Ratio of nurses to patients in Hospital

Britain has decided that they have to regulate the ratio of nurses to patients in hospitals. This is to ensure that there is a satisfactory standard of care. It illustrates the need for the regulator to step in, rather than leave such matters to be decided by the market.
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120312-0000048/Britain-may-limit-the-number-of-patients-cared-by-each-nurse

Financial education for consumers

I have written a few comments to educate consumers on investing in this troubled world. You can ready my comments and the referenced articles in www.fisca.sg. 

Swiss reject 6 weeks of paid holidays

Switzerland has an interesting system of conducing referendums for their citizens to give their views. Here are the results of a recent referendum about getting 6 weeks of paid holidays in a year. The citizens rejected this proposal, to ensure that their firms can continue to be competitive globally. This shows the benefit of giving voice to the citizens and, in return, they act responsibly. This is a good way to involve the people and to cultivate a responsible behavior.
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120313-0000029/Swiss-voters-reject-6-weeks-paid-vacation

This strategy should be adopted in Singapore. However, it will take a long time to educate the people, but a start must be made. If we wait longer, the situation will get worse. Let us start with the by-election in Hougang.

Malaysia set minimum wage

Malaysia has decided to set a minimum wage of M800 to M900 per month, depending on location
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120313-0000053/KL-sets-minimum-wage-between-RM800-RM900

Two weeks ago, a newspaper reported that a complaint by Malaysian employers that a minimum wage will cause 90% of the workers in small companies to lose their jobs, as the profit margin of these companies cannot sustain the minimum wage.

The employers overlook an important fact. The minimum wage will apply to all businesses. Their competitors will also have to bear the higher cost. The higher cost has to be passed to consumers through higher prices. And the lower income earners can afford the higher prices, as they earn higher wages, due to the minimum wage.

An important outcome is that the rental component that is embedded in the prices will become relatively smaller, compared to wages. This is a good and fair outcome. It is better to have the proper balance between wages, rental and profit.

Without a minimum wage or other regulations protecting workers, the wages will be be depressed by market forces. This has led to the high disparity between the high and low income levels, i.e. the widening wage gap, whic his bad for society.

Straits Times index gain 12% in 2 months

In spite of an uncertain global economy, the Straits Times Index gained 12% during the first two months of 2012 and gave a dividend yield of 3.7%. Who would have thought that the stock market could be robust? This shows the importance of investing for the  long term, and not speculate on short term trends - as no one can make an accurate and reliable prediction. To learn about investing for the long term, attend the FISCA workshop that wil be held on 31 March 2012. See www.fisca.sg (events). Do not miss this last workshop sponsored by SGX.

A pleasure to find a place that is not so crowded

I drove to Thomson Plaza at 10.15 am to visit the bank. It was a pleasure to see many vacant spaces in the car park. I park the car, carry out my transaction with the bank quickly and lefe the place within 10 minutes. It has been a long time since I had this feeling of leisure, of not having to drive round and round to look for an empty space or to wait in a long queue.

The quality of life can be much better, if Singapore is not so crowded. I had experienced this feeling when I visited a friend in Ohio, USA. There was so much space and houses and cars were not expensive. People had time to talk to their neighbors and friends. 

Business of the future

Read this interesting article. I am interested to do 2, 3 and 7 and look for people who want to participate in these exciting  projects.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-grahams-advice-for-startups-2012-3#ixzz1orLvRoOw

1. A better search engine. Google was once an awesome search engine. It is now bloated up with all sorts of extra features. Graham says, "Google search results used to look like the output of a Unix utility. Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might happen." He suggests building something closer to that old-school, super simple version of Google.

2. Make email better. Email is just a "todo" list says Graham. As it's built right now, it's a terrible todo list. We need a new protocol for email. "As a todo list protocol, the new protocol should give more power to the recipient than email does."

3. Kill off universities. There has to be a better way to do education than what we've got right now.

4. Deliver great TV programming through the internet. The content companies have been slow to embrace the Internet. So, some startup needs to figure out a way to deliver the drama that people love on TV through the Internet. Says Graham, "There are two ways delivery and payment could play out. Either some company like Netflix or Apple will be the app store for entertainment, and you'll reach audiences through them. Or the would-be app stores will be too overreaching, or too technically inflexible, and companies will arise to supply payment and streaming a la carte to the producers of drama. If that's the way things play out, there will also be a need for such infrastructure companies."

5. Be the next Steve Jobs. Graham believes Apple is toast without Steve Jobs. As a result, there's an opportunity for a visionary to come up with an idea for a new hardware company like Apple.

6. Re-invent Moore's law. This one is a little complicated. Graham says Intel can't deliver faster CPUs, just more CPUs. "It would be great if a startup could give us something of the old Moore's Law back, by writing software that could make a large number of CPUs look to the developer like one very fast CPU."

7. Improve medical diagnosis. In 50-100 years, Graham thinks people will consider our current methods for diagnosing serious health conditions "barbaric." There has to be a better way to figure out if we have cancer, or if our arteries are being clogged up.