The Singapore budget

The underlying problem of Singapore

I feel that Singapore today is facing the problem of rapid inflation. Singapore’s inflation accelerated to an 18-month high as record economic growth in the first half of 2010 spurred demand for goods and services, sustaining pressure on the central bank to allow currency gains. As prices soared, many Singaporeans found it harder and harder to sustain their basic necessities.

Is there a hidden agenda in giving out free money?

Along with this rapid inflation, Singapore's economy grew at a record 17.9 percent pace in the first six months of 2010, as surging exports bolstered manufacturing and the opening of two casino-resorts boosted services. Coult it be because of this growth, that the government has agreed to give this budget of One-off Benefits for households?

Aims of Singapore budget

 With this budget of One-off Benefits for Households,  it is said that all Singaporeans would be able to cope with the rising costs of living. The elderly  will also benefit as their CPF Medisave Accounts of Singaporeans aged 45 and above will be topped up. The Needy would also be taken care of by funds.  Families supporting children would also get cash bonuses. Additional Utilities-Save (U-Save) and Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rebates will be given this year, further alleviating the problem of inflation. Finally, a one-off Special Bonus will be paid out to those on the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme and Personal Income Tax Rebate will help low and middle income groups.

Will the government succeed in fulfilling its aims?

To me, I feel that this solution does not work in the long run. The problem is that wages have barely kept pace with inflation. After this giveaways, it is uncertain when the next giveaway would be held. With all this giveaways, it would not last very long too. Most people might even spend it straight on the spot. Therefore, this would just save us from the relentless inflation for a short period of time. The government even stated that :" we can't do this every year", which is to say that they are barely balancing or making a deficit and dipping into reserves. After this one-off benefits, the reality will once again sink into us as we are plunging into poverty and recession. Therefore I think the government should work more on long term measures instead of one time measures as this measure is not really solving the problem that we are currently facing.

Meritocratic Singapore

Meritocracy is by far the most successful in ensuring equality to all. With this system, everyone who deserves respect and praise gets it because they earned it, and not because they were born with it. This gives people the chance to choose who they become with their achievements and accomplishments determining factors. This is also supported by the quote :" An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". It is a fair reward for the amount of work that one does in life.

Next, Meritocracy takes into account a holistic list of talents and strengths of people. In a meritocratic society, a person's merits are judged based on one's IQ, in the form of academic work, as well as EQ, in the form of character upbringing. As quoted from Dr. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, :" IQ accounts for 20% of a person's success in life, while the rest largely attributed to emotional intelligence". Meritocracy captures these two main traits and thus gives fair chance to all no matter their area of strength.

Although some people argue that Meritocracy is a haphazard thinking with the reason being  that in order for equal opportunities to be ensured for all in society, the pre-requisite would be that people in society must enjoy equal access to these opportunities, one cannot expect a system to be perfect. At present, it has to be admitted that meritocracy is the best systems that reaches the highest level of equality coupled with one of the highest level of productivity.

 Now, let me introduce the topic of a successful life. Broadly speaking, someone who has a successful life must be able to set goals and accomplish those goals in one's life. Usually, there is a common denominator for a truly successful life, and it is to include wisdom, faith in a higher being, and peace with oneself and the environment.

Indeed, meritocracy is backed by the definition of a successful life. Therefore meritocracy is the best way for schools in Singapore to enable the brightest and best to rise to the top to reach a Utilitarianistic future.

Book review: Gray Matter

Author: Gary Braver

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

Year published: 2004

Tone of story: Suspenseful (sophisticated fear)

Time/era of story: Present (2000-2010)

Theme:  Beware of making intelligence control you

Brief Synopsis:

Rachel Whitman regrets taking a drug when she was younger as she fears she has damaged her son’s brain. Although she knows that intelligence is not everything, she fears that her son will never grow up to appreciate the wonders of life. Like most parents, Rachel will do anything to improve her son's lifestyle and later, she gets obsessed with a medical procedure which she heard from her friend, Sheila. The procedure claims to make children turn into bright geniuses from slow children. After hearing this, Rachel desperately leaps at this hope. As Rachel uncovers information about the process, she becomes concerned about the procedure as something was wrong with the children who have had the procedure done. After noticing it, she starts to question how far she is willing to go for an ideal she is not even sure she believes in anymore.  However, she feels that it was her fault that Dylan suffered learning disabilities. She faces the moral dilemma between intelligence vs. happiness. She later decides that Dylan should not go for the operation, but with Sheila, her husband, and the doctor persuading her to go for the operation, will she give in?

On a separate case, many bright people are being kidnapped from different rural areas across the world, their bodies recovered on a beach. The corpse however, had strange, identical drill marks, made by very high speed cranioblade drills on the brain. Officer Zakarian is convinced that this is no coincidence, and is determined to find out why no matter what happens. As Zakarian investigates the disappearances of several children, it eventually intersects with Rachel's path with an unusual connection.

What I like/ dislike about this story:

I like Gray Matter as I find that this story is a well developed novel with comprehensive details such as the way Gary Braver describes the procedure of the operation. It is an original and clever story line that centers on the matter of human intelligence. He makes it very real and it feels as if they were all true. It is also a thought provoking and controversial novel about human intelligence. It challenged my view about human intelligence and I find that there is really more than intelligence alone. It also gives scary insights of what might happen in the future. I also liked the way each chapter introduces a character or theme and in the end the reader finally sees how it all comes together. Besides that, it is an easy read and totally accessible even though it is 400 pages of thought provoking intelligent material.

Would I recommend the book? Why?

Yes, I definitely would. The book is fast paced and it also gives the emotional tension and anxiety of a middle class status person. Gary Braver is also skillful in his plotting, notching up the tension incrementally. He also has some powerful descriptive passages, making it a fantasy story brought about to life while criticising our view on human intelligence. A must read for anybody.

Comments on other people's blog for term 2

1) Nathan ("Mother's day special")

http://nathanang.blogspot.com/2011/05/mothers-day-special.html?showComment=1305209006905#c5826402569979922055

2) Ivan ("Different types of newspapers")

http://ivanlablog.blogspot.com/2011/04/different-types-of-newspapers.html?showComment=1305210765291#c1006049561055246583

3) Kee Xuan ("Should the Parents Maintenance Act be abolished?")

http://spongebobsayshitoyou.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-parents-maintenance-act-be.html?showComment=1305206823915#c9065542158081093345

4) Kai En ("Technology - A Progressive Undoing of the Human Race ")

http://kaiensblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/technology-progressive-undoing-of-human.html?showComment=1305423802776#c7178960440773827185

5) Kai En ("Different types of newspapers")

http://kaiensblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/different-types-of-newspapers.html?showComment=1305424888087#c7883261852711299464

6) Kee Xuan ("Reasons Why Students Should Wear School Uniforms to School ")

http://spongebobsayshitoyou.blogspot.com/2011/05/reasons-why-students-should-wear-school.html?showComment=1305426317651#c4824635083812903401

7) Wen Hong ("SAF man lets maid carry backpack")

http://language-artist.blogspot.com/2011/04/saf-man-lets-maid-carry-backpack.html?showComment=1305427575048#c2214461957053582050

8) Glenn ("Debate Topic: Should Singlish be an official language of Singapore? ")

http://arts-language.blogspot.com/2011/05/debate-topic-should-singlish-be.html?showComment=1305439335817#c4003099773167325951

9) Leonard ("Debate topic 1")

http://leonard-languageartsblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/debate-topic-1.html?showComment=1305441765777#c6451032310430993418

10) Raphael ("Stop STOMP")

http://twoeyeone.blogspot.com/2011/05/stop-stomp.html?showComment=1305444156229#c7896516022166108173

Nuclear power plants in Singapore

I have read some recent articles and speeches made by the government, and it is likely that the government of Singapore would build a nuclear power plant in the near future. I would like to state that I am not supportive of this idea. This would be a blog post on why I do not support the building of the nuclear plant.


First of all, let me start by talking about how the people who support the building of a nuclear power plant looks at the recent disaster in Japan. These people thinks that we will learn from our mistakes and never let another nuclear disaster happening again. However, how can we guarantee this? This was exactly what was said after the Chernobyl disaster, but then why did it happen again in Japan? As once said, Science can never fully solve a problem as it creates ten others. Furthermore, we cannot even anticipate every problem that nature throws at us.

To illustrate my point, let me compare a nuclear power plant disaster to something more people are familiar with, a plane crash. Factors resulting in a crash may be the result of negligent pilots, unexpectedly hush weather or some mechanical failure. From 2000 to 2010, over one hundred plane crashes happened. Although the aircraft industry had been around for decades, why is there such a problem?

The root cause is that humans cannot understand the uncountable types of disasters. Similarly, like the various causes of the crash, power plants have a variety of disaster. If there is a nuclear plant in Singapore, the correct question we should be asking is not if an accident of a nuclear plant is going to happen. Rather, it is when a disaster will happen.

Now, up to this point, let me tell you why some people support the construction of nuclear power plant in Singapore. First of all, in a modern metropolis, there is a rising demand for electricity, and they believe that the nuclear power plant is the key that will solve this problem. They argue, that these nuclear power plants will not pollute the environment, and although I have to agree with their argument, but, if we think about it, for these small profit, can we justify the need to put the millions of lives of people across the country at stake?

The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident has resulted in people living within a 20 km radius from the plant to be evacuated. Moreover, people cannot eat radioactive contamination from food near the nuclear plant area, and even watered has to be screened before the water is safe from drinking. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This are just the few minor and insignificant inconveniences a nuclear power plant accident can cause to our citizens.

This would be the true extent of a nuclear disaster in Singapore. The people would have nowhere to run from here, and practically everyone will suffer from radiation. If we are lucky enough to somehow survive that, we also have to take into consider the amount of resources to clean up all this mess we have unwittingly created for ourselves. To sum up, radiation not only pollutes the environment, but also claimes hundreds of thousands of lives. The amount saved in terms of electricity will be way surpassed after the nuclear disaster strikes.

Next, according to researches carried out near nuclear plants, nuclear power plants not only pollute the environment, but is continuously discharging a small amount of radiation, which makes people living near them have an increased risk of cancer.

All in all, I know that Singapore is a country of scarce natural resources, but does not allow us to solve the problem using nuclear energy. Nuclear energy does more harm than good, and for Singapore it is not worth it. Therefore, the construction of a nuclear power plant in Singapore should not be done.

How is life going to be like in the future?

Today, I was looking through the History channel which was talking about the challenges that we faced today. I remembered vividly hearing this statement from somewhere:

For a world to progress, people have to think of themselves only

Do I agree? Read more to find out.

Challenges the world faces today

In an ever-changing world today, people are getting more and more competitive. People start outdoing each other, finding different ways and devious means in order to get what they want. According to US census, the population would rise to a staggering 9,309,051,539 from the current 6,840,423,256. Dwindling fossil fuels, overcrowding, an expected rise in more devastating natural disasters, sparse opportunities and resources would be the largest challenge humanity has yet to face. One might argue that these problems would not exist in the future because Science had solved it. However, in science there are four main categories which are —- natural, social and behavioural, applied and formal sciences. These categories can be even further sub-divided and all this just goes to prove that science is vast and is like a big puzzle. Science and technology will be unable to catch up with the ever mounting problems. As George Bernard Shaw once said " science never solves a problem without creating ten more ".

1st scenario:

In every part of the world, riot after riot will be held due to the failure to meet people's basic needs. Schools, businesses, research and others will be shut down for good. Progress will not resume until the impossible needs of every person is met. Those people who are selfless will be extinguished and only those who will think for themselves will survive. At that time, those who are selfless would be taken advantage and preyed upon by corrupted officials who are also struggling to make ends meet. At this point in time, it would be every man for himself.

Therefore only the strong will be able to survive then. Countries will have to battle it out to gain supremacy. Through this, country after country will fall, massacres will have to be carried out to reduce the ever-growing population. Finally, after peace resumes, the last country standing will finally be able to colonise the whole world, and hence progress will finally be restored.

2nd scenario:

Humans find a scientific breakthrough that allows us to travel to other worlds and start our colonisation of the whole universe, letting us have an eternal amount of resources and land space. As our population grows bigger and bigger, and with the resources to support ourselves, the progress of technology would increase dramatically, making human progress unstoppable.

3rd scenario:

Nothing is done. Resources have ran out, and the population of humans shrink gradually but slowly, and finally dies out.

How I feel:

 

For a world to progress, people do not only have to think of themselves only. The first scenario will only happen if humans are greedy and hungry for power. I think that if everyone would just work together, and work fast, we would have our ideal scenario 2. Although George Bernard Shaw once said " science never solves a problem without creating ten more ", there is always a first time for everything right? We still have about another billion years before the sun gets sucked out of orbit and I am sure that by then, with perserverance and consistentcy, we would achieve what we envision of.

War, a device that is possible to extinguish humanity

After watching a show on the national geographic regarding the dropping of nuclear bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it left a deep impression on me. I saw the gruesome clips of the people who suffered from the attack, and I knew many would not make it. That is why I decided to post on this topic.

There are two types of war. It can be classified as civil wars or wars between two or more countries. Today I would be talking about wars between countries.

How do external wars start?

Wars can start when the absolute leader of a country gets greedy and desires land or resources from other countries that are not willing to give. With no other alternatives, they therefore take it by force, starting a war. For example, Japan started a war by invading China as they felt that the Japanese deserved more land.

Besides this, wars can also start when the absolute leader of a country wants to prove his might and power. To show that oneself is powerful, the only way is winning a war and taking over another country. This happened very often in the ancient world, such as ancient China or Rome. The most recent one was started in Germany where Hitler wanted to prove his power and strength of his army.

The sad truth of war

During a war, thousands of soldier die after a clash between two countries. Bombs are also dropped on cities, sometimes leaving them as ghost towns.

As a country finally surrenders, the leader of the other country would want to take revenge on the citizens of the defeated country for making their country lose so many soldiers. This results to a massacre of the population in the defeated country, leading to more deaths.

However, the victorious country will not be able to hold on to the defeated country for long as other countries are afraid that they would have a similar fate and join forces and push back the victorious country.

In the end, nothing is achieved. Only more blood, tears and hardships would be made for the people. Moreover, even when war is over, prisoners of war who lived in the concentration camps are extremely weak, some would also die to the illness they contracted in the prisons. Besides that, victims of the war would also have emotional scars. Some might not be able to get over it and would choose to suicide.

This has already been shown by facts and figures in World War 1 and 2, such as genocide.

My stand on this issue

Why do we, as humans create these atrocities? How does one benefit from wars? To me, I do not see a purpose in war. What we are doing is extinguishing ourselves from the very face of the Earth. Wars are a waste of resources, together with a tragic loss of lives. Technology can also no longer be improved as quickly due to the involvement in war. In other words, wars simply retards the development of mankind.

Selfish reasons and lack of resources should are not justifiable for starting wars. Leaders should lead by example. Furthermore, "Men are all created to be equal", leaders of the countries should treat each other equally, and solve disputes amicably. In conclusion, I feel that there is simply no reason why any country should go into a war.

War poems -- A sign of love

As Dwight D. Eisenhower once said "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." Most people hate war. They write poems to express their feelings, their views on war, or to empathise with or glorify the people who suffered during the war. They show the true heart of a human who loves and care.

Typically, war poetry tries to capture the sadness, bravery, and sacrifice of ordinary men for their country and the brutality, cruelness and greedy creators of utter carnage. Besides that, it also tries to describe the futility of the mindset that drives this need for man to kill man, and how useless war really is.


(View some samples on war poetry at: http://www.poemhunter.com/poems/war/)