Extreme solutions for Singapore's problems

I think Singapore is in deeper shit than I thought. Click here to see what I mean. This is MM, our honorable founding father (aka the Oracle), telling us that he could only provide us with the basics! (Hey, the rest is up to you pathetic folks who are still dreaming of the many good years ahead). Even his upbeat forecasts are getting shorter. It used to be at least a rosy decade of more good years. Now, he is betting his lot on the next five only. Perhaps, some cynics might say it is the sly cunning despot's way of securing votes for the next election.

I don't think I need to know what PM would be preaching at the National Day Rally tonight. The yada yada will revolve around how we should stay united and steadfast in accepting anything that is better than zero.

So, to do my part in constructive citizenry, I shall attempt to give some solutions to solve some of our nation's problems. They may seem extreme and may cause discomfort for those used to higher standards of morality. I advice emotional guidance to be sought for readers venturing beyond this point. The problems listed are not ranked according to severity, perceived or fabricated. They are problems that our government had problem solving for a long time and looked desperately in need of some extreme solutions.

Problem No 1 - the shortage of babies in Singapore

Babies are our future suckers as they grow up to become future workers who will contribute more good years for us. Essentially, every citizen should have a replacement on the production line of Singapore Inc before he/she dies. However, despite having appointed an old fogey of a Minister to study into our procreation disability, the birth rate remains low.

The baby bonus will not help very much, everyone knows. Instead of giving out baby bonus, we should produce bonus babies. The idea is similar to stock splits for those who dabble in the shares market. For every baby conceived, we clone 2 or 3 of him/her. This will not only jack up the birth numbers, enlarge the future workers' pool but also bring many other benefits. If we raise these 'spares' in a state nursery away from harmful external influence (like their parents), this group will ensure we have 2 0r 3 more future voters who are sympathetic to PAP for every young English-educated radical out there.

Problem No 2 - choosy workers who refuse to work

These troublesome Singaporeans have a tendency to destroy the good work ethics we have painfully built up over the last 40 years. As Wong Kan Seng had clearly pointed out to us, these clowns are unable to even understand the simplest mathematics concept of a few hundred is better than zero! Luckily, Wong is good at maths.

We cannot expect all Singaporeans to be as talented as Wong. For those who obviously lack such abilities, the solution is to provide a massive national mathematics learning exposition to train and re-train these people who have problems understanding 'anything is better than zero', well, except zero. More so when the zero comes in a string behind a positive integer?

Problem No 3 - the opposition parties

Technically, most Singaporeans do not find them a real problem at all. However, their presence create a big problem for our PM in the form of rising costs of Progress Packages and having to devote a large amount of his time to fix and buy them out. Time, he could have used on solving the nation's problems.

To improve our PM's KPIs and for us to move on, we have to eradicate this problem for him. We can either adopt a philosophical or a pragmatic approach. To be pragmatic, we could just re-brand the opposition as CIPO, 'Colleagues In Parliament Only'. When they are just colleagues of our PM, he no longer needs to see them as any threat. In fact, he could literally slap them in the face and still get away with it. Afterall, HE IS THE BOSS's SON. 'Cheapo' also refers to the group of 33.3% voters in their respective wards that hankers after abalone congee and empty promises of upgraded lifts.

Or, be philosophical about it. Since they are opposed to PAP, flip the words PAP sideways and downwards to form "dad"! Yep, treat them as THE ONE PM reports to work everyday and life will be a breeze for him.

Problem No 4 - controlling the price of oil

Our Ministers have been telling us (more confidently after the 2006 elections) that nobody can control the price of oil. They seem to have some illusions during the elections that PAP could. Anyway, my take is - it's all bullshit! Think out of the box, you highly paid peanuts... Why control the PRICE of oil???? Control THE OIL and let the price goes up, up and away!

Since we have a world-class army with so many wonderful Brigadier-Generals, we could take over one of those oil fields in the Middle-east. We could even join forces with President Bush. We could get a little more if we smile nicely enough. Singapore males would be very proud to die for their country for such a worthy cause as to protect our economic well-being. In fact, it would also be a good opportunity for those foreign talents and PRs to show their loyalty to Singapore by being the first to go. (Comeon you simpletons, why do you there are wars?)


Problem No 5 - the old and unemployed

Big problem, these clowns don't conveniently die off! Even if we clone more babies to feed these bums, the opportunity costs of maintaining these units are high. These costs could buy more peanuts for other more deserving managers of the production line of Singapore Inc.

Mercy-killing or euthanasia is the solution, period. Although it is hoped that high medical costs will do the job, it creates negative sentiments that might affect the workers' productivity. The way to go about mercy-killing is to er, show MERCY. Don't call it "killing" for heaven's sake! Sensitive marketing and promotion is the key to successful execution in any campaign. Have a major PR blitz like "Moving ahead and going up" or make it "hip and happening", complete with poms poms/fireworks display while we unplug. Singaporeans love fireworks.

Problem No 6 - Singlish undermining our economic progress

Never thought language problems can be so devastating to our economic well-being. I thought not having capable government was. If only Ministers who spoke Standard English are able to understand why Singaporeans prefer to use Singlish. They can't because they would have to learn Singlish leh. Ok, I'll do them a favour. "Singlish is popular because it is a more efficient use of words, like SMS. Like shorthand" so say we all .

Want to stop us using Singlish? No problem lah, just get MICA (they are communications experts) to pass down a Bhavani commandment (like an imperial edit) that henceforth hor, all Singaporeans who use Singlish must esprain in Standard English after every Singlish word or phrase is used. Singlish also must esprain. When Singaporeans find it so troublesome to use Singlish hor, they will 'kuai kuai' switch code to England's English.

Problem No 7 - seditious bloggers and internet chatter

While Lee Boon Yang is not affected by the internet chatter (he hardly works!), our PM may find the heat and noise a serious distraction from his work. The 2 opposition parties are giving him huge headaches and he can't concentrate. To help PM and to shield the 66.6% of Singaporeans from the harmful influence of these bloggers, the government should build an intelligent, fully wired island solely for them. Create a matrix of democracy and freedom of speech for those living on the island. Let them think they are having their way! Let them generate as much heat and noise as they want, at a distance from Singapore. As long as we keep them under wraps at the cyber threat monitoring centre, they can't pose any danger to the social fabric of our nation.

Problem No 8 - empty HDB units

This is not a consequence of bad planning and weak foresight of the government in estimating housing demand (they had you fooled). The oversupply is in fact, a forward vision of our nation's strategy to increase our population to 10 million one day. The abundance of empty flats everywhere is a testament to the government's optimism and confidence of achieving their target. It is important that a global city like ours has a decent population size.

However, empty flats are a waste of resources. That's the real problem. HDB is going to lose money if these flats are left vacant for too long. The win-win solution is to lease them to Study Mamas or other foreign talents as corporate offices for their various nefarious businesses. We can have more heartlander casinos (gambling dens) and Crazy Horse revues (brothels) amidst our clean, wholesome and boring landscape. Isn't this what MM said we should have more!? At the same time, we would solve many PDMM's livelihood problems and prevent foreign talents taking away our jobs.


Problem No 9 - quarrelsome neigbhours getting in the way of progress

No, I am not talking about those Joo Chiat clowns. We have very quarrelsome neighbours like Malaysia and Indonesia. Their refusal to progress economically is really dragging us down with them too. I mean, what's their problem? Why don't they aspire to be like us? Rich, modern, corruption-free. So what if we become materialistic, soul-less and spineless? It's only a small price to pay for economic progress!

Unfortunately, our neigbhours are too slow to embrace the wonders of materialism and we need to do more to help them. We need a concerted effort to corrupt them and induct them to a life of wanton materialistic existence, just like ours. We need to visit our neighbours more often, spend and invest in their shopping malls and companies. Introduce inflation and asset enhancement. Viola, before you know it, they will be working as hard as us, trying to keep up with the treadmill like some stupid hamsters.

Problem No 10 - PAP lags in solving problems

Singaporeans have become increasingly perceptive, an undesirable by-product of the education system in its efforts to create more useful workers (ie valaue-added production units). They are beginning to notice that the ruling party is not very good at solving problems like they used to. Or that the previous solutions are bigger problems waiting to manifest themselves, like now. Ok, this is not meant to be a fault finding mission and it is really no fault of anyone. The ministers are clueless in their jobs, to start with. The ruling party has promised many things during the elections but none of them specifically includes solving the country's problems. In fact, PM could identify with only one problem of two opposition parties.

The old solution was to put the blame on those stupid citizens and silence them with guilt-ridden feelings of not measuring up. This is losing favour amongst the young. Neither is calling problems challenges going to work. In fact it is worse. Challenges sound more sinister, more unsurmountable. How demoralising.

The new solution is to remove the Minister who 'created' the problem. Yeah! This is what those pesky citizens wanted, accountability. It won't hurt much to THE ONE truly responsible. But no one needs to know. We're not about to give up transparency too.

This is a timely solution really, as the rapid removal of 'problem' ministers makes way for faster leadership renewal. How can the ruling party have fresh new faces every other day to pander to the 'hip and happening' crowd when these ministers just refuse to move on and away from their seats? It's brilliant, if you think about it. The citizens will be happy that PAP solved the problem because the minister 'responsible' has been removed. The old problem becomes the new minister's baby and hey, it becomes 'new' and everyone forgets about the old one or that it is the same problem.

Singapore, solutions