Productivity is not the only way to generate more profits

Recently one of the ministers said that the only way to prevent a zero-sum game (more profits) is to upgrade productivity. I disagree the word only. It is not the only way though.

Productivity is not the only way to generate more profits. Innovative products have always been the key point in generating profits. Look at Apple. The iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad. All these products made them, at one time, the biggest company in the world. Can productivity give you this level of profits? Not by itself.

Therefore, if we're stuck at thinking productivity equals to more profits, we'll be forever stuck at the vicious cycle of cutting costs to create the same product or service. Who knows. We may end up like the MRT breakdown. Too much productivity? Innovative cable ties perhaps?

Take time to feel your negative emotion

I quote from Bo Sanchez:

Whenever you feel a negative emotion be alone in a room and just sit down with it and feel. Don't judge it, criticize it, intellectualize it, explain it away. Allow yourself to feel the pain. It's okay. Accompany it - breathe into it - and after a while, you'll feel the anger or fear or sadness lose it's urgency and power.

Reduction of Corporate Tax will not help the economy

Budget day is approaching and as usual, some are asking for the corporate tax to be reduced, in light of the problems in the eurozone. However, by looking the situation in the United States, anyone will know that this will not help the economy at all. In fact, all those savings only resulted in an increase of savings in the bank. It did not result in more hiring or more spending.

The only way to help the economy is to encourage the same level or slightly higher level of spending. Reduction of corporate tax will not help. Continue rebates in our utility bills, GST and income tax may help for a while but this is only waiting for someone else (namely the US and Europe) to recover and give us a leg up.

Is there something more innovative to help us stand on our own 2 feet instead of waiting for others to push us along? Nothing comes to mind yet. At least the government is in the best position to help push the economy at least for a while until they figure this out. I only hope that whatever they do, they should not push up the inflation again to 2011 levels.

Parkland Residences @ Hougang

I was surprised that there was another DBSS sales coming up so fast after Trivelis@ Clementi. I will not repeat what I have written in my other posts on DBSS and you refer to my other posts for more information.

DBSS @ Hougang has been named Parkland Residences, and is located near Upper Serangoon Road. The indicative pricing and configuration are as follows:

3 room	67 sqm (136 units)	from $359,000 to $418,000	67 sq m: A/c Ledge; Living Room w/ Balcony Internal floor area: 59 sqm
4 room	92 sqm (272 units)	from $485,000 to $589,000	92 sq m: Big A/c Ledge; Living Room w/ Balcony Internal floor area: 79 sqm
5 room	109-112 sqm (272 units)	from $606,000 to $738,000	109 sq m: Big A/c Ledge; Living Room w/ Balcony; Master Bedroom w/ Balcony Internal floor area: 89 sqm 112 sq m: 2 A/c Ledges; Living Room w/ Balcony; Master Bedroom w/ Balcony Internal floor area: 96 sqm

You can take a look for more information here.Compared to DBSS @ Clementi, the pricing for Parkland Residences is much more affordable and the internal floor plan is also bigger. At the very least, the 5-room flat is slightly bigger than a normal HDB 4-room flat, something you find quite rare among DBSS for some reason. As usual there are built-in wardrobes, kitchen cabinets and appliances, air-conditioning system, etc. What caught my eye was that there's a gas water heater in addition to the gas supply to the kitchen appliances.

Based on the floor plan, it seems that there are suggested study areas even for the 3-room flats. It does makes you wonder how small the flat is though. For the biggest 5-room flat, there are also 2 air-con ledges and 4 bedrooms including the master bedroom. There also flat types with higher ceilings for the living/dining room area, even for the 3-room flat. I like the interior design though at it is all squarish in shape. No weird corners, but the balconies as usual still looks big to me.

According to the map, the DBSS is just behind Punggol park, which makes it quite far away from the nearest MRT station, which is Hougang MRT (~1km away). The location to me though is smack right in-between Buangkok and Hougang station. That will explain the relatively cheaper pricing. However, it still near many schools, Hougang Central (Hougang Mall, etc) and of course Punggol Park.

The Centrale8 post includes some of the calculations I did to see if it fits into my affordability matrix so I will not repeat it here. Although at first glance, the room looks quite big but as usual, the big air-con ledges and balconies are taking up quite a bit of space, leaving you with a much smaller interior area. If you're getting the normal flat units that do not have high ceiling, the psf pricing ranges around 650psf. For the addition psf you're paying over and above a normal HDB flat, you can renovate your house to make it look even more spectacular.

DBSS to me, is always a big mistake made by HDB. A public housing project (and forever will be, unlike EC) sold with pricing like a private property. I guess you know what's my recommendation.

Definition of CEO?

SMRT CEO's surprise resignation triggered many responses throughout Singapore. Some said that its about time while some says that she should not step down because the top should not resign for every single fault. My problem is that should we consider the latest 2 breakdowns as any fault?

First, let's have a look at the definition of CEO. According to Investopedia, CEO is the highest ranking executive in a company whose main responsibilities include developing and implementing high-level strategies, making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company, and acting as the main point of communication between the board of directors and the corporate operations.

So were the recent breakdowns normal faults? 

40m stretch of power rail was damaged at the North-South line. Do not forget the frequent breakdowns of the SMRT managed LRT operations at Choa Chu Kang. According to the Wikipedia source here, the LRT was down more than 30 times since 2008, and the latest breakdown happened in June 2011. I do not even want to mention Circle Line, which was brand new. Looks to me like a maintenance problem. What happened to managing overall operations? Result of change in high level strategy?

Turning off the power of the train, leading to breathing problems for some passengers, causing one of them to break the windows to allow fresh air to come in. What happened to the disaster planning? Problem with operations again?

And why did the CEO resign effective immediately just before the minister is due to speak in Parliament?

Anyway, what's done is done.  I hope the next CEO will bring SMRT back to its roots.

Moral education taking a back-seat in Singapore

Recently, Singapore's Prime Minister has urged parents to pay attention to their children's moral and national education on top of encouraging them to do well in their studies. However, this has been simmering in the background since before the election where our government has been putting too much emphasis on education and of course, making money. Case in question? A scene I saw at a cafe in Singapore.

Scenario. 2 families queuing up to gain entrance to the cafe. Family A consist of 2 individuals which looks to me like a father and daughter who is most probably still schooling. The other family B consist of 3 individuals, with a baby-in-tow. The waiter ushered the first family to a 2 seater table. The daughter saw a 4 seater table vacated and requested (to me, it sounded like insisted) to be re-seated to that 4 seater table. Waiter explained to them if they can stay at the 2 seater table because of family B. The daughter refused, saying that they came first and a whole of non-nonsensical reasons (to me). The father was silent throughout the whole conversation. Both families look Singaporeans to me.

This is what Singapore has become. Before someone bring religion, high and mighty, etc in the picture, this has nothing to do with it. This is called, "Common Courtesy".

Turn off 3G? How to do that on the iPhone 4S?

Singtel 3G services has disrupted twice in 24 hours. Advice from Singtel? Disable your 3G. My question is how do you disable 3G on the iPhone 4S? There is no way that you can do that. I believe some phones also do not have the option to turn off 3G.

So what happens if the telco gives instructions that cannot be followed? Nothing apparently.

Left unspoken, Singapore last year grew less than inflation

In the 2012 New Year's message, Singapore has announced that they grew 4.8% in 2011. However what was left unspoken is that the real growth is negative, based on my advanced estimates of 5.2% inflation rate for 2011 which I have written in my post here.

The fact that Singapore is dependent on the global economy growth is no secret. However, what puzzles me is that since Singapore is keen to promote innovation, why is Singapore not trying to excite our own domestic economy and promoting more spending within, than to keep relying on external economies to determine our economic growth? Based on IMF, Singapore has a PPP of about $56,000 USD for 2010.

Judging from what I overheard during my recent cruise,  it would seem that one of the major reasons of not spending is because we're never on holiday. Instead of families discussing what they will do on the cruise ship, I overheard people talking about the power plugs within the cabin, and "boasting" that they brought their laptops on-board to do work.

What's the use of holidaying if you're bringing your work along? Most importantly, are you spending your time during your holidays on your laptop at work, or are you spending your money on the economy?

How to worry less about ourselves

 I quote from Ethics for a New Millennium:

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.


Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace -- anxiety, doubt, disappointment -- these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.


What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.

Something to ease our hospitals?

I was recently reading an article on relieving the overcrowded hospitals by giving elderly an alternative to hospitals. The solution was to allow certain specialist healthcare at home. The person, also a doctor, detailed an experience of an elderly in a hospital:

I called an ambulance and admitted him to the hospital, where we soon brought his urinary tract infection under control. But he developed a bedsore, which became infected with an antibiotic-resistant bacterium that bred in hospitals. He didn't survive the hospitalisation.

Do we always need to be hospitalised? Can we recuperate at home instead of in a hospital? Most important of all, is it cheaper to provide specialist healthcare at our own home, or to find the land to build a new hospital, especially in land-scarce places like Singapore?

Something to think about...