SMRT culture: We will sue you!

Whose stupid idea was that? All the lawyers (add the law students as well) must be laughing their heads off and making SMRT leadership the butt of their jokes.

Well here is a cautionary tale for Thales eh? The margins they are making off SMRT better be good for all these troubles.

"depends on contract terms" Don't you check those terms first before shooting your mouth off? Yet another negative on their culture. Die first than learn the lessons and get to the root of the problem. According to Philip Yeo, Dr. Goh would have fired the entire top management and start afresh.

SQ classy act at Denpasar

Another classy act by Singapore Airlines other airlines would try to imitate. Too bad if you are booked with a budget airline.

Public wants COI for the Bishan tunnel flooding

Khaw Boon Wan and the entire PAP behind him said it was not necessary to convene a COI on this incident. The public overwhelmingly disagree to the tune of 69% I am part of that majority. Like them I don't think the government have been honest with the rot in our train system. In fact, I fear that they do not fully know or understand it themselves. This is something they should never have allowed the ball to drop because they ought to know that afterward it is impossible to pick the ball up.

See relevant story.

SMRT: Bloomberg noticed Thor is angry

Received that from Bloomberg every morning in their Forward Guidance Asia briefing. Our rail woes was featured in this installment.

This is inexcusable. The Faraday cage protecting the commuters and drive inside the cabins should always work. Since when the lightning conductors in our buildings do not work?

Bloomberg had a cheeky slant in their story. They quoted the NEA and PM as follows:

The lightning isn’t all that shocking. Singapore’s National Environment Agency says: "Singapore has one of the highest occurrences of lightning activity in the world. Situated close to the Equator, the warm and humid tropical conditions are highly favorable for the development of thunderstorms." Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong once called Singapore "a lightning capital of the world."

Putting one and one together this is suggesting that nobody should be surprised lightning hit another train sometime and there could be casualties.

So much for getting to the root of the problem. Words are cheap, action wise that has shown be insufficient and even insincere. It has become even embarrassing to offer apologies. So they have chosen to deny or trivialize the problems instead. This is admitting that they cannot solve it. As the former PM was also quoted in the story:

"Bangkok bears its traffic cross, Singapore its frequent MRT breakdowns," former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, now emeritus senior minister, said in a recent Facebook post.

What if Thor gets angrier? He should take care to use his hammer on those responsible and not us. As it is, those responsible do not ride the trains and it looks like the system is ageing faster than it is being renewed. If so, this would not be the last time Bloomberg has a story like this, and there will be worse stories coming.

Update: 7:15 pm

It appears that Thor was mistaken. His eyesight must be bad. He had hit track side equipment instead.

If SMRT had a much better reputation, few would believed the Faraday cage failed. Like I said earlier, that's basic. Also nobody from the company came out to confidently assert the absurdity of such a possibility. Evidently even SMRT engineers confidence toward their systems have been severely dented. How can you blame them having been ambushed so many times.

Update: 7:20 pm

Yeah, everyone could have done better from the PM to you and all the way down eh? How many times do you have to say that? You blamed them but what you have done to enabled and motivated them to achieve? I think they could also said the same about you as well. Didn't they do much better everywhere else? They couldn't do better because I think the conditions they were given to work with were impossible. Now learning this fact the hard way, the system would be shut down completely on two days and more time would be given for engineering and maintenance work. No problem, you blame others, and we all blame you.

SMRT: Even Thor is angry

Now even Thor is angry with SMRT. Unfortunately he has failed to discriminate the innocent from the culpable. Has he? Perhaps we need an investigation eh?

This is yet another incident which is not supposed to have happened. The train was supposed to be earthed to the rails and the lightning safely conducted away. What happened? You better hope the truth on this one is not as inconvenient as the others. That is the only reason why they never got to the root of the problem. The only other possible reason is that they are stupid and incompetent.

We are now at the place where either they have something to hide which getting really hard to conceal or they are just plain hopeless idiots to be booted out.

The incredible PM Lee Hsien Loong

We have heard, "get to the root of the problem" ad nauseam. I think they are still rooting for the root and worse mistaken something else for the root. I think many of us have ran out of patience with them. The problem is we have no choice other than this worsening team to back.

The PM doesn't want to speak plainly and so insult our intelligence. In simple language, he is asking us to tough it out. That is not a problem but the terms and conditions for doing so is. Where is the accountability?

As always they created the problem and socialize the solutions. It is always heads they win, tails we lose. There must be ways to teach them a lesson before we have an alternative party to vote for. But I think voters in KBW, Shanmugam and LHL GRCs should send the strong signal by not voting for the PAP.

Medical insurance and high prices

A few years back I kept complaining here about how health insurance will in the end cause a spiral in healthcare charges. Today I found a very good clip which explains it very well for the US system. Well that isn't our system but almost all system have some US-like incentives to keep the system at the cutting edge of performance. Therefore the risk of it getting out of hand is always there but in reality, all health care costs are going up and it is only a matter of how quickly.



Wifey's O&G doctor at Gleneagles always ask if we were using insurance. That was years ago and also when I started researching. Over time I found this doctor to be increasingly money minded...