Sure you can pay the elderly cleaner $300 a month!

"We don't have a minimum wage for Singapore, whether local workers or migrant workers."

-- MOM permanent secretary Loh Khum Yean, when migrant welfare group Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) asked for a minimum wage for domestic workers.


And how poorly paid are low wage workers in Singapore? Find out the truth from the mouth of an ex-CEO of NTUC.

It is just novelty factor at play and the IRs are not turning Singaporeans into gamblers

It is reported that Singapore's two casino operators have collected about $70 million in entry levies as of May 10. While it may be apparent that many of the casinos' patrons so far seem to be Singaporeans, and that more Singaporeans are becoming gamblers, Mr Iswaran responded that the "novelty factor" was at play and may not accurately reflect the situation one or two years down the road.

"The agencies are monitoring the situation closely, and once we have a better sense of the patterns and trends, then I think we'll know how the measures (against problem gambling) we've put in place are working,"

-- Minister of State (Trade and Industry) S Iswaran


We should see.

But on the other hand, at least we know the casinos are not gonna lose money, like what some western press predicted, because hey, we've got enough Singaporean gamblers to support them!

Dummy is the new Layman

“If I was calling them idiots, I would have used ‘idiots'"

-- Philip Yeo Liat Kok, chairman of Spring Singapore and Special Advisor for Economic Development in the Prime Minister's office, who definitely has problem in the English language. He explained that in his remarks about people who buy applications for Apple products, he used the word “dummies” to mean “laymen, which is the major market” and not as an insult.

According to Dictionary.com:

Dummy –noun Informal . a stupid person; dolt.

Idiot –noun an utterly foolish or senseless person.

Apple applications are for dummies

"So there is where people buy 99 cents, 1 dollar, all kinds of useless applications but they like it. You know, you need gullible customers to make money... I always tell my daughter, try to make a product to sell to the dummies, because there are 99% dummies, maybe 1 or 2% genius."

-- Philip Yeo Liat Kok, chairman of Spring Singapore and Special Advisor for Economic Development in the Prime Minister's office, who obviously has problem in grammar and.. oh, counting.

No funding for you if you're criticising instead of praising the Government

"We will not fund projects which are incompatible with the core values promoted by the Government and society or disparage the Government."

-- NAC arts development director Elaine Ng,
when asked why local theatre company Wild Rice has had its annual grant from the National Arts Council cut by $20,000.

More raids with more prostitutes nabbed, but don't worry

Member of Parliament Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah), who previously raised the issue in Parliament of the rising number of arrests of women soliciting, told MediaCorp that recent raids are more of a "deterrent" than anything else.

The cat-and-mouse game of vice crackdowns
Source: TodayOnline.com


... There have been no less than 10 raids on different days reported in Today and The Straits Times, in operations carried out between January and April by law enforcement agencies. These include landmark anti-vice operations online.

In contrast, there was just one raid reported on during the same period last year.

Even as the crackdowns have taken on a higher profile this year, the number of foreign women nabbed for vice has been climbing since 2006, when 4,310 were arrested. In 2008, the figure was 5,047 and last year, it was 7,614...

... Joo Chiat's Mr Chee believes "our social visit pass process is too liberal". "It was set out with the objective of driving up tourist numbers, but it has also served as an open though unintended invitation to women who ply the trade," he said.

During a recent raid at Orchard Towers, one woman who was not arrested told MediaCorp: "Yes, there are a lot of raids now, so we have to be careful. But a lot of girls still prefer to come to Singapore ... Places like Hong Kong turn us away at immigration."