to the "dark ages". There's a reason why the ship has to be run tight.

Cheers.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by RRW

http://foodbeast.com/content/2013/02...entines-pizza/

I really wish that worldwide fast food chains would offer some of their country specific dishes to other places once in a while, at least to their homeland country. I would seriously like to try an Indian McDonalds veggie burger (but since it's McDonalds it would probably taste like plant poo anyway).

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by RRW

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature...g-witches/558/

No consequences for the jackasses perpetrating this hideous nonsense - so it continues.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Skane

Born in the early 80s, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of the generation gap in Singapore. I was raised after the turbulent early years of independence, but before the "easy life" of the late 90s. Having travelled around the world, from England, to Australia, to USA, etc... I just get the sinking feeling that most younger Singaporeans do not simply grasp how fortunate they are, compared to most of the world; and how fragile this "fortune" is.

The Singapore "Miracle" didn't just happen out of wishful thinking. It took a lot of sacrifices to fast-track our nation from 3rd-world slum status to 1st-world wonder. Given our fragility though, it wouldn't taken much of a screw-up to revert back to the "dark ages". There's a reason why the ship has to be run tight.

Cheers.

I agree, although my home countries are a bit north of yours.

[willx]

Originally Posted by Skane

-Snip-

If I could, I'd +rep you. Because I cannot, I will simply say, kudos. That said, maybe I'm a grumpy (on the verge of middle-age) man that shakes his fist at young'uns "these days". My added comment is that I started my career in "high finance" in the fading months of 2007 right before the financial crisis. The greed and nonchalance from all perspectives that was uncovered -- consumers, brokers, agents, bankers .. it was astounding. People don't understand how close it all really came to an absurd disaster.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Skane

Born in the early 80s, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of the generation gap in Singapore. I was raised after the turbulent early years of independence, but before the "easy life" of the late 90s. Having travelled around the world, from England, to Australia, to USA, etc... I just get the sinking feeling that most younger Singaporeans do not simply grasp how fortunate they are, compared to most of the world; and how fragile this "fortune" is.

The Singapore "Miracle" didn't just happen out of wishful thinking. It took a lot of sacrifices to fast-track our nation from 3rd-world slum status to 1st-world wonder. Given our fragility though, it wouldn't taken much of a screw-up to revert back to the "dark ages". There's a reason why the ship has to be run tight.

Cheers.

Wish I could +rep you but the system is removed.

Though the screw-up you mentioned is simply mismanagement when the government started resting on their laurels. And my generation, being that of the late 80s, have good lives that they no longer know what it means to fight for something anymore.

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

I agree, although my home countries are a bit north of yours.

I think ROK and Singapore has the same precadiment when it comes to the post-80s generation. Bad attitude kids and ego-trip loving executives all from the same easy background. No humility, fighting spirit and sense of responsibility.

*looks at wallet* Well, at least they are filling it. Though I wish they have a better work attitude.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

However from his expression during the defeat of Aljunied GRC, there was some resentment in his look that "I could have done better if only......ah well".

I can't help it if that's your opinion of the man. I'm sure we can agree that it's pointless to argue over opinions. We're each entitled to our own.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

He has a sensible stance, but he makes too much effort not to offend others, even the wingnuts. Why not spend that amount of knowledge in his head putting those blindsided idiots six-feet under?

Because you can't lead or persuade people by offending them. Hence, the less said, the better. Prove by action instead. More convincing.

Originally Posted by Skane

Born in the early 80s, I'm kind of stuck in the middle of the generation gap in Singapore. I was raised after the turbulent early years of independence, but before the "easy life" of the late 90s. Having travelled around the world, from England, to Australia, to USA, etc... I just get the sinking feeling that most younger Singaporeans do not simply grasp how fortunate they are, compared to most of the world; and how fragile this "fortune" is.

The Singapore "Miracle" didn't just happen out of wishful thinking. It took a lot of sacrifices to fast-track our nation from 3rd-world slum status to 1st-world wonder. Given our fragility though, it wouldn't taken much of a screw-up to revert back to the "dark ages". There's a reason why the ship has to be run tight.

Exactly.

Look, if I could choose to build a country with fewer people house and more wealth to spread around, of course I would. Who wouldn't? The point is that Singapore very likely doesn't have much of a choice. Our demographic pyramid is getting top-heavy, with a generation of baby boomers soon to leave the workforce, to be supported economically and socially by an ever-smaller base of younger Singaporeans who are squeezed at the same time by rising prices and greater competition.

Where, and how, do we start solving this conundrum? Say we stop immigration completely, what would the overall effect be? An even tighter labour market, which may lead to even higher wage costs, and consequently a higher chance of business failure. So, in the short term, sure, we will enjoy the benefits of having fewer money-grubbing economic "parasites". But, in the long term, we could potentially kill ourselves as an economy.

Okay. So let's say we go the whole hog on increasing productivity to make up for the shortfall in labour. But then, what do we really mean by productivity? A letter posted to The Straits Times this morning explained this point extremely well. It's easy to measure productivity growth if you are a manufacturer: if you can help one worker produce 15 units of machines, compared to just 10 units the year before, you've successfully increased productivity.

But does the same formula apply in, say, the service sector? Many people confuse value-added activity with productivity. Services may add more value to an economic good, but they are often labour-intensive at the same time. Take restaurant service, for example. You want better service? Well, you'll then probably need more waiters to serve fewer customers each. More attention, better quality service, better value added, right?

How does that scale up though? Can we make each waiter serve more customers at the same time? Why, sure we can. But then each waiter would become more stressed out, and service quality consequently plummets. So, productivity increases, but quality drops.

So, when the Opposition says the Government is screwed up, it should be spending more money on improving productivity, the real question to ask is, how? Productivity means different things to different businesses, and in many cases, it's really not so easy to achieve productivity growth.

In any case, I highly doubt we can achieve so much productivity growth that we can do without further labour input to power dynamic economic growth. Japan has gone down this route. It hasn't done very well. At best, only mixed success.

Then, there comes the very blunt question: Why do we need growth at all costs? We've become too materialistic! We've sold our souls to Mammon and are now literally paying the price.

Well, as I've explained earlier, we cannot afford to be so cavalier about economic growth. Put yourself in the shoes of a business owner. Given a choice between setting up a business in a market that's growing 10 per cent a year, and setting up a business in a market that's shrinking 2 per cent a year, which market would the business owner choose?

Simply put, we need growth, not just to pay future social bills, but also simply to keep the economic momentum chugging along. We can't afford to deliberately shrink the economy. No political economy in its right mind would do that.

So, the question is not whether we need growth, but how much less growth can we comfortably live with? And we need to think about this in the context of the costs and benefits of the choices before us.

I say again, there are no easy decisions, only tough choices.

Hence, whither Singapore?

Whichever direction we go, if it's the will of the people, then so be it. I can only hope that we go down that road with eyes wide open, fully congnizant of the sacrifices we'll have to live with if we take that particular choice.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I think ROK and Singapore has the same precadiment when it comes to the post-80s generation. Bad attitude kids and ego-trip loving executives all from the same easy background. No humility, fighting spirit and sense of responsibility.

*looks at wallet* Well, at least they are filling it. Though I wish they have a better work attitude.

You sure the 90s generation are even old enough to be executives of anything?

@above why this heavy dependence on services in the first place? Value adding is easier done in the technological sectors after all. Always has been my belief that the turn towards services was one of the biggest mistakes ever

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

@above why this heavy dependence on services in the first place? Value adding is easier done in the technological sectors after all. Always has been my belief that the turn towards services was one of the biggest mistakes ever

It depends on what you mean by "heavy dependence on services". Let's see if we're on the same page.

Singapore GDP by industry
GDP (2011) at current prices ($m): $326,832.4
Goods producing industries, 2011 ($m): $81,684.5

So, manufacturing accounted for about 25 per cent of GDP in 2011, with services taking up the rest.

That seems like heavy dependence. But what if we compare this mix with that of other developed countries? United States manufacturing makes up 12.2 per cent of GDP, according to figures here. I can't find comparable figures for Germany on short notice. But according to this blogger's chart, German manufacturing accounted for roughly 21 per cent of its GDP in 2008.

In short, it would appear that Singapore is not that much more dependent on services as a typical developed economy. This trend can be observed in most advanced economies, as explained here.

EDIT:
Scratch the above. This handy chart on Wikipedia, compiled from IMF data, makes for easier comparison.

GDP sector comparisons, by nominal GDP (2012)
World: Services: 63.6%, Industry: 30.5%, Agriculture: 5.9%
US: Services: 79.7%, Industry: 19.1%, Agriculture: 1.2%
Germany: Services: 71.1%, Industry: 28.1%, Agriculture: 0.8%

Just for fun, let's look at India:
India: Services: 65%, Industry: 18%, Agriculture: 17%


So, does it still seem as though Singapore is too heavily dependent on services? Compared to the rest of the world, it doesn't seem to be the case, does it? As for why the global economy as a whole is moving towards greater dependence on services, that's another topic altogether. The simplistic answer is that services provide better value add. For each dollar spent on delivering a service, it is much easier to produce many more dollars worth of output than if we spent that dollar on manufacturing a product. Better value for money, so to speak.

But value-add is not necessarily the same as productivity, as I illustrated above, and that's something we have to grapple with, because we want to improve people's wages, and the only sustainable way to do that is to improve each worker's productivity.

[SaintessHeart]

@ TRL : I am not arguing over your opinion, I am only interested to see how you get to that point. That being said, I think I can agree with you that the retiring workforce is the bane of growth, combined with us getting squeezed like oranges.

We could always soylent green the old people though. Perhaps you can sacrifice yourself to feed us 10 years down the road?

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

You sure the 90s generation are even old enough to be executives of anything?

They can get to skip NS conpletely. We can't.

@above why this heavy dependence on services in the first place? Value adding is easier done in the technological sectors after all. Always has been my belief that the turn towards services was one of the biggest mistakes ever

You grossly overestimate the creativity of people. Value adding in technology always has to do with peecision working and increasing man-hours. And it is counted by the production plant's manufacture rate of qualified products. Goven the brevity of market dominance in the era of consumer electronics, we need a R&D base too.

ROK still manufactures tech products, it could go the way of Germany if it wanted to. Singapore doesn't have enough place to build the plants;Energizer recently left their last Singapore plant and went Vietnam.