Chinese New Year Resolutions

I have decided on this 2nd day of the Chinese New Year to post 3 Resolutions, 1 for the brain, 1 for my health and 1 for my spirit.

Taken atop St Peter's Basillica in 2017, above all the statues of the saints and apostles

St Peter's Square is in the background. 

1. Brain - to learn a new mathematical game, Mahjong, so that I can play this centuries       old game with my family and friends. Plus it keeps my mind as sharp as can be.



2. Health - To learn a new sport for my late middle age. 70 is now the young old age and 90, the old old age.  



3. Spirit - To seek and find the meaning of Life through seeking the established religions and meditation, to give back more to society so that I can lead a more fulfilling existence.  

Why we like 'stories' of hope ?

I chanced upon an article from the local newspaper headlined "Twins barely made it to Express stream now doing well in IB".

This is the statistical biases which all newspapers can and most often do highlight but do remember it is 5 in 50,000 or 1 in 10,000. 49,995 do not come near this result and probably tens of thousands just scrape through. 

So when you have stories which are full of hope based on say 50,000 students studying for this year's 'O' levels, there will always be the 0.1% of these boys and girls who will come up against the odds.Note 0.1% is still 50. If there were only 5 then the odds would be 0.01 % . 

In Thailand, Dec 1975 for the Sanya Samaki Swim Cup with Bangkok Sports Club

And boy they do make out a great story of success. The reason is that our minds are geared, or primed to react and praise the ones who come out on top. It is so motivational and enriching. Success bias is ingrained in our brains for the longest time. Not so the plodders and mediocre performers who form the bulk of the 95% students.

Our brains are also wired to link instances in time chronoloigically to form a story. Logical or Sensational, we all have the 'capacity to spin a yarn', to make an oration. So that we end up being more popular, more sought after and more liked on Facebook. 

Stories are just events which when scribed down, they are inextricably linked to form a message. The spin is where the writer then knowingly puts in his bias.

Throw in a few 'downers' and there will be many and the story just becomes another one of everybody's life. 

So be careful of what is written out there. Spin doctors make you want to see what they see and are intent to spread a line for the unwitting. 

Its called an Op - Ed, or opinion editorial.    

The thing about the N. Ireland 'Backstop'. A good video below

Why are property prices so high in Hong Kong ?

This video by Vox provides a great insight as to why the property prices in Hong Kong are so expensive and thus forcing ordinary citizens to live in smaller and smaller box units and even cage homes no larger than a car park space. 

The root cause of this problem is inefficient Government policies regulating land use. Only 3.7% of all urban land is let out to the people of HK to live.Of that 3.7 % of land, it is safe to say that 80% of the property is privately owned, with many developers bidding sky high prices per square foot each progressive year. There are of course Government housing, but as I checked only 4,400 was made available to the citizens in 2018. Public housing rentals are there too, but that again comes with a long waiting list and a whole list of eligibility criteria to fulfill. The rest of the time the land sales is bidded and the highest tenderer normally gets the parcel of land. Land sales is the main revenue generator for HK Government, so as to offset the negligible revenue from taxes. 

In Singapore it is the reverse. 80% of  the land meant for housing is  sold to the Housing Development Board (HDB) with a 99 year lease and subsidised pricing for the citizens who can use their CPF (retirement funds) to defray the deposit and grants provided up to $30,000 for units when the citizens live with their parents and $20,000 if they live close to their parents (within 4km radius). Hence, the prices are controlled for new sales, the buildings come with alot of amenities like ramps (for elderly), ample connectivity between the car parks and the blocks, the walkways leading to the bus stops  are covered hence minimising the use of umbrellas in case of rain. 

Town centres come well designed with a large hawker centres, connectivity, ample car park lots and high ceilings with latest mechanised fans for ventilation. 

Back to HK, the tenure is only 50 years (since 1997 when the territory was handed over to Chia) well within the life span of many Hong Kongers and then one is again forced out on to the street unless one has the means to buy the U$ 2000 per square foot of air space in downtown HK.

While there is easily 20 - 30% of usable land which can be tendered out for Government housing, it is few and far between resulting in many people waiting decades just to get a shot to live in one. In the meantime, they have to rent in squalid and cramped subdivided units. A 10 foot by 7 foot square mattress in a cage home goes for US$ 300 (S$ 400).

A room in Jurong Bukit Batok, of size 400 - 500 square foor which is perhaps 30 -45 minutes from downtown Financial District in Singapore can be rented out for a little more than US$ 500 (about S$ 700).  

A really sad situation for the poorer citizens of HK.   

So one may be able to afford an apartment, say in the 80s when price were cheaper and you were in your 20s then. Come 50 years later and in your 70s can you imagine you have saved enough (or your children) to buy another property which has probably price per square foot of 100 times of what you had paid for ??  

Taxes are amongst the lowest in the world, there is no GST, VAT, electronic road pricing and such. Hence land sales is the primary source of revenue generation and it is normally tendered out with the highest bidder winning.

The hardest hit are thus the elderly, poor families with young children and the divorcees.

Trial by Social Media

Recently there was a big fracas on the confrontation between a lady passenger and a Go Jek driver which was uploaded first to Facebook and subsequently shared thousands of times and has since gone viral.

I want to add my 2 cents worth to it, as I feel that the rise of social media and the use of built in cameras and video phones has levelled the playing field of 'he says, she says' but also can be used as evidence if the confrontation , misdemeanor, or simply misunderstanding of the situation can be viewed by perfect strangers and then there will be a 'trial by social media'. 

Why this phenomenon has arisen is that while confrontations, minunderstandings and incidents happen everyday, the 'drama' which unfolds can be worthy of prime time television and people will stop, waste their precious time and cast judgement, and comment on who was right, wrong or plain stupid.

The incident between the Go Jek driver and the lady passenger clearly shows the ignorance of people taking ride sharing apps (the lady in this instance). From what I understand, she wanted to go to town and was ignorant of the fact that she the passenger had to pay the ERP or electronic road pricing upon entering into the Central Business District. Her defence, she had taken other routes driven by other drivers which did not encounter or enter the ERP gantries.

The driver politely asked her to show him the route which she had been taking, but she insisted that he should know and from then on the situation spiralled out of hand. She insisted that he had taken her 'hostage' and called a friend to try to speak to the driver.

The other lady friend was just as clueless and the driver then upped the ante by saying that if she was this unreasonable, and was claiming that he had taken her 'hostage' then he had better drive her to the nearest police station at Toa Payoh to settle the matter amicably.

The sense of entitlement or the attitude of the lady (obviously Singaporean) was really unbecoming. She appeared very patronising. Everyone is working hard and we try to be as amiable to all people we meet and when the driver indicated to her that he did not know other routes, she should then (in hindsight) asked to stop the car, and cancel her ride there and then.

It ended when the driver drove near Toa Payoh Police station and the lady asked for help from the police officer. He asked to hear both their stories and the Go Jek driver with his video on appeared to be telling the who truth from start to end. When she did not hear the response she was expecting to get, she then attempted to get out of the car whereby the door's autolock came on.

The video ended when she finally managed to get out but the policeman was sympathetic to the driver and rightfully so. Unreasonable passengers who cry 'wolf' are unfortunately a by-product of the 'me first' generation of today. They refuse to see anybody else's point of view except their own. 

No sense of give and take at all.   

London had better get its act together ; Businesses are taking flight

London Bridge will stand but will the UK ? 

Siege mentality I am afraid 

The latest news since PM Theresa May got her mandate to go ahead to negotiate with EU leaders for the upteenth time with 'no deal' thrust upon her has started making numerous businesses shaky.

Dyson has decided to relocate its HQ to Singapore from London with the prospect of making electric cars a mouth watering one for us here. Bad news for the British people I am afraid.  

Today it was announced Barclays Bank will be pulling out of London and relocating the HQ to Dublin Republic of Ireland. The news from the British auto makers is also bleak, so what does Ms. May have from now till end March (31st) ?

This is the siege mentality which is pervasive in certain sectors of the population and when they decided to Leave Europe, they were probably thinking with their hearts, whereas in good governance, many a times it must be based on cold hard numbers and the head must always rule the heart.

We watch with bated breath.  

My Wish for this Chinese New Year ?

With business associates at the Corniche area in downtown Doha, Qatar.

Here is my sincere wish for this Chinese New Year :

a) Good Health for myself, my family, friends, business associates and the world at large

b) Peace and Goodwill amongst all of us, so that at the end of the day, we will find a way to stop the major risks facing the world at large :

- climate change
- overpopulation
- genetic modified foods causing unheard and yet unrecorded diseases
- world economic stagnation

c) Family cohesion and closeness with the ones that truly matter to me.

d) Giving back to society whenevr and  in whatever form I can afford with my limited 
    abilities and skills

e) Wealth in the form of a stable income stream and being able to be money smart and grow     the nest egg. I am not young anymore and the retirement planning of funds looms ever         and ever larger. 

Having a nice  Chinese seafood lunch at the Rocks in Sydney Australia.