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Thursday, September 30, 2021

Covid Clusterfuck And The Shodinger Cat

Miriam-Webster dictionary describes 'clusterfuck' as "a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation'. It frames the dysphoric process, not the outcome. Stanford business professor Bob Sutton better describes it as “those debacles and disasters caused by a deadly brew of illusion, impatience, and incompetence that afflicts too many decision-makers, especially those in powerful, confident, and prestigious groups.”

'Clusterfuck' is a somewhat vulgar portmanteau but it demonstrably fit the pandemic situation today. We see a world madly rushing into untested new technology vaccines for a pathogen having an insignificant mortality of under 0.5% (before the advent of vaccination) and where early therapeutic treatment has proven effective, especially with patients having no comorbidities. Mistakes and mismanagement due to a novel virus are understandable and acceptable. But there have been acts, omissions, and objectives which appear outright criminal. Indeed, they border on humanitarian crimes. How the world got to this mess will be unraveled in the years to come when the light of truth will shine through the dark intrigue of the global reset agenda of globalist elites, politics weaponising the pandemic, big pharma money power plays, big tech and media control of information. Much will depend on the US Congress and Senate pivoting back to Republicans in the midterms next year.

Vaccines do not prevent infection. A vaccinated person can and do get infected under 3 scenarios :
- a mild illness occurs. This is a good sign. It means the vaccine is working.
- a serious illness occur. This either means the vaccine did not work, or the person's natural immunity is weak, such as the elderly and those with comorbidities. They call this a 'breakthrough' event. A catastrophic breakthrough is unfolding.
- Antibody Dependency Enhancement causes severe and often fatal illnesses. ADE is caused by the vaccines itself. The vaccine actually weakened a person's natural immunity system. The vaccinated in turn aids in virus mutation. As for ADE, it has happened with past vaccines. They say data at the moment does not suggest there is ADE.

First and foremost, the whole world rushed into using untested new technology vaccines instead of focusing on therapeutic treatments. Vaccines are of course the desired objective when faced with an infectious disease, but the development takes years. Instead of concentrating on the cure, governments took a quantum leap of blind faith in technology for intervention by untested vaccines..

Governments persisted on 2 key technologies whose inventors said are not appropriate for the purpose. The late Karty Mullis has passionately voiced out his Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methodology does not work for testing virus. Dr Robert Malowe said the risks of mRNA vaccine is too high. Both have been suppressed by big tech and media.

They tell us the vaccine is intramuscularly injected so it will remain in the area of the arm, but that is not the case. The science told them the mRNA has a very short half-life so it will decompose and be eliminated from the body quickly. But scientists in Japan have proven the spiked protein has traversed the blood stream and gone into various organs such as kidneys, heart, reproductive organs and even crossed the blood barrier into the brain cell.

All the known risks of new technology vaccines, and more unknown ones, such as blood clots, are now manifesting. The question is, to what extent have these risks been explained to the millions who have taken the jab? The long term implications, some scientists warned, will be devastating. For example, myocarditis is a high adverse event, and this shortens lives drastically. Some scientists predict the coming years will see waves of sufferers of organ failures, cancer, and dementia.

They told us the vaccines work after 2 jabs and it did'nt. And now a 3rd jab is a necessity with no data to tell if that will work. Israel is now contemplating the 4th jab. Big pharma executives have been caught on video expressing a world of forever booster jabs and what that meant to their corporate profits.

Now they tell us the vaccines don't work because it wanes after some time. Waning means a state of weakened ability to function. Amongst other things, after vaccination, our immune system gains something called T-memory cells. These enable our immune system to recognise the pathogen (virus) the next time we get infected. It will then immediately trigger our natural immune system to get to work and eliminate the virus. Wanning in this context can only mean the T-memory cells have a dementia problem. Just like learning to cycle, once mastered, we never forget, the T-memory cells never forget the pathogen. There can't be a waning of the memory - it can only mean the vaccine never worked.

Ihey told us in the early days of the pandemic that cases were very high, seemingly to instill fear of Covid so as to drive people to vaccinate. Patients having comorbidities who succumb to their sickness were classified as death from Covid. The hundreds of thousands of annual deaths from common flu in the US suddenly disappeared. It is also becoming clear in many countries, especially US, asymtomatic cases were sent home without any treatment and told to report to hospitals if they get worse. In other words, majority of the infected received treatment way too late.

They now play down the numbers, seemingly to lower fear of the vaccine as a causation of serious complications and death. Serious adverse events and deaths of those with comorbidities are now attributed not to covid but to underlying illnesses.

They don't see the waves of the pandemic co-relate to the vaccine. The first wave hit after vaccination began. The second wave hit after vaccination has achieved certain levels. This is reflected in the data. Countries with the highest vaccination rates are now swamped by high cases. Reference Israel, Singapore, Sarawak state of Malaysia, etc. The more you vaccinate, the more cases you get. This seems to be so difficult to understand by proponents of vaccination.

When more people who have been vaccinated are getting infected as compared to the unvaccinated, they say the vaccine works because the vaccinated suffer only mild illness. The optimism precedes the data. Even so, how do we know if those vaccinated having mild illnesses would have the same experience had they not been vaccinated? Without clinical trials, we will never know. It could also be because they now receive early treatment which is key to recovery.

When more vaccinated people continue to get infected, they now say it's the new variant. These new vaccines cause your own body to create the spiked protein which is similar to a part of the actual SAR-Cov-2 virus. The immune system then generates the antibody to eliminate the spiked protein. Your body will then be able to recognise the real virus. Unfortunately, apart from the spiked proteins, a coronavirus has a lot of other component to its body. If it mutates and there is a change in either the spiked proteins or other parts of its body, your T-memory cells may not recognise it. Thus mRNA and adenovirus vector vaccines are not resilient to the Delta and other new strains. Why take such high risks to use these new vaccines for a virus type that mutates very fast?

The inactivated vaccines of the Chinese are more resilient to virus mutation, but they are not being officially promoted. We have a long queue registered to take these vaccines and it's not subsidised by government. Inactivated vaccines use an actual virus in a weakened state. The virus is injected into your body and the immune system learns to recognise it. Now this being a complete SAR-Cov-2 virus, the immune system has a better understanding of it. Thus when it mutates, even though certain part of the virus has changed, your T-memory cells are better able to still recognise it. Delta strain does not impose a problem to those vaccinated with these. The proof is in the covid status of China where the new western vaccines are not used. China ranks 2nd in the Covid Safe Country Index as at 5th Sep 2021.

Vaccination is creating a false sense of security which is a danger if vaccines don't work. The community drops guard thinking they are safe. If the vaccine works, relaxing social contacts for this group should not be a problem. Apparently it has not worked out well for Singapore and Israel, the 2 most highly vaccinated countries.

The vaccinated and governments say the vaccine-hesistant are endangering everyone, but Israel and their data say it's the other way round. The vaccinated are now endangering the unvaccinated. There is suspicion the new vaccines are responsible for new viral strains. The vaccinated also impose a danger as a carrier and spreading infection by shedding.

They have totally forgotten to focus on the most important group - those who have gained natural immunity. A person who has been infected gains natural immunity. The whole world has forgotten that as we go about our daily lives, many of us may have actually breathed in the virus. But the load is very small and our immune system strong. We may feel a slight discomfort, maybe a passing headache. We get well and acquired natural immunity. All these people are forced to take on unnecessary risks to vaccinate. The only single country that mentioned this is Israel who said natural immunity is the most powerful.

They tell us FDA has officially approved Pfizer vaccine when it is just a gimmick because they think we are too stupid to see through the trick. The approval is years ahead of timeline for 3rd phase clinical trials. Let's unpack the imbroglio. Pfizer vaccine under emergency use agreements (EUA) is labeled BNT162b2. The approved label is Comirnatty. Both are one and the same formulation. BNT162b2 is used for age 12 up, but Corminatty is not for use for those age 15 and below. Why thus. Because under emergency use, Pfizer has no liability. They don't care if you jab a 1 month old baby. For Comirnatty, Pfizer has liability. They don't want law suits, so no use for 15 and under. Once there is an approved vaccine for covid, the government must withdraw all emergency use drugs and vaccines. This is'nt happening because Comirnatty is not available. As long as Comirnatty is unavailable, emergency use can continue. It makes no sense for Pfizer to market Comirnatty and assume liabilities when BNT162b2 can be sold with no risks. You see the trick? Big pharma and science are simply accommodating politics. An FDA approved vaccine makes it politically easier to mandate vaccination. It is similar to Fauci waving the fake Lancet Report in Senate inquiry to support his claim the virus has no gains of function. 

The FDA said booster jabs should not be given but Biden got ahead of regulators and ordered boosters be given In the end, they compromised and approved booster shots for those aged 65 and above. Are the people being told science said no but politicians said it's OK? Science (regulators) gave way to the Executive.

Data shows the young has a very low risk of infection but they insisted on vaccinating the 12-16 age group. US started vaccinating this group in May 2021 and the world followed. The science they based on is a non-peer-reviewed study by Pfizer released on the 31st March 2021, demonstrating the safety and efficacy of BNT162b2 in children between 12 and 16 years old in the US. The study concludes that the vaccine is entirely safe and 100% effective in the adolescent subgroup; no infection was reported among those who received two jabs of vaccines compared to those who received placebo.

Natural immunity is very strong in the young, but they are now considering vaccination for age group 2-11.

We are living in a world of medical tyranny. And in this scenario, all governments of the world, except probably for China, have gone inutile and simply accept the guidance coming from WHO and Dr Fauci. The intellectual corruption has been very obvious, but gone unchallenged. Data has been corrupted, opposing voices of scientists suppressed. Moneyed interests and politicians dictate the handling of the pandemic.

Adverse events, data, scientific opinions, scientific studies and reports, etc are interpreted according to the narrative of the governments, effectively shutting out the concerns of thousands of practicing doctors and scientists around the world. It looks like the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. All subatomic particles exist in a state of superposition, that is they exist in a combination of multiple states with corresponding outcomes. They exist in the superposition state until they interact with, or observed by, the external world. Let me explain in a simple way by example. A sub-atomic particle's colour is in 3 states - white, blue and green. It remains in this superposition until it is observed. The observer sees it in only one state, say green. The vaccine status quo is something like this. The efficacy depends on the observer.

In 1935 physicist Erwin Schrödinger came up with a thought experiment to refute the Copenhagen interpretation. Imagine a cat is placed in a box together with a flask of poison, a radioactive material and a monitor. When the monitor detects radioactivity (when a radioactive atom dies), it shatters the flask and poison is released which will kill the cat. The box is totally sealed. There is no observer, so according to the Copenhagen interpretation, the cat is in the superposition state of both alive and dead at the same time. This is illogical. The imaginative experiment is to ridicule the Copenhagen interpretation - the cat is either dead or alive, whether observed or not.

The cat came to be known as the Shodinger cat. In the real world, if the box is opened, we may probably find a damn angry cat. Just as the pandemic will produce damn angry people if the full picture of the mess is revealed. 


Saturday, September 25, 2021

Proof Of SAR-Cov-2 Engineered At Wuhan Lab And Singapore May Be Involved

The Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore web site has an interesting article.The first two paragraphs read :

[ It was by pure chance that bat expert Wang Linfa found himself in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January 2020. Wang was attending the annual scientific retreat at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where he once served as chairman of the scientific advisory board. While the first reports of a SARS-like virus outbreak in Wuhan were making headlines around the world, the virus still felt like a distant threat, even to people in Wuhan. No one had any inkling to what degree this new virus was going to penetrate the population and how it was going to change the world.

"My friends from WIV and I went for dinner to a local restaurant three nights in a row. We discussed this new virus. But my discussion was limited to the Wuhan institute as I didn’t have access to the hospitals to study the situation more closely,” recalled Wang, who is a professor with Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Programme, about his time in Wuhan.]

....COVID-19 pandemic puzzle: tracing the origins of SARS-CoV-2... Duke-NUS. (Read here before they take it down)

The origin of SAR-Cov-2 revolves around 4 prominent personalities :

* Dr Anthony Fauci - Director of NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and the Chief Medical Advisor to the US President. He is the pandemic czar.

* Dr Peter Daszak - President of EcoHealth Alliance, an NGO that supports various programs on global health and pandemic prevention.

* Dr Ralph Baric - Professor in the Dept of Epidemiology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina (UNC), Maryland, US.  It seems Baric is the pre-emminent leader in the field of coronavirus research. From interviews, his research publication and his patents, apparently he is the first scientist to find a way to synthesise coronavirus. He actually boasted in an interview that it is very easy to create such a virus. Baric does research at the UNC lab as well as his own lab.

* Dr Shi Zhengli - Director of Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). She is a Chinese virologist who does extensive research on SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin.

In the scheme of things, Fauci is the funder, Daszak the organiser, Baric the brains, and Shi the executioner.

Gain of function (GoF) is fiddling around with viruses to make it more dangerous. The objective is to predict how a virus may evolve so that vaccines can be created to preempt a future pandemic. In other words, create future viruses and prepare vaccines now. GoF sometimes involve mixing parts of different viruses or similar virus class from different animals, a sort of a Frankenstein virus. This is called a chimeric virus. Baric has the breakthrough technology to do this with the coronavirus and he holds certain patents.

Due to the risks involved, Obama imposed a moratarium on funding GoF research in 2014. The National Institute of Health revoked the moratorium in 2017 except for certain viruses such as MERs. In 2019 Trump re-instated the ban on funding GoF research. Daszak and Baric took the research to WIV where they worked with Shi on the bats in Yunnan caves.

Fauci has sworn under oath in Senate inquiry that NIAID does not fund the WIV research, the research does not involve GoF, that SAR-Cov-2 is zoonotic (by natural animal to human transmission), and there was no WIV lab leak. For months he stuck to this narrative.

From documents obtained through Freedom of Information suits, the conspiracy lab leak theory is now no longer in doubt. The protagonists have outright lied, falsified medical reports and misguided the WHO investigation of WIV. Fauci's NIAID provided grant funds to Ecohealth which Daszak used to fund WIV. Daszak led 18 scientists to publish a scientific report to say the SAR-Cov-2 has all the evidence of natural evolution, ie a zoonotic virus. It was a timely report for Fauci to wave the science in the Senate inquiry that the lab leak theory is false and there was no GoF. Several months later, 8 of the scientists retracted their signatures. A couple of months back, a second Lancet Report has been published by other scientists which now says the SAR-Cov-2 has signs that point to GoF. Dr Baric led the WHO investigation in Wuhan and came back with a clean report on WIV. No GoF research there, no lab leak.

A couple of days ago, a bombshell report was carried by The Telegraph UK, Zero Hedge, and Inforwars. Their source report is from the Drastic Research website. Drastic must be considered by the Leftist media as authentic for they have referenced some articles from the site before. For this bombshell story, mainstream media totally ignored it. 

Drastic stands for Decentralised Radical Autonomous Search Teams Investigating Covid-19. It is an independent team of scientists, analysts, sleuths, specialists in engineering, mathematics, biology, open source intelligence and data, who came together to investigate the origins of SAR-Cov2.

In the spring of 2018, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of Pentagon, opened invitation under ref HR001118S0017-PREEMPT-FP-019 for grant proposal. Daszak's Ecohealth submitted a proposal called PROJECT DEFUSE - Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses, asking for US$14m funding.

Now here's shocker # 1:

Basically, Daszak's team wanted to do -

1. A wide scale inoculation of bats in the Yunnan caves using aerosolized inoculum delivery. In simple terms, they want to spray the air with skin-penetrating nanoparticles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins" which will infect the bats.

Aerosol delivery system has such horrible potential risks that it has never been publicly released or opened to the wider scientific community for discussion. It is a NO NO. This is a specialist area of research of Dr Rocke, Dr. Ainslie and Dr. Unidad (PARC) who have previously researched and developed the technological solutions necessary to make this possible. It remains on paper, never been applied.

2. Create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily.

Project Defuse set out the background on the collaboration of Daszak-Baric-Shi in coronavirus research at WIV and what they intend to do with the requested funding.

Drastic Research's analysis of Project Defuse indicated that Daszak lied on several issues and tried to bypass restrictions imposed by P3CO (GoF) and DURC (Dual Use Research of Concern) frameworks. 'Dual use' refers to civil and military applications.

DARPA assessed the application as an attempt to "synthesize spike glycoproteins which bind to human cell receptors and insert them into SARSr-CoV backbones to assess whether they can cause SARS-like disease." The application was rejected on various grounds which included lack of GoF and DURC mitigation plans, and it "hardly addresses or discusses ethical, legal, and social issues". In other words, DARPA considered it a dangerous project.

Here's shocker #2:

Experimental work using bats and or transgenic mice will be conducted at the BSL-3 lab in WIV, Duke-NUS, Uni North Carolina, or National Wildlife Health Center, US. Each partner institute will apply for and procure animal with research approval from their own IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee). The IACUC office for Duke-NUS is at NUS.

Ecohealth will send samples to Duke-NUS and UNC. “Samples will be preserved in viral transport medium, immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen dry shippers, and transported to partner laboratories with a maintained cold chain and under strict biosafety protocols.”

As for Duke-NUS, Project Defuse mentioned :

Duke-NUS (Linfa Wang) has an Asian cave bat (Eonycteris spelaea) breeding colony:

“Our E. spelaea colony has now reached a sustainable population for infection experiments and the ABSL3 facility has been outfitted with bat-specific cages.”

“We will use the unique Duke-NUS Asian cave bat (Eonycteris spelaea) breeding colony to conduct initial proof-of-concept tests, extended to small groups of wild-caught Rhinolophus sinicus bats at WIV.”

“Subtask 7.4.Test immune modulation in ‘captive Eonycteris sp. colony, using Malaka virus and SARSr-CoV infections.

Conclusion:

Everything detailed in Project Defuse can best explain what work was conducted in WIV, that is synthesising a coronavirus. The questions are was it a lab leak accident, or an intentional release of the virus, and did they execute on the aerosol dispersion delivery. Note that was 2018. Pentagon already knew what Daszak's team intended to do and possibly doing. Yet the Intelligence Committee ordered by Joe Biden to investigate the lab leak theory, with access to military intel, concluded a lab-created virus was unlikely. Politics and money got in the way.

Singapore absolutely needs Wang and NUS to provide clarity. Did they collaborate with Daszak's team on the research? If they did, what was the nature of the research actually conducted in Duke-NUS lab? Why they were not concerned with the ethical, legal and social issues that DARPA highlighted? Was any synthesised SAR-Cov-2 brought into Singapore before the pandemic broke? Is MOE and MOH aware of this collaboration? Does Singapore have similar GoF and DURC frameworks in place to manage dangerous research work?

As for Pro Wang Linfa who said he found himself at Wuhan by pure chance when the virus outbreak began, pure chance my foot.

Ref: Drastic Research's full analysis of Project Defuse

Related blogs :
TPfizer Employs Deceit In Vaccine For Children You Probably Are'nt Even Aware Of




Thursday, September 16, 2021

The Winner Of 2nd CECA Debate Is Still Indian Employment Pass Holders

A picture tells a thousand words. See the genius of the government in obfuscating the data on Indian nationals facilitated by CECA to work in Singapore. The sleigh of hand is the refusal to publicise real data, to co-mingle data of PRs with citizens, and keep secret the pathway to citizenship.

The myth of CECA numbers:

Populist blogger Critical Spectator said Sep 15 he "honestly can't believe this topic keeps coming back again and again - but, eh, let's cut to the most crucial fact for the umpteenth time: How many Indians are actually employed in Singapore through the provisions of CECA? 500". He said the data is public, why are we Singaporeans so dumb? CS is intelligent, but as usual, a sucker for fallacy from authority.

Well I could'nt find anything in official statistics, but Straits Time Jul 7 covering the 'myth' of CECA being a free-flow for Indian nationals, said "All foreign nationals, including Indian professionals and intra-corporate transferees (ICTs), have to meet prevailing work pass criteria before they are allowed to work in Singapore. ICTs refer to transfers of a company's employees from one country to another. They have consistently constituted a very small number - about 4,200 in 2020, of which 500 were from India."

So please, please, please the 500 is only ICTs. What about those that come in via direct EP channels?

Now how many Indian companies have opened office here? I found an Indian source "India Briefing" which said in 2018 about 8,000 Indian companies have set up offices in Singapore since 2000.

So yes, you probably never tasted roti pratta if you believe 8,000 Indian companies bring in only 500 ICTs.

So let's say the 500 is inclusive of ICTs plus all other EPs, then you probably believe in the tooth fairy. You don't know how to compute faucet flow rates or the size of the funnel. You never heard of Indians given citizenship. And if you think Permanent Residency status is equivalent to being locals then you also believe Elephas maximus indicus (Indian elephants) are the same as Kuching Singapura (Singapore common cat).

The govie says they don't provide employment data with national breakdowns as it may be racially sensitive. But if the figures of Indian nationals are so low, should not it be wiser to publicise it?

The myth of ICA as the gatekeeper:

The Minister of Trade and Industry has explained "What is unique about Ceca compared to other free-trade agreements is the annex of 127 professions. But while the list spells out what qualifies as a “profession”, it does not mean that those professionals get free entry into Singapore, or that they are prioritised over others. All foreign professionals – including Indian nationals – who wish to come to Singapore must meet work-pass qualifying criteria, including relevant education and professional qualifications, before they are allowed to work in Singapore.”

This is the kind of fallacy from authority that is constantly quoted ad verbatim by many such as CS to dumb down on those who question the data or lack of it. One needs to distinguish policies from administration. It's like separating the wheat from the chaff. Policy makers bring in the harvest. The administrators (or Immigration) allows only the wheat. More harvest, more wheat.

And here's the cruncher. If the labour mobility clause and annex of 127 professions do not provide unfettered access because ICA has the last say, why put up that troublesome clause in the agreement? 

The myth of anti-protectionism:

Here is another official bunkum. Resistance to CECA is succumbing to nativism and protectionism which seriously jeopardises Singapore's economic well being. As a small country, we have to be plugged into the global economy and that requires of us to have open market policies. This is yet another fallacy from authority. Protecting Singapore jobs has nothing to do with trade protectionism. Not a single Singaporean is saying anything about preventing any companies opening here nor the importation of any goods. That is trade protectionism, let's all be very clear. Neither does job protection means curtailing the investors' ability to build their management team. Certainly, high calibre personnel with experience, technical knowledge, ideas, and contacts are welcome as they have been since 1965.

The myth of racism:

The government frames their objections to criticisms in predictable ways. They politicise it by throwing the 'racist and xenophobia' cudgel. Any criticism that is on current hot topics are pandering to populism. All these comes off the playbook of the Democrats and liberal left of the US. Nothing we have seen expressed in social media, or comments by opposition members, can be construed as racist. Singaporeans are making their point on a policy that throws citizens under the bus. We all appreciate that Indian nationals are here trying to do the best for their family. For 15 years, majority of Singaporeans suppressed their angst against the CECA policy. Singaporeans are docile creatures, but there certainly may be a very small number of isolated cases where this anger has manifested in personal affronts against some Indian nationals. In the main, there is no outburst against the Indian immigrant community, for now. Instead of recognising opposition NMP Leong voicing the concerns of many citizens, the Minister for Law raised the racism bogeyman card. However, it is a fool who will place his bet against the rising tide. The bogeyman may well materialise.

The myth of CECA benefits:

The government holds the view the social disruption of suppressed wages caused by the CECA policy is outweighed by the economic benefits derived from trade with India. It flashes numbers that show increased trade flows and FDIs. More Indian companies setting offices in Singapore mean more jobs here (thus their favorite anthemn - FTs create jobs for Singaporeans) and Singapore companies opening in India also means more overseas jobs. All these numbers mean nothing in isolation. Trade numbers need to be unpacked. For example, could the numbers have been achieved with a vanilla FTA? How much of those exports to India were entreport trade? How much were pure tax mechanisms with pricing transfers? etc etc. India still ranks low as a trading partner of Singapore.

For Indian companies here, were is the labour data. I remember during my time in a corporation, we used to submit a detailed employment survey form annually to the Labour ministry. There should be employee composition data at the finger tips. What's their total headcount, what % are local? Why show trade data but not these numbers?

The myth of employment numbers:

"The number of Employment Pass (EP) holders in Singapore increased from 65,000 in 2005 to 177,000 in 2020. This translates to an annual growth rate of just under 7 per cent, and an increase of 112,000. In comparison, the number of local PMEs grew by more than 380,000 in the same period."  Manpower minister

I cannot believe this. 112,000 is 7% of 1,600,000. There are that many EP holders here? The number does not seem right. Now the local PMEs grew by 350,000. Notice no % is provided?

"In infocomm, the number of EPs increased by around 25,000, while the number of jobs created for local PMEs was around 35,000. In finance, the corresponding figures were 20,000 and 85,000." Manpower minister

42% of new jobs in Infocomm goes to foreigners. Does that not indicate our educational system has gone wacky?

The trick to obfuscate is to dump truckload of numbers. Leong has no time to process this in the debate. A quick parsing of the data shows up the lies in the numbers. Firstly, the numbers were not distilled for CECA specificity. It gets one distracted, and that is the whole idea. Secondly and most importantly, please please please understand, to the government, "local" means including PRs.

Another sore thumb that no one has ever spoken about are the CECA spouses. During the 1st gen leaders time, most expat wives had no need to work. The employed spouses were top executives and their family adequately taken care of. Many expat wives spend their time and effort in volunteer work, their contributions largely un-noticed and under-appreciated. Today's CECA wives come in, obtain a Long Term Visit Pass, and are out looking for jobs the next day. It's a double whammy to Singapore workers. What are the numbers for these category? Do you expect Leong to know about this?

Conclusion:

Leong is brave but naive to go into the lion's den without full access to data in a debate that can only be won by throwing out numbers. On the other hand, the government, instead of taking an adversarial stand, should have made an effort to convince Leong outside of parliament. What the govt wanted out of the debate is to win political brownie points. But convincing Leong would have trickled down to the thousands who tune in to a different platform. All the Minister of Manpower could have done was to introduce Leong to Mr Wong Wee Kim, the Chief Statistician. Simply give Leong a desk and a helper to query the database to his content. That is giving Leong a rope to hang himself if government numbers don't lie, 

Can we please deal with our problems and leave out the politics? As Han Fook Kwang, editor-at-large of Straits Times said, the rising labour discontent is grounded on "insecurities about livelihoods, standards of living and retirement security". The consistent regurgitation of the fallacies from authority and the bunkum protectionism point, indicates the government is not listening to the surging discontent on the ground.



Other related blogs :

CECA And The Delusion Of Indian HR Exceptionalism - Episode 1 
Government Thinks Singaporeans Are Too Stupid For Lots Of Jobs 
CECA - the dangers of labour mobility 
CECA - the shocks of labour mobility



Thursday, September 9, 2021

CECA And The Delusion Of Indian HR Exceptionalism - Episode 1

Much has been talked about Indian prowess in IT and how these immigrant workforce have taken strong leadership roles in various international corporations. There is a public perception that Singapore Inc has a strong deference to foreign Indian exceptionalism, so enamoured of them that the government calls them FT or 'foreign talent'. The big head scratcher is a preferred government reliance on foreign talents churned out by universities that are hundreds of notches below our local universities in international rankings.

Yes it is true, talent is a rare commodity. All countries want talented people. Hot cross buns are one or two a penny, but real talents are rare. Open door policy of CECA without quality control gets us hot cross buns. For real talents, it requires of the government to have an agency to seek them out and entice them to come to Singapore. Wait a minute, we used to have such an agency under the 1st gen leaders.

Phillip Yeo :
"In the last 10 years, we imported too fast and too many. The tap was turned on. The key is who do you bring in and how do you manage and assimilate them. A persistent complaint is that our young fresh graduate has to compete with a fresh IT professional from India. What value can this new Indian guy bring to Singapore? If he is a senior person, okay, that is fine because he is bringing his experience and knowledge and contacts.

When I brought in scientists, they were all top guys who could help our guppies. But a fresh foreign guy is just going to depress the Singapore wages. We should bring in foreign talent at the higher level and always to supplement, not to replace"

From a small country that exported Singapore talent to the regional countries and beyond during the 1st and 2nd generation leaders, we have slipped into the rabbit hole of self-deprecating journey where we are now told foreign talents from one specific country is needed for new tech industries, but instead many came to head low tech management functions of administration, facility management, human resource, etc. The governrment surrenders to the vicissitudes of global market economy and accepts local wage suppression by cheaper foreign imports whilst ignoring the structural damage to earning power and social consequences of increased poverty.  The vibes of a groundswell of public discontent is being ignored by the government for far too long. 

Lately, there appears to be some reaction by the government to placate the rising discontent. This can only happen when the ruling party has internalised the situation and sees some political risks. They obviously have their own surveys and are reacting to it. The Machiavellian hand has been shown in 2 suggestions being propagated. First is the downplaying of the importance on degrees. One can get ahead in life without degrees. Less graduates leads to less unemployed graduates. Good for the charts. Second is to persuade employability based on talents, experience over paper qualifications. There are of course side shows -- special task force to ensure Singaporeans have priority over foreigners, increasing salaries of foreign workers, etc. Street smart people knows all these mean nothing as the art of circumvention comes naturally to businessmen and as long as CECA remains in its present form.

Indian exceptionalism is not a bed of roses. There have also been stories of failures that tend to be pushed under the rug. Often we find the feelings on the ground based on anecdotal readings, are at odds with ivory tower studied reports of Singapore policy makers. 

My blog series will highlight the many whose employment has not turned out well for their employers. This is not a blanket wide condemnation of foreign Indians. Of course there are certainly many brilliant Indians working in high places all over the world. Take it as a reality check to balance the ga ga of the troops coming in from CECA.

The spotlight on today's episode is Mr Subramanian "Sundi" Sundaresh.

Academic achievements :
B'Tech in EE, Indian Inst of Technology, Madras; Master of Science in EE, Cornell University; MBA, Uni Pennsylvania.

Highlighted Appointments:

Jetstream Communications - CEO, Director 1998-2002 - Closed down.
Jetstream, formerly of San Jose, Calif., was a leading player in making equipment for voice-over-DSL service. It was once a hot tech company. After the dotcom bubble, the company closed shop. assets were sold off for US$3 million.

Candera Inc (previously Confluence Networks) - CEO, Director 2002-2004 - Closed down.
This was an appliance maker of SATA (Serial AT Attachment) which is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Despite fundings, it closed in 2004 due to inability to build customer base.

Adaptec - VP & GM 1993-1998. Break. CEO (2005-2010).
Removed by shareholders in 2010. Company was sold off.
In seeking his outster, Warren Lichtenstein of Steel Partners wrote : “Stockholders have suffered mightily under the watch of the legacy directors who have failed time and time again to enhance stockholder value. While they appear to be more concerned with entrenching themselves and protecting their own positions and compensation as directors, we are solely focused on maximizing value for all stockholders. That is why we are asking you to remove Messrs. Loarie and Sundaresh, the two directors whom we believe to be most responsible for the failures at Adaptec,”

Xangati - President, CEO, Director 2013-2016
Xangati was a start-up company. It develops hybrid cloud and virtualization performance management. In 2016 is was sold of in a cashless deal to Virtana (formerly Virtual Instruments).The founder and many engineers were taken over by Virtana. Sundaresh was let go.

Sundaresh is no innovator. He was mostly brought in by fellow Indian start-up founders to handle the operations side. Companies were run down or sold.

Other related blogs :

Government Thinks Singaporeans Are Too Stupid For Lots Of Jobs

CECA - the dangers of labour mobility

CECA - the shocks of labour mobility

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Covid Safe Country Index -- Safest Country To Be During The Coronavirus Pandemic

My compilation of the index is based on the conditional probability of the chance of contracting Covid-19 and dying from the infection. The metric is derived from the product of the percentage of cases to population and the percentage of death to number of cases.

The status is dynamic. The data here is as at 5 Sep 2021. The data integrity may be an issue as the pandemic has been politicised in some countries, particularly the US.

The index below is on ranking basis - the safest country with the lowest probability of death from coronavirus is ranked high. and dangerous countries are ranked low.

Small islands and Vatican City take the top 13 spots. Ignoring these, the first safest large country is Tanzania ranked at 14. China is the 4th safest large country ranked 19. Singapore is still a safe bet at 24. USA is ranked at 202. The most dangerous place to be is Peru.

To have a sense of perspective, in Tanzania the chances of catching Covid-19 and dying from it is 1 out of 1,235,000, in China it is 1 out of 310,500, in Singapore it is 1 out of 107,400, USA 1 out of 500 and in the most dangerous country Peru 1 out of 168.

A few significant points worth noting:

1. China has not used mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna, nor Johnsons & Johnson's DNA vaccines. China is testing its own mRNA. It has achieved 62% vaccination using inactivated virus vaccines. Could non-use of mRNA vaccines account for China's high ranking?

2. In terms of numbers of deaths, US (ranked 202) is highest at 665,858 (1.63339 %). UK (ranked 198) has 8th highest deaths of 133,229 (1.90924 %). Majority of the dead are from the older generation. But this does not compare well to Japan (ranked 81) which has only 16,313 dead (1.04774 %) when it has a demographic of highest old people. In UK, a scandal is being investigated for the excessive use of Midazolam, which is a sedative used to assist the old folks having intubation. Midazolam causes respiratory problems which exacerbated the old folks under intubation, possibly contributing to their death. In US, Remdisivir is used in the treatment protocol. Remdisivir causes liquid retention. When it impacts the lungs, it causes neumonia which probably contributes to the deaths of the older patients. In any case, the US data for Covid deaths are questionable in light of the fact the annual hundreds of thousands of death from common flu has mysteriously vanished.

3. If is very clear there is no significant correlation between the level of vaccination and cases.

4. One surprising thing that jumps out from the index is many African states have low cases even though they have poor health institutions and vaccination rate is low. Since 1995 these countries have been using Ivermectin to treat parasitic and viral diseases in The African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC). A study was conducted in 2020 on the significance of use of ivermectin to low Covid incidence in Africa. (Read full details here) The study found : "The incidence in mortality rates and number of cases is significantly lower among the APOC countries compared to non-APOC countries. That a mass public health preventive campaign against COVID-19 may have taken place, inadvertently, in some African countries with massive community ivermectin use is an attractive hypothesis. Additional studies are needed to confirm it."

Shout out : The Safe Country Index screams out mRNA vaccines are not working; Ivermectin is the wonder cure. All governments in the world are in denial. It is really excruciatingly impossible to understand why. At least, and at long last, very recently Japan has said to hell with all these vaccines. Africa is showing Ivermectin makes a whole lot of sense. Japan is switching to using Ivermectin in their treatment protocol. 

(Apologies for the long image. I don't know how to create a scrollable excel and insert it in webpage)








Friday, September 3, 2021

Did PM Lee Hsien Loong Just Encouraged Singaporeans To Gamble With Bitcoin?

Our Dear Leader PM Lee has just won a monumental legal battle in his libel suit against media magnate Terry Xu of The Online Citizen. Congratulations are in order.  The PM is battle-scared, having fought so many battles. We have to understand, the PM sits at the apex of Singapore Inc, a position much envied by many, not just because of the high salaries but the almighty power the position wields. He therefore has to be on guard at all times against anyone and everyone who tries to fire libelous missiles at him. Generals can take great shit and rocks and bullets, but the PM knows it's not about him, but the throne at the apex. Any insinuation against him has the potential of bringing the Singapore Inc down. It can destabilise the country. The sword of the blind Lady must be brought to bear against dare devils like Terry.

But all Terry did was to allow the publication of an article relating to some comments by somebody else regarding the dead tale of the house at Oxley Road. Those unaware of the full background of Terry's dare-devil act might be forgiven if they had thought the scoundrel was caught in the basement of Parliament House tinkering with some dangerous stuff.

Reminds me of a time when I was a corporal in the army. There was a guy in the detention cell at the guard room. He had a reputation of notoriety far beyond reality. It is the responsibility of guard commanders to ensure he is monitored. When he is let out to relief himself, the commander had to handcuff him to the pipes in the toilet. Such treatment was obviously applied only to the most dangerous prisoner. One weekend it came my turn as guard commander. I had high anticipation thinking there was a dangerous prisoner on my watch. But as it turned out, after I checked and spoken with him, he was in for a minor offence of AWOL for a day, and the reputation of him was over-inflated. Just to complete my story of that night. On his toilet call, I felt it unnecessary to indignify him with chaining him to the pipes. As Murphy's Law would have it, the timing for his call of nature was bad. The duty officer turned up to inspect the guards and check on the infamous prisoner. I was prepared for court martial for failure of duty, but to my surprise, when the officer opened the toilet door, the prisoner had his hand cuffed to the pipe. He had heard the guard inspection orders and self-secured himself, saving my butt.

Now to the purpose of this blog. I came across a CNA article that suggested PM Lee has been doing some sideline investments. It said "And two days ago, Lee Hsien Loong appeared on CNA’s "Asia First" and announced a new "wealth loophole" which he says can transform anyone into a millionaire within 3-4 months. The 69-year-old politician urged everyone in Singapore to jump on this amazing opportunity before the big banks shut it down for good." (Read full article here) Is was all about Bitcoin trading. Our PM is an astute investor, what more with a wife who handles billions of dollars of our sovereign wealth. Surely we all know this is a scam. But do we? Because the comments section betray the ignorance of many who really thought it was a CNA article and therefore true. I mean we all trust our mainstream media, right?

If something online does not seem believable, the easiest think way to confirm is to look at the URL. This was not from CNA website. It had URL www.ballost.org. This scammer is pretty good. The date of the article is coded. Whenever someone views the page, a current date is shown. That tends to put some viewers off-guard.

Now the problem I have is why does'nt our PM do something about this. Why waste the effort and time and exasperation of the citizenry chasing a faux media magnate for something that is at worst, a silly indiscretion. Why win an inconsequential skirmish and loose the war of public opinions. I am sure the whole of Singapore will cheer him on, and fully behind him, had he used his tremendous resources to pursue the scammer who put out the 'CNA' article.

By the way, I did some simple Sherlock Homes. The IP address showed the scammer is located at an unincorporated community called Mount Vernon, near Cheney Reservoir, Kansas, USA.  It is a phishing site, one that counterfeits web pages that duplicate legitimate business web pages for the purpose of eliciting financial, personal or other private information from the users.

Now, go get him, Mr Lee. Protect Singaporeans from these scammers. Stop wasting time with people like Terry or one man holding a smiley placard, whether at Parliament House or at a food court.