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Showing posts from October, 2006

Chinese Garden MRT Suicide Followup

On 24 October 2006, Mr Tan Jee Suan, 46, was killed at Chinese Garden MRT station after being hit by a train going towards Boon Lay. After news broke that he committed suicide due to financial difficulties and depression, Singaporeans once again showed their compassion with their wallets and donated around $500K to his family. When the donated amount grew that huge, it was proposed to put the amount under a trust of sorts to ensure it is well managed and truly help the family bring its still schooling kids through to adulthood. This kind intention was rejected and the wife opted to handle the money herself. It is money donated to her family and she has all rights to manage it the way she wanted. But yesterday night's news is a shocker. She actually offered $100K to the undertaker, 郑海船, who had generously offered to take care of the funeral for free. The undertaker has no need for such money and even if she was trying to thank him, a sum of $10-20K to reimburse him for all the expen

Public Transport System Comprehensive Review

The Land Transport Authority intends to up the trips made on public transport from 63% to 70% over the next 10-15 years. Do we really need to spend on a comprehensive review to know what the problems are? The frequency of the bus services is poor and the rationalisation of services to avoid duplication with MRT routes has resulted in people having to pay extra and make multiple transfers in order to get to their destinations. Short distances take far too long to cover, a distance that takes 30mins by car can take 1.5 hours by our affordable public transport. Take a cab instead of driving! But our cab fares have risen significantly and I pay $20 per trip going to work in the morning. Assuming I take the cab to and fro work everyday, $20 X 2 ways X 5 days X 4 weeks implies I am spending $800. For slightly more than $800 a month, it is today possible to get a small car and you get the additional sense of ownership and convenience. Gone are the days of waiting to flag down a cab and realis

Wee Shu Min vs Derek Wee

Wee Shu Min has made it into The Straits Times today with her blog postings that got slammed by Netizens. She is the latest blogger to gain notoriety after posting their views online. The well-to-do in Singapore experiences a disconnect with the people who are trying to make ends meet. In my words, those who own and drive cars do not understand the pains of utilising public transport. If you are keen on her posting, I replicate it below and it does not represent my views. ------------ Posting from suchvividnothing.blogspot.com ---------- mom's friend sent her some blog post by some bleeding stupid 40-year old singaporean called derek wee (WHY do all the idiots have my surname why?!) whining about how singapore is such an insecure place, how old ppl (ie, 40 and above) fear for their jobs, how the pool of foreign "talent" (dismissively chucked between inverted commas) is really a tsunami that will consume us all (no actually he didn't say that, he probably said Fouren

Financial Reviews Blog

I need to find more money to meet additional financial needs in my life and since I cannot really look forward to a sudden pay increment, I have to seek the additional income from elsewhere. While I do not have the time to commit to some part-time/freelance job, I believe I have the ideas to share that will greatly benefit others. After racking my brain for ideas, what better way to try to earn some money then by making use of blogging and monetise it with advertisements? As such, I managed to find a good name financialreviews to start a blog on reviewing financial products so as to provide people out there with the consumer point of view instead of relying on the product's promotional materials that highlights only the good points. FinancialReviews has been born as of 15th October 2006!

行家出手 (City Slickers)

行家出手 is listed as a variety show on the television programmes guide but should it actually be labelled as an advertisement instead? What variety is there in the show when it is so blatantly advertising the products that are featured on the show? This feel that it is a 30 minutes disguised commercial is further reinforced when the final credits show the featured products/retailers as being the sponsors of the show! Obviously, this disguised commercial is a good money spinner for the media company since it actually has other incarnations of the same concept in shows like 美疗专家. I consistently vote with my remote control on these shows that I do not like. Only by demonstrating a visible viewership ratings drop can we force the broadcast companies to provide higher quality programmes.

User ID and Secret PIN

User IDs and PINs are the common authentication mechanisms for online services these days and companies are taking pains to try to provide the information to clients in more secure ways. These efforts of theirs are truly commendable but the actual way in which it is done really leave much to be desired. Just today, I found 2 mailers in my letterbox and when I opened them up, one contained user ID while the other contained the "secret" PIN. Checking the date of postage, the 2 are the same! What sort of security is there when both mailers are sent at the same time and ends up together in my letterbox? Companies implementing security should seriously evaluate if the measure they had put in place are sensible. This company had good intentions but ended up with a useless implementation.

North Korea Nuclear Test

Why is a country that is so impoverished still so keen to go nuclear? The recent North Korea nuclear test appears to be yet another move that smacks of craziness. The country is already so poor and relies heavily on foreign aid to sustain its citizens but the leaders are enjoying a much better quality of living. Isn't this ironic when North Korea is supposedly one of the last pure communist states? All citizens are equal but some are more equal than others. The country further maintains a huge standing army! How can one justify keeping such a big army when the citizens are finding it hard to make ends meet? Anyone who has played war-theme RPG computer simulation games know that there is a need to balance resources with army size. The international community is perhaps being too humane to North Korea. The citizens of the country are at no fault and should not be punished for all these. Yet, if we take a leaf out of our experiences in war-simulation games, if we choke the flow of res

A Brief History of Singapore

I am not a fan of Hossan Leong but he really shone in this clip where he gave an overview of Singapore's history through a song. Posted as "Talking Cock in Parliament - Hossan Leong" in YouTube, I will share the clip here too since I like it so much :-)

Great Offer from dollarDEX

dollarDEX has just released a great offer, paying investors to mange their money. Transfer your unit trusts now and be rewarded with a loyalty bonus, equivalent to 1% p.a. return on your average investment holdings of transferred units between 3 October 2006 and 30 June 2007. This offer applies to unit trusts which you may previously have bought elsewhere using cash, CPF savings or SRS. For example, you may have bought Aberdeen Pacific Equity Fund at a bank several years ago. If you transfer your holdings in this fund over to dollarDEX you can participate in the promotion, earning the loyalty bonus for the period those units are held at dollarDEX up to 30 June 2007. Even if you switch to another fund during that period you can still get the bonus. Details... This is a very aggressive move that I believe will make a noticeable dent on the market share that Fundsupermart has and will force Fundsupermart to counter with some other offers to avoid losing too many existing customers. Howeve

Holistic Financial Planning

How are we able to get the idea of financial planning through to those who do not understand it? When I was still in school, the family finances were quite tight and my parents had zero savings outside of CPF. Financial planning focused more on getting through each month with the limited budgets than longer term goals. Today, I am already working and am contributing to the household and yet, my parents still have no savings. The month to month living has become so deeply ingrained that extra cash these days is used to go on casino trips, majung sessions, expensive meals, etc. There is no thought made on the impending retirement where disposable income will take a significant hit. Whenever I raise the issue to my mother, it never ends well, usually with her telling me to stop giving her money if I am finding it tough to give it. It is lucky that I had made the right move in not giving her a monthly lump sum and had instead allocated a portion of it to purchase an insurance savings plan.