forum--Helen

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_484043.html

Taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos

This forum mainly discusses whether it is proper to set up the police unit to deal with the crimes in casinos using the taxpayers’ money.

In my own opinion, the government can adopt some measurement to support, and maybe influence in the future, the police unit in casinos instead of totally taking charge of it. It is inevitable that the build-up of casinos will arouse a lot of crimes such as fraud; and as profit-oriented organizations, such behaviors will definitely decrease their credibility and consequently casinos will lose the public interest, not to mention, profit. Although casinos are private properties, normally, they should mind their own business and cope with such issues; but on the other hand, they will bring huge benefit to Singapore, tourism, for example, is one of the influenced industries. In addition, the rise of casinos will cause chaos if the crimes are not dealt well with; and there is no doubt that keeping the society in order is the obligation that Singapore government has.

So, the government should encourage the formation of the police unit in casinos and adopt corresponding measures such as training the police to be specialists in dealing deception, for there has never appeared casinos in Singapore before and the police are not equipped with relevant knowledge. As for the fund, the owners of the casinos should pay for their own properties; after all, they have the capacity, and responsibility.

Liu Yiping (Helen)

Comments: Pu Xiaoheng&Yang Yu

Draco ——U.S. Government Plans to Reduce Its Energy Use

According to the report, Obama’s government is going to “cut its energy use and reduce its heat-trapping emissions”, this decision is going to save 28 percent of energy use of the government by 2020 compared with that of 2008. At the same time, this action will save $8 billion to $11 billion in energy costs for Obama. In this plan, quite a lot of new energy plants will take the place of traditional ones. For instance, the Army is installing a 500-megawatt solar plant in the Mojave Desert at its Fort Irwin training grounds. The Department of Defense will sacrifice the most in the program: by the year 2020, the department will have reduced 34 percent of the current cost. Besides, many new jobs will be offered during this program, just like the police of Roosevelt.

It is no doubt that this new policy will surly benefit a lot to not only Obama’s budget, but also to all human beings for its reduction of heat-trapping emissions may contribute a lot to the slow-down of global warming. However, from this money-saving and environment-saving plan we can easily see that there are still quite a number of developed countries have the potential to reduce, but they just haven’t realized this as Obama does. This can be defined as a kind of “awareness” – people are not aware that some sorts of daily spent is completely unnecessary. So what we need is not one more plan like Obama’s, but a common understanding—we need to save all what we can.

By the way, there is another voice saying that the heat-trapping emission is not the primary dynamic of global warming. Through the observation of melting ice in South Pole, scientist found that the ice is melt from the bottom rather than the part exposed to the sun, which indicates that the earth itself is getting warmer and warmer.

P.S. commented on Rachel's reflection and Hill's.

Catherine -- Reflection to ST forum

url: http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_484043.html

I refer to Ms. Tan Jiaqi’ letter ‘Taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos’ which comments on this Thursday’s article ‘Special training for casino squad’. I can not quite agree with the author’s point of view. According to Ms. Tan, the police unit against casino should not be set up and funded by taxpayers because the beneficiaries will be casino operators but not common citizens. Furthermore, she suggested that casinos should train their own investigators to detect fraudulent gambling.

I want to give my objections here. First of all, it is a bit too narrow to think that casino operators will be the only beneficiaries of the launching of the police unit against casino crime. Mr. Ng Joo Hee, the person who launched the unit, said: 'Singapore's casinos must be a safe place for all those who work and play there.’ (http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100128/tap-singapore-gaming-casino-crime-06f3cb7.html) The citizens of Singapore will be definitely included in the people who work and play in casinos so that they will certainly benefit from the security of the casino areas. In addition, the police unit will contribute to protecting citizens and the society from being affected by casino related crime. Besides, the suggestion of managing the crime investigation by the people from casino is not that practical. Casino crime like fraud is too severe to be dealt with by the casinos themselves. Only the police have the power and force to castigate crime according to the law. Last but not least, the government hopes the casinos will attract more visitors, thus boost the economy of Singapore. If this goal is accomplished, the citizens of Singapore would achieve big advantages. However, if the safety of casino areas cannot be ensured, the appeal of casinos would suffer as well as the economy then. Therefore, in my opinion, the launch of the police unit against casino is essential, and it is also rational that the launch is funded by taxpayers.

PS: Last week, I commented on Hawk's and Harry's reflections.

Taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_484043.html

http://www.raterenterprise.com/GGS/images/GGS/jackpot.jpg

Quote:

Jan 30, 2010

Taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos

I REFER to Thursday's report, 'Special training for police unit fighting casino crime'.

I am puzzled as to why the Singapore Police Force is setting up a unit, funded by taxpayers, to investigate crimes and fraudulent gambling in the casinos in the integrated resorts. The police should preserve law and order, and enforce the property rights of common citizens. Taxpayers' money is used to fund the force because all citizens stand to benefit from law, order and property rights.

A police force in any country is funded by taxpayers' money because the public at large stands to gain more than any individual.

However, the only beneficiaries from the prevention of fraud in casinos are the casino operators, and there are no visible spillover benefits to general law enforcement from police officers being trained to detect fraudsters in casinos, because the casinos are a specialised setting.

If the police did not have a casino crime unit, the only losers would be the casinos themselves, and being profit-seeking organisations, they would naturally pay for detection of such fraud, such as by training their own investigators to detect fraudulent gambling.

In other words, enforcement of honest behaviour in casinos is not a public good, from an economic point of view, and the casinos can pay for it because they are the only ones who stand to gain from preventing fraud. Public funds are being used unfairly to pay for the protection of private interests of the profit-seeking casinos. This injustice is exacerbated by the fact that casinos typically earn outrageous profits, and it is only right that they pay to protect their own interests.

Tan Jiaqi

Comments:

As far as I am concerned, taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos as Ms tan suggests. She observes the function of the police very clearly, public benefits, which is why it is funded by taxpayers. Besides, I don`t think that she is opposing the investigation. In fact, Ms. Tan affirms that proper investigation is a necessity, not by the police, but the casino operators themselves. After all, they are making benefits all the time. In western countries, the casinos are under surveillance by the trained crew of their own or hired. Not only should the casino operators take good care of themselves, but also it is more efficient and convenient to protect the order of casinos with their own crew.

However, in spite of what Ms. Tan states, I would like to propose opposition since this implementation by the government is still reasonable. This is the very beginning for setting up casinos in Singapore, which we all know that it is actually for attracting more tourists. Imagine that if the casinos here are notorious for the fraudulence, how much will they be expected as places of interest? How much can they be expected? Losing credits will be fatal for places like casinos and bankrupting is just a matter of time if it ever happens. In order to protect the world recognition, it is understandable that the government should share the responsibilities. Moreover, as for Singaporean citizens, they have the right to have fun in the casinos, but whether they will enjoy the right is the matter of their own. At this point, the government should of course protect this public right and we can see that the effort is being made. Therefore, I understand this policy though do not really agree with it.

Last week’s reflection: Draco, Catherine and Yvonne

The Underlying Tragedy ----by Helen

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?bl

The devastation from the earthquake in Haiti should be used as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. First of all, we don't really know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Countries that haven't got much aid, like China, have been developing fast and there are tremendous poverty reduction; while countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not. Secondly, micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Thirdly, culture should be focus on to tackle global poverty. Haiti is poor because of its history of oppression, slaverty and colonialism, as well as the influence of the voodoo religion. Fourth, it's time to promote locally led paternalism. In all, this earthquake is a trauma for cultures to change.

These are all good thoughts but yet the earthquake happened. Although many of the observations are perhaps true, what is needed now is compassion and pratical help. Probably the mistake of " throwing money at it" is true, but it is the wrong time to say so. Because right now, money means food; money means water; money means docters; money means life.

After the disaster, maybe it is the right time to think about this tragedy. It is true that powerful countries are becoming richer and richer; while weak countires are turning poorer and poorer.
Haiti is basically just a destitute version of most countries in the world today, while a wealthy, corrupt minority maintains a system that leaves the impoverished majority worring more about their next meal than their govenment. In my own point of view, America, as the superpower in the world, has a moral obligation to offer as much help as possible, but after the rubble is cleared and the bodies buried, the simple truth is that only Haitians themselves can change Haiti. They have a corrupt government that must be dealt with and removed, which they can only depend on themselves and no one can help.

15th, Jan. Draco -- Scaling the Digital Wall in China

For the sake of censorship, Chinese government set up a Great Firewall to keep citizens away from many wide-open web sites like Youtube Twitter and Facebook which are all considered to be dangerous. However, the digital wall hasn’t shown much positive effects as anticipated because many tools like AnchorFree have been produced to “shield” individuals and thus evade the wall successfully.
Along with some other reasons, this kind of blocking by government urges Google to make decision to pull out Google.cn, which would mean Internet in China becoming isolated from the world.
My advice to government is to tear down this virtual wall and there are two reasons. Firstly, no matter how great the wall is, there will always be some evaders, and these evaders could result in a larger group of evaders. When the wall becomes stronger, the number of evader decreases, then grows again…This vicious circle is actually a virtual battle between citizens and the gov. which would ultimately result in dissatisfaction. Secondly, the digital wall shows a non-welcoming attitude to the western world and this is obviously against China's basic policy – “reform and open”. Besides, misunderstanding in a long term between China and the western world will come into being and China would suffer a heavier pressure from international opinion this way.

Catherine -- Google 'may pull out of China after Gmail cyber attack'

This news mainly tells about that Google said they might close Google.cn and their office in China. The reason provided by Google was that the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists have suffered from cyber attack originating from China. However, there are also other opinions that Google’s pull-out of China is for financial reasons. This kind of opinion makes sense. Google is the first search engine in most markets while it comes second in China following Baidu. The profit made in China may be not satisfactory to Google company. Apart from the two reasons above, Google are having some problems about copyright with some Chinese writers. All these issues that Google face make the ‘pull-out’ not only seem as alarmism.

From my point of view, Google’s pull-out of China doesn’t seem as a wise choice. First of all, if Google pulls out of China, they should deal with many problems such as the employees in Google China company. In addition, they are giving up a developing market with huge potential. China has the largest number of Netizens in the world. As a professional search engine, Google should have the confidence that it will become popular and cannot be replaced among Chinese Netizens. Last but not least, Google aims at becoming an international search engine. If they do not take China which is a rapidly-developing country into consideration, this long-term goal may not be accomplished. If Google really gives up China, I’m sure that many Google users in China will be very disappointed, and it will definitely be a loss towards Chinese Netizens.

url: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8455712.stm

Wk1 Hawk-Google’s Threat Echoed Everywhere, Except China-reflection

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/asia/14beijing.html?ref=world

Google’s Threat Echoed Everywhere, Except China

By ANDREW JACOBS, MIGUEL HELFT and JOHN MARKOFF

Published: January 13, 2010

Google alleged that it was attacked by Chinese hackers and prepared to stop providing services in China. Facing this challenge, the Chinese government did not compromise at all. Instead, the relevant news was strictly censored. However, this was not the only reason why Google wanted to quit China. As more and more sensitive topics were required to be banned by Chinese government, Google felt poor Internet freedom in China. As a result, it implicated that the market in China might be abandoned.

As far as I am concerned, regardless of the credibility of this, if Google really quits China, the aftermath will be mutually depressing. For Chinese government, although there are search engines like Baidu, Gougou and Sohu, it will lose the most powerful one if Google quits. In addition, services like Gmail.cn and Google earth will be terminated. For a country that holds more than 300 million netizens, this will definitely bring no benefit. As for Google, the consequence could be even worse. I think it is very unwise for Google to quit China unless Google cannot really recognize that China is a rising power in the world and some day it will become one of the most powerful countries in the world. The potential market may possibly bring enormous benefit. Quitting at this time is “out of date” action. Why not just learn from what Microsoft did to Chinese market? If Google want to develop in China, it should abide the laws in China without question. It is more or less naïve to treat China the same way as western countries for Google (Internet Freedom?), but I do agree that people have the rights to know things, and it would be better if Google can balance this leverage, here in China.

Hawk