Saturday, September 27, 2008

The Joker meets Bush on the bailout plan

I think this clip puts the Joker as the hero rather than the villain. With the current economic crisis, the Joker seems to have a better plan at getting America out of recession. But with two villians facing off, I think both have different or rather evil intentions on their propositions.

Anyway, back to reality, confidence of consumers and investors are at a low. With the China food scare that is going around and the dwindling markets, we wonder where this is heading. America is still at war, and probably would want another war (haha! nothing new abt that), China is still trying to fix the food problem and many other problems plagueing their country one after the other ( to name a few: earthquakes, pollutions, tainted China products etc...).

Oil prices have taken a few dips, after a few scares that it might go even higher than predicted. Food prices has kinda become a little cheaper with all the food sales going on, probably because of the tainted China food products.

Here in Singapore, it isn't all that bad. Economy seems to be strong, ppl still do go out and shop. We still have options on food prices, not everything here is expensive, that is of course if you know where to look.

I think the main problems that are concerning Singaporeans are the jobs availability and high costs of living. With the influx of foreigners filling up jobs here, Singaporeans naturally have concern on whether they will be left out. Gone are the days when Singaporeans are sought after so much, now businesses rather employ workers who are cheaper but as reliable or willing to put more working hours than Singaporeans.

Costs of living is high here, I think anyone who have lived here long enough have realised that by now. But personally, Singaporeans still have options. We can still save a small part of our salary, we can still go out and buy cheap products, cheap foods. It isn't so bad really, eventhough I wish I could live more 'comfortably' here.

Comfortably meaning that I won't have to worry so much about my future. With no more pension paying companies anymore, we are left to fend for ourselves on our future. So knowing where to put your money is crucial if you want to live a comfortable life ahead.

We all know CPF is not enough to keep out standard of living constant after we retire(IF we retire at all). Singaporeans are living longer and are more conscious of their health. I see a lot of old men and women brisk walking, jogging and some even running around my neighbourhood. Singaporeans do know how to keep a healthy lifestyle, which I think is a very good trend for everyone else to follow.

So with a lot more older ppl in this country, I think it is time we add more character education in our school curriculum. Many times I have seen youngsters not giving way for passengers to alight, not giving up their seats, making a lot of noise, etc. We are beginning to see a lack of decency in our youths.

Maybe I was unfortunate enough to see the "Dark side" of the youths but I do not think what I have seen applies to all youths in general. I have seen sparks in the youths of today, some do still speak courteously, act graciously and offer to help those in need.

Learning to be respected one has to learn to respect other people.

To avoid an ungracious society, we have to start from the youth and work on from there. Religious and racial tolerance is necessary, and we have been practicing that for decades. A lot of it is necessary now with a lot of foreigners coming into our country. Singapore itself has become a 'rojak' culture. Eventhough it looks 'rojak' it is still a nice place to live, just like the rojak you eat at the stall; Messy array of food, mixed together but tastes nice still.

This kind of mixing of cultures, religion, races isn't new but with addition of new 'flavours' everyone now has to learn to get along with these new 'flavours'. And some how we can all find a balance and get along. I am sure everyone remembers the incident of having foreign workers living near our home. The concerns of Singaporeans living that area are genuine but at the same time I wonder if they were becoming a bit unreasonable.

An uncle of mind lives in a private house owned by his parents. There were some works going on just like 5 steps away from his front gate. Foreign workers where there doing some kind of heavy work and there were working on it for days. He has a sister who lives there at the time.

One day his dad made a jug of orange drink and brought out some plastic cups. My uncle was wondering what he was doing with it and asked him on his purpose. His dad replied, "Oh nothing, just saw those Bangalas out there working. So just thought of offering them some drinks." Of course the foreign workers were pleased when they were offered the drinks. There were small exchanges of words and smiles all around, what his dad did was gracious.

A small kind offer like that actually brings happiness to all their lives. It wasn't necessary at all for him to do that but as a human being, I think he knows these ppl are working hard, and in some way are contributing to our country. These worker are living so far away from home, and I am pretty sure not everyone likes to be so far away from home and work somewhere on a foreign country day and night, making whatever they have earned to send back some money to their families back home.

Not every youth is ungracious and not every foreign worker is a likely criminal.

We have to start from ourselves if we want others to treat us the way we would like to be treated. Be gracious and not look at others like as if he/she is a likely criminal.