I met a person at China Town ...

After a customer visit yesterday, it was rather late to head back to the office.So I decided to head into town and fetch my wife.

On reaching town area, I ended up too early and there was 1/2 an hour to spend. The next thing I did was to went to China Town. There was this newspaper stand at China town manned by an old lady, I guess she was about 70 or so. While buying the newspaper, I struck out a conversation with her ( that happened to be one of my special skills ). I was surprise that she did not own the newspaper stand, in fact, she was employed.

Further chat with her revealed that she has been working in NTUC, resigned 3 times and was requested to go back. She admitted that as age caught up with her, it became more difficult to work fast. She decided to leave NTUC some time after her fourth return.

She also mentioned of a manager there who was very particular about cleaniness, unfortunately the work location was where all the grossaries, meats and fishes were process, one hell of a dirty surrounding. Yet he insisted on keeping the place clean, so after some goods were dragged across the place every time, she has to clean and mop.

She also mentioned about her present job. I asked her why does it not belong to her. She said that her employer was the one who went sourcing for the books, magazines and newspapers, it would be quite impossible if she is to do it. The employer,I guess, also hire drivers to deliver the goods to each marked spots of his territory.

Her pay was SGD18 per day, no CPF, no benefit of a standard employee. Every morning, she has to make her way from Yishun all the way down to China Town paying retiree fare of about SGD1.60 both ways. Breakfast of about SGD2.00, lunch of SGD3.50. All these come up to SGD7.10. Her take home amount is about SGD10.90. Assuming around SGD100 for utility bills per month, a further SGD3.30 is deducted, leaving SGD7.60.

Assuming she works 7 days per week, per month's saving is about SGD228. Minus misc including hair cuts, doctors visit, that practically leave her with almost nothing! She is practically living off back to back.

I asked her is her son help out with her cost of living, she responded that it is already difficult for him to support his own family, let alone helping her. Neither was there any help from the government.

I admire her because of her will to live on, she would continue to sit there under an umbrella in front of the MRT entrance everyday selling the papers. There is probably no probability of a pay rise and should and problem falls on her, there is almost no chance that anyone can support her.

We talked for about 15 minutes and she was enthuastic to tell me her life story, it would seem to me that it has been a long time since someone listened to her hardship. I can't help but wonder, she is just one of the many newspaper seller around Singapore and these people are living on the edge of poverty everyday. Yet, there is actually no set up on Government part to ensure the welfare of all these people. Well, probably there are but have the Government made known to the public on where they can find help?

As far as I know, the Government is willing to throw SGD400Mil for a gamble on Singapore's fame, yet how much has been allocated to support the less fortunate? Is glory worth so much more than to ensure the happiness of the people?

As far as I know, Butan was a country where the king there decided that his people's happiness would be the most important, that is why even though the lifestye is quite backward and there is a great potential for tourism, the king and the government there simply refuse to oen up and allow influx of tourist to retain their way of living.


Fig 1 STI Weekly Chart

As I come back to my chart, I recall during my restart that my focus should be on higher time frame. It might have been blurred through time and I ended up looking a each new bar everyday. May be it is because I pushed myself on writing blog entries. I really need to take a step back from what I am doing now.

STI as I see it should be on continuation downward as far as the weekly chart is concerned. Certainly Stochastic has turned downward while RSI might have slowed down probably indicating a correction (upward) is coming.

Another interesting observation is the 14 weeks RSI which is noticibly having 2 consecutive divergences through the 3 peaks. It is definitely strong indication that a big one is eventually coming.

I have not seen any confirm pattern as far. The chart will really have to break through some thing either up or downward. The support base on 21 weeks Moving Average is 2,898 while resistance 3,043, the previous high.