Bye Bye Uber

Before Uber and Grab, ComfortDelgro was the market leader and they are ignorant.  Uber and Grab have made ComfortDelgro humble again.  With the merger of Uber and Grab, Oligopoly will again surface and drivers and consumers will have to endure the bad treatment again.  So sad.

The Green BFF is Fake

Saw many of my Facebook friends typing BFF in comment to see if it turn green as they were trying to check if their account was safe or not.    If does not, then you should change your password immediately.  It turn out that BFF was part of a feature called Text Delight, which auto animates certain words.  BFF does not relate to any account security issue.

Living in the internet era means that fake and real news can flow to us and many people will accept it as real without further checking.  Frankly, it takes a lot of work if a person were to check every news that he or she read on the social media.  The traditional printed newspaper may come back to life if one day, fake news become uncontrollable.

Don't Catch a Falling Knife

If you does stock trading, it is better to trade with the trend rather than to try and predict the turning point.  Many new trader like to trade the turning point of a down trend to get a cheaper price but end up being wrong most of the time.  Catching a falling knife can be painful and you should never do that.  Make friends with the trend and follow it, that is what stock trader need to do.

Oh My God Another Online Love Scam

Recently there was an online love scam where OCBC Bank staff save business owner from an online love scam.  Madam Ng, a 43-year-old business owner and mother of four children aged 3 to 13 said in a conference call that she met a man, who claimed to be a Korean named Owen Park living in London, on Facebook last week.   The man said he wanted to send her and her kids gifts and $20,000 but she needed to remit $2,500 to an OCBC account as "customs clearance fee" for the parcel, which was "stuck" at Malaysian customs.

Till today, I still find it puzzle that people with normal intelligent still get con by all these love scams.  Furthermore, business men or women are suppose to be more alert than working individuals due to their business dealing.  No wonder there is saying that love blinds all.

Selling Virginity for Millions

Read about the 18-year-old model Alexandra Khefren from Romania who go online and sells her virginity to Hong Kong businessman for $3.47 million.

She plan to use the money to give her parents a good life, buy a house and also get a good education for herself. 

Right or wrong it is not up to us to say.  If you have been poor and lead at a hard life since young, there is a chance that you will do it to get out of the poverty trap.

Singapore Life Long Learning

Singapore is moving towards life long education and NUS is redesigning their classes for the lifelong learning push.  I think this will be good for the Singapore workforce as we need to keep up or else we will be left behind.  Many countries are once ahead of China but we can now see China progressing ahead of many countries.  I am rather surprise at the way China citizens are embracing technology.   In my company, I am also seeing a change of attitude towards technology among the older employees.  They don't grumble so much about automation and are more willingly to learn.  I believe the recent years of encouragement have somehow engrave into their brain.

Mandatory Registration of e-Scooters

Finally, the law came in with the mandatory registration of e-scooters from second half of 2018.  I was wondering how many accidents were likely to happened before the government was willingly to put this law in place.   E-transport device are simply too fast and there should be more control over them as people such as the old and young are vulnerable to them.  More sever punishment should be put in place if a rider hurt someone especially the old and young ones.   110 accidents involving e-scooters were reported in the first 9 months of 2017 is no small matters.

Patients To Co-Pay Insurance Riders

I think every Singaporean knows that medical cost have been sky rocketing like nobody business as more and more people buy hospital riders.  So, when someone buy an insurance riders they do not care what the hospital charge them.  Knowing their non-care attitude, private hospital just charge them sky rocketing prices.  I have heard stories where doctors tell patients not to worry about the high cost as the patient need not pay a single cent.  I am glad that co-payments have finally come into play to stop this insane medical cost rises.

How To Extend Your Life Span

Not sure if it was a good subject title but it is a well known truth that exercise do keep you healthy as you age and it does prolong your life.  I have read somewhere that researchers have found that 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours) of moderate to vigorous activity per week helps to keep you healthy and can extend your life span.  The benefits of regular exercise is that it helps to lower blood pressure, blood sugar level, body weight, triglycerides and unhealthy LDL cholesterol; all of which can improve your heart's health and in turn longevity.

Stock Market Trading or Investment

As a working Singaporean, I invest in the stock market in order to get a better rate of returns.  Initially, I started trading and lost quite a sum of money to those smart monies who have deep pockets and can move the price of stocks.  Smart monies are the Big Boys who have access to information that are better and faster than we layman investors.  BB are forward looking and that is why is stock prices always move ahead before the company news are out. If you are good at technical analysis and can react firmly and fast, I believe you can follow them via the price and volume analysis.  For me, I have learn and pay my lessons and just invest in dividends stocks looking at their fundamental.  If company fundamental remains good, I will just average down or up every now and then.  Not bullet proof but it suits me and I prefer to invest slow and easy.

The Love of Learning

Read the news where Miss Janice Tee was being home schooled and her parents have cultivate her a habit of curiosity about things and to love her subject of learning.  The National University of Singapore was her first school and she encountered peers with "little intellectual curiosity" as they are overly focus on their grades.   What she spoke was true and Singapore is now trying to change its education focus but many Singaporean parents are still not ready to change. It might take another decade or two for Singaporean parents to change its grades pursue but I think we are heading to the right path to make learning the focus.

Theory and Practical

Reading is good for us as it improve our knowledge.  But if we keep reading and does not put what we read into action, does it help us?  Knowledge is only potential power, it become real power if it is use to help improve our society.  

Another form of reading is for health and pleasure.  Health is because reading help to exercise our brain and slow down or even prevent dementia as we age.  Pleasure is when you chose something you love reading which can be fiction or non-fiction and just enjoy it.  

Too Good To Be Truth

You must have heard the news where a vending machine in Orchard will dispense S$50 when you put in S$3.  "So a too good to be true thing become true."  If someone were to tell me about this vending machine, I would likely brush it off as a scam.  Congratulation to all those Lucky Singaporean who manage to get the extra S$47 in this stunt by 3DollarBaller.  It is really free Ang Bao money.

If You Strike 12 Million Toto Draw

Today, our lunch topic was "Will you run away with the 12 million Toto money if your friend ask you to buy it and it strike the jackpot?"  Deep inside us, we think the 12 million is tempting to betray your friend even though some of us say we won't.  The logic was rather simple, even if we take our life time to work for money, we might not even hit 12 million.  So the 12 million jackpot price is tempting enough to make someone run away with the money.  Therefore, it is best that you buy the Toto yourself.  Hope Lady Luck will shine upon me.