Cigarette plain paper packaging

Name:          CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject:       Cigarette plain paper packaging
Visit Time:   11/11/2011 12:43 AM

Remark:
I do not smoke and do not like to stand close to smokers whose hair, clothing and body are smelly and stinking. I do not like to see large tobacco companies making money out of misery from smoking addicts, too. After all being said, I totally disagree with the bleeding hearts, health sympathisers and hypocrites wanting to implement plain packaging or outlaw sale of cigarettes.

These restrictions on promotion and sale of a "legal" product, namely cigarettes, will see the dawning of Australia becoming a Big Brother country - freedom to choose, freedom of expression and freedom to advertise will become things of the past.

Smokers’ right have been striped slowly and surely to point that they cannot smoke in public open and confined spaces. They do look very pitiful standing outside buildings, especially on cold, wintry days puffing away. It may be the smokers’ choice, but the society abandons them like lepers. How much of the tax collected by the government has been used to help or educate the smoking addicts? Scary pictures on cigarette packets or television screens do not deter people from giving up or taking up this product. How about some famous celebrities giving a helping hand, like what they have done to promote cancer awareness?

If people are fair dinkum about the wellbeing of the human race, why are alcohol and gambling not in plain paper packaging or outlawed? Alcohol and gambling not only create physical harm, ill-health and even death to many individuals, but also physical and psychological abuses to people that are closed to them. These are a lot more evil than cigarettes and smoking.

Smoking is an addiction, so are alcohol drinking and gambling. Governments are quite happy to allow all these to be sold in the market place openly. If cigarettes are to be in plain paper packaging or outlawed, so must alcohol and gambling.

Online shopping kills employment

Name:          CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject:       Online shopping kills employment
Visit Time:   4/8/2011 at 9:37 PM

Remark:
If everyone boycotts Harvey Norman, Myers, David Jones, JB Hi-Fi, just to name a few large retail outlets, because they charge more to cover costs in employing people, leasing buildings, using utilities, advertising, etc., this will lead to unemployment for many sales staff, tradespeople, property management, service providers, accountants doing tax returns, chefs, waiters, etc. Those who have made savings buying online, if they are still in employment, will eventually pay more taxes to cover the increasing number of welfare recipients.

This stubborn government fails to take note of the long term repercussion of great exodus of in-shop purchases, and refuses to tax all items purchased from overseas under $1000. At present, the cost of collection of these taxes may be more than the taxes receivable, but the scenario will change very soon as on-line transactions continue to grow. Who will be paying for the shortfall of tax revenue?

This is a double whammy. Just be careful, it could be the online shoppers’ job on the chopping board if this unfair practice is allowed to go on unchecked.

Wake up Australia, Grow up Australia

Name:          CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject:       Wake up Australia, Grow up Australia
Visit Time:   1/6/2011 at 10:00 PM (Not published)

Remark:
Australia at present is like a cup cake, and obviously can't feed many people. However, Australia has plenty of ingredients to bake a cake bigger than any recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. With a bigger cake, more people can share our generosity.

On 12 October 1492, Columbus discovered the New World (USA), and in 1606 Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent. The difference is 114 years.

The population of USA and Australia is about 311.6 million and 22.7 million respectively, that is to say USA has a population about 13.7 times of Australia. To reach 311.6 million, Australia population will have to grow by 1% compounding each year for 263.25 years or by 2% compounding each year for 132.27 years.

We are far too inward looking, selfish and unimaginative; we are just as irresponsive and non-adaptive as the dinosaurs which became extinct when climatic conditions became unfavourable.

Wake up Australia, grow up Australia!

New push seeks to outlaw cigarettes

Posted to ABC 7.30 Report on 22/5/2011 (Not published)
Subject: New push seeks to outlaw cigarettes”

Remark:
I do not smoke and do not like to stand close to smokers whose hair, clothing and body are smelly and stinking. I do not like to see large tobacco companies making money out of misery of smoking addicts, too. After all being said, I totally disagree with the bleeding hearts, health sympathisers and hypocrites wanting to outlaw cigarettes and implement plain packaging.

To outlaw cigarettes will see the dawning of Australia becoming a Big Brother country - freedom to choose, freedom of expression and freedom to advertise will become things of the past.

Smokers’ right have been striped slowly and surely to point that they cannot smoke in public open and confined spaces. They do look very pitiful standing outside buildings, especially on cold, wintry days puffing away. It may be the smokers’ choice, but the society abandons them like lepers. How much of the tax collected by the government has been used to help or educate the smoking addicts? Scary pictures on cigarette packets or television screens do not deter people from giving up or taking up this product. How about some famous celebrities giving a helping hand, like what they have done to promote cancer awareness?

If people are fair dinkum about the wellbeing of the human race, why are alcohol and gambling not outlawed? Alcohol and gambling not only create physical harm, ill-health and even death to many individuals, but also physical and psychological abuses to people that are closed to them. These are a lot more evil than cigarettes and smoking.

Smoking is an addiction, so are alcohol drinking and gambling. Governments are quite happy to allow all these to be sold in the market place openly. If cigarettes are to be outlawed, so must alcohol and gambling.

Read here to read more

Australia can support a MUCH larger population

Name:          Sin Fong Chan
Subject:       Australia can support a MUCH larger population
Visit Time:   16/5/2011 at 4:49 PM

Remark:
Growth for growth sake is definitely pointless. However, Australia is a big country and surrounded by water - one of the biggest island on earth. However, we keep saying that we cannot support a much larger population, and it is not sustainable to have a big population.

Big population has its advantages - economy of scale, in terms of business sales, production, utilisation of assets, etc. Many large cities of the world have population much more than Victoria or New South Wales, and yet these cities prosper and flourish.

Sustainability will be a flop if we don't build more schools, hospitals, houses and infrastructure, or grow more food, capture more rainfall, purified more water, etc. We keep taking from the ground via mining, and not putting back or growing enough to re-nourish the land.

Not all the international students coming to Australia will become citizens of this country. The population growth is not as frightening as 300,000 per year as reported. Statisticians who make such projections are based on incorrect assumption. Properly managed population provides a larger pool of tax revenue. If we are selective to pick just the cream of these students, Australia can only benefit rather than being disadvantaged.

If we are short of food, we grow them from seeds; if we demand more electricity, we build power stations; if we need to travel, we build cars, aeroplanes, boats; if we have to stop swine flu spreading, we develop vaccines.

Why are Australians still sitting on their bums, keep whinging about lack of water? Open the atlas or search on Google and check out what is surrounding Australia? If all the whingers start to use their brains instead of their mouths, water shortage will never be a daily topic!

Many people in the world still do not believe that men landed on the Moon close to 42 years ago; many people in the world can never imagine that the monstrous size computer of the 50’s can be shrunk to the size of a note pad and yet is billions times more powerful; many people still hold the view that Australia vast desert landscape cannot be transformed into productive land one day.

If United States can support 14 times more people than Australia, where is the problem? Australians MUST change their mindset about Australia is going to be overpopulated!

Get real - Australia is not lack of water or lack of rain. Australia lacks “grey matter”, lacks innovation, and worst of all, Australia lacks good leaders!

Read related blogs:
Wake up Australia, Grow up Australia
Australia needs population growth

Train, retraining but no jobs in sight

Name:          Sin Fong Chan
Subject:       Train, retraining but no jobs in sight
Visit Time:   11/05/2011 6:06 PM

Remark:
Does it mean that people like me mature-age person need to be retrained to work in mining towns in Western Australia or Queensland, go under the house to fix plumbing or up the roof top to install solar panels? I am well-trained, with post-graduate degree and other qualifications, more than qualified to train the untrained, and yet I find myself unemployed.

I had been a sessional TAFE and VET trainer for 15 years, until the international education bubble burst when the government changed policy. More than half of the international students choose not to come to Australia anymore, and therefore, many trainers like me are unemployed.

Life as a sessional teacher is very tough. We are hard working people, and no dole-bludgers. Each term, we queue up, not at Centrelink, but at the course coordinator office asking whether there is any work for us.

June is too soon for an RBA rate rise

Name:         CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject:      June is too soon for an RBA rate rise
Visit Time:  11/05/2011 6:04 PM

Remark:
Predictions by Glenn Stevens and his team at RBA are far from satisfactory. Either the economic models used or the way the results produced by the models have been interpreted need to undergo vigorous challenge.

The trilogy of negative demand, as I called it, is a signal for heading towards a recession. This may sound farfetched, naïve and ill-founded, but a rationalist will see the wisdom of this doomsday prediction. The trilogy of negative demands is real properties, cars and household goods including fashions. These three categories of items are in descending sequence in terms of average value. In recent months, we witness the trilogy of negative demands are taking place.

I have written in many blogs and newspaper comments about my predictions, a lot more accurate than what RBA has been predicting. Using dollar value as the key element in prediction is inadequate. The total quantity demand must be taken into consideration for normalisation.

CPI increase, unfortunately, always targets at increase in price which can be due to real reason and artificial manipulation. If quantity demand is increased, causing shortage of supply and thus pushing up the price, then there is room to call for increase in interest rate to dampen the demand. However, it is irrational to increase interest rate because electricity charges, water rates, local petrol prices have gone up, and that the quantity demand of these utilities or items is in fact unchanged or decreased. In short, the total dollar increases bear no relation to the demand curves.

Read more: http://sinfongchaneconomy.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-june-is-too-soon-for-rba-rate-rise.html

Gillard telling China how to suck eggs

Name:         CHAN, Sin Fong
Subject:      Gillard telling China how to suck eggs
Visit Time:  29/04/2011 4:03 AM

Remark:
I wish Julia Gillard stop lecturing the Chinese about human rights, treatment to minority groups and religious freedom.

What is happening in Australia is just the exact opposite. Excessive human rights to law breakers, special privileges to queue jumpers / hooligans on the roof, and in the name of religious freedom, we spend mega-bucks to refurbish public hospitals for the religious minorities and feeding them with special meals.

G-G calls for female quota on boards

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     G-G calls for female quota on boards

Visit Time: 9/03/2011 5:36 AM

Remark
So, GG and Joe Hockey want more females on boards. If it is a matter of affirmative action, then after gender will be race, colour, religion or national origin.

It is concerning that democracy, free market, freedom of choice are dead in our society. Too much pressure has been placed on businesses, families and society at large to do the "right" thing, by the government or some authorities under the sun, and yet the people of Australia have no say in many of the ridiculous decisions made by them, such as money spent on “refugee” queue jumpers, welfare services provided to these and overseas countries instead of our own, building hospitals without providing funding for fittings, insulating the roofs but not the windows, adding new classrooms cum kitchens instead of quality teachers, etc.

What is more worrying is that Australia has become a very socialistic country, and soon may even become communistic. Income tax, land tax, council rate, water rate have been used to provide infrastructure and services for everyone including those who can't afford to contribute. Then they introduced Medicare levy - a universal healthcare tax, then petrol levy, levy to pay for the debacle of Ansett Airline, fire levy, flood levy, carbon tax / price - whatever you want to call it.

Is climate change talk fest on again?

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Is climate change talk fest on again?

Visit Time: 6/12/2010 2:17 PM

Remark:

Global warming is real from day one. Each year 4 one quintillion Joules (4 x 10 to the power of 18 Joules) of Solar energy reaches the Earth, but only 300 trillion Joules (3 x 10 to the power of 14 Joules) are consumed by the world's population. There is plenty of energy left to warm the Earth.

Why Australia failed in the World Cup 2022 bid

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Why Australia failed in the World Cup 2022 bid

Visit Time: 6/12/2010 2:14 PM

Remark:

Australia is really a bad loser for hosting FIFA World Cup 2022.

The AUD45 million is a complete waste of money. OK over 200 years ago this was a country filled with convicts transported from POME land, but history just repeats itself telling the world that even an Australian kangaroo can commit a crime like stealing the World Cup from FIFA.

The presentation does not depict logo of FIFA, excitement of a soccer game, venues, support of the game by the people of Australia. Instead, yesterday's heroes who are not soccer fans endorsing the bid. Using Julia Gillard is such a bad idea, who needs a lot of training on her voice and acting.

No, such presentation does not deserve a tick of approval!

China banning lobster import from Australia

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     China banning lobster import from Australia

Visit Time: 1/12/2010 12:42 AM

Remark:

Australia's economy is over dependent on China. China is the largest trading partner of Australia - China relies on our iron ore and coal.

Australia is holding a trump card at present, probably until China owns enough mines in other offshore countries. The decline in students coming from China is a huge blow to our economy, but has been swept under the carpet.

Now, out of blue, Chinese are banning the lobsters. What's next?

Will Australia's good fortune last?

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Will Australia's good fortune last?

Visit Time: 6/10/2010 2:18 AM

Remark:
The wealth and hence the prosperity of Australia depend on mining, which unfortunately is not evenly distributed in every state. The non-mining states at present benefited from the flow-on effect of their good neighbours. Manufacturing in Australia was once the largest employer has now become a non-issue in terms of employment. Excessive reliance on just one major client, China, for our coal and iron ore export, can be seen as a big marketing and business risk.

China has been paving her ways to acquire fuel and resources from various parts of the globe, and this will enable China to hold the trump card in future price negotiation with Australia for coal and iron ore.

Closer examination of China mineral reserves, one will realise that she is using cheap supplies from other countries until their depletion, and by which time, it will be more economical for China to start digging her “backyard”.

Unlike China, progress of India is hindered by the entrenchment of religious believes, and non-centralised governmental system. While India has an advantage at present to be an English-speaking nation, and thus taking the lead in call-centres, IT consulting; such good time will not last long, as the speed of training the Chinese to learn English is progressing fast - mainly due to economy of scale.

To take advantage of Chinese low labour cost, many countries stupidly dig their own graves by helping China to develop at lightning speed as a result of transferring technologies, which cost millions and billions of dollars and many years of research and development.

China will be more than just the factory of the world; she will also be the “office” of the world when white collar or office works are outsourced off-shore to China.

Should the mineral prices go down, office employment outsourced, the Australian economy will decline. The non-mining states will experience the biggest negative impact. The scenario will not be very different from the current situation in America.

Tony Abbott not visiting Afghanistan

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Tony Abbott not visiting Afghanistan

Visit Time: 6/10/2010 1:04 AM

Remark:

It was wise for Tony Abbott not to be present at the same time with Julia Gillard in the dangerous war-torn Afghanistan. Should an attack take place on the leaders, the damage / loss to Australia will be immense.

Decline in International Education industry

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Decline in International Education industry

Visit Time: 30/09/2010 12:11 AM

Remark:

The change of government policies during mid-2010, and tightening the granting of PR to international students resulted in drastic drop of international students coming to Australia, so much so that the international education and student accommodation industries may face extinction.

The international education generated over $17b "export" income, and created unprecedented demand of sessional teachers, commercial building for classrooms, student accommodation, public transport usage, ethnic groceries, etc.

The spin-off of having these international students is that they provide lowly paid workforce doing all the menial tasks, and long unpalatable hours of work. While this may sound unethical, it does help many businesses to cut cost and increase productivity.

It seems many policy makers neither consult the industry players nor pay any attention to possible negative impact which may realise.

If the unfortunate predictions were to come true, we can see, first, a definite rise in unemployment - from teaching profession to many service providers. Second, many CBD's will experience population drop, and decline in vibrance. Third, the number of passengers using public transport system will also increase.

Real estate reality check

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Real estate reality check

Visit Time: 29/09/2010 11:31 PM

Remark:

The Age quoted "an estimated 60 per cent of Australian banks’ loan books is secured by residential property, ...". With the reversing of foreign investment policy, the demand of residential properties has definitely softened, and the resale values of the over-valued properties will face reality check. There is a good chance the real estate bubble will burst sooner than many expected, not dissimilar to what had happened in the USA.

In total, all small / medium businesses provide over 50% of employment, and many of them at present are not doing well. This can only translate to shaky employment future for many, and uncertain mortgage repayment. If these people were to default, the final selling price may not cover the original loan.

For the past 4-5 years, many people borrowed well beyond their repayment ability in order to secure their dream homes. Unfortunately, further upward movement in interest rates will turn their dreams into nightmares.

Should the soldiers be charged?

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Should the soldiers be charged?

Visit Time: 29/09/2010 12:21 AM

Remark:

If our soldiers are charged for shooting civilians (unintentionally), then George Bush should be charged for War Crime for starting the Iraq war in the belief that there were weapons of mass destruction.

Wholesale prices of electricity by various fuel / power

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Wholesale prices of electricity by various fuel / power

Visit Time: 18/08/2010 1:38 PM

Remark:

I have been reliably informed that the wholesale prices per megawatt / hr of electricity generated by coal and by gas are about $4 and $40 respectively. Wind-power generated electricity takes the lead, and is about $100.

Anyone still wants different form of fuel / source to generate electricity, please put up your hand?

Selling Australia to foreigners

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Selling Australia to Foreigners

Visit Time: 13/08/2010 1:45 AM

Remark:Forget about the air force, navy or army. Selling real estate, rural farming land and industrial sites recklessly to foreigners is occupation of Australia without bloodshed or declaration of war!

Dick Smith on population growth

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Dick Smith on population growth

Visit Time: 13/08/2010 12:57 AM

Remark:
Dick Smith is a scaremonger. In July 2009, population of USA was 307,006,550, 13.3 times of Australia. At the same time, New York city population was 8.1 million, and New York metropolitan 19.1 million. Dick should compare our population with major developed countries, and not with Bangladesh!