I Hate My Homeland

[Toltendo]

So this is in response to ALF's rants about Singapore. It's all yours man.

[The Dark Enforcer]

*Grabs some popcorn and a soda*

Oh, I can't wait to hear ALF's tirades about Singapore! 

Bring it on ALF!!!

[Toltendo]

Alton, RJF, you guys need to see this video cause it's a clip from a documentary from 1992, where someone from Singapore's government is being interviewed about making Singapore the powerhouse of IT (information technology).

[Asian Legends Fan]

Oh please, if any one country achieved THAT, it would have been Taiwan. AsusTEK (one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturers of motherboards in the world as well as making amazing monitors and laptops), HTC (manufacturer of the Nexus One and dozens of other Android phones), and Acer are all Taiwan-based companies, not to mention the hundreds of more small electronic companies and manufacturers of computer parts. "Silicon Island" was a coined nickname for Taiwan.

Singapore is stuck with warehouses and manufacturing plants. Clean and green, my ass.

And if you want a full-blown rant, you'll have to wait until the fire is properly fueled.

[Toltendo]

Well I wanna steer this thread into something different:

I hate game show hosts.

I don't hate the people that don't live through the cheesy persona of a game show host, like Howie Mandel who's more known for being a comedian or Drew Carey, well known for other shows. But people like Pat Sajak, Wink Martindale, or Todd Netwon, who just embrace the likeness of the host who seems to be informal through people's souls and blood circulation.

One guy can only find a job through hosting game shows, another a political nutz, and his face even more dead as the co-host. And I'm just talking about Pat Sajak.

[Toltendo]

Well hopefully I'll be getting 21 canings in Singapore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore

[Asian Legends Fan]

Since this is actually a longer rant, I figured I’d make use of this thread.

There are no retirement plan pensions in Singapore. Instead, what the government does is take 2.5% of your salary every month and store it with them. If you work like a slave and somehow manage to get the minimum required amount of money, you only get it back (in small, insignificant pay-backs from the government). In fact, we are left so poor until then that we actually can borrow money from this account (called CPF) to buy a commieblock apartment. WE HAVE TO BORROW OUR OWN FUCKING MONEY THAT IS UNDER GOVERNMENT CONTROL TO BUY A FUCKING HOUSE.

That’s the tip of the iceberg.

Well, the government (and by government, I mean PAP) just raised the minimum amount to SGD $131,000. Let’s say you work 30 years between the ages of 25 and 55, considering that all men have to waste two years of their lives in the army and then compete with 374723572509 foreigners/foreign-born-and-naturalized citizens to get into college.

30 years = 360 months
131,000 / 360 = 363.89
363.89 / 2.5 x 100% = 14,555.6

You need an average salary of $14,555.60 in that period of 30 years in order to get your own money back when you turn 55. Needless to say, the majority of Singaporeans don’t reach the minimum required amount by age 55 and have to continue working well into their old age. The only people that do are probably those working for the government (and by that, I mean those working for the PAP)… oh wait, hang on a second. God knows what age you’ll be before the government starts paying you back, and I think it’s safe to say that you’ll be six feet under before they even give you back half of your CPF money, and guess who all that money goes to.

If these rants continue, I think I’ll have to include this section from now on.

What it is
CPF

Advertised by the government as
Helping you have enough funds after you retire

What it really does
1. Keep you practically working until you die
2. Give the government free money when you die

[The Ancient Warrior]

I believe I've asked this before, but to have the answers all in one easier-to-dig-up place for future reference: What would you really need to do before you could leave Singapore? Can they really stop you from emigrating to, say, Malaysia or Australia or somewhere else?





EDIT: Oh, and not only did I not understand your partly-Engrish game show host rant, Toltendo, but I there's already a thread for complaining about things we hate in general here.  And to think you're usually the one creating different threads for every little thing.

[Asian Legends Fan]

Leaving is actually easier than you'd expect. Giving up citizenship so I can become a citizen of the country that I immigrate into? Not THAT difficult either, but it's gonna take a long time for sure. The two issues are a) being treated with extreme hostility should I return to visit relatives or whatever and b) the bigger issue of withdrawing any CPF money I have from working in Singapore prior to emigration. Those who give up Singaporean citizenship have experienced horror stories trying to get their CPF money from the government like trying to take a toy away from a six-year-old that really wants it.

[Toltendo]

I think we should change this topic to, "I Hate My Homeland (Singapore edition)". Anyway, here's a death/horror theme park in Singapore.

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/08/theme-park-from-hell-singapores-haw-par-villa/

[Asian Legends Fan]

There's two groups of individuals in Singapore that are given unjustified privileges: one is the government; this is the other.

[The Ancient Warrior]

Of course. You know, with all this favoritism crap in Singapore, I'm really starting to hope the PAP is increasing the possibilities of a Chinese or Malay takeover.  Somebody needs to knock them off their high horses and it might as well be one of the bigger countries over there.


Oh, and btw, I would be ranting about the US right about now if I had enough fuel, if you will.  I can't say I've had to deal with that much bullshit lately, so... nothing to vent about atm.

[The Ancient Warrior]

I really hope I was wrong about the whole speech Obama was giving the other night, but I thought I was just hearing the same old story about trying to "create" jobs.

And frankly, they should know better.  We've seen this fail countless times in the past few years, and yet the higher-ups keep taking our money to try and get this thing to work. At one point, Einstein described a situation where somebody tries the same thing over and over, but expects different results. I forget if what he was describing was "stupidity" or "insanity," but I've seen both cited and both describe what's in office now.

And meanwhile, nobody seems to think that it might be more productive to simply replace foreign manufacturing with domestic manufacturing. I'm pretty sure countries like China are getting the better end of the outsourced labor deal anyway. And even then, we as a country are still paying tons of taxes so these guys all get ridiculous six- or seven-figure salaries, and in some cases, health benefits for life. Do any of us regular folk get a luxury like that? No; we lose benefits when we lose our job. There's no reason politicians should have it much better off when all they're succeeding in is sucking us dry. But how much can we really do to directly change this plutocracy back into the democracy it should be?

[The Headless King]

If you want to understand just how f**king stupid and narcissistic the rich people in this country are, watch this:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---warren-buffett-vs--wealthy-conservatives
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over

A few comments on these from me:

-It's freaking pathetic that the most reliable news comes from a comedy show
-It's really a shame that Jon had to say "bizarrely uneccentric billionaire Warren Buffet"
-I used to think the rich hated poor people.  Now, I now better.  After attacking Warren Buffet for even suggesting the rich give a little, I realize that they don't just hate poor people.  They hate people with common sense.
-Since when the hell is 5% of the deficit a "tiny fraction"
-Yeah, taking half of what the bottom 50% have might help the deficit a little bit.  But you know what?  If we took half of what the top 10% have, there wouldn't BE a deficit anymore.
-They really do have it ass-backwards.  The poor people aren't taking all of the rich people's money while the rich do all the work.  IT'S THE EXACT OPPOSITE!

What we need in the U.S. is a President that will put their foot down and say "F**k you, rich pricks".



Oh, and a Congress where rich pricks aren't the majority.

[The Ancient Warrior]

Moving this discussion over from the Main Spam Topic to avoid cluttering it up with too much political/economics talk.

What I really think they should try to do is impose a profit-based tax on companies that outsource just to get out of penning bigger paychecks to American workers.  The more money they make from the products, the higher tax they have to pay and the only way to get out is to stop outsourcing.

I'm an Economics student, and I know never to use absolutes when it comes to economical situations; but from what I know about Corporate America... I am very certain that such a tax will just cause firms to pass on the burden of the tax onto consumers in the form of higher prices because their average costs have increased from hiring more expensive labor. It's called cost-push inflation. It may work only if the tax is so heavy that it causes producing in China to be significantly more expensive than producing in the U.S.

Either way, I think you are just going to have to deal with the fact that babies will be born with "Made on China" stamped on them eventually. And I would be surprised if at least half your country doesn't drag out the communist label when you they see the government trying to control your wonderful so-called free market system (it's clearly a mixed system to anyone with basic economic knowledge) which evidently is just a stewing pot for huge, immoral corporations.

Well, I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong about something. *Shrugs* I really don't know much of the technical stuff, but seeing as you suggested the tax idea is an unlikely solution, at least I think I understand why the whole job creation plans are underway instead.  It's still a pain to have to look so long and hard to find something that says "Made in U.S.A." on it, but I guess that goes without saying.

Could there be a third option, though? Aside from the outsource tax idea and domestic job creation, I mean.