New investment paradigm?

"You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled."(Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

 

The paradigm of investing in a property here has changed for the last 2 years or so. People apparently are no more deterred by the slew of curbing measures. Increasingly more and more people are viewing property investment as a kind of insurance policy. In fact, it is a better investment than the latter based on the assumption that the monthly mortgage installment is enough to pay off from the rental income. Also, home prices in future indeed will rise; hence provide a handsome sum for retirement. The enemy for property investors appear to be ‘wait and see’ attitude which causes one to miss the boat.

 

There is inherent risk in forecasting what the future property prices will be like down the road in as there are so many variables at play- government policies, interest rate, market psychology, land supply etc.With the release of Population White Paper recently, property investors become even more excited and started to postulate the unending demand for housing from the foreigners.

 

Will era of huge capital gains still here to stay? Already the new launches of private properties have been priced at astronomical level. It pays to be prudent and be able to sit through his investment. One thing I know is that Bull Run does not last forever but it is difficult to stop a running train. Newspapers and media have been amplifying those ‘successful’ investment stories. What about those investors who were caught on the wrong foot? Talking about this, I still remember how my ex-client lost all that he had during the Asia financial crisis when he and his brothers who originally inherited a number of properties, overleveraged and were caught when the property bubble burst.

Worth of life

"Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass." (Jobs 14:5)

 

How much you are willing to pay for another year of life? With the advance of medical science and technology, cancer care has revolutionized in recent years. New drugs have now been used to treat cancer patients. The basic principle of these drugs is to identify the genetic mutations that cause a particular kind of cancer, and aim to turn off the mutated protein of the cancer cells.  As such, the doctors can tailor the cancer therapies to a particular person rather than giving standard therapy, hence, enhances effectiveness of treatment. The treatment targets on cancer cells rather than on healthy cells as well. Patients have to go for genetic tests before treatment.

Targeted therapies can increase cancer patients’ survival by months or years. The main issue is the cost  which can come up to thousands of dollars per month. Clearly this is out of reach for many people. It is a matter of time before medical insurance companies resort to capping such therapy either by setting a cap on the maximum amount the insured can claim per year, or by the number of months of treatment per year.  One thing for sure is that medical insurance premium will go up over time.

For patients and their immediate family members, the difficult decision lies in how much those additional years of survival worth, especially for those who cannot afford. To put it differently, how much are you willing to pay for another year of life? There is no right answer to this tough question but I guess common sense should prevail. Life is precious! Don’t waste it.

P1 registration & social mobility?

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.” You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:9-10)

I got a call from a friend recently asking for advice on P1 registration for her only daughter. I could feel the stress and anxiety she had over this matter. It came as a surprise that this issue remains as contentious and socially divisive as two decades ago when my eldest girl went through the same exercise. This implies that most parents today still do not accept that every primary school is equally good despite the assurance from the ministry. One can gauge the popularity of a particular school by the number of places registered under phase 2B, where many parents are willing to put up at least 40 hours of volunteer work in the school of their choice in a year in order to qualify.

Are the children of disadvantaged households really been deprived of head start when they ended up in the less popular primary schools? Is the pace of social mobility among the lower-income group been affected even by our primary school registration system? Personally I think for primary school level, as long as the parents take keen interest in their children’s studies, the kids should do well in PSLE. Now it seems that the clamour for the Singapore’s brand of meritocracy to be reformed is getting louder. The very success of such system apparently breeds a group of people who are the beneficiaries, believing the system is absolutely just and fair; that they are entitled to their rewards for their hardworking. In fact they view those who are not so successful under such system as slothful, undeserved help or support. It is ironical that these are the people who are against social redistribution policies of the government.

I think it is time for us to put a ‘compassionate’ touch to this system. We have to acknowledge that there are people down there who despite all their best efforts, for one reason or the other, could not move up the social and economic ladder.

Is present age more evil?

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “(Jeremiah 17:9)
“Everyone who practices wickedness hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his actions may not be exposed. “(John 3:20)

 

In a city where there are relatively fewer crimes than other world cities, we are appalled by the gruesome Kovan double murders taken place recently. Has evil increased compared to the past, or is the condition of man more evil now than before? In reality, the types and extent of evil deeds probably the same, just that with modern technology, we are more aware of them than before. Nowadays we can instantly obtain this information through the media, not constraint by geographical distance. In the past, it is very easy to hide one’s evil deeds. Dallas Willard once said that, "almost all evil deeds and intents are begun with the thought that they can be hidden by deceit."

 

The Bible explains that we all born with a sinful nature. When we are forced under a certain set of situations or circumstances, all of us are capable of manifesting those malevolent behaviours. There is no such thing as small or big evil in the eyes of God. Hacking someone’s computer, spreading malicious rumours, discrimination, avarice etc, are no better than someone who committed murder, rape or robbery. Evils are all built on lies, secrets, and darkness. They required the absence of light to survive.

'Letters to God'

‘And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-4)

There is no denial that as we entered adulthood, our worldview change. We think that we are pretty self-sufficient, especially when everything is going in our favor. We acquired more knowledge but unfortunately mistaken it as wisdom.  The more we know, the more we become skeptical and cynical.

Little children have no such hang-up like we adults. They are very impressionable. Here are some examples of their ‘letters to God’:

   ‘Dear God, I would like to live nine hundred years like the guy in the Bible.’

• ‘Dear God, We read that Thomas Edison made light, but in Sunday school they said you did. So I bet he stole your idea.’
• ‘Dear God, if you give me a genie lamp, I will give you everything I have except my money and my chess set.’
• ‘Dear God, Please send xxxxxx to different camp this year.’
• ‘Dear God, May be Cain & Abel would not kill so much if they have their own rooms. It works with my brother and me.’
• ‘Dear God, Please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in them now.’
• ‘Dear God, Instead of letting people died & having to make new ones, why don’t you just keep the ones you have now?’
• ‘Dear God, I went to this wedding and they kissed in the church. Is it OK?’
• ‘Dear God, I’m American. What are you?’
• ‘Dear God, Thanks for a baby brother, but what I am praying is a puppy.’
• ‘Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all and everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family. I can never do that.’
• Dear God, I would like to live nine hundred years like the guy in the Bible.'

LGBT challenge

Leviticus 18:22 "Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin." (Leviticus 18:22)

LGBT Challenge In this country, Section 377A of the Penal Code criminalizes gay sex. It was legally challenged recently by a gay couple on the ground that it is unconstitutional but the case was dismissed by the court. The gay partners’ statement after the verdict shocked me: “we believe that most people here do not believe that gay people should be jailed for something they can’t change.”

In reality, very few people actually become gay because of biological sexual orientation. More do so out of their choice of lifestyles. In today’s context, homosexuality is no more seen in the light of morality and social values. In fact, moral values are relative and nothing is absolute. We live in an era when more are taking the view that there is no such thing as ‘objective truth’ and believe that ‘my truth is as good as your truth’. Truth has thus been dethroned and replaced with the enthronement of ‘reason’. So don’t talk about sin since sin is what a person conceived in his mind. For that reason, Christians are often been singled out as being narrow-minded self-righteousness, intolerance, biased, hatred towards LGBT.

In UK, gay couples are called civil partnerships. They are allowed to be registered as married couples, hence, entitled to a wide range of legal, social rights and benefits. In fact, they get better deals than those heterosexuals who choose co-habitation over marriage. Will our country moves toward that direction eventually? I think so as we have already been told to manage these tensions, to be caring and sensitive, patience and compromise. Just look at the massive crowd of 21,000 turned out at the ‘pink dot’ rally last Saturday at Hong Lim Park.

In this country, we are benefitting from the moral standards of our forefathers, but thing will change if we embrace liberalism indiscriminately. The morals, values and ethnics of our culture are disintegrating at an alarming pace. How would our society defines ‘family’ and 'marriage'in future? It is scary to think of that.

Haze is here!

Haze is here again and we really have no idea how long it is going to last this time. Hopefully there is no El-Nino this year or else things will become worst. Despite all the high-level talks every year, no significant solutions taken place so far. We living in this part of the world, just have to bear with it every year.

I can still recall the terrible haze that we went through in 1997, the year my younger child was born. Thick haze was seen every day for several months. I had to wrap and cover my child up whenever we left the home. This coupled with the onset of the Asia financial crisis, making that year a very miserable and downcast one indeed.

Still, I think haze is bearable as compared to other natural disasters. We are so immensely blessed (or spoilt is a better word) that none of us ever experience starvation here. My mind brings me to a story told in the Bible (2 Kings 6:24-30) which vividly depicts what famine is like.

The king of Syria around BC850, launched a siege and surrounded Samaria so that people could not go in or out of the city. It lasted a long time that brought about a terrible famine, so bad that food prices went through the roof. A donkey’s head cost about 2 pounds (about 1 kilo) of silver and a bowl of seeds cost about 2 ounces (about 55 grams) of silver.

One day, the king of Israel was walking on the city’s wall. A woman cried out, “Help me, your majesty.” He answered, “If God does not help you, I cannot help you. I do not have any wheat or wine. What is your trouble?” The woman said, "Another woman and I were so hungry that we agreed to eat our sons. She said if we ate my son one day, we could eat hers the next day. So yesterday we cooked my son and ate him. But today when I went to her house to eat her son, she had hidden him." When the king heard the woman’s story he ripped apart his robe.

We need to learn to value plenty and be thankful what we have, and realize how deceitful money can bring. In time of despair situation like famine, even money is parted freely for anything that is edible!

Marrying foreigners

‘A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.’ (Proverbs 31:10)

There has been an increasing number of Singaporeans married foreigners in recent years, especially among the Singapore men. Recently two guys that I know of got hitched with foreign girls. Both knew the other parties only for a few months. One is a graduate marrying a Korean girl, and the other is a poly graduate marrying a Thai woman. That came as a big surprise to me because both are good -looking, well educated, so to me, finding Singaporean wives shouldn’t be a problem for them.

I wonder whether this phenomenon has to do with the more liberal immigration (since last April) rule for the foreign spouses.  In the past, the immigration rule here was very stringent for them and we read many tearful stories of mothers forced to leave their families and children behind. Even Singaporeans married graduates had to get permission from the relevant authority before they could go for R.O.M. I guess now as we grapple with a shrinking population, we have to be more ‘pragmatic’.

Now these foreign spouses not only can get long-term visit pass, but also allow to work under a special scheme (no foreign workers’ levy for their employers). They are also eligible for subsidized medical benefits.

While finding a life partner may have become easier for some people, but I hope people do take marriage seriously, considering the unavoidable relationship conflicts, huge responsibilities etc.