NTU PRC scholar: 50% of my schoolmates break bonds & return to china for good!

[FA+TA]

The treatment can be the same as advertisements. If the topic is deemed to be political with not much linkage with investment, it can be relegated to another sub board discussion that will not hog the recent topics.

The lovers and haters can then continue their squabbles until the cows come home.

Second that! Moderators please consider. Recent topics should be Companies or stock discussions only.

Second that. Create a General Chat similar to Advertise here. Let the PAP lovers and haters pit against each other.

Former PAP supporter but now supportor of SG's future.

[Temperament]

The treatment can be the same as advertisements. If the topic is deemed to be political with not much linkage with investment, it can be relegated to another sub board discussion that will not hog the recent topics.

The lovers and haters can then continue their squabbles until the cows come home.

Second that! Moderators please consider. Recent topics should be Companies or stock discussions only.

I am assuring all that moderators are working hard to do the DD, not on investment, but to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of our forum.

We don't want to do a quick job, and revert later which might confuse buddies here.

Thanks for all the comments. We are listening.

Regards
Moderator

On the hand, be careful of Dichotomous Thinking

Definition:
{Dichotomous thinking is also sometimes called “black or white thinking.” This is when someone is only able to see the extremes of a situation, and is unable to see the “gray areas” or complexities of the situation. For example, a student who engages in dichotomous thinking may believe that if they don't get an "A" in class then they have failed.

Dichotomous thinking is a very common problem in people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this disorder, people tend to see themselves, others, and the world as either “all good” or “all bad.” Dichotomous thinking in BPD is linked to splitting behavior}

Unquote
In fact life is more than BLACK & WHITE & GREY.
There are the technical colours.
i think any idea /comment that has the slightest connection to finance, money, investment, is fair game for anyone to say it in this forum.

By the way,
How much and how long can you keep on talking about how good the company performs and nothing else? You definitely come to talk about the people in the company. And when come to talk about the people, it is definitely more than B & W & G. It usually lead to talk about the political climate inside and outside of the company. Human beings can not escape being political. Even animals have some natural political instinct build into them for propagating their gene.

i propose we must guard against Dichotomous Thinking. i am guilty sometimes too.

[DP28]

if the PRC scholars stay and find jobs here, Singaporeans will say more foreign talent compete for jobs ?
If they went back to china without serving bond, singaporeans will say waste scholarship money ?
So best is dont even award the scholarship ?

Just to clarify a common misconception on why we bother to offer scholarship and bond them for 6 years here.

It is about networking, and hopefully we get one of the top decision making guys as part of our network.

Imagine if one of the China politburo member came from the PRC scholars. Or a CEO of an MNC. That is the main idea of why we offer scholarships using our taxpayers' money for overseas students. Taken in isolation it is a cost... but looking at the bigger strategic picture it does make sense

In this case, it will be a costly network exercise that hasnt yield any fruit yet. Even if there is a potential.. How many cream will be from the lot? Just look at our SG sports paddler for an example.. I believe Singaporeans can be nurtured.. but are we ever given a chance to be consider?

[Harvest Time]

You can't grow the population too quickly thru immigration. Neither can you grow the workforce by foreign talents too quickly.

Once the ratio of FT vs LT or Foreigners vs Citizen become too high, it will have a lot social impacts.

[Zelphon]

You can't grow the population too quickly thru immigration. Neither can you grow the workforce by foreign talents too quickly.

Once the ratio of FT vs LT or Foreigners vs Citizen become too high, it will have a lot social impacts.

It is already ridiculously high...

[Harvest Time]

You can't grow the population too quickly thru immigration. Neither can you grow the workforce by foreign talents too quickly.

Once the ratio of FT vs LT or Foreigners vs Citizen become too high, it will have a lot social impacts.

It is already ridiculously high...

Agree. this is why we see a lot of negative social impacts.

I don't wish something bad to happen, but sometimes it is good that something bad happen, then they will realize some of our concerns are genuine and correct.

Example
If there were no major SMRT breakdown, unlikely they will have big and concrete plans to improve SMRT service level.

[specuvestor]

if the PRC scholars stay and find jobs here, Singaporeans will say more foreign talent compete for jobs ?
If they went back to china without serving bond, singaporeans will say waste scholarship money ?
So best is dont even award the scholarship ?

Just to clarify a common misconception on why we bother to offer scholarship and bond them for 6 years here.

It is about networking, and hopefully we get one of the top decision making guys as part of our network.

Imagine if one of the China politburo member came from the PRC scholars. Or a CEO of an MNC. That is the main idea of why we offer scholarships using our taxpayers' money for overseas students. Taken in isolation it is a cost... but looking at the bigger strategic picture it does make sense

In this case, it will be a costly network exercise that hasnt yield any fruit yet. Even if there is a potential.. How many cream will be from the lot? Just look at our SG sports paddler for an example.. I believe Singaporeans can be nurtured.. but are we ever given a chance to be consider?

You can't grow the population too quickly thru immigration. Neither can you grow the workforce by foreign talents too quickly.

Once the ratio of FT vs LT or Foreigners vs Citizen become too high, it will have a lot social impacts.

Yes agree it's a balance. The problem with Singapore mentality is we have too much an MNC mentality since the days of our independence, which had served us well in the past

Hence we rely on foreigners to be running the top of the organisation. And not realising that sometimes Singaporean can do the job. Even looking at our local banks to could-have-been Temasek CEO.

On the other hand the reward for networking has a pretty long gestation period. If we offer a guy scholarship today, it will take some time before the guy become a top decision maker. It's probably too early to say whether it is effective.

We can look at how China model works and taking the rail as an example:

The first rail is built by foreigners. It is implicit that the client wants to reverse engineer the technologies so as to "understand" the product better. That's why Americans stay out except for those countries that need money for eg France

The second rail is a JV. Now learning not only about the product but also the management.

The third rail is made in China. Sure there are hiccups but they will constantly improve on mistakes.

It doesn't end there. The fourth rail is exported.

I think this is where our mentality have to shift, albeit more challenging due to our small domestic market. Expertise have to transfer from foreigners to citizens, or the foreigner has to eventually become citizen. Then as a collective whole we can progress further in this knowledge economy... That should be the real aim of the FT policies.

Hi all,

I'm also of the view that VB is primarily a Investing forum (that's the original mission of the forum) and all non-investing related topics should be kept off the forum.

In sum, what I'm saying is that VB is an investing/personal finance/money matters forum. If you wish to talk about other matters, please take it elsewhere. There are other forums where you'll find views and opinions on such matters.

The treatment can be the same as advertisements. If the topic is deemed to be political with not much linkage with investment, it can be relegated to another sub board discussion that will not hog the recent topics.

The lovers and haters can then continue their squabbles until the cows come home.

Second that! Moderators please consider. Recent topics should be Companies or stock discussions only.

I am assuring all that moderators are working hard to do the DD, not on investment, but to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of our forum.

We don't want to do a quick job, and revert later which might confuse buddies here.

Thanks for all the comments. We are listening.

Regards
Moderator

IMHO discussing investments without considering the sociopolitical structure is like analysing a company without considering management. In stock threads we also see many pro-company and anti-company comments that hardly changes even when events change.

I'm not sure if these "political" threads are overwhelming the forum, but certainly sometimes accounting most of the traffic, so there is a misconception. It is not difficult to count the number of threads that are "political" vs those not in the "recent topics" So moderators should identify the issue correctly. Removing the volume might have adverse impact on the forum traffic as well. My 2 cents

[kazukirai]

IMHO discussing investments without considering the sociopolitical strcuture is like analysing a company without considering management. In stock threads we also see many pro-company and anti-company comments that hardly changes even when events change.

I'm not sure if these "political" threads are overwhelming the forum, but certainly sometimes accounting most of the traffic, so there is a misconception. So moderators should identify the issue correctly. Removing the volume might have adverse impact on the forum traffic as well. My 2 cents

Hi Specuvestor,

I agree that politics and business (and therefore, by extension, investing) cannot be divorced but on the other hand, the question is that do we want VB to become a forum that attracts forummers who come here with a primary motive to TCSS or make one-liner, thoughtless postings?

I think all buddies will agree that the first priority for VB is to remain a forum for investing (esp in the local context) and NOT a forum for non investing related news or discussions- I think there are other more popular forums for this and personally, I would be happy to see such discussions take place on those forums and not on VB.

Having said that, I understand that having to login to multiple forums is a pain and therefore I'm also for the suggestion that the non-investing related threads be parked such that they don't appear on the 'recent posts' updates.

[CityFarmer]

IMHO discussing investments without considering the sociopolitical strcuture is like analysing a company without considering management. In stock threads we also see many pro-company and anti-company comments that hardly changes even when events change.

I'm not sure if these "political" threads are overwhelming the forum, but certainly sometimes accounting most of the traffic, so there is a misconception. So moderators should identify the issue correctly. Removing the volume might have adverse impact on the forum traffic as well. My 2 cents

Point noted.

First of all, there is a difference between relevant sociopolitical discussion in company threads (e.g. SMRT), and a "pure" controversial sociopolitical discussion (e.g. NTU PRC scholar). The issue of primary/supplementary role that we are mulling.

Thread count isn't overwhelming, but the post count (traffic) is, as of now. We saw an undesirable trend, which undermining the primary role of VB. We are mulling a proactive action here

We will announce the action once confirmed by us.

Thanks for the feedback.

Regards
Moderator

[specuvestor]

Thanks for the response. You guys are doing excellent work on policy crafting as well ie governance

I see where you guys are coming from: the topic has to have some relevance to investing.

I'm sure you will be able to fine tune it most optimally. Thanks for the effort in making this forum a must-read for me everyday, except weekends