Singapore's score on human rights

How does Singapore fare on human rights compared to other countries. This is shown by the CIRI rating which is created by two professors.They meansured the scores based on 15 attributes for 200 countries.

You can view the data here:
http://tklcloud.com/MAS/ciri.aspx

Click on Singapore (or another other country) and see the trend over the past 25 years. See the trend of the indicators. If you see the breakdown, you will be surprised. Singapore's score is quite good on "physical integrity" which includes the imprisonment of political prisoners. But the score is quite poor on "empowerment" and "women rights".

Let our collective voices be heard

Here are the issues that are relevant to Singapore. They are local issues and foreign issue that have a bearing on Singapore.

You can vote on these issues and lend your voice to the collective results. Let our voices and views be heard.

www.wisdomofthecrowd.sg/vote.aspx.

You can also click on the link "Results" to see the results of the voting on issues that have closed. Many of the issues have a small number of votes, so the results are not credible. We need more votes to get more credible results.

Let our collective voice be heard. It is easy to vote on the issues. Just click on the Facebook or Google logo in the voting page to submit your vote.

Ask the right questions on financial planning

What are the most important questions that a young person should ask concerning financial planning? By asking the right questions, they will have achieved half of the journey to get the right answers. This is explained in the short video on "Financial Planning" that can be viewed at www.tankinlian.com/learn.

Most people ask the wrong question and they got the wrong answer that ruin their financial planning for the rest of their life.

Dangers of "as charged" medical plans

Many consumers like the "as charged" medical plans offered by private insurers. They do not have to worry about the "inner limits" that is covered for each type of treatment.

However, there is a hidden danger. This is explained in the article here: www.fisca.sg

Speech at Hong Lim Park, 10 December 2016

I will be speaking on Human Rights at Hong Lim Park on Saturday 10 December 4 to 7 pm. The United Nations has declared 10 December to be Human Rights Day. I hope to see many of you at the event.

How to get a rider for Medishield Life

Mr. Tan
Should I buy a rider to cover the deductible under my Medishield Life plan?

Reply
Medishield Life does not provide the rider. You have to buy an integrated shield plan from a private insurance to get the rider. However, I read that the private insurers will probably withdraw the rider.

I usually advice people not to buy this rider. It is better to self-insure this risk. You can get a clearer explanation from the video on the integrated shield plan in www.tankinlian.com/learn.

We need more votes

Mr. Tan
I saw that there are only 10 votes for some issues in the wisdom website. Are these votes indicative of the popular opinion?

Reply.
No. We need to have more votes, maybe 50 or more, to make the results credible. I hope that more people will come in and give their votes. We must make our collective voice heard.

I have made it easy for people to vote. But they must be prepared to come forward and exercise their vote. They need to give their voice.

www.wisdomofthecrowd.sg/vote.aspx

11 countries with the best human rights

This is the ranking based on the CIRI index. It measures the score on 15 indicators. CIRI are the initials of the two professors who created this index.

I will be finding out the ranking of Singapore on this index, but it is definitely outside of the top 11 countries.

The 11 countries with the highest ranking are all small countries. The top is Norway. Here are a short description of each country.

1 Norway
It can’t be said that Norway tops the list of the 11 countries with the best human rights ranking in the world, but it surely takes one of the winning places with a high score in the CIRI rankings.

2. San Marino
San Marino is a dwarf country in Europe which is known for its wealthy population and its low rates of crime and unemployment. To add to that, San Marino is also a notable upholder of human rights

3. Canada
Canada has been jokingly named the place with the most polite people in the world for a reason. There not only the state but also society respects people’s rights and proper treatment

4. Belgium
Aside from some of the best beers and chocolate, one more thing to love about Belgium is the freedom it gives its population. The country is highly culturally diversive and rich in cultural heritage.

5. Luxemburg
Luxembourg has long been known for its very high standard of living and its wealth. Now you also know that you can expect one of the most ethical treatments, were you to become a permanent resident.

6. Sweden
Denmark and Norway’s formal Scandinavian counterpart takes the sixth place in our list of the 11 countries with the best human right ranking in the world.

7. Finland
Finland is another (informally) Scandinavian country which excels in the areas of education, healthcare, civil right and freedom. What is more, it has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

8. Denmark
Denmark is another part of Scandinavia that is estimated to uphold human rights to a noticeably large extent. Aside from that, the country also offers a very progressive, high standard of living in general.

9. Iceland
Despite having the privilege to be righteously classified as being in “the middle of nowhere”, Iceland’s inhabitants at least receive some of the most ethical treatment in the world

10. New Zealand
The small island country of lush meadows and diverse culture has long been known as a home to some of the happiest people and now we see why.

11. Slovenia
The central European country of Slovenia takes the eleventh place in this list. Aside from being one of the most ethical countries in the world, Slovenia’s educational system is ranked as the twelfth best globally.

The CIRI Human Rights Dataset contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 202 countries, annually from 1981-2011. It is designed for use by scholars and students who seek to test theories about the causes and consequences of human rights violations, as well as policy makers and analysts who seek to estimate the human rights effects of a wide variety of institutional changes and public policies including democratization, economic aid, military aid, structural adjustment, and humanitarian intervention.

"Bad human rights" in Singapore

I was invited to talk about the "bad human rights" in Singapore. The talk is scheduled for 10 December which is Human Rights Day as declared by the United Nations.

I was not sure about what are the fundamental human rights. I looked up the Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.

I was disappointed. It was a badly written and confusing document. No wonder, few countries paid attention to it.

Surely, the UN could get someone to write a more concise and focused document?

Never mind!

What are the "bad human rights" in Singapore? Let me hear your views.

Give your vote on three key issues facing Singapore

Here is your chance to give you view on three topics:

1) The reserved election will help to promote racial harmony in Singapore
2) Dr. Tan Cheng Bok has been unfairly denied of the opportunity to contest in the next presidential election.
3) Mr. Chan Chun Sing will make a good future prime minister of Singapore.

Give your vote at
www.wisdomofthecrowd.sg/vote.aspx

Keep up the good work, FISCA

A FISCA member said:

I do like what FISCA is doing so far.

Being a child of parents who were cheated of tens of thousands of dollars by unjust insurance policies, I do not want others to end up the same.

The insurance industry flourishes through the blood, sweat and tears of ordinary, hardworking folk.The industry is also made up of tons of under-qualified employees, whom are promoted based on their sales acumen, as opposed to their technical competence. This is really extremely unethical, in my opinion.

I would like for FISCA to continue to do what it does to empower the public to protect their money and health, even if what it does may not be the popular choice. I will support the organisation as much as I can. Keep it up =)!

www.fisca.sg

Dentist pulls out wrong tooth

If the dentist pull out the wrong tooth, should he compensate the patient and how much?

My answer is given here:
www.fisca.sg

Big increase in cost of breakfast

I stopped at Bras Basah Road at 8 am and went to the food court at Manulife Center. It changed from Kopitiam to Food Republic. I was surprised that the coffee, toast and egg breakfast cost $6. It used to be $2.50 three years ago.

I went to the outlet at SMU. Their coffee set cost $5.

The price has increased a lot in 3 years. It is probably cost by the high levies for foreign workers. All the workers in the two outlets were from PRC, judging from their accent.

Five years to make a change

SMRT introduced the display board in their buses about 5 years back. I found the display board to be difficult to read. They have the unnecessary message "Please move to the rear ...". Most of the time, you see this message and have to wait to see the next bus stop. The most important information appears only a brief moment before this unnecessary long message appears.

They have finally removed the useless message. The new display is quite helpful. We see the name of the next bus stop and "Welcome Abroad" or "Bus Stopping". It took 5 years for them to recognize the obvious problem and make a change.

I like them to add the sequence number before the bus stop, e.g. 12: Thomson Plaza or 13: Flame Tree Park. The sequence number is helpful also. I shall wait patiently for another 5 years for this change to be done.

After that, maybe another 5 years for them to put in a display board for the bus route.

We do have an excellent standard of service in Singapore (sarcastic), but we have to wait one generation!

Display a route guide in the bus

I took bus 132 from "opposite British High Commission" to "Thomson Plaza". As it was raining, I decided to wait a few more stop to get down at "Ai Tong School".

I looked around the bus to see a bus guide to make sure that the bus would turn into Sin Ming Avenue. I could not find one.

The bus continued straight. I had to get down and cross the road to take a bus back a few stops.

Why can't our bus display a guide to show the stops that the bus takes? I know that they do provide the printed bus guide but surely a proper poster in the bus would be a better option?

How much should you spend on insurance?

Do not spend more then 2% of your income on insurance. If you earn $3000 a month, your insurance premium should be less than $60 a month or $720 a year. If you are paying more in insurance premium, that is too much. Why?

You can get an explanation from the video "Have a balanced Financial Health". It is available from

www.tankinlian.com/learn.

Have a balanced financial health

Do you have a balanced financial health? The answer to this question is set out in the video available from www.tankinlian.com/learn.

This video is targeted at slightly older people with some savings and need to know how to invest the savings safely and to get a reasonably good return.

More important, they have to know how to avoid scams and bad investments.

www.tankinlian.com/learn