Taxi fares priced to the limits

The last time I was in a cab was more than a year ago. For me it is either my car or public transport. These days more buses than the unreliable MRT. Cabs are simply not value for money. I don't know if I am right but overall owning your own set of wheels is better than calling cabs.

The story above confirmed my hunch that the cab companies have used their pricing power to the limit. Before this happened at Changi Airport I didn't understand why Trans Cab wanted to list but now their effort to is probably history.

On the other hand taxi drivers need to earn enough money to continue to attract locals to drive them or you would have many taxis in the yard and no drivers. We have a top and bottom squeeze here. I wonder if this is not the reason why we cannot imitate HK taxi scene.

For me, I am waiting the day of the driverless car come asap. Of course "all things being equal" transport cost will go down but property price will go up. This is the peculiar dynamics for the layman concerning the non tradeable sector of the economy. Indeed property continues to be a good long term investment despite what some very learned socialist minded economist eruditely propose otherwise.

The only enemy beside a bad economy or adverse politics for a good property market is the disruptive side effect of technology. Ecommerce has started to hurt on the street retail and it is not stopping there. Quietly years before it had save office rent through hot desking. The long term sweet spot in real estate is probably residential, logistics and meeting places.

The will to make Madrasahs succeed

I had been worried that the Madrasah path was an educational dead end for its pupils. Its failure was too horrible to contemplate. Now my fears have been put to rest.

This is a reminder that we can produce excellent outcomes if we are committed and put the best we have to the task. Pretty obvious isn't it? The problem is unlike our early days, the number of tasks and projects are growing faster than the people we have to deal with them. So many important jobs are now done by inadequate people.

We make do with what we have, assigning our best to the jobs that are most critical. Of course we don't do this anywhere near perfectly. The slip ups are glaring and potentially politically costly. Fixing the priority list has never been as important. Sometimes the trade-offs has as many losers as there are winners e.g., the understaffed police. Often the trade-offs are measured in time. What is withheld today for the sake of the future. Especially how much do you avoid spending today for a more secure tomorrow. John Maynard Keynes had some wise words regarding this matter which the PAP had grown to ignore to their cost.

Some things were just stupid in the the form of penny wise and pound foolish or a stitch in time to save nine. The woeful lack of maintenance of our rail system is a classic example.

To deploy sufficient resources and talent to make Madrasah succeed stems from a deep appreciation of the consequences of not giving the Muslim Malay community a leg up. I do not know if this is an original thought owned by the present leadership or just a hard truth they acted upon without deep insight.

ISIS sympathisers among Malaysian soldiers

Yeah, Malaysian police are keeping tab on the soldiers. Who is keep tab on the police then? The Salafist ideology is deep seated in Malaysia. It has become a real hard problem taking politics as its hostage too.

I can't wait for more of them who have gone to Iraq and Syria to be disillusioned from their experience joining ISIS. It is our fortune that Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino and Indian Muslims which the Arab ISIS look down on are given menial tasks instead of silly glory toting a rifle. I hope they get most of them to carry water, cook and also wash toilets.

The ISIS Arabs are racists. True religion is race blind.

ST: More such stories please

I am writing this on the morning of the 11th but posting this as the 7th. I simply didn't have the time to blog.

This series of articles by Toh Yong Chuan have been very well received. He had tried being a security guard, taxi driver and now caring for the elderly. It was the first story that had the most impact on me because I know next to nothing about security guards. The only security guard we knew was almost like family to us long ago at my parents' place in Braddell View. The scene has completely changed, becoming worse.

Now would ST be hard put to find more such stories? To me the concept is about building links (not yet bridges) between different worlds in the shared space of Singapore society. The media spent too much time writing about the successful and rich. They should go and find out what the public is keen to know but nobody is providing the info.

To be relevant the ST must be a local paper as well. Wasn't that the reason why Warren Buffett went out buying many community papers. This is how you deal with globalization.

Western Union: Sing Post worry for you

A real pity PayPal wasn't usable this time when we try to send her help money. Her situation had worsen after one year and so she no longer have a bank account and is on the verge of homelessness.

First time I sent money via Western Union. The $70 transfer fee to me is really expensive and of course the SGD/USD rates are horrible too. I expect it would be even worse for other currencies. If I could use PayPal from my USD account I wouldn't need to suffer this tax. The USD is so strong now.

It is easy to help the rich who don't need your help and very costly to help the poor because they are so poorly set up to even receive aid.

What I was quite unprepared for was the reaction of the Sing Post officer when I told her I wanted to send money overseas. She asked me if I had personally met the receiver and went on to explain that she had to do this with everyone using Western Union because there has been just too many scams. When I told her no, but I had known this person for a good ten years, she still wear that worry for me expression. I told her don't worry, I know what I was doing.

I have gotten to know so many people because I used to run a website and sell stuff. All sorts from all over the world and over time a handful have become friends. Most are doing well or OK but this one was especially unfortunate.

A business isn't just about money or performance. People is the reason and you need to find a balance to make this worthwhile and meaningful according to your faith. Do not exceed your faith for that is pride. Give faith time to grow, to be wrong, to be humbled.

Update: Dec 6 8:20 am

Received this SMS from Western Union about an hour ago. Appreciate the service.

Smart or just Smarter Nation?

Huh? What smart nation? In my early twenties they had I vaguely recall the intelligent island vision and other successors. I think each plan lasted about ten years. So aren't we an intelligent nation already or in the new description, a smart nation?

I think the right frame is not smart but smarter nation. This bandwagon never stops.

The technology I kinda of read about to be incorporated to make a smarter nation are already here. We are simply just putting them together and integrating it in a fashion other cities do not have the political will to do the same. In other words, it is not too far wrong to say we can be viewed as catching up. But we want to catch up better than others since they never have the full works.

So what's after the smart nation? The dawn of robots? Do you still need every Singaporean as many can economically be replaced by machines? Luminaries like Stephen Hawkings and Elon Musk among others are brooding over the fall of our specie by then. I hope and I don't think they are right, but I am more worried about AI robotic soldiers and police officers. Meanwhile we will be accumulating experience with flying drones and massively intelligent networks. As usual I expect we will pay insufficient attention to security and privacy.

Welcome to the Brave New World.

Bishan Depot: Not once, twice but three times

I was also thinking of that Kenny Roger's song.

That duo insulted high security three times! I supposed they could also have entered any military installation if they had they wanted too. After all the guy in charge of SMRT is a former Chief of Defence Force.

I screenshot that article on Friday. This morning I had to decide if I should thrashed it. I think the right thing to do is remember rather than forget. If I remember correctly the next day Christopher Tan wrote an article educating readers the seriousness of this breach of security.

What I am really disappointed with the MPs and ministers is the lack of outrage over this incident. They will try harder but who cares about harder, it has got to be good enough.

Are they also trying to use the nobody gets fired for buying IBM logic by using Certis Cisco for security? That company has its priorities wrong because it put commercial interests ahead of security performance. There are businesses which a failure has small impact and there are those with high impact which failure is unacceptable. Every major security breach is a Black Swan for a protection company like Certis Cisco. If they don't understand this they shouldn't be in this business.

Looks like we aren't learning the right lessons until we are hit with a MAJOR TERRORIST ATTACK.

Update: Dec 6, 8:25 am

Thanks to Andrew for the reminder.

SMRT management cannot be trusted. Stupid of minister Liu not to come down harder on them. These irresponsible and greedy bosses will keep their jobs but I am not sure about Lui Tuck Yew.