Deflating babies

i'd always remember this Econs 'S' Paper question which asks why most economies are happy with inflation and don't target deflation instead.

The answer, is that although deflation (falling price levels) makes things cheaper and hence can improve the welfare of individuals, it is totally bad for the economy cos nobody will buy anything, since whatever i buy today i can buy even more cheaply tomorrow.

If you'd watched/read the news recently, you'd have heard abt the 'hoo-ha' (how do you spell 'hoo-ha'??) raised by SGreans over when the new baby goodies will take effect, which caused the Govt to change the effective date from next year to Aug 17.

Well my first thought was: 'Maybe if enough pple make noise, my parents can also qualify for these goodies.'
And my second thought was: 'If that is the case, no one is ever going to have babies cos if i can qualify for good stuff this year, i can qualify for even more good stuff next year.'

Olympics

In case you thought SG clocked another 'first' in paying Chinese players to play against Chinese players, you may want to read this:

"Switching nationality in order to compete at the Olympics has become more noticeable in Beijing than in previous Games and it is beginning to cause concern among international sports bodies."

Well, if you ask me, i'll think that athletes, like corporate execs and migrant workers, are just another component of the mobile labour force. So anything which restricts labour mobility is bad economics.

So is there any pride in winning medals using talent bought from overseas? Yes. it is simply a matter of perspective.
If you'd bought second rate players and they beat the first rate ones, then you can be proud about your superior training and motivation methods.
If you'd bought second rate players and they only got silver, you can still be proud that you're richer than all the other countries who didn't manage to buy your players.

Anyway, i was reading this report on Women's TT Singles and it seems to me that every player participating, from Hong Kong to some angmoh country whose name i can't remember, is Chinese.

We have found the next export engine to drive the Chinese economy.

Hitler and the ERP

i'm surfing the net cos someone thot it'd be funny to replace the nice cooking show on Chan 8 w the NDP Rally.
So i found this, which is really funny..

Warning: Contains coarse language.



Found at the new Sammyboy Coffeeshop Forum

Officially Forgetful

Something made me very very unhappy yesterday (or was it the day before) and i was going to blog that i 'officially dislike' it...

When i finally get the chance to write today, i've forgotten all about it...

And i'm not going to put too much effort into remembering this thing cos: What's the point in remembering something unpleasant which you'd already forgot?

----
Edit: i remembered and did so without too much effort..

i'm very unhappy with the new format of the The Straits Times! it is bloody assaulting my senses with all the fancy bright colours... Many others may disagree but when i pick up a broadsheet, it's becos i want to read serious stuff... and it's very hard to read serious stuff with all the light blue and light red distracting you by shouting "Look at me! Look at me!".

On top of that, they've shifted the 'Digital Life' supplement to Wed, which is my 'Business Times Day' and i'm not going to change that cos 'Executive Money' is too good to pass up... so now i'm faced with either shifting 'ST Day' to some other day of the week, or just scrapping the idea of buying ST altogether...

Dear dudes at ST, if you want to remake yourself, consider doing something useful instead, like having a non-broadsheet section of news for pple to read more easily in trains and buses... This colourful, lighter thingy is nonesense.

Anger

i saw something that made me very angry on fri...

It was the first day of the lunar 7th month so there were many people burning joss papers and making offerings at the void deck of my block. When i was coming home that evening, i saw these 3 a**-holes walking around, joking and picking up food from the various offering spots, to eat. You could tell from their accent that they're not locals and are probably from the PRC.

Now look, i dont believe in these things and i dont make such offerings. But it pisses me off to see these pple come to our country and make a mockery of our traditions and customs.