Mr Wang Says So

Grace Fu Should Consider Resignation

2012-01-06T17:33:00.008+08:00

Singapore has the world's most highly-paid ministers. If I recall correctly, they have held this world record for about the past 20 years. It is a record that has caused a huge amount of public unhappiness. Especially in the past decade, during which the government didn't ever seem to be particularly impressive or outstanding.

Now, finally, ministerial salaries are going to be cut. Mind you, after these cuts (which are quite substantial in percentage terms - about 36%), the ministers will STILL hold their world record. Which must surely suggest to any half-intelligent person how grossly overpaid the ministers have been all along.

But then you get the likes of Grace Fu (who is our Minister of State for something or the other). Writing on her own Facebook wall, Fu says:

“When I made the decision to join politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor. Loss of privacy, public scrutiny on myself and my family and loss of personal time were. The disruption to my career was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one [sic] considering political office.” Grace Fu.

Now, lots of Singaporeans are angry with Grace Fu. The comments have come thick, fast and furious. As of right now, her Facebook post has drawn about 1,300 comments (that's about 650 times the average number of comments on her other Facebook postings). And of course, there is plenty of negative media attention, online and in the newspapers too.

Putting aside the other issues for now, I'm startled at Grace Fu's lack of political sensitivity. It was really, really stupid and unnecessary of her to write such a thing. Fu wasn't even under pressure. It wasn't as if she was at a press conference, and a belligerent journalist had just thrown an unexpected and difficult question at her, and she couldn't think fast enough about what best to say.

Instead - we can imagine it - there she was, relaxing in her living room, playing with her iPad, sipping a nice cup of tea, logging in to check her messages. And then suddenly, Fu decided to write what she wrote. On Facebook. Not in a private journal, not in a personal memo, but on Facebook.

She must have totally failed to foresee what would happen next.

What poor judgment! What a severe lack of foresight. And she's a minister, for goodness sakes. Who knows what other horrible errors she might have spoken or written, on other past occasions.

Now, of course Fu is backpedalling and she has made a statement that she had been "misunderstood". This is damage control .... for completely self-inflicted damage. LOL, that is funny.

Imagine this - you are a minister, and you say something, the public is shocked and angry. And then you say, "Oh, all of you tens of thousands of people, you've misunderstood me. I am the poor, unfortunate, misunderstood one." Sing me another song, birdie.

"Me talk cock. Also can sing song.

How much you pay me?"

If Grace Fu can be so badly misunderstood, then that surely says something about Grace Fu's communication skills. It is extremely difficult to get thousands of people to misunderstand you. I am sure that I could not possibly succeed in pulling off such a feat. (But then I am not a PAP minister, I lack such talent).

However - and this will surprise many of my own readers - I am not actually angry about the content, the actual substance, of Grace Fu's statement.

Why am I not angry?

Look - this woman is merely a product of the system. And what is the system that I speak of? It is the PAP recruitment system that Lee Kuan Yew decided to create, 20 years ago. A system that deliberately entices job applicants with world-record-setting amounts of money.

The inevitable result - the PAP attracts many talented political wannabes whose main interest is in the money. (Meanwhile, talented political wannabes who just hope to serve the nation can join the Workers' Party - like Chen Show Mao did).

And when the money gets cut, well, you can naturally expect the PAP ministers (at least, the more money-minded ones) to get upset. Isn't that logical? If you had come for the money, then you WOULD be upset by a pay cut, surely.

My blog post is entitled "Grace Fu Should Consider Resignation". Sounds sensationalist, doesn't it? But it isn't really. (I'm not that kind of blogger, lah). Let me just explain my thinking.

It goes like this - if any minister is really very unhappy with his or her pay, then he or she can always quit. It's not like they are being forced to be ministers.

Unhappy employees don't perform well - we know that from our own experiences in working life. It is better for the company if they quit. It is better for themselves too, for they can go elsewhere and find another job that is more satisfying for them.

Why would we expect things to be any different for our ministers? If they are not happy with their pay, they won't perform well. They should just quit and get a more lucrative job elsewhere (if they can, of course). After they resign as ministers, Singapore can replace them with new ministers who care less about the money, and care more about serving the nation.

So I say this to all the ministers - if you're not happy with your pay, please quit. Now, rather than five years later. Do yourself a favour, and do the country a favour. Just get out.

How to Get $100 Worth of Free Vouchers

2012-01-05T16:17:00.004+08:00

This might have happened to you before. It happened to me several days ago (and it wasn't the first time either).

A person calls up on my handphone. I have no idea how she got my number. She says, "Congratulations! You are very lucky to have won $100 of NTUC Income vouchers!".

Of course, there is a catch to it. The catch is that in order to collect the vouchers, I have to go to a certain place and listen to a 75-minute presentation. I get to collect the vouchers only if I stay to the end of the presentation. Also, I need to bring my wife. If she doesn't come along, I get only $50.

So at the appointed date and time, Mrs Wang and I go to this place. We fill up some form which asks some questions about where we live, how much we earn and so on. We are asked to show a credit card - no details are taken, they just want to see that we actually have credit cards.

Then we are whisked away to a small meeting room. There a salesperson goes through a detailed questionaire with us. There are questions about how often we travel; what kind of hotels we like to stay in; which countries we have visited in the past few years; how much we spend on our airfare, and so on.

Then the salesperson starts talking about his product. Some kind of holiday club. Pay an upfront fee (which is quite hefty), get a 15-year membership, and for the next 15 years, you will be able to enjoy big discounts on hotel accommodation, airfares and land tours all over the world. At the end of 15 years, get your entire membership fee back.

I won't bore you with the details, because the specific details are not that important. Many different kinds of companies use such a marketing strategy nowadays. They sell different things - land banking; timeshares in holiday houses; spa services; golf club holidays; travel services, and so on.

The point is - they REALLY give you the $100 vouchers at the end of the presentation. Some even give you a choice of vouchers (Carrefour or Takashimaya?). Or they give you a free massage for two, if they are pitching a spa membership. You have no obligation to actually sign up as a member or to buy the product. What they want is a fair chance to thoroughly pitch their product to you, for 75 minutes.

I think that these are very good deals. All you have to do is listen. If the product/service meets your needs, then you could sign up. If it doesn't, then just firmly say "No" at the end of the 75 minutes, and ask for your vouchers. The main thing is that you must keep a clear mind and not allow yourself to be persuaded into buying something that you later regret.

Mrs Wang and I firmly said "No", at the end of the presentation. For us, it was a rather interesting presentation and we asked many questions (Mrs Wang and I often like to study how different types of business models and figure out how they try to make money).

But in the end, we simply said, "No". We collected our vouchers. We left. The salesman was courteous and friendly throughout the time. And now I have $100 of NTUC vouchers to buy groceries, yay.

Onwards with the Plan

2012-01-04T22:53:00.003+08:00

Three working days have passed since I began my project. And on all three working days, I was able to leave at 6 pm sharp. So that is a success.

Of course it is early days yet. The new year has just begun and the pace of work is still slow as some people are still away on leave. The challenge will be to increase my productivity so much that even when business is in full swing, I am still able to leave at 6 pm.

I have already implemented all the seven productivity ideas mentioned in my earlier post. Here are three additional ideas that I will be implementing.

Using the Blackberry while commuting. On most days, I use public transport to go to work and to return home. So I will use this time on the MRT or bus to read my emails and draft replies. For example, if I leave office at 6 pm and the bus or train ride takes 40 minutes, I can use those 40 minutes to check my emails.
Having lunch early or late. I can beat the lunchtime crowd either by going for lunch early, or very late. This means saving the time that would otherwise be spent queueing to buy for food and waiting for a place to sit. I can then use the regular lunch (12:30 to 1:30 pm) to do more work in the office.
Using a to-do list. I have often used some sort of to-do list, but now I am trying to be more consistent about it - in other words, to use it every day. Using a to-do list helps to track my work and also prioritise the different matters. There is an art and skill to using to-do lists effectively. This merits a separate blog post for the future.

Anyway as I am typing this, it is 10:45 pm. I am at home and I am waiting for the clock to show 11:00 pm. The reason is that at 11 pm, I need to dial in for a conference call with some colleagues in New York and Frankfurt.

These are the perils of working in an extremely international organisation. I estimate that in a year, I might do about 16 conference calls at night (after 8 pm Singapore time). I don't think that it is really possible or desirable to avoid these calls - in fact, they tend to be quite important - even though they are not in line with the spirit of my 6 pm project.

On the plus side, I am usually able to take these calls from my home. So they do not technically interfere with the 6 pm target.

Flooding in Singapore - We Need Solutions, Not Excuses

2012-01-01T10:24:00.010+08:00

It rained heavily on 23 December and there was flooding in several parts of Singapore. However, the PUB claimed that there was no flooding at Orchard Road. I quote the exact words from their press release: "There was no flooding at Orchard Road."

I don't understand how government authorities in Singapore can tell such blatant lies. It is shocking and it makes me worry about what this country is coming to. It is normal for a country to have problems, and I think it is ok to say, "We have a problem, and we will be taking action to solve it." But to tell an outright lie, such as "There was no flooding at Orchard Road" ... What does that tell you about our government?

It indicates dishonesty. That's bad enough. But it also shows stupidity. This is also very worrying, for we are in serious trouble if we have a stupid government. Why do I say that the Orchard Road incident reflects the government's stupidity?

I say so, because the lie was so stupid. This is the Internet era. Anyone in Orchard Road at that time could easily have pulled out his or her handphone, and taken a photo of the floods and posted it on blogs, forums, Facebook, Stomp etc.

And the lie would be completely exposed. If you were dishonest and you also actually had some brains, you should be telling your lies with a little more skill, surely.

Indeed, at Orchard Road, buildings such as Liat Towers and Lucky Plaza were flooded, and people did take photos and post them on the Internet.

Not a flood ... Then what is this?

A new water catchment area in Orchard Road?

Lucky Plaza's new design for a water fountain.

Works only on rainy days.

It took a full week, but later the PUB decided that it had better admit that there were floods at Orchard Road. Their new press release on 30 December stated: "The sustained heavy downpour resulted in the flooding of several roads including the Thomson/Cambridge areas as well as the basements of Liat Towers and Lucky Plaza."

Oooh, the magic word has suddenly appeared in their statement. There was "flooding", after all, and at Liat Towers and Lucky Plaza, which are in the heart of the Orchard Road area.

But you can still smell the stubborn PUB attempt at obfuscation - they won't say the words "Orchard Road" and they insist on inserting the word "basements".

Well, of course, it is the BASEMENTS that are flooded. Basements are the lowest floors of any building. Isn't it bad enough that the basements are flooded? What does the PUB want - does it expect the 2nd floor or 4th floor to be flooded? Bah.

In the aftermath of the event, it's also distressing to see how the Straits Times reported the event. To me, it felt like the top ST priority was to defend the reputation of the PUB and the government. Look at the way the Straits Times chose to entitle its article - "Half a Typical December's Rain Fell in Three Hours". The first two paragraphs of the article read as follows:

"In three hours last Friday, the rain that pelted down on Orchard Road was half of what December typically gets in the entire month.

Between 2.20pm and 5.20pm, 152.8mm of rain fell in the area. The long-term average for December - the wettest month in the entire year - is 287.4mm."

Okay, let me deconstruct that for you. In the context of all the flooding events that occurred in the past year, the underlying message from the Straits Times is:

1. The rain on 23 December was really, really extraordinary.
2. Don't blame the government for the floods at Orchard.

But was the rain on 23 December really that extraordinary? Was the flood at Orchard all that different from all those many floods that we have seen in the past few years, in different parts of Singapore? Including Orchard Road itself?

To understand what a "typical" December rainfall is really like, we can investigate the source of the ST's claim. It comes from the PUB press release on 30 December. The PUB states:

"On the afternoon of 23 Dec 2011, a total of 152.8mm of rain fell from 2.20pm to 5.20pm at the Orchard Road area. This is equivalent to about half the average monthly total (287.4mm) of rain recorded for the entire month of December over the last 142 years (1869 to 2010)."

So their idea of typical December rainfall is based on the average December rainfall over the past 142 years. Dating back to the time when Lee Kuan Yew's father's father's father had just emigrated to Singapore.

Rainfall levels over the past 142 years may be of some meteorological interest to the meterologists. To the general public, it can't be. Singapore has been suffering from floods for the past few years now, and even prime shopping areas and tourist attractions like Orchard Road are getting hit. This is NOT the first time in recent memory that Orchard Road is getting hit.

To the PUB:

We don't care what happened 142 years ago. We don't even care what happened 50 or 30 years ago. Singapore has a flood problem TODAY. And it is your responsibility to fix it. Even if global warming is causing climate change and heavier rains nowadays, it is STILL your responsibility to fix the flood problem.

You should spend less time worrying about how to protect your public image. And more time actually working to solve the flood problem. You'll probably make more progress that way. And the people of Singapore will appreciate it. So please stop being stupid, and go and do the right thing.

The Project Begins

2011-12-29T17:30:00.003+08:00

I have started on my 6 PM Project and I wanted to tell you about the first few steps that I am taking.

Firstly, I am aiming not merely for a Clean Desk, but for an Almost Bare Desk. No piece of paper shall be on my desk, unless it actually requires me to take some specific action on it. Once the action is taken, the document must be thrown away or filed away.

Next, I am tidying up my hard disk. I am setting some new rules to create a more rational system for organising all my soft-copy reference materials. This will save me time whenever I need to search for something.

One new idea is not to just save one copy of a document, but to make multiple copies, and cross-file; them in all relevant folders. For example, if I have a document concerning commodity derivatives in Thailand, I would not file it just under my "Commodity Derivatives" folder, nor just under my "Thailand" folder, but in both folders. So in future, the document should be easier to locate.

As for relevant information available from public online sources, I will continue to use my blog, The Asian Banking Lawyer, to hyperlink to them. I will also be making greater use of Google's Email Alert service, to track industry developments relevant to my work.

You might be impressed to know that I usually have less than 10 emails in my office email inbox. I have a system for processing my emails quickly. They are rapidly filed away in a system of moveable folders and subfolders in Lotus Notes. These folders and subfolders themselves become my to-do list. Low-priority matters are pushed to the lowest parts of the list, while important matters go to the top.

I am setting an alarm in my iPhone to go off at 5:30 pm, from Mondays to Fridays. The alarm is to remind me to start wrapping up my work, in preparation for leaving the office at 6 pm.

I will be getting an alarm clock and placing it on my desk. If I need to focus on an important piece of work, I will hang up my phone and set myself a definite time (eg 45 minutes) to tackle the piece of work. I won't be taking any calls during those 45 minutes.

I have printed out a monthly calendar. This one gets to stay on my desk. I will tick the days on which I do succeed in leaving at 6 pm sharp. For the days on which I fail, I will jot down the reason why. After a few weeks or maybe a month, I think that I will have some useful data to to identify any recurring obstacles for my 6 pm project.

That's it for now. I expect to roll out more ideas in the near future, for greater efficiency and effectiveness.

My Six O'Clock Project

2011-12-27T14:06:00.003+08:00

When I was a kid, my parents often emphasised the importance of hard work. My mother would even say, "It doesn't matter if you score badly in your exams, so long as you had studied hard and tried your best". At first sight, this philosophy sounds plausible enough. However, upon closer scrutiny, you might find that it doesn't quite hold up.

Consider your workplace. Make a list of the most successful people (those who are on the promotion track, those who got the biggest bonuses, and so on). Then for each of these people, write down what you think are the top 3 reasons for his or her success. I suspect that you'll end up with quite a variety of different reasons. For example:

"good interpersonal skills",
"smart and talented",
"very experienced",
"handles the high-profile work"
"outstanding problem-solving ability"
"because he has plenty of important clients"
"excellent communication skills"

Less politically-correct reasons (which is not to say that they are invalid) may include:

"his skin is of the right colour"
"sucks up to the Boss"
"very good at taking credit for other people's work"
"her father is the CEO"
"PSC scholars always get promoted even if they are idiots"

Anyway, my point is that there is little correlation between hard work and career success. People who actually get ahead in the workplace may get ahead for a wide variety of reasons, other than old-fashioned hard work.

Laziness is probably detrimental to your career progression. But diligence is definitely no guarantee of success. To see if this is true, check your workplace again. Make a list of the most hardworking people. You'll probably notice that some of your colleagues work very hard, but don't seem to even get appreciation, much less achieve career success.

(Actually, this is true of our education system as well. There are plenty of students who slog very hard and produce only mediocre grades).

Unfortunately, many Singaporeans are culturally conditioned to work hard. I say that this is unfortunate - because as I've already pointed out, hard work doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. On the contrary, there is a personal price to pay for hard work (think migraines, heart disease, stomach ulcers and hypertension). And excessive diligence at work will also deprives you of your personal time, including time with your family.

So ....

Come 2012, I am going to launch a new personal project. I call it my 6 p.m. project. My mission is to leave the office at 6 pm sharp as often as possible. Ideally, 5 days a week, for most weeks. I'll even keep a log.

On average, in 2011, I left the office around 8 pm. So if I now succeed in leaving at 6 pm instead, I save 10 hours per week, or 40 hours per month. That sounds pretty good to me.

I don't intend to get sloppy with my work. I do intend to become more efficient and productive. I plan to find good ideas and clever ways to get all my usual work done on time and done well, despite my working 40 hours less per month.

How exactly will I do that? Stay tuned. I'm still figuring it out myself. As the 6 p.m project progresses, I'll let you know the details.

Poetry by the People

2011-12-19T18:29:00.007+08:00

Moving Words was a literary project that launched in Singapore earlier this year. I was one of the 12 featured poets in Phase One, which meant that a poem of mine was chosen and displayed on a billboard featured at various MRT stations. If you are a regular train user, you've probably seen some of those poems from the different writers.

This was part of the promotional publicity for Phase 2, a writing competition which was open to all members of the public. The response was quite excellent, and the organisers received nearly 2,000 entries. In the final phase of Moving Words, about 125 of these entries were selected for publication in a book, which was then launched during the Singapore Writers Festival. The editor was Alvin Pang, a well-known face in the Singapore literary scene.

One interesting thing about such a book is that it shows you new, fresh writing by people whom you had never even heard of before. The vast majority of writers featured in the anthology have not previously published their own books nor won any literary award. Nevertheless the quality of writing remains decent, for these are, after all, the best 125 pieces culled from a much larger pool of nearly 2,000 entries.

As Moving Words was a multi-lingual project, the poems come in four languages - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. All the non-English poems in the book also come with an English translation. The editor You can order the book directly from the publisher here or from Select Books.

From the book, I offer a sample poem, written by one Gan See Siong, who is a lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic. It's a rather mischievous poem, with a particularly naughty ending.

You Need Me

"You like to enter me in the wee hours of morning
That part of yours in protective sheath
And go romping with me
Three to four times a week.

A gentle man you are not
For without warning you would spread me wide
To accommodate the full extent of you.

You strapped me up
With those dexterous fingers
So close I can see your grim determination
The even rise and fall of your chest.

And just like that
You would head me
Down the pleasure road
Growing all hot and hard in me.

If only you knew how I long for these sessions,
They are the reason why I even exist," said the pair of running shoes.

The Ups and Downs of 2011 for Me

2011-12-18T21:18:00.002+08:00

As the year draws to a dark and rainy close, I thought I would pen a few thoughts about how 2011 has played out for me.

It wasn't the best of years. It wasn't the worst. The biggest change was moving to my new house, getting all the renovations done and helping everyone to adjust and adapt to the new home. It wasn't always easy, but now we are nicely settled down and I'm grateful.

We had a few incidents with unpleasant neighbours. There were also various unhappy incidents between other neighbours (not involving me). One of them reached the point when a defamation lawsuit was actually threatened. I spoke to friends and acquantances and it seems that such unhappy incidents aren't exactly that uncommon in cluster houses.

A contractor told me point-blank that in his experience, the owner of the largest unit always has problems with neighbours (I happen to own the largest unit). According to the contractor, the underlying cause is their jealousy. Well, I put all that unpleasant stuff behind me now. But there is a particular neighbour whom I will completely ignore for the rest of my life. Either that, or I will give her a cold glare. My children call her the "fat bitch". In this particular instance, I won't object to their language.

I was pleased that at the start of the year, we managed to get our son transferred to a better primary school. He is now a Catholic High student. He has adapted well to his new school and enjoys being there. At his previous school, he was shy and quiet and had been targeted by bullies more than once. Catholic High seems to have given him more confidence and he has even assumed a leadership role as class monitor.

My daughter had a great Primary 1 year in school and enjoyed herself thoroughly. She isn't in one of the top schools, but sometimes maybe things work out better that way. She's having a fun time being one of the top students. It's a self-esteem building experience which she probably couldn't have had, if she had gone to a more competitive school.

At work, I had two surprises in the early part of the year. The first was a surprise of the disappointing kind. Despite many earlier promises and positive words, I didn't get promoted. The second surprise was that I received what was a rather large bonus (considering the state of the financial industry these days).

I think that to some extent, the organisation was trying to make up for my non-promotion by giving me a bigger bonus. Oh well. All in all, not such a bad deal, after all. Between an improved corporate title and a big sum of cash, I'll take the cash anytime.

The work itself was pretty interesting. I did a lot of legal work relating to very new developments in the industry, concerning how the governments in various countries are creating new laws to regulate the OTC derivatives industry, post the 2008 financial crisis. I think I've carved out a niche in this area. I was invited this year to speak at a conference on such topics, and I have another invitation to speak at a conference in April next year.

I took another CMFAS exam, and passed. I am now qualified to be both a stockbroker and a personal financial adviser. Not that I have any concrete plans to do so anytime in the near future, but hey, everyone needs some kind of Plan B. In 2012, I may sign myself up for more CMFAS exams.

I didn't travel much this year. I did take the family to Penang and Langkawi in June, and to Korea this month. Penang has plenty of good food, and a temple or two that's worth a look, but otherwise it's still a rather sleepy town. I found Langkawi more interesting, for the eco-tourism aspects. We explored a bat cave and fed some eagles and visited a fish farm, things like that.

It was very cold when we visited Korea. The temperature was down to -2 degrees in Seoul, and even colder when we went to the mountain area to see their national park. But the kids had plenty of fun in the snow and ice. We also went to the northernmost point of South Korea, where after passing several military checkpoints, we got to peer at the mysterious land of North Korea, using telescopes at an observatory.

On the writing front, I had a few old poems published in new anthologies. I was a featured writer in the Singapore Writers Festival. I was also part of the Moving Words project, and had a poem featured on Singapore's MRT trains. Those were the highlights, but overall it wasn't a great year as I hardly wrote anything new.

A dear old aunt of mine passed away in February. Colorectal cancer. I worry sometimes about my uncle (her husband), who's in his 80s and now lives all alone in a little HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio. I know that he was very, very affected by my aunt's death. I hope he's gotten over it by now.

It waa a crap year, as far as my own health and fitness was concerned. For a while, it appeared that I had borderline high blood pressure. I resolved to exercise regularly, but it didn't quite work out that way; I just never managed to stick to the plan. All the good intentions would peter out in a few weeks, then two months would pass, then I would try again, then the cycle would repeat.

I did succeed in eating more healthily (I now often have a salad for both breakfast and lunch). My BP has fallen back into the normal/healthy range, but whatever the reason was, it sure wasn't because of exercise.

I'd say a few things about Mrs Wang's year too, but she's told me not to. She likes her privacy.

My happiest moments of the year were the same kind as the happiest moments of the past seven years or so. Private moments with my two children - playing with them, talking to them, hugging them. I love being a dad, and watching them grow up.

P.S. My daughter just asked me why my blog is known as "Mr Wang Says So", and not "Mr Koh Says So". Long history, my dear. Tell you another time.

The MRT Train Breakdown - Passing the Buck in a Blame Game

2011-12-18T11:54:00.007+08:00

One year ago, I had already written several posts about the falling standards of public transport in Singapore. Of course, those posts attracted a few of the usual criticisms that I was irrationally anti-PAP.

Well, as you know by now, the MRT trains broke down very badly a few days ago. Service was disrupted for many hours. Passengers were trapped in darkness without ventilation. Someone had to use a fire extinguisher to smash the glass panel of the train door, so that everyone else could breathe. Passengers had to force the doors open themselves, in order to get out.

Problems like that don't happen overnight. They never do. They are just symptoms of deeper systemic failures. What those failures are, we'll eventually know - if the goverment actually reveals its findings in an honest manner. But the point is that when something like this happens, it's typically the result of an extended period of time over which the trains are badly managed. If the train system had been regularly inspected and properly maintained, it wouldn't just massively break down like that.

I read the news, and I see that Mr Lui Tuck Yew, the Transport Minister, is making a big hue and cry. Oh, how clever. Immediately, he shoves all the potential blame at SMRT and talks about how he's going to get a panel of experts to inspect SMRT and find out the problems yadda yadda yadda.

Well, I'm sure that SMRT is to blame. But what about the PAP government itself? After all, this is public transport. Mr Lui, do you mean to say that the government has no regular role in making sure that the public transport actually works? That the trains run properly, that buses are safe, and so on? Come on, Mr Transport Minister. What has your ministry been doing all this time?

I'm scared, you know. I am a regular train user. I don't want to be trapped underground, for who knows how long, in the dark, without ventilation, on a crowded train, with oxygen running out.

If Lui and the SMRT can't solve the problem quickly, I suggest that as an interim measure that every train must be equipped with emergency torchlights and sledgehammers. The torchlights are for lighting, and the sledgehammers are to prevent suffocation.

"Singaporeans must be self-reliant and not expect the
Government to do everything for them."

Commodity Derivatives in a Rapidly Changing World

2011-11-26T17:30:00.004+08:00

I just got invited to speak at another conference. This one is about commodities and will be held in April next year. The organiser is Marcus Evans.

My topic will be something along these lines - "The Global Regulatory Landscape: Developments for OTC Commodity Derivatives".

I'll be speaking on recent developments in the U.S., and then I will move on to talk about Europe. Finally I'll wrap up by discussing a few countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

I will probably have just one hour to cover all that. So the talk is going to be quite "big picture" and "high-level".

I used to do a lot of legal work relating specifically to commodities - oil, gold, sugar, steel and coal, for instance - but I haven't done much of it in the past year. However, I have been doing plenty of work relating to the G20 commitments made in September 2009.

The G20 commitments aim to revamp the derivatives industry worldwide. To a greater or lesser extent, they will affect all classes of derivatives, including commodity derivatives. And for the purposes of my April conference, the commodities angle is what I'll be focusing on.

From a career perspective, many people in the derivatives industry are worried about the G20 commitments. Potentially, the changes might greatly benefit the exchanges (such as SGX). But they will hurt many bank employees currently working in derivatives-related jobs. I predict that many of those jobs will eventually disappear, perhaps by as soon as the end of 2012.

As for myself, well, I too am a bank employee working in a derivatives-related job. So I think that I am at some risk too. But for at least the next two years, I should be okay. That's because with a little luck and strategising, I've managed to position myself as an expert on the legal issues arising out of the G20 commitments. In other words, I'm still needed to guide and advise my employer - on those very same developments that will eliminate many other people's jobs.

In fact, because the legal developments from the G20 committee are so new and complex, there are still relatively few lawyers who know them well. That's why I even get invited to be a conference speaker on such topics.

What Shall I Do With This Blog?

2011-11-23T12:01:00.002+08:00

I really don't know. I do know that I am not interested in blogging about social issues and political stuff anymore. On the other hand, I'm also not the kind of person who will blog freely about my private life, for anyone in the world to see.

I could blog about my various interests. On the other hand, I have many varied interests, more than most other people. Over time, this blog could grow rather incoherent and messy, just because my interests are so varied.
Then again, since I am not aiming to make a living from Google Adsense, do I care if my blog grows incoherent and messy? Probably not.

I thought I might use this blog as a platform for my creative writing. Some draft poems, some excerpts from draft short stories and so on. The first problem is that I don't do much creative writing anymore. The second problem is that I have to get used to the idea of putting draft work out into the world. Most writers don't like to show their raw, unfinished pieces to the world.

One possibility I am considering is writing reviews about the books I read. "Reviews" may be an overstatement - I don't want to write real, heavy-duty reviews - it's more just like sharing some observations and thoughts and excerpts about any interesting books that I come across.

Mmmmm, with a bit of work, that might get me to the point where publishers send me free books, to entice me to give them some publicity. Done some of that in the past, but I didn't quite sustain it long enough to get that many free books. I did get a couple though, hahaa.

Investing in Death

2011-11-09T18:16:00.003+08:00

One year ago, I engaged a financial adviser. We had a review of my portfolio this week. The portfolio has done well. I made about 8% over one year, which is very good, considering how disastrous the year 2011 has generally been, for stock markets around the world.

This performance has been possible, because a good part of my portfolio was not in the traditional sort of equity funds. In fact, a good part of the portfolio was not in equities at all. The advantage of being an accredited investor is that I get to invest in more esoteric instruments that may not be accessible for ordinary retail investors.

Of course, this doesn't mean that esoteric instruments always make money. They can lose money too. However, they do significantly broaden your diversification options.

My financial advisor is now recommending that I consider a life settlement fund. I already know about these. I've never invested in these before, but I've read about them. In principle, they make sense to me. However, they have been the subject of some controversy in the US (which is also the only major market for such investments). How do they work?

A life settlement fund invests in life insurance policies. Where do they get these policies? They buy them from the policyholders. Who are these policyholders? Typically, they are people with a low life expectancy. They could be very old, or they could be suffering from some terminal illness such as AIDS or cancer.

So let's say you have a life insurance policy that promises to pay $1,000,000 when you die. And you happen to be very ill. You can't get the money while you're alive. And the money will be useless to you, when you die. You would rather have the money now, which you can immediately use either for your medical treatment, or just to enjoy what's left of your life.

In that case, the life settlement fund could buy the policy from you for, say, $800,000 (I have no idea what the typical pricing is like - I'm just using the $800,000 figure as an example). You get $800,000, to spend as you please. Two years later, you die.

The life settlement fund then gets to collect $1,000,000 from the insurance company. So essentially, over a two-year period, the life settlement fund has made a $200,000 profit, out of its $800,000 investment (less the premiums that the fund paid over that period).

This is the kind of investment that a life settlement fund makes. Of course, it does not just invest in one or two policies. Instead it invests in large numbers of life policies.

It's rather morbid. The faster these people die, the more money the life settlement fund makes. Conversely, the longer these people live (and who knows, a few people may even manage to recover from their supposedly terminal illness), the less profitable the fund will be. A "good" investment is someone who is very ill, has high chances of dying soon and owns a policy with a large payout.

For the investor, what are the advantages of investing in a life settlement fund? Well, it is excellent for diversification purposes. There is very little correlation to equity markets, or bond markets, or commodities, or other more-traditional classes of financial investments. Thus your investment could continue generating good returns, even if stock markets collapse badly.

The way they did, this year.

The Children's Poem

2011-11-09T17:56:00.000+08:00

So I did write that poem for the Straits Times (they wanted a children's poem). I still don't know whether they will select it, but chances should be reasonably good.

The Straits Times is increasing its fee to $300. This is for wider copyrights to the poem. They want permanent copyright to the poem, which means that they can use it as many times they like and they can publish it in other SPH publications too.

Oh well, whatever. I'll take the $300.

It was an enjoyable experience - writing a poem for kids. I wrote one that had plenty of action, drama and sound effects. It would be fun for kids to read and act it out in a kindergarten class. My poem is entitled "The Monsters Under My Bed". I would like to reproduce it here on this blog, but I think I'm not supposed to.

Anyway, I tested it out on my kids and the response was good. My son kept laughing out, as he read it, which meant I achieved the desired effect (it's supposed to be a humorous poem).

Why Facebook Killed The Blogger

2011-10-31T18:13:00.001+08:00

The Singapore Writers Festival has just ended. I was a "Featured Author" (that's the term they use) for an event on the last day. It was a panel discussion at the National Museum. The other panellists were Pat Law and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, and the moderator was Dr Gwee Li Sui. The session was provocatively entitled "Why Facebook Killed The Blogger".

When I first showed up at the venue, it struck me as rather large. I had expected a smaller venue. To my surprise, people streamed in steadily and the seats were filled up pretty quickly. It was almost full-house by the time we got started. I didn't do an exact count, but I estimate that about 100 people showed up for our one-hour discussion (which was about writing on the Internet).

I spotted a number of other writers in the audience, including Felix Cheong, Chris Mooney-Singh and Dave Chua. The audience was very lively during the Q&A session, and the questions came thick and fast. There were questions about whether the popularity of Facebook was rendering the blogging platform obsolete; and the importance of writing quickly about hot topics in order to get high readership.

Someone asked about whether prolific bloggers were better off spending their time writing actual books and getting them published. Another person asked if blogging (as well as other electronic media such as Twitter and SMS on phones) was lowering the standard of written English. Juz cos many guys n gals will rite like dis, u know. :)

It was an interesting session, and we eventually ran out of time. I didn't get to respond to all the questions as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I guess that was somewhat inevitable. The National Arts Council paid me $250 for my time, which is nice because I do several talks in different capacities on different topics every year, but I rarely get paid.

The guy standing on the left of the billboard is Aaron Lee.

Mr Wang is one of the folks shown on the billboard itself.

Poetry, Music and Some Memories

2011-10-28T07:49:00.005+08:00

So last Tuesday night, I found myself back in my old secondary school. At least that's what it's used to be. Today it's more commonly known as the Singapore Art Museum. I had a few small moments of nostalgia, wandering through its hallways trying to figure out where the school canteen and the P.E. room used to be.

I was there for the 10th anniversary celebration of the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, held in conjunction with the Singapore Writers Festival. QLRS is a website founded by my friend and fellow writer Toh Hsien Min which over the past decade, has published a rather impressive collection of poems and prose from many writers, both local and foreign.

It was a pretty decent turnout. I estimate that there were more than 100 people in the audience. I was one of the invited readers, and I chose to read three of my old poems published in QLRS 10 years ago. Here's one of them:

Garden City

Let there be trees, the man said, and lo and behold,
there were trees – rain trees, angsanas, flames of the forest,
causarinas, traveller’s palms and more – springing up against
the steel and concrete of the expanding city.
Even as the true towers of the city climbed higher
and higher for the heavens, the trees were planted, replanted,
transplanted, watered, fertilised, and groomed to grow
and grow. They appeared overnight, abandoned the
chaos of jungle, bent to the will of man, grew in straight lines,
in squares and rectangles, in allocated corners,
in car parks, along highways, outside banks and buildings,
faithful to the commandments of urban developers.
The hard lines of architecture were softened,
the rain did fall, the green did gently, gently grow,
and in his seventieth year, the man was pleased,
as he rested, as he viewed his work, as he felt the weight
of a nation’s soil run slowly through his old green hands.

The poem is about Lee Kuan Yew and one of his pet projects - the greening of the Singapore cityscape. At the same time, the poem also alludes to his vast power and his grip on the country, and reminds us of the extent of social engineering that goes on in our interesting little island-nation.

At the QLRS event, apart from the literary readings, there were also musical performances. One of them was by Kelvin Tan - a writer, singer & songwriter who is also a part-time lecturer at the Lasalle School of Fine Arts. Here is Kelvin's folksy, unplugged performance, of one of his own original songs:

I liked that. It starts off on a quiet note, but gets more exciting later. Yes, if you want to be fussy, you can quibble about some details - but overall, it was a very good performance, done with passion and feeling. And Kelvin's hat is so Elton John-ish. :)

On Sonny Liew, Art and Poems

2011-10-09T14:42:00.027+08:00

Several developments on the creative writing front, for me.

Firstly, the Straits Times and the National Arts Council have invited me to write a children's poem, for publication in the newspaper. It would be part of a series to promote little kids' interest in reading and writing. This is quite a new thing for me, as I have not written for children before. But I figure I'll give it a shot. I have promised to deliver a limerick or a nonsense poem - not the kind of writing I would normally do, but I think that this would be fun for kids.

Next, my publisher tells me that he's in the midst of negotiating a contract with Singtel. I'm not too clear on the details yet, but it's got to do with Singtel wanting to purchase Singapore creative writing for an e-platform that it will be launching. If this works out, then some Singapore writers' poems and short stories - including mine - may soon become downloadable on your iPad, iPhone or other smartphone.

Also, on 25th October, I'll be reading some poems at the 10th anniversary celebrations of Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. QLRS is a well-known literary website in Singapore, manned by a team of editors including Toh Hsien Min, Yeow Kai Chai and Cyril Wong. Unlike many other short-lived wannabes, QLRS has actually succeeded in staying alive for a decade, regularly publishing poems, short stories and book reviews. Very commendable, and I'm pleased and proud to participate in their upcoming event.

A few days later, on 30 October, I will be a panelist on a discussion entitled "Is Facebook Killing The Blog?". This event is held in conjunction with the Singapore Writers Festival. Feeling a little unsure about how this particular event will pan out, but what the heck, I'll just go and fearlessly give my two cents worth.

Perhaps most interestingly of all, my publisher tells me that he's been approached by HDB and NAC, concerning one of my poems. Apparently, the proposal is to use this poem to decorate a new HDB block somewhere in Sengkang, together with a mural by award-winning comic-book artist Sonny Liew (who will paint something to illustrate his interpretation of my poem).

Now, that would be something really new and fun for me - to see my poem with a painting, up on a building wall.

Sonny Liew's art.

Singapore Writers Festival

2011-10-03T16:52:00.000+08:00

Hey, look who's right over here. Me.

Okay, that is not really the point. The point is that the Singapore Writers Festival is coming up soon - in the last week of October (from the 22nd to the 30th), and there will be many interesting events for those of you who like to write, as well as those of you who like to read.

The writers participating in the Singapore Writers Festival include the usual suspects from the local scene (Catherine Lim, Alfian Sa'at, Ho Minfong, Edwin Thumboo, Toh Hsien Min, Dave Chua and SuChen Christine Lim, to name a few). And there is also a generous dose of foreign authors including Francis Lelord, Joe Haldeman and Steven Levitt.

Stephen Levitt, author of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics.

The Singapore Writers Festival includes events such as lectures, writing workshops, panel discussions, meet-the-author sessions, book launches and more. For full details, visit the SWF official website.

Mr Wang's Textbook Project

2011-09-25T16:42:00.002+08:00

Recently I was approached to co-author a textbook. It would be about financial derivatives in Asia, with a focus on the legal aspects. This topic happens to be exactly what I do for a living (and have been doing for a living, for many years now). So I have the right type of professional knowledge and expertise.

I've checked out my co-author's profile. As he may want his privacy, I shall not mention his name here. All I shall say is that his credentials are pretty respectable. Among other things, he has previously written more than half a dozen legal textbooks, which were published by two well-known legal publishers, namely Sweet & Maxwell, and Lexis Nexis.

So he has solid experience in writing legal textbooks, and I have solid experience in derivatives. I guess we could make a pretty good team. Right now, we are at a preliminary stage of planning - sorting out the contents page, which is an important first step as it will give a clear framework for the entire book.

I do not know how long it will take to get the entire manuscript written. I suspect that it would take somewhere between 9 months and 2.5 years. Obviously this project will require a fair amount of commitment and hard work. But I am willing to go for it because I think that it is a very worthwhile goal, with good rewards to reap for all that labour.

Among other things, successfully writing and publishing a textbook is an excellent showcase of one's professional knowledge. Furthermore, the shelf life of such an achievement is fairly long. Years after the book is published, people in the relevant circles may still have a copy in their personal library, and will remember you because of that.

But quite importantly, I also enjoy writing, and editing, that sort of stuff. Organizing facts and ideas onto a written page is intrinsically appealing and interesting to me.

After Two Baby Hands was published, I always knew that one day I'd get around to a second book. I thought that it could be poetry again, or perhaps a collection of short stories, or a novella. But now it looks like Book 2 will be a legal textbook. Who would have guessed? But I'm game for it.

Friends, Romans and Countrymen

2011-09-22T08:06:00.000+08:00

Over the past few months, I have received many emails from you readers - firstly, concerning my lack of posts, and secondly, concerning my lack of political posts. Some fans have been shocked that I actually let the entire Presidential Elections go by, without writing a single post about it.

That is one of my regrets. Mainly because now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that Tan Cheng Bok (whom I voted for) ultimately lost by the tiniest of margins (just a few thousand votes).

If I had just written three or four pro-Tan Cheng Bock posts during the campaign season, I would easily have swung a few thousand votes in his favour. And the history of Singapore would have proceeded in a different direction.

But as I said, this observation is made with the benefit of hindsight. If we had the psychic ability to predict our probable futures, there would be many things that each of us would do differently. Since I don't have such psychic ability, well, I'll just have to move on with life and its miscellaneous regrets.

Anyway, after all these years, I am tired of my label as "Influential Singapore Socio-Political Blogger". It cannot be my problem that there are tens of thousands of you who want me to carry on writing about that sort of stuff. I have done much more than my fair share of National Service in the blogosphere. I think that it's time that some of you step up and fill that gap.

As for this blog, well, I will probably go on writing here. But I will write about any topics that interest me, not just politics. In fact, politics will probably get relegated to "Occasional" status. Increasingly I will use this blog as a personal diary of my own life. (As you may recall, that was the original reason why blogs came into existence).

Some of you long-time readers, who came here primarily for the socio-political content, will quit reading this blog. This decision I do understand, and to you I say - thank you for reading, all these years. We all have to move on sometime. Me included.

Mr Wang Gets On Stage

2011-09-21T09:44:00.006+08:00

Apart from my exam, I will be speaking at a industry conference sometime next week.

It's a highly technical topic - legal issues concerning the central clearing of OTC derivatives, as mandated by the G20 countries.

(If this topic isn't actually relevant to your career, you would probably find my presentation to be an excellent cure for insomnia).

This would be my 3rd or 4th time speaking at an industry conference. So it's not a new experience for me. In case you're wondering, no, I don't get paid for speaking. But in return for doing a one-hour talk, I get to attend the entire conference for free (the usual fee would be a few thousand dollars).

The other benefit of speaking at a conference is that it is a very good self-learning experience. You may already be an expert in a particular area. But the process of preparing your presentation will itself compel you to do more research; check your facts and deepen your own understanding. So you become an even better expert.

Occasionally, one or two colleagues of mine will also get approached to speak at a conference. They often reject the invitation. I think that part of the reason is that they have a fear (or at least some apprehension) of public speaking.

Today, I can honestly say that I have no fear of public speaking. Of course, it wasn't always that way. But over the years, I have done public speaking so many times (and in so many different contexts) that today, it is an entirely non-frightening thing for me.

I have emcee'd many events (wedding dinners, legal seminars). I have done poetry readings. I have argued cases in court. I have conducted many in-house training sessions. I performed some drama when I was in university. Oh, and I love to lead the yaaaaamm-SENG! cheering at every traditional Chinese wedding dinner.

So I have no fear of public speaking.

How to deal with nervousness about public speaking? The main thing is just to remember that the audience doesn't bite.

They aren't there to embarrass or humiliate you. They don't want you to fail. Instead they just want to learn something useful, to hear something new or interesting. They are hoping that you will be able to tickle and entertain their brain cells for an hour or so. That is all. And if you can do it with a dash of colour and style, so much the better.

So just get out there and speak. Remember - they don't bite.

On Life, Love & Learning - in Singapore

2011-09-18T14:17:00.006+08:00

I'm taking an exam this coming week.

It's one of the papers in the Capital Markets & Financial Advisory Services (CMFAS) series. There are 13 exams in total, but nobody needs to take all of them.

Which exams you take depends on whether you want to work as, say, an insurance agent; a financial adviser or a stockbroker. You sit for the relevant papers, you pass and then you can apply for the necessary licence.

However, I am not planning to be an insurance agent (nor a financial adviser, nor a stockbroker). I don't need to take the paper. I am taking it just for fun. Yes, it's something I could mention in my resume, but the real purpose is just to challenge myself; explore an area outside my own work scope; and learn something new.

The paper requires a fair amount of studying and preparation. You need to read and get familiar with what securities firms and their employees can or cannot do, when carrying on their business on the Singapore stock exchange. Topics covered include preventive measures against market manipulation; the rules on handling customers' assets; variation margin calculations for stock futures etc.

Considering my work and family commitments, I do feel a little proud of myself. Firstly, for having signed up for the CMFAS exam at all. And secondly, for having mustered up the discipline, in the past month or so, to regularly sit down and study on the weekends. Whatever may happen on the exam day, I feel that I have already gained.

One unexpected side benefit is that I've been able to be a positive example, to my children, on good studying habits. When they sit down to study, I sit down with them. And I tell them, "Now, we are all going to be quiet and study properly for one hour, okay?".

They are little kids. They tend to get distracted easily. But when they see Daddy sitting down at the same table and studying hard, they feel motivated to do the same. Because now we are all really in the same boat, sailing along together. They try to do the little things that I do, like highlight key points in the textbooks; make short notes and so on. And they try to look as serious as I do, when studying.

As I look at their earnest little faces, I'm secretly laughing and smiling inside myself. They're adorable. I love being a father. : )

No More Baby Hands

2011-08-16T11:44:00.002+08:00

My poetry book Two Baby Hands has sold out. I found out by chance a few weeks ago, but it must have sold out before then.

I was looking at the publisher's website, which has a catalogue of all their books. And I noticed that for "Two Baby Hands", the website stated "This title is currently out of stock. Please send us an email at enquiry@ethosbooks.com.sg if you wish to be informed once new stock is available".

The first print run was 1,000 copies - which is the standard number for each local fiction/poetry book that this publisher (Ethos) publishes. So it looks like 1,000 copies of Two Baby Hands have been sold.

This is pretty respectable for a poetry book in Singapore. Poetry has a small following here and many poetry titles never sell out; instead the remaining books get scrapped after sitting in a warehouse for too many years.

But it is also a little sad for me that the book has sold out. In a way, it's like a clear sign that a certain part of my life is closed and over, and it's time to move on.

But then I've always been good about moving on. Hmmm.

Before We Forget

2011-06-06T12:21:00.005+08:00

Here's an email from Xian Jie, one of my readers. He is a documentary filmmaker and his latest project, supported by the Lien Foundation, aims to raise awareness about dementia.

Hi Gilbert,

I have been following your blog for a couple of years now and thought about letting you know about Before We Forget, a campaign I'm working on with a couple of friends to foster conversations about dementia.

We have been working on a documentary and following two families for close to a year; this documentary will be released in September alongside 2 exhibitions. Right now we have launched this website - Before We Forget - to encourage Singaporeans to share their stories. We have also started a Photo Challenge.

You don't need to personally know anyone with dementia to contribute. You could share your thoughts about dementia, ageing, forgetting, and dying in the form of short stories or poems. Every story that is shared goes a long way to de-stigmatise and humanise dementia. It would be fantastic if you could let your blog readers and Facebook friends know about Before We Forget ....

Dementia is a disease most commonly seen among old people. It's also commonly referred to as senility. The person's memory, attention and language and problem-solving abilities can all be affected. Badly affected persons may become so disoriented that they do not know what day of the week it is, or where they are, or who they are. They can fail to recognise their own caregivers and loved ones.

Do check out the links above, for more information. The organisers are also planning to organise two exhibitions (one at VivoCity and the other at the National Library) to raise public awareness about dementia.

My grandmother had dementia, in the last few years of her life. I was a kid then. I still remember clearly how emotionally and physically exhausting it was for my family to care for her, in those days.

By then she was already bed-ridden. My grandmother would have a meal (or a bath), and then an hour later, she would have completely forgotten that she had already had her meal (or her bath). And she would moan in agony, saying things like how come we didn't love her anymore and wouldn't let her eat nor bathe for days.

One thing she constantly worried about was who would care for her beloved garden, after she died. To give her the comfort and reassurance that her garden would be okay, I took over the regular gardening duties. To me, looking after the garden felt like something that I could do, to help her die more peacefully.

Here is a poem I wrote about those days. This poem appears in my book Two Baby Hands, and was also previously published in Singa, a now-defunct publication of the NUS Centre for the Fine Arts.

Grandmother's Garden

In later years, she sat here rarely. Most of the time,
she lay on her bed in a darkened room where
the air was musty and sunlight never shone.

As well as I could, I kept it growing
for her. She could no longer do it for herself.
Yet her life was linked to this place.

I watered her orchids of golden shower,
unchoked her potted plants from weeds. With a stone
I crushed the life from snails and fed them
to the earth. After storms, I helped fallen shrubs
to climb to light again.

Sometimes a sunbird would come to sip nectar
from my grandmother's flowers, and every New Year
the kumquat branches would fill with orange fruit.
In the years that passed, not a single bonsai died.
A tree can live forever.

She would go more easily, I sensed,
if she knew that the life here would endure,
long after she herself had left.

That was a simple yet effective poem (I think). Much later I looked back and explored my memories of those days, and produced another poem - short, but much more challenging and psychologically complex.

This later poem, entitled Not Home, was about my anxieties (as a child) that one day, my grandmother might be dying at home and I would be all alone at home with her, not knowing what to do. This is a right-brained poem, laced with magical thinking, irrational guilt, subconscious associations and a child's fearful imagination:

Not Home

I was eight, and alone.
Waiting in the garden I talked
to trees. Seeds sprouted.
Crickets sang. In the house
Grandma lay dying.
Caught an insect, held it
in my hand. Plucked a leg off,
as I softly sang. Very cruel,
very bad. Surely Papa would
come home, if I were bad.
Make me hurt, for being bad.
One more leg then, and another.
Time crawled. I lost count.
Finally there were no more legs,
but Papa wasn't home.
I dropped the useless insect
on the ground. In the house
Grandma went on dying.
On and on her body twitched,
till I crushed it with a stone.
Papa wasn't home.

Asian Cha is a website dedicated to poetry in Asia. In 2009, they published this poem. They were also sufficiently impressed to devote an entire essay to it. For the literature buffs among you, here's their commentary.

PM Lee Defends His Own Grassroots Activists From Internal Flak

2011-05-31T10:55:00.002+08:00

As the PAP continues with its post-election reflections and musings, a certain new theme emerges. It seems as if the PAP's grassroots activists are getting some of the flak, for the party's poor performance in the elections.

The allegation is that these activists failed to give the MPs adequate feedback, causing the MPs to lose touch with the ground (that is, with the people of Singapore). Here's PM Lee leaping to their defence.

Don't be discouraged, PM Lee tells activists

by S Ramesh (TODAY)

SINGAPORE - Citing the criticism levelled at grassroots activists in the aftermath of the recent General Election (GE), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday defended the work of the activists who had given "their honest feedback, which unfortunately we sometimes failed to interpret correctly".

Speaking at a dinner to thank volunteers of his Teck Ghee division in Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Mr Lee also acknowledged that "clearly there were problems which were missed" and areas where the People's Action Party (PAP) "can and must improve".

But it would be unfair to blame the activists, said Mr Lee, as the majority have committed time and energy to community work and have done their best to serve residents.

He said community leaders and PAP activists played a crucial role in the run-up to the GE, with some even taking leave during the nine days of hustings.

"People say various things: They say that (the activists) stood between the Members of Parliament and residents, you shielded the MP, or you didn't respond enough to the residents' needs, or you didn't speak candidly enough when the residents were giving feedback and the MP didn't get a good sense of what was on the ground," he said.

"Some grassroots leaders and party activists reading this have been discouraged. My response is, don't be discouraged."

The Prime Minister said that shortcomings in the PAP will be remedied and the party will strive to do better.

I don't know how much the PAP MPs rely on their grassroots activists to give them feedback about the ground. I do wonder if the PAP MPs are aware of the inherent weaknesses of such a feedback mechanism.

The first problem is that some grassroots activists are probably not genuinely interested in helping the PAP. They are there just to gain certain specific personal advantages for themselves.

For example, years ago, my wife once considered becoming a PAP volunteer. This would enable our son to gain priority for admission into the PAP kindergarten near our home. The kindergarten was three minutes away from our home, so it would have been really convenient.

In the end, we decided not to do it. One reason was that the kindergarten looked rather run-down. Neither the curriculum nor the teachers impressed us, when we went for the open house.

However, the fact is that even if my wife had decided to become a grassroots activist, she would have done it just to clock the hours and get the admission priority. Mrs Wang has no love for the PAP. She wouldn't have been interested at all in giving genuine feedback to the MPs.

Especially if the feedback was negative and would annoy the MPs (therefore jeopardising the priority for kindergarten admission).

Now, the second problem for the PAP is that some grassroots activists ARE genuinely interested in helping the PAP. These are the hard-core, true-blue PAP supporters, who will take nine days of leave from work to help out during the GE; and wave the flag and banners; and hug their MPs; and take the chartered bus from one rally to the next and to the next, just to make up the crowd.

The problem here is that such grassroots activists are inherently unable to give negative feedback to the MPs. You can safely assume that a large part of of their loyalty is blind. Whatever was the result of a PAP policy or decision, these activists will automatically view as wonderful, and good, and desirable. Asking them for criticism is like asking an ardent Lady Gaga fan to criticise Lady Gaga - it's an exercise in futility.

That is why such grassroots activists are lousy at providing feedback. (They are good for some things, such as waving flags and banners. But they are lousy at providing feedback).

In the near future, I may blog about how the PAP can get its best, most useful feedback. Of course, such feedback comes from its worst enemies - the Opposition.

Lui on the Train - Much Ado About Nothing

2011-05-30T14:06:00.001+08:00

Today the Straits Times has an article about Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew being spotted on an MRT train. The article goes like this:

NEW Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew was once again spotted taking the public transportation. This time, he was seen riding a MRT train during morning rush hour on Monday.
A commuter identified only as Nat snapped photos of the minister after seeing him in the crowded train, and posted them on citizen journalism website STOMP.

Nat said: 'I snapped pictures of him on the train this morning at 7.45am, on the North South line heading towards Jurong East at Bukit Gombak. Welcome to the crowd!'

Mr Lui was last week seen riding a public bus last Tuesday, and photos of the sighting were also posted on STOMP."

Well, it's not a bad thing if he takes the public transport to see what it is like. But to me, it's an overkill to pitch this as a good thing. If some Singaporeans think that this is a good thing, then I have to say that their expectations of our government are too low.

Personally, I would expect the Education Minister to visit schools from time to time, to see what's going on. I would expect the Defence Minister to visit army camps and bases for the same reason. I would expect the Heath Minister to visit our polyclinics and hospitals, and yes, I would expect the Transport Minister to ride on the trains and buses.

Expecting any less from our ministers is to have unduly low expectations for them. We're not paying them peanuts - we shouldn't be getting monkeys.

The Presidential Elections

2011-05-29T11:37:00.008+08:00

Very shortly after the PAP had lost in Aljunied GRC, the media asked ex-Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo if he would run for President. He replied quite affirmatively that he would not.

The decisiveness in his response would have surprised some political watchers. After all, George had just become jobless. Furthermore he has the right sort of background to be President. One would have expected George to at least reserve his position and say something along the lines of "I don't know yet. I'll think about it and decide later."

But a more recent TODAY article (that is not even about George Yeo) gives us a clue as to why George Yeo had been adamant about not running for President. The background to this article is that ex-PAP MP Tan Cheng Bock had just expressed his interest in running for President. And this is what his ex-fellow PAP MPs had to say about it:

PAP MPs surprised Dr Tan might run for President

04:47 AM May 28, 2011
by Teo Xuanwei

SINGAPORE - News that his former comrade-in-arms Tan Cheng Bock, 71, has declared his intention to run for President caught veteran backbencher Inderjit Singh off guard.

The Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency Member of Parliament (MP) told Today: "For Presidential Elections, there's always been a candidate that the Government supports ... it's quite clear that we will be fully behind this person so it will be very awkward (to have Dr Tan in the contest)."

What do these lines tell you? Firstly, that the PAP had already decided who should run for President. Secondly, that George Yeo was not the guy. Thirdly, that the PAP groupthink is so strong that George absolutely would not consider rocking the boat. George does not dare to be the President, if the PAP has already decided that someone else should be.

This brings to mind George Yeo's parting words, when he spoke to the media and said that he would not run for President. He said something like this, "I'm too much of a free spirit to run for President". This was a somewhat curious choice of phrase - and in fact, it attracted a degree of speculative twitterings among Singaporeans. One can't help but wonder - why would being a free spirit obstruct a person from being the President, any more than, say, being the Foreign Affairs Minister?

Perhaps I'm reading too much between the lines. But my instinctive feel is as follows. As mentioned earlier, the PAP has already decided who should be the President - and the PAP has decided to give him its full support (note Inderjit Singh's words - "we will be fully behind this person"). Whoever he is, this person himself would no doubt have been heavily involved in the discussions.

And if he does become President, it may well transpire that he feels beholden to the PAP (which selected him, and endorsed him, and gave him its full support). The expectation may arise that he is obliged to lend his support to the PAP. In other words, the President would not be a "free spirit". He can't do what he really wants. He can only do what the PAP wants. The favour has to be repaid.

This is pretty scary - especially if you understand what the President's role is all about. Let me explain. One of the President's main functions is to preside over the the appointment and dismissal of very senior civil servants and public officers. Specifically, the President has veto powers to stop the government from dismissing these people:

(1) the Chief Justice, Judges and Judicial Commissioners of the Supreme Court;
(2) the Attorney-General;
(3) members of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights;
(4) members of the Presidential Council for Religious Harmony;
(5) a member of the Legal Service Commission;
(6) the Chief Valuer;
(7) the Auditor-General;
(8) the Accountant-General;
(9) the Chief of Defence Force;
(10) the Chiefs of the Air Force, Army and Navy;
(11) a member of the Armed Forces Council;
(12) the Commissioner of Police; and
(13) the Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.

What's the idea here? Well, the President is supposed to protect these senior civil servants / public officers so that they can perform their duties without fear of political reprisal. This is a very important check & balance.

Just for example, suppose one day, a PAP minister is suspected of criminal wrongdoing - let's say that it's something to do with misuse of government funds. The Auditor-General discovers this while performing an audit, and would want to make a police report. The Commissioner of Police would want to launch a full-scale investigation against that PAP minister. If there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, the Attorney-General of Singapore would want to prosecute the case, and the District Judge would want to hear it.

But at the same time, all these persons - the Auditor General; the Commissioner of Police; the Attorney-General; the District Judge - could be afraid to do the right thing. After all, they might get sacked (it's the government that employs them, after all). This is where the President comes in. The President has the power to protect these people. Unless the President agrees, none of these people can be sacked or otherwise removed from their posts.

That's why it is important to have a truly independent President. A free spirit, if you want to call it that. A President who didn't receive any favours from the PAP, and who doesn't feel obliged to return any.

Possible Formulae for Determining Ministers' Salaries

2011-05-26T20:03:00.006+08:00

Mak Yuen Teen is an associate professor at NUS Business School. He has an article in TODAY which discusses ministerial salaries. Excerpts below:

Reviewing ministerial salaries: Seven lessons from the private sector
04:46 AM May 26, 2011
by Mak Yuen Teen

Last week, I taught executive and director pay to an executive MBA class and, during lunch, the subject of conversation at my table was ministerial pay in Singapore - a regular topic among the executives attending the programme over the years.

While most of the rest of the world is concerned with high executive pay, this must be the only country where ministerial salaries are of more interest.

Quite coincidentally, on Saturday morning, I had begun writing a commentary with the tentative title of "Ministerial pay: Lessons from corporate scandals and the financial crisis". That night, I saw on the news the Prime Minister's announcement that he was setting up a committee to review ministerial pay.

When you pay poorly, you might still get good people but, undoubtedly, the pool you select from will be smaller. You may also attract some who are willing to take low pay because they want to use their position for other benefit, such as taking bribes or getting directorships in companies.

When you pay very well, the pool will be larger, but you also risk attracting the wrong people who are motivated purely by money. People who are attracted to politics because of the money (or power) might still want to use their positions for their own benefit because for some, it is never enough.

I personally do not believe that high pay is effective for fighting corruption; I think it is an affront to the many who make an honest living on low pay to suggest that paying little encourages corruption.

I agree with Mak. Not only that, I think that it is also an affront to the many who make an honest living on high pay to suggest that paying them less would encourage corruption. I mean, just take a look at this nice, honest-looking man over here:

This man earns a lot of money (about 3 or 4 million dollars per year, excluding bonuses). He is also a well-respected man, who has held public office for many years. And in all those many years, there has never been any reason to believe that he has ever done anything corrupt.

But you know what his father says, and has said for many years, right? According to Daddy, if his son's salary was cut (for example, to only 1 or 2 million dollars per year), then he would feel tempted to become dishonest, and to cheat, and take bribes.

Now, if I were the son, I would feel very insulted by such remarks. For if I were a genuinely honest man, I would never think of taking bribes and Daddy's remarks are therefore indeed an insult to me. And the only temptation I would feel is the temptation to slap my father's face.

But that wouldn't be very nice. At least, I wouldn't do it in public - it would be politically incorrect. Daddy, after all, is a pretty powerful man. In practical terms, perhaps my only feasible course of action would be to wait, wait and wait ... until Daddy grows very old, and retires. Then I could go about taking steps to change his long-standing policy on ministers' salaries.

However, it is very difficult to determine what is the "right" pay for CEOs, people with very specialised skills - and government ministers. For CEOs, certain "benchmarks" have been suggested, such as some percentage of profits, some ratio to average employee pay, the pay of sports stars and celebrities or fellow CEOs. None of these are wholly satisfactory.

Benchmarking ministerial pay to other professions has its limitations because they are totally different jobs, and different jobs come with different lifestyles and employment risks. When I look at my peers who have gone to the private sector, many are earning a lot more than I do now, but they do not have my more flexible lifestyle as an academic, and they are not able to achieve tenure which gives better job security.

In any case, I believe that the best people in any field are those who are driven first by their passion and calling.

IT'S HOW THEY EARN IT

As a corporate governance advocate, it has never been my concern if someone is well paid and earns it in the right way. I would be outraged if someone makes a lot of money but does so in an illegal or unethical manner, where it is not related to appropriate measures of performance, or the pay determined is through a contaminated process.

The corporate sector suggests the following "best practices" which should be followed in setting senior executives pay:

- An "arms length" process for determining remuneration policy and packages
- Benchmarks used should be comparable (similar job responsibilities, similar size and industry, etc)
- There should be a reasonable mix of short- and long-term pay
- Pay should be based mainly on factors within the executive's control
- Performance measures used for evaluation should have strong links with the corporation's long-term performance
- There should be minimal benefits and termination payments that are generally unrelated to performance
- There is good disclosure and transparency
A private sector approach which treats running a country as equivalent to running a corporation is, of course, flawed to start out with. After all, a government can always print money, raise taxes, determine whether it wants to make a profit (budget surplus) or a loss (budget deficit) and so on.

Tying ministerial bonuses to annual GDP growth can create the same perverse incentives as tying CEO pay to annual revenue growth. For example, it can lead to incentives to invest in projects with high economic payoffs, but with attendant high social costs and under-investing for long-term growth.

"Projects with high economic payoffs, but with attendant high social costs" ...? Hmmm, that sounds like two things to me.

Firstly, our massive import of foreigners - which leads to economic growth, but strains our public infrastructure such as housing and transport.

Secondly, our two new casinos - which lead to economic growth, but also cause a variety of social ills such as crime, gambling addiction and the destruction of families.

What's also quite tragic is that many Singaporeans still don't realise that high economic growth doesn't necessarily translate into a better standard of living for citizens in general. High economic growth simply means that:

(1) Companies are producing and selling more goods and services; and
(2) The government gets to collect more corporate taxes.

Normally, (1) means that citizens get to earn more money, because successful companies can pay better salaries and bonuses and hire more employees. However, if labour & immigration policies are extremely lax, the companies don't actually pay citizens better, and won't invest in training them. Instead the companies will just hire plenty of cheap foreigners who earn a very large part of the extra money that might otherwise have gone to the citizens.

Normally, (2) means that the government has plenty of extra money which it can reinvest in society and redistribute to the people, for example, in areas such as education, healthcare and housing. However, if the government has the obsessive mindset that every extra cent must be channelled into the reserves and the reserves must never be touched until the end of the world has arrived, well, basically the people won't gain any benefit from (2).

Other problems are that high economic growth typically leads to increased inflation, which means that the cost of living escalates (hmmm, coincidentally that was the top election issue in Singapore) and furthermore the wealth created by a high GDP doesn't necessarily get distributed evenly across society (i.e, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer - and guess which country holds the world record for having the largest income gap?)

But I digress. Back to Mak's article:

But if we are determined to follow a private sector approach to setting ministerial pay, then we should go the whole nine yards and adopt similar sound pay practices, which could involve the following ....

DEFER PAY, BE TRANSPARENT

One, have an independent ministerial pay committee to oversee ministerial pay policy and levels (members must be independent and perceived to be so).

Two, adopt a small number of macro performance measures which capture overall performance in a holistic way (such as average GDP growth, average wage growth, Gini coefficient and unemployment rate) and micro performance measures which directly reflect a particular minister's performance (such as traffic accident rates, average expressway speeds, admission rates of Singaporeans into local universities, percentage of low-income families owning HDB flats).

Three, tie a minister's pay primarily to his individual responsibilities and performance, based on his portfolio (a small component can be tied to more macro measures but these may be more relevant to assessing the performance of the "chief executive", that is, the Prime Minister).

Four, benchmark targets such as GDP growth to trends in comparable economies, to better ensure that improvements are not largely due to external factors (for example, a significant increase in GDP growth - just like a significant increase in a company's stock price - may be driven more by general trends in the inter-connected global economy).

Five, defer a part of a minister's pay for a number of years and put in place conditions under which the deferred pay may be reduced.

Six, eliminate or significantly reduce pensions and other benefits not linked to a minister's performance. And seven, publish a report each year on the actual amount of each minister's pay and its breakdown.

This may sound like an awfully tedious process for setting ministerial pay. Unfortunately, corporate scandals and the recent financial crisis have taught us that poorly designed pay schemes set through a flawed process and which lack transparency can create perverse incentives and undermine governance. The current approach to setting ministerial pay emulates the pay levels in the private sector but not the sound pay principles that well-governed companies follow.

Some good ideas there, and all worth considering.

There is also a simpler idea which Mak did not mention. Yes, I know that it needs some tweaks and adjustments, but basically the idea goes like this. Firstly, ensure that the civil service has a rational system for determining salaries. Secondly, extend this system to the ministers.

Why? Well, in any normal organisation (and the civil service is not different), your salary depends on where you stand, in the hierarchy. Junior employees earn less than middle management, and middle management earns less than senior management. And the most senior guy in senior management earns more than the other guys in senior management.

A minister occupies the highest position in his ministry. The Permanent Secretary of that ministry occupies the 2nd highest position. So the minister should earn a salary anywhere from 5% to 20% higher than the Permanent Secretary. Similarly, we would expect the Perm Sec to earn 5% to 20% more than the civil servants who occupy the rank immediately below him.

Now, if the pay structure of the civil service is correctly rationalised across the board (and that should be the ongoing aim of the civil service anyway), what we would get is a natural pegging of ministers' salaries to private sector salaries anyway.

Why? Because the civil service and the private sector are in natural economic competition for employees all the time. For example, government hospitals and private hospitals are continuously competing to hire doctors and nurses all the time. Government schools, private schools and tuition centres are continuously competing to hire teachers. Any ministry which wants to hire fresh grads has got to compete with private-sector companies who also want to hire fresh grads.

If civil service salaries are generally fair and competitive at every level, then pegging our ministers' salaries to the permanent secretaries (and paying the ministers incrementally more) makes good sense.

Of course, this logic will probably reveal that currently, our ministers are grossly overpaid and have been grossly overpaid for many years.

But then we already knew that. Didn't we?

Poems on the Radio and on the Trains

2011-05-25T11:19:00.002+08:00

Mediacorp contacted me yesterday and asked for permission to read out a poem of mine on one of their radio programmes. I said yes, and planned to tune in, but woke up too late this morning and missed the programme (it started at 7:10 am). Oh well.

The poem was Palmistry, which I also read at a poetry event at the Esplanade Xchange last weekend. That event was part of the Moving Words project (jointly supported by the National Arts Council, The Literary Centre and SMRT). Selected poems by 12 Singapore poets will be featured - in the coming weeks - at various MRT stations and on the trains.

The poems come in the four official languages. Here's a nice one from Liang Wern Fook (梁文福）, who is also well-known as a songwriter.

岛

我和我的父亲相遇

在他的肩膀上

我小小的脸贴着他温热的颈项

（人们都说：这么年轻这个父亲）

而我最初的看见

就是他背后的遥远

父亲以年轻让我追赶上他

以严厉让我学会眺望

以改变让我怀念

以挥手（又像招手）

叫我离开又让我想回来

我和我的父亲再度相遇

在我新车的后视镜里

我和他真的很像

（看起来还这么年轻人们都这么说）

但近来大家说什么他都听成风的回响

年龄不是问题（我告诉自己）

距离才是问题

我是他的儿子

我最清楚父亲需要的远和近

放轻一点　别说得太急

他就可以　字字句句都听进去

父亲坐在后座

我开往明天的晴和雨

路还很长再往前走

海岸线外

大海不是尽头

The Moving Words project comes with a competition that's open to the public (click on the earlier link). Prizes include an iPad2; book vouchers; and the chance to be published in a new book to be launched later this year in conjunction with the Singapore Writers Festival. Winning poems will also get featured on the MRT stations and trains. So wake up your muse, and start writing.

George Yeo and His True Legacy for Singapore

2011-05-12T07:36:00.000+08:00

Now that George Yeo is quitting politics, many people are saying that this is such a pity for Singapore's foreign affairs. Personally I am somewhat hazy about what George Yeo actually achieved in this area, but perhaps that's just because Singapore's foreign affairs is not an area to which I've paid that much attention.

Instead I will remember George Yeo as the minister who brought the casinos to Singapore. Yes, in case you've forgotten, George was the guy who first proposed the idea and pushed for it. Even within the PAP, there was plenty of debate and resistance about the casino proposal (to such an extent that another ex-minister, Lim Boon Heng, recently broke down in tears when he revisited those memories). But in the end George prevailed.

(George Yeo was also the man who famously said, "But we are building integrated resorts, not casinos". I found this statement very annoying, not merely because of its inherent dishonesty, but because it also assumed that Singaporeans were so stupid that they would fall for it. However, let's not digress.)

George Yeo's true legacy for Singapore is the casinos, for they will continue to exert an influence and impact on our society long after George himself is dead and gone. Billion-dollar infrastructure projects backed by serious international investors will not just fold up and expire tomorrow - once they are here, they are here to stay.

I am not one of those people who are fervently against casinos. Firstly I am not a Christian nor a Muslim and therefore have no religious objections against gambling.

Secondly, I recognise that the casinos do earn easy tourist dollars and create jobs (even though I do not think well of many of these jobs - would you really encourage your son to pursue a career as a professional croupier?).

Thirdly, I am not terribly persuaded by the argument that the casinos will spawn widespread gambling addictions among our people. That's because (in my view) such addictions may just as well arise in relation to 4D, Toto, Big Sweep or mahjong, all of which are forms of gambling which were here in Singapore long before the casinos ever came.

My concern about the casinos is that they will breed a lot of crime in Singapore. As long-time readers of this blog know, I began my legal career as a DPP, working frequently with the police as well as with CPIB and the Central Narcotics Bureau. Through my work experience, I have developed an intuitive sense of the kinds of environments and conditions under which crime, like magic, will spontaneously appear and flourish.

Casinos strike me as a rich, natural breeding ground for many types of crimes. Casinos are to criminals what garbage dumps are to rats, or shit is to houseflies. Specifically, a casino environment is supportive of the following species of criminal offences - theft, robbery, extortion, cheating, drug trafficking, consumption of illegal drugs, illegal moneylending, money laundering, vice activities, human trafficking and other immigration-related offences.

The two casinos have opened only in the recent past, so some of you will argue that it is too early to say if I am right or wrong. In fact I hope to be proven wrong about what I have said about the casinos - for who would want to live in a crime-infested country? Nevertheless, we can already begin to get a flavour of George Yeo's true legacy for Singapore. See below:

"AN UNEMPLOYED man was charged in court on Thursday with armed robbery of $450,000 from a businessman at a hotel room in Marina Bay Sands last week. No plea was taken from Octavius Tok Tien Howe, 37." LINK

"SINGAPORE: A punter who cheated the Marina Bay Sands casino of S$31,500 (US$24,800) with the help of a dealer was sentenced on Monday to 54 months jail. Thirty-two-year-old Tan Tiong Loon is the first person to ever be convicted and sentenced for being in cahoots with a dealer to cheat a local casino." LINK

"A VIETNAMESE woman was fined $700 on Wednesday for soliciting at the Marina Bay Sands casino after she lost money in gambling ... A district court heard that at 1.30am last Saturday, police received a call from security staff of the casino that they had detained a woman for soliciting for the purpose of prostitution." LINK

"SINGAPORE: A former croupier at the Resorts World Sentosa casino and a full-time gambler were jailed Tuesday for working together to cheat the attraction of nearly S$29,000 between October 2 and 9 last year." LINK

"A Singaporean man has been charged with acting as a bookie at the Resorts World Sentosa casino. 50-year-old Ng Ah Chye allegedly committed the offences between 11 July and 17 August, last year." LINK

"SINGAPORE: A court in Singapore has framed charges against five Indians for allegedly using fake casino chips at a resort in the city state, local media reported on Saturday. The Indians are accused of using an unknown number of counterfeit chips valued at SGD 1,000 each ..." LINK

"After gambling and losing the $1000 he had brought to the Resorts World Sentosa casino, an Indonesian tourist resorted to theft. 49-year old Paulus Djohar has been sentenced to 4 weeks' jail for the attempted theft of a $500 cellphone. He followed 18-year old student Lim Tse Min from behind at Changi Airport and took the phone from her backpack." LINK

"A CHINESE national gambled with $250 in casino chips that did not belong to him while an Indian national stole $12,180 worth of electrical cables meant for Marina Bay Sands so as to get some money to bet with. On Wednesday, the two construction workers pleaded guilty. Ni Guo Jian, 45, was jailed nine weeks for criminal breach of trust. Kakkayan Govindarasan, 26, was jailed seven months." LINK

For better or for worse, this is George Yeo's legacy. For all of us, in this country.

The Recycling of PAP Ministers and the Fall of the US Dollar

2011-05-11T12:07:00.004+08:00

From the TODAY newspaper:

Risk of crisis if US loses AAA rating: GIC
04:46 AM May 10, 2011

by Chris Howells

SINGAPORE - A major crisis could erupt if the United States loses its triple-A credit rating, according to Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) deputy chairman and executive director Tony Tan.

"We face the possibility of another major financial and economic crisis if the world's risk-free asset, hitherto US bonds, loses its AAA credit rating in a disorderly manner," Dr Tan said at a 30th anniversary conference of GIC yesterday.

Speaking at the same event, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is also a deputy chairman of GIC, said: "The US has had its credit rating put on negative watch. It hasn't affected bond rates so far. But whether or not the rating agencies' views affect the market, the reality of the unsolved problem is that this fiscal challenge is looming and growing. That must eventually affect the confidence in the economy and the ability of Americans to continue to finance their debt, and, ultimately, with international implications, the value of the US dollar."

The comments come after Standard & Poor's last month cut its long-term outlook on US sovereign debt to negative, from stable, while keeping its triple-A rating. The ratings agency cited political gridlock in Washington over plans to cut government deficits as a key reason for the downgrade.

First, a small digression. Some of you are still misguidedly mourning the defeat of foreign affairs minister George Yeo in the recent General Elections. For you believe that this means that Singapore has lost the services of a very talented, capable man.

But look carefully at the article above. See that name Tony Tan? Yes, that's our former Deputy Prime Minister (who was also our ex-Defence Minister, ex-Education Minister, ex-Home Affairs Minister etc).

Tony Tan retired from politics in 2005. But as you can see, he didn't end up as a quiet old man passing his days away by doing taichi and growing orchids in his garden. Today, Tony continues to hold a variety of important appointments. Among other things, he is the Deputy Chairman of GIC; and the Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings.

Ex-PAP ministers never really die, until they are really dead. They just get recycled into other lucrative roles, whereby they still get to control your CPF money, your mainstream media and various other aspects of your life. Sure, their public profile ceases to be so high, but they're not going to give up on the money so easily.

So members of the George Yeo Fan Club need not fear. Hsien Loong is probably identifying job vacancies for George now. If there isn't any existing vacancy, Hsien Loong will probably just create a new job for George.
_______________

Back to the TODAY article. I think that the title is misleading. Tony did not say that there is a risk of a crisis if the US loses its AAA rating. Tony said that there is a risk of a crisis, if the US loses its AAA rating in a disorderly manner. There's a difference.

Personally, I do not think that the S&P decision to place the US on negative watch was a surprise to anybody. Since the financial crisis, no one really cares that much about S&P ratings anyway, since they are no longer considered that reliable - remember how AAA-rated CDOs collapsed almost overnight into less than junk?

Relative to Asian currencies, the US dollar has been steadily declining for a long time, and the decline will just go on and on, quite irrespective of anything that S&P has got to say about it. My own financial adviser has told me to stay out of US dollar assets, unless they are one of those funds which also use USD/SGD hedges. And the main reason why gold and silver prices had been going crazy is that investors worldwide have been getting out of the US dollar and needing somewhere else to jump into, eg precious metals.

Jurong Town Council Employee Sacked .... Allegedly for Supporting the Opposition

2011-05-10T14:31:00.002+08:00

I just read this on the Temasek Review:

A National Solidarity Party (NSP) supporter by the name of Geraldine Soh Shin Lin was sacked from her job at Jurong Town Council without any valid reasons given.

According to Ms Soh’s boyfriend Joel Kong who alerted us to the case on our Facebook, Ms Soh has been working at Jurong Town Council for three years without any incidents or warnings to note.

On 1 May, she was spotted by a fellow collegue selling merchandise at a NSP rally. On 3rd May, she was suspended without any valid reason by her superior Ong Ah Hai for seven days.

After her suspension, the Town Council informed a RC member who told Ms Soh’s father that she was suspended because she had ‘passed confidential information to the Opposition’ which Mr Kong vehemently denied.

Ms Soh was dismissed today after arriving in office for ‘poor performance’, but the Human Resource did not compensate her for the termination in accordance to MOM guidelines except a vague promise that she will be contacted again.

Mr Kong remains perturbed at his girlfriend’s sudden dismissal without a proper explanation being given:

“Compare this to her other colleagues who were told to support the PAP during Nomination Day, and subsequently missing from office for the whole day, my girlfriend did not use working hours to support the Opposition, while those who did suppoting the PAP were not penalised. Is the residents’ money supposed to fund PAP’s electorial campaign? She is currently unemployed as a result of this morning’s happenings,” he wrote.

The person who suspended and sacked Ms Soh is Mr Ho Thian Poh. He can be contacted at 6561 2222.

NSP’s Goh Meng Seng was unavailable for comments at Press Time.

I don't know any more details than what the Temasek Review has stated. And I do not know whether there might be any inaccuracies in their article.

But I think that the public should take an interest in this matter, and that the public has a right to know. At the very least, Jurong Town Council should come forward to clarify the situation.

If there is wrongdoing here, don't let them get away with this. Call that telephone number, and ask Mr Ho Thian Poh for an explanation. Or email the town council with your questions, at this address - enquiry@jrtc.org.sg.

You can also send them a fax at this number - 6562 4997. Or ask Tharman Shanmugaratnam for a clarification (he's now leading the Jurong GRC team). Tharman is on Facebook.

Golden Point Award 2011

2011-05-10T13:56:00.003+08:00

Paul Tan, from the National Arts Council, just contacted me. Paul asked for help in publicising the 2011 Golden Point Award Competition. This is a national writing competition, with different categories for poetry and short stories, in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

I won this competition back in 2005, when the rules permitted any Singaporean citizen or permanent resident to enter. That made the competition a very tough one, since you had to compete with the best writers in the whole country.

Since then, the competition rules have changed. Published writers and ex-1st prize winners (like myself) are no longer eligible to participate. The idea behind these new rules (which were introduced in 2009) was to discover new, unknown writing talent in Singapore.

So if you are a new, unknown writer and you think you can write well, do give this competition a shot. The prize money is quite generous - as generous as it gets in Singapore. $10,500 goes to the first-prize winner, in the form of cash, enrichment grants and gift vouchers.

Political Poems, Star Gazing and Literature Texts

2011-05-10T12:14:00.012+08:00

I think that I have had an overdose of GE blogging. I'm going to take a break now and write about other stuff instead.

So far, 2011 has been quite a pleasant year for me as a writer. I have hardly written anything new, yet my older works keep getting featured in new publications.

This year, I appeared in a new anthology - & Words: Poems Singapore and Beyond, edited by Edwin Thumboo. I understand that the Education Ministry has recommended / approved this book for use in Singapore schools, as a literature text.

I also appeared in Man/Born/Free: Writings on the Human Spirit from Singapore, edited by Gwee Li Sui. This collection of short stories and poems contains some overtly political themes, and it's safe to say that it will never be approved by the Education Ministry.

It's a pity, because this anthology contains works from some of the most-acclaimed Singapore writers over a period of almost 60 years. Featured writers include Catherine Lim, Kirpal Singh, Lee Tzu Pheng, Boey Kim Cheng, Alfian Saat and Alvin Pang.

(Interestingly, it also includes writers like Edwin Thumboo, Tan Jin Quee, Said Zahari, James Puthucheary and Elangovan. The common factor among these writers is that at one point or another, they had been either been arrested or detained without trial, for their political beliefs, or their works had been banned).

(For example, Said Zahari is the same Said Zahari who was formerly the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, and an advocate of press freedom. He was detained under the ISA for 17 years without trial).

Anyway, political or not, you can buy the book from Kinokuniya or Select Books, or directly order it online from the publisher, Ethos Books.

Oh, and just yesterday, I received my free copy of Gazing at Stars, a new book published by Oxford University Press. This is a collection of short stories from writers in Asia (and includes Singapore writers Ovidia Yu and Tan Hwee Hwee). I didn't contribute any short story, but the publisher wanted to include a poem of mine, as an introduction to the book. In fact, the title of the book - "Gazing at Stars" - is taken from that poem.

Accident

...... And I,
........... gazing at stars,
stumbled over you,
...................... tripped
.............. and
....... fell painfully in love,
couldn't get up
................... for ages.

Gazing at Stars does not reproduce the short stories in their original form. Instead the language has been simplified. That's because the book is part of an international series of books intended to help non-native English speakers to read more and learn the language.

However, as the book is graded Level 6 (the highest level in the series), it makes good reading even for those who regard English as their first language.

What Do You Think of the Election Results?

2011-05-08T09:42:00.000+08:00

I think that is a great day for Singapore. It could have been better, but overall it's a great day.

The victory of the Workers Party in Aljunied GRC is a truly historic moment for the nation. Congratulations, Mr Low! And I look forward to seeing the great value which I believe Chen Show Mao will bring to the national policy-making process in Parliament.

I'm also glad to see that Yaw Shin Leong has won very comfortably in Hougang. I think that this is evidence that Hougang residents do not see the Workers Party as just Low Thia Kiang - this is why they have placed their trust in Yaw too.

The PAP won in Marine Parade, and as I predicted many posts ago (in fact, it was my first GE2011 post), the infamous Tin Pei Ling gets to ride into Parliament as an MP, riding on the strength of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. Still the narrow margin of the PAP victory in Marine Parade will send a strong message to the PAP that they had better buck up and remember the people they are supposed to serve.

Nicole Seah, I am glad that you ran for elections. The odds were always against you, but I believe you knew that very well from the outset. Your campaign has awakened and inspired something in our collective hearts, about the need to help the poor and the underdogs in Singapore, and you have connected powerfully with native Singaporeans. I hope to see you again, in GE2016.

Tan Jee Say, I am sorry that you did not win. I know why you ran for election, I understand why you did it, and yes, I agree with you that the PAP has lost its moral compass. Take comfort in the fact that your hard work and great efforts in GE2011 may compel the PAP to start searching for its compass again.

Chiam See Tong, you are a hero in my eyes. You have been a brave voice in Parliament for so many years, and you have earned the admiration and respect of many. I feel that you have done enough, and in view of your age and health, I feel that it's time for you to retire and take a good rest. You will be fondly remembered, especially by the residents of Potong Pasir who steadfastly stood by you for so long, through the years of PAP bullying.

Lina Chiam, it was so close, so close! I don't know what to say. If you were standing beside me, I would give you a big, big hug. Take care, dear brave Lina, my best wishes to you.

Vivian, in an odd way, I'm glad that you did that smear thing against Vincent Wijeysingha. This ugly episode reveals something about your personality, and it's good for the people of Singapore to know. I've already met someone from your church who says that from now on, she'll be giving you a cold look every time she sees you.

Lee Kuan Yew, you might have saved George Yeo's job if you hadn't said rude things like "Chen Show Mao can go back to China" and "Aljunied voters shall repent." Pssst, here's a little bit of news for you - you're not God, and it isn't a sin for citizens to vote for whoever they like. You annoyed many voters there, next time consult your PR adviser first.

Hsien Loong, I hope that your apology was sincere. And that you're really going to change things and make things better for Singaporeans. If you do, then I promise to tell my blog readers all about it, as loudly as I can.

A Singaporean's Message for Polling Day

2011-05-06T16:01:00.002+08:00

Today is Cooling Off Day and I wasn't going to post anything new. However someone forwarded me an article by one Ong Yi Xin, and it was also indicated that Yi Xin would like his message to be shared with as many Singaporeans as possible.

Yi Xin's article was well-written and extremely well-researched, and actually came with 15 footnotes and two annexes worth of supporting data ( one annex coming in the form of an Excel spreadsheet with lots of facts and figures).

I'm just giving you the main article itself. It's too good to miss:

Friends and fellow Singaporeans,

I am writing this letter as a concerned citizen, unaffiliated to any political party, to persuade you to vote wisely on May 7. I was and remain motivated by the increasingly large gap between the rhetoric we hear and the reality which all of us feel as ordinary citizens.

PM Lee has said that these elections are about our future, and that we should judge the PAP MPs on their track record. Plenty of ink has been spilled on various issues, but I want to touch on just three subjects: housing, socio-economic inequality and the electoral system.

Housing

We have been reminded time and again that HDB flats are affordable, a claim which we can examine most simply by comparing income to price . From 2000-2010, median monthly household income of residents rose from SGD3,638 to SGD5,000 (a 37% increase), while the resale price index for HDB flats rose from 108.3 to 164.0 (a 52% increase). Examining the data more carefully, we find that from 2005-2010, median incomes increased by 30%, but the resale price index leapt by 62%, i.e. HDB prices rose twice as quickly as median incomes in the last 5 years. Claims of affordability and progress don’t hold up when our parents took less time, with less income, to buy an HDB flat.

I would be less concerned if rising prices were not buttressed by the economically illiterate policy of “asset enhancement”. When the ministers speak of “asset enhancement”, they conveniently neglect the fact that leased assets (such as HDB flats) are by definition depreciating assets . Now repeat to yourselves the phrase “depreciating asset enhancement” – does that sound like a sustainable policy? Many have said that there is an implicit promise to renew the leases (e.g. via SERS , where the new flats come with new 99-year leases), but that comes with a cost: either the Singapore Land Authority forgoes income (in their words, raiding the reserves), or HDB pays to extend the lease (in my understanding, robbing taxpayers) . This is textbook fiscal irresponsibility.

Inequality

Socio-economic equality is important – the PAP has highlighted that with its last three election manifestos: “A people united – secure future, better life” (2001), “Staying together, moving ahead” (2006), and “Securing our future together” (2011). The statistics make for grimmer reading than taglines: the Gini coefficient , a measure of inequality, rose from .430 in 2000 to .452 in 2010 . The top 10% of households now earn close to 17 times what the bottom 10% do . More tellingly, the average real income of the bottom 10% of employed households dropped by 6.6% from 2000 to 2010, which indicates that we are leaving our weakest and poorest ever further behind.

This trend is unlikely to change, because our policy-makers are not incentivised to do so, no matter what the manifestos proclaim. Their base pay is determined formulaically by referencing it to a benchmark of the top earners across six professions . Their bonuses are pegged to absolute GDP growth and boosted by a discretionary component, presumably based on a subjective performance evaluation by the Prime Minister. Simply put, our Cabinet is paid more when the best-paid earn even more, when absolute (not per capita) GDP grows, and when they are judged favourably by their own peers. That does not strike me as a pay package which attracts those who truly wish to serve, nor motivates them (once elected) to listen to and speak up for the faintest voices in society.

Electoral system

In 2006, just over 1.1 million citizens cast valid votes for 47 contested seats . A PAP candidate was elected for every 16,625 PAP voters; the 375,143 votes cast for opposition candidates saw only two representatives returned to Parliament . While the British first-past-the-post (FPTP) system does lead to such outcomes , our unique, winner-takes-all GRC system has skewed it even further. This year, it is conceivable that as many as 85,000 voters will vote for the opposition in a single GRC, only to see 6 PAP MPs elected to Parliament .

The GRC system does not just mute a larger number of voices, but it also forces difficult choices on voters, who need to assess the entire slate of candidates. The contest in Aljunied GRC has thrown this into stark relief: is a single excellent candidate enough reason to vote in four others of hugely varying quality? What if one of the other candidates is rotten to the core? What if the excellent candidate passes away or steps down before the next General Elections ?

‘Cooling-off day’ is supposed to be a time to reflect, to help us make rational choices at the ballot box. The PAP’s track record and self-engineered compensation scheme leaves me with little doubt about the direction it will take our country towards should it even receive a shadow of a mandate. The electoral system tilts the results in their favour before a single vote has been cast.

I ask you, friends and fellow citizens, to vote wisely this Saturday: not for the PAP, but for Singapore and Singaporeans.

A friend and fellow Singaporean,
Ong Yi Xin

Marine Parade GRC: Nicole Seah vs Goh Chok Tong

2011-05-05T14:16:00.005+08:00

As earlier mentioned, I had moved house a few months ago. I thought that I would be in Aljunied GRC. But my wife and I still haven't received our polling cards.

Then last night, my ex-landlord called me up and said, "Your polling cards are here with me! Please come to collect them, Voting Day is almost here." Apparently, as we had moved house only after a certain cut-off date, our old address is the relevant one for GE2011. That means we would be treated as Marine Parade GRC voters.

Sorry, Mr Low Thia Kiang. That means you just lost two votes in Aljunied.

Since I am now a Marine Parade voter, here are my thoughts on the Marine Parade GRC. Many, many people have been comparing Nicole Seah and Tin Pei Ling. The reasons are obvious. The two candidates are very similar in some ways, and very different in others. So they are a highly interesting pair to compare and contrast.

A lot has already been said about Pei Ling, so I won't rehash. All I want to say, after watching the videos and reading the news, is that she is not impressive. It's not just the youth. Even for a 27-year-old, she is not impressive.

I try to think back to myself when I was 27, where I was, and what I was doing. And I try to think of my colleagues and friends, in that age-group at that time. I honestly feel that Pei Ling does not compare well (and none of us were even trying to run for elections).

In fairness, I should add that most of my colleagues and friends in that age-group at that time were lawyers. Not only that, litigation lawyers. Effective communication was an essential skill, and so was the ability to make strong, persuasive, convincing arguments. You also needed to carry yourself with some gravitas. It was part of the job.

At that age, I was already appearing in Yong Pung How's court, doing criminal appeal cases (Yong Pung How was the former Chief Justice of Singapore). His extreme sarcasm and intolerance of incompetence was very well-known. CJ Yong had no qualms about butchering even senior lawyers with his brutally sharp tongue, if they did not prepare their cases well or spoke ineloquently in his court.

And I think that CJ Yong would have slaughtered any lawyer (metaphorically), if she had gone "I don't know what to saaaaay ..." and stomped her feet in his courtroom.

I am not saying that Pei Ling is very bad for a 27-year-old. I am saying that she is not impressive, for a 27-year-old. If you are 27 and you want to run for election, you have to be very impressive in how you present yourself. That's because you need to compensate for the disadvantage of your youth and perceived immaturity. But Pei Ling is not impressive. She doesn't meet the mark.

However, 24-year-old Nicole Seah is very impressive. I have seen the videos, the way she speaks and handles questions from the press. This girl has a brain, has a heart and speaks with sincerity, conviction and remarkable composure. Nicole isn't merely impressive for a 24-year-old - she is quite impressive compared to Singapore politicians of any age group.

Unlike LKY, Nicole even knows how to make a strong point, without sounding mean or vindictive. She doesn't say anything like "Go back to China, Chen Shao Mao" or "You will repent, Aljunied voters". Nicole is down-to-earth, authentic and friendly, qualities that I find quite appealing.

(May I add that in terms of looks, Nicole Seah is also much more appealing than LKY).

When I first told my wife about Nicole Seah, my wife was not convinced. Mrs Wang just groaned, "First we have a 27-year-old, now we have a 24-year-old. Things are getting from bad to worse." But I persuaded Mrs Wang to watch the videos of Nicole Seah in action. Eight minutes later, Mrs Wang changed her mind. She said, "Now I understand why people are talking so much about Nicole Seah. Because she is REALLY good."

And indeed, I read that as of today, Nicole has just overtaken Lee Kuan Yew, on Facebook, as the most popular politician in Singapore. (Based on the number of Facebook "likes").

Of course, the problem is that Marine Parade GRC is not just Tin Pei Ling versus Nicole Seah. If that was the case, Nicole would probably win 90% of the votes. And most of the remaining 10% votes for Pei Ling would probably be compassionate votes, given in the hope that that Pei Ling doesn't suffer any long-term emotional trauma.

Marine Parade GRC is more about Goh Chok Tong vs Nicole Seah. And of course, Goh is a PAP heavyweight. He has held numerous key appointments - Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Defence Minister etc, and of course, he has been an elected MP for Marine Parade for the longest time. If you want to talk about actual experience and stature, Nicole Seah cannot hold a candle to Goh Chok Tong.

So what rational basis can a Marine Parade GRC voter possibly have, to vote for NSP (Nicole) rather than the PAP (Goh Chok Tong)? Let me offer a few possible arguments. Not saying that these arguments are sufficient - every voter must decide that for himself (and I'm still undecided myself). I'm just laying out the reasons, for your consideration. See which ones make sense to you.

1. "The PAP is almost certainly going to win in Marine Parade anyway. But I will vote for the NSP, to give them a better percentage. This will send a symbolic message to the PAP, to show that I do not think well of their performance over the past 5 years."

2. "The GRC system is seriously wrong in principle, and the PAP has been using it for decades, to protect their weaker candidates (like Pei Ling) and give them a free ride into Parliament. I cannot agree with this. Although Goh Chok Tong deserves a lot of respect, I have to vote for NSP to show my displeasure with the GRC system."

3. "Even the most experienced PAP ministers are not as indispensable as they may appear. One might have thought that ministers such as Lim Boon Heng, Jayakumar and Abdullah Tarmugi are all essential, but this year they are stepping down and retiring anyway. Just like them, Goh Chok Tong may not be that absolutely necessary."

4. "Even if Goh Chok Tong loses, it's not like he died and Singapore lost him forever. They will probably redeploy him in some other new and important role. Such as the President of Singapore. Or the Chairman of the CPF Board. Or the CEO of GIC. Or the Special Advisor to Temasek Holdings. Or Singapore's United Nations chief representative, or something."

5. "I am not voting on municipal lines. I am voting on a national basis. I am more concerned about the country and its Parliament, than the question of who's going to clear my rubbish and build new playgrounds. And I think that what this country needs is more Opposition members in Parliament."

Let me know what you think, folks.

The Aljunied Mother & Son Story

2011-05-04T16:28:00.003+08:00

So now ChannelNews Asia is on it. Unfortunately their article is quite garbled and I get the feeling that Satish Cheney, the journalist, is feeling a little lost as to what the story is really all about. Here's the CNA article (which contains various inaccuracies and ambiguities). Full text below:

GE: PAP Aljunied team denies pressing charges against low IQ boy
By Satish Cheney

SINGAPORE : The People's Action Party's Aljunied GRC team has denied allegations that it is pressing charges against a mentally disabled boy who had come to one of its Meet-the-People sessions (MPS) in Serangoon North and slammed a chair on the door.

In a note on its Facebook page, the team labelled the allegations and reports "slander that has been viralling online".

It said the team was wrongly accused "that we had not been compassionate, also that we had pressed charges against the poor boy".

"We didn't press charges. The mother and son have been coming to MPS regularly and we had been helping them to get financial aid. We had continued to help after the incident and we will continue doing so."

In the note, the team urged residents and grassroots leaders to look out for those who require assistance but are hesitating to come forward to seek help.

Some media reports had indicated that the MP who met the boy was Cynthia Phua and that she had said she would not accept the boy's apology and was in no position to excuse or forgive the boy.

Okay, Satish. The first thing you'll want to take note of is that this incident is not something happening now, but is a past incident that occurred two years ago, in 2009. So the PAP is definitely not pressing charges now.

The next thing you'll want to note is that generally, only the police and the AGC can press charges. Other people cannot press charges (that includes MPs) and so it must be true that the MPs in this case did not press charges.

I think what's getting people excited about this matter is that the mother went to apologise and the boy wrote an apology letter too, but the MP rejected the apology. If the MP had been more magnanimous (taking into account the fact that the boy was mentally disabled and his mother was in dire financial straits), the MP could have accepted the apology and asked the police to drop the case.

Thirdly, you'll want to take note that it was not Cynthia Phua, but Lim Hwee Hua, who said that she would not accept the boy's apology and was in no position to excuse or forgive the boy. Satish, read this New Paper article which was published on 8 May, 2009. I've reproduced the full text below.

Teen arrested for violence at MP's office

The 17-year-old boy slammed a chair over his head when he felt his mother was given cold treatment by MP. -TNP

Fri, May 08, 2009
The New Paper
By Ng Tze Yong

A YOUTH with low IQ has been arrested by police after flying into a rage at a Meet-the-People Session (MPS), upset at what he felt was his MP's cold-shoulder treatment of his mother's financial plight.

The 17-year-old boy hoisted an aluminium foldable chair over his head and slammed it against a glass door seconds after walking out of MP Cynthia Phua's Serangoon North office with his mother.

The boy, who has been released on bail, has been told to report back to the police on 12 May, where he may be charged with committing a rash act.

The offence carries a jail term of up to six months and a fine of up to $2,500.

The youth cannot be named because of impending court proceedings.

This is the third incident in recent months involving MPs and their constituents.

The boy and his mother, 53, are familiar faces to the grassroots volunteers at the MPS.

The unwed mother with Primary 6 education gets by on a $400 monthly salary as a part-time cleaner.

He attended a special school and suffers from thalassemia, a blood disorder that renders him weak and sickly.

The mother said that things went from bad to worse in November 2004 when the boy's father disappeared and stopped paying the $300 monthly maintenance due to her.

As a result, she visited the MPS about once a month for the past few years to request for various kinds of financial aid.

FORGIVE ME: Two days ago, the mother returned to the MPS alone and with a handwritten letter of apology from her son.

January this year saw a crisis unfold in their lives, when the mother broke her wrist after falling off a chair while cleaning a fan. She hasn't worked since.

She said the HDB was then in the middle of repossessing her flat and giving her a rental unit, but she was unable to pay the $138 in rental deposit and stamp duty.

So last Monday, she went to the office at Block 125, Serangoon North Ave 1, where MP Lim Hwee Hua holds her MPS, hoping to have her sign an appeal letter for HDB.

But that day, Mrs Lim, who is also a minister in the Prime Minister's Office, was abroad. Fellow Aljunied GRC MP Cynthia Phua stood in for her.

The mother's request was granted - Madam Phua signed the letter - but mother and son left fuming, claiming that Madam Phua had put them down.

She claimed that shortly after they had entered the office, Madam Phua asked her son a series of questions:

'She asked him, 'Who are you? What are you doing? Why aren't you working?' she claimed.

The mother said she wanted to explain her son's condition, but wasn't given a chance.

'I felt like we were being scolded,' she said.

The meeting ended after two or three minutes, she said.

As they were walking out, the son snapped.

His outburst with the chair - two blows against the glass door, which didn't break - was 'strong enough to get someone killed', said the Serangoon PAP branch secretary, Mr Poon Mun Wai.

As grassroots volunteers scrambled to calm down the teenager, his mother begged a neighbour to whisk him home immediately.

Later that night, the police arrived at their flat and arrested him. He was released on bail at about 1am.

When contacted, Madam Phua contradicted the mother's version of events, saying she felt that their conversation 'went well'.

She said: 'Like any normal case at MPS, I have to try to understand the case first of all...

'I had to ask some pointed questions about his employment status to understand the root cause of the problem, so that I can be more effective in helping them.'

During the one week after the incident, the mother pondered what to do.

She got her son to shave off his shoulder-length orange-dyed hair to get rid of bad luck.

For days, she said, he couldn't find the courage to face himself in the mirror. He also decided to put on hold a long-time dream to audition for Singapore Idol.

Two days ago, she returned to the MPS again alone and clutching a handwritten letter of apology from her son.

'Please fodgive me for what I dad I am sinelely truely I'm sorry (sic),' the teenager had written in big, neat handwriting.

The apology, however, was not acceptable to Mrs Lim, who was back chairing the MPS after returning from abroad.

'I made it very clear to (the mother) that this is unacceptable behaviour. It is not justifiable in any circumstance. There's no excuse to be violent,' Mrs Lim told The New Paper.

She also explained that she was not in a position to excuse or forgive the boy.

'I was not present and the police are investigating into the matter. I believe the police will take into consideration the mitigating factors,' said Mrs Lim.

'From what I understand, Madam Phua was being very motherly and very helpful inside the room with them.'

Mrs Lim's response surprised the mother, who had spoken fondly of her throughout the interview with The New Paper just a day before.

She said: 'I know what my son did was wrong. But how can I not defend him? He is my son, he is not well and he has a problem with his temper.

'I don't want him to go to jail and have his future ruined.'

The Apology from PM Lee Hsien Loong

2011-05-04T11:37:00.004+08:00

From the Straits Times today:

PM says sorry over mistakes, pledges to do better
By Yen Feng

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday apologised for the mistakes under his watch in the last five years and pledged to make adjustments to the system and do better.

He cited the escape of detained terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari and the massive Orchard Road floods as two slip-ups, and also acknowledged that the Government could have moved faster to address shortfalls in housing and public transport.

Speaking at a People's Action Party lunchtime rally at Boat Quay next to UOB Plaza, PM Lee said he was sorry and he and his team were doing their best to fix the problems. He said the Government did not predict the sharp demand for flats after the recession in mid-2009. If they had, they would have ramped up the Housing Board building programmes faster, and saved many Singaporeans angst.

They would also have moved more aggressively to expand MRT networks to deal with growing population and traffic congestion.

'When these problems vex you or disturb you or upset your lives, please bear with us. We're trying our best on your behalf. And if we didn't quite get it right, I am sorry but we will try and do better the next time," he said.

This is rare. Humility from the PAP, and coming straight from the Prime Minister himself. This apology does score some points with me. If I were living in his constituency (Ang Mo Kio), I might now feel somewhat inclined to vote for Lee Hsien Loong.

For this apology, we also have to thank the opposition parties and the large number of supporters who showed up at their rallies. Ask yourself - why is PM Lee's apology coming now? Because it's election season. The Opposition is speaking up loudly, raising important issues and making many strong, valid arguments. The PAP has few easy rebuttals, and in the end, PM Lee feels somewhat compelled to concede that his party has made some big mistakes.

This shows the value of having a strong Opposition - it keeps the ruling party on its toes. The Opposition acts as a check and balance, constantly reminding the PAP about the people that they are supposed to serve. However, once the elections are over, there won't be any more rallies and all the usual restrictions on civil society will kick in.

The Opposition won't be allowed to speak here, they won't be allowed to speak there, they won't be allowed to write this; they won't be allowed to do that - yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda. (Click on the individual yadda's, if you want to see specific examples and illustrations of what I mean).

That is why Singapore needs to get a decent number of Opposition members into Parliament. This would institutionalise their alternative voices in national policy-making. They would get to speak up, and more often than just once in five years. If we had had more than two Opposition voices in Parliament five years ago, Singapore might well have averted its housing crisis and healthcare problems today.

That's because the Opposition would have started making significant noise in Parliament at a much earlier stage, forcing the PAP to pay attention and start tackling the problem sooner. The PAP calls this "gridlock". The correct term should be "feedback".

Anyway, although the fact that PM Lee made an apology is nice, I also found the apology somewhat troubling. Not because of anything he said, but because of what he did not say. PM Lee admitted that his government had made mistakes with public housing and public transport, but he said nothing about the root cause. And the root cause - as you already know - is the overwhelming influx of foreigners into this country.

My own views on the foreign worker issue are well-known, for I have written on this topic many times before. At the individual level, there should be no hostility against the foreigners in our midst - for they have come here just wanting, like the rest of us, to build better lives for themselves. On the other hand, the sheer size of their influx into Singapore has given rise to a wide range of social issues.

Public housing and public transport are just two of these social issues. Two very big issues, yes, but certainly not the only ones. PM Lee has apologised for mistakes in these two areas, but he has made no reference to the other issues. And very significantly, PM Lee has not acknowledged the root cause of all these issues - which is the massive influx of foreigners.

PAP's Cynthia Phua And Her Most Famous Moment as an Aljunied MP

2011-05-03T14:47:00.024+08:00

Today I will tell you a story. It is a sad story, so sad that it could almost be a Taiwanese soap opera. Unfortunately, it is not fiction, but a true story. (I read about it from this newspaper report in The New Paper).

Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived in Aljunied (we don't know her real name, so let's just call her Julie). She was 53 years old, and she had a 17-year-old son (again we don't know his real name - so we'll just call him Ah Teck).

Julie was poorly educated. She had only studied up to Primary 6. She worked as a part-time cleaner, earning $400 a month to support herself and Ah Teck. Meanwhile, Ah Teck had low IQ and was attending a special school for mentally handicapped kids. He also had thalassemia, a blood disorder.

Ah Teck's father had run away several years ago and could no longer be found. So there was absolutely no financial help from him.

One day in January 2009, Julie was at work. She was standing on a chair to clean a fan. Suddenly, she slipped and fell. She broke her wrist. Thereafter Julie lost her job, for she could no longer perform her cleaning duties.

A few months later, their money ran out and they could not pay their HDB mortgage instalments. So Julie and Ah Teck were about to lose their home - the HDB was taking action to repossess it. The HDB agreed to rent her another flat. But Julie did not even have $138 to pay for the rental deposit.

So Julie and Ah Teck decided to go to see their MP in Aljunied. They had gone to their Aljunied MP many times before, to get financial aid, so they knew where to go. This time Julie and Ah Teck wanted to ask the MP to sign an appeal letter for them, to waive the $138 rental deposit. They went to the town council and met with Aljunied MP Cynthia Phua (yes, the same Cynthia Phua now running for Aljunied again, together with George Yeo).

What went on in the office, we do not know for sure. We do know that the letter did get signed. Later Cynthia also claimed that the conversation was cordial and went well. And in the subsequent newspaper report, her fellow PAP MP Lim Hwee Hua also said that Cynthia behaved in a manner that was "very helpful" and "very motherly".

However, Julie tells a somewhat different story, and it goes like this:

".....shortly after they had entered the office, Madam Phua asked her son a series of questions: 'She asked him, 'Who are you? What are you doing? Why aren't you working?' .... The mother said she wanted to explain her son's condition, but wasn't given a chance. 'I felt like we were being scolded,' she said.

Whatever Cynthia Phua had actually said, we know that Ah Teck must have felt very humiliated. Perhaps it was not the words, but the tone, the demeanour or the body language. Whatever the case may be, we know how Ah Teck must have felt. That's because right after he walked out of Cynthia's office, he lost his temper in a big way. Ah Teck picked up a foldable chair, and slammed it twice on a glass door.

There was a commotion, other people quickly restrained the boy and calmed him down. And then Julie went home, taking her mentally-handicapped son with her.

The story might have ended there, but it did not. Cynthia made a police report. Later that night, the police arrived at Julie's home and arrested Ah Teck.

Two days later, Julie went to see the MP again, clutching a handwritten letter of apology from her son. We are told that in this letter, Ah Teck wrote the following words: "'Please fodgive me for what I dad I am sinelely truely I'm sorry". (Note that Ah Teck has low IQ - that would be why his writing skills are so poor).

But that forgiveness didn't come. PAP MP Lim Hwee Hua rejected the apology. She would not ask the police to withdraw the case.

A grassroots volunter, Mr Poon, further claimed that Ah Teck's blows with the chair "could have gotten someone killed".

(Personally, I think that the only thing you can kill by hitting a door with a chair is the door. Or the chair. The TNP article also made the subtle observation that despite the killer blows, the door, which was made of glass, remained unbroken).

The hapless Ah Teck was required to appear in court on a certain date - 12th May 2009. He faced a criminal charge of committing a rash act to endanger the safety of others.

What happened next is not publicly known. I have surfed and googled, but the media does not seem to have followed up on the story and I cannot get any more information.

This is probably because the boy was underage. In Singapore, juvenile court proceedings are generally shielded from the public eye and reporters are kept out of the courtroom.

So the story ends here - because we really don't know what happened next.

What I hope is that Ah Teck did not get some criminal conviction that would stain his record, and make his already-bleak future even more difficult. He is a low-IQ boy, after all.

I also hope that both Julie and Ah Teck had the good fortune to meet a judge who could understand their hardship and empathise with their daily struggles for money and a roof over their heads.

And I hope that the judge treated Ah Teck with more kindness and compassion, than the Aljunied PAP MPs had done.

Since the General Elections are here again, it is also my hope that you will take a few moments to reflect on the above incident. Please vote wisely .... for the MPs whom you believe will have compassion for their residents.

The PAP Team in Aljunied

2011-05-02T22:07:00.008+08:00

So much of the spotlight has fallen on George Yeo that it's easy to forget that there are other members in the PAP team. Today I decided to check them out. They are Zainal Abidin Rasheed, Lim Hwee Hua, Ong Ye Kung And Cynthia Phua.

Zainal Abidin is a new name to me. Upon googling, I was surprised to learn that he's been a Minister of State for the past five years. In that period of time, I wrote about 800 articles about Singapore's current affairs. The fact that Zainal managed to entirely escape my notice for that long suggests to me that in that time, he had done .... NOTHING .... that was noteworthy to me.

Lim Hwee Hua has been in charge of public transport. Sorry, Hwee Hua, that means you get an instant black mark in my book. Public transport standards in Singapore have fallen drastically in the past five years. The trains and buses are way too crowded, the MRT stations are slowly rotting away and leaking rainwater, and I even have the photos to prove it. What happened to your quality controls?

Ong Ye Kung is a relative newcomer to the political scene. He is a unionist from NTUC. In some other countries, being a unionist is a badge of honor and it would be fair to assume that the person is committed to defending the rights of ordinary workers. In Singapore, things are very different and it has been largely impossible, since the events in 1968, to make such an assumption. So Ong has nothing in his CV that makes me want to vote for him.

Last and possibly least, we have Cynthia Phua. This name I recognise, and back in May 2008, I also blogged about a Straits Times article which quoted her. Alas, the ST article contains nothing that would make me regard her more positively. On the contrary, re-reading that ST article now just makes me feel wary about what clever new ideas the PAP might come up with, to extract more money from Aljunied residents.

I reproduce below my blog post from 2008 - it's entitled Aljunied Town Council and A Matter of Principle.

ST May 5, 2008
Aljunied trash index aims to wipe out litterbugs
Conservancy fees may be tied to index, with dirtiest precincts paying more
By Alfred Siew

TIRED of hardcore litterbugs, Aljunied GRC plans to start measuring the cleanliness of its precincts under a new litter index to be introduced in October.

Officials also said they will consider raising the conservancy charges for the dirtiest precincts to cover the extra work that goes into maintaining them.

The index, the first of its kind in Singapore, was unveiled on Saturday by the GRC's Members of Parliament. They said that it was designed to encourage residents to change their attitudes towards tossing trash.

Aljunied Town Council chairman Cynthia Phua said that the index would be based on the cleanliness of lifts, the condition of public property and how large pieces of rubbish are disposed.

She told The Straits Times yesterday that the council would tie conservancy charges to the index only if it found an objective measure of cleanliness. The plan is under consideration and would not be confirmed until next year, she said.
Would it be right, as a matter of principle, for Aljunied Town Council to raise conservancy charges in the manner proposed above? Let's discuss.

The most obvious objection is that all the residents in the dirty precincts would have to pay higher conservancy charges, even though the large majority of them may be civic-minded residents who do not litter.

Once again, it would be a case of innocent Singaporeans being punished for a wrong they did not commit and could not personally prevent.

It is one thing to catch a litterbug and impose a fine on him. It is quite another thing to impose a fine (or a higher conservancy charge) on a resident, just because he happens to live in an area with more litterbugs around.

All the residents are already paying their usual conservancy charges. The amount they currently pay is already more than enough to maintain the cleanliness of the Aljunied GRC area. Check out the Aljunied Town Council's financial statements yourself.

In the 2006/2007 financial year, the Aljunied town council collected $31,955,492 in conservancy and service fees. They spent only $4,237,162 on cleaning works.

Their accumulated surplus for the year, as at 31 March 2007, was $4,964,022. Which means that in 2006/2007, they could have spent DOUBLE the amount they actually did, on cleaning works, and still have money left over.

Just as a side point, what about their gigantic sinking funds? Check out the Aljunied Town Council's balance sheet. They have more than $90,000,000 in surpluses accumulated over the years. And yes, the bulk of which would have come from the conservancy and service fees paid by Aljunied residents.

Of that amount, $36,270,609 is reported to be sitting in the bank as fixed deposits. Another $44,045,035 is reported as being held for "trading investments". What's that? On further inspection, we see that it means $12,587,775 invested in stocks; $21,082,590 invested in bonds; and $11,981,315 invested in unit trusts.

Does the Aljunied Town Council sound poor to you?

(The sinking funds can't be used for general cleaning works, but their enormous size raises other sorts of questions, which I'll discuss in a future post).

Those interested in the full story from 2008 should click on the earlier link and read all the comments too (plus the my related post dated 12 May 2008).

Property Values and Your Choice of Political Party

2011-05-01T11:17:00.007+08:00

When I read about Low Thia Kiang leaving Hougang to run for elections in Aljunied GRC, I felt fear and dismay. Low is well-known and very well-loved in Hougang, and if he had chosen to remain in Hougang, his seat in Parliament would be almost guaranteed. However, when Low comes to Aljunied GRC, it's a different ball game, especially with the PAP's gerrymandering tactics.

If Low should lose in Aljunied GRC, then this would be a disaster for Singapore. It would be a very dark day in the history of this nation.

For so many years, Low has been the (almost) lone Opposition voice in Parliament, one man standing up and bravely speaking up against a pack of 80+ PAP MPs. It takes no courage whatsoever to be a Mah Bow Tan or a Wong Kan Seng in Parliament, but it takes great courage to be a Low Thia Kiang. To his immense credit, Low has done his job and served Singaporeans well, not just for a year or two, but for the past 20 years.

If Low loses in Aljunied GRC, then even that one lone voice in Parliament might be gone, silenced for good. It is possible that parliamentary debate might then degenerate into an utter sham. Nothing but a puppet show with PAP MPs posing nice, friendly, pre-arranged questions to each other and giving nice, friendly, rehearsed answers to each other. There would be nobody to challenge them, nobody to act as a check and balance, nobody to ask the tough questions that really need, for the sake of the nation, to be asked.

Honestly, if we come to that stage, Parliament House might just as well shut down. On weekends, the PAP MPs can just gather at Hsien Loong's living room or Kuan Yew's garden to have some cakes and coffee. There they can plan their next salary increases; chit chat about golf and BMWs; and casually make a few national policies for five million citizens. So much for public accountability and transparency,

--------------------------------------

Regular readers of my blog know that I moved house a few months ago. What I didn't mention was exactly where I moved to. I now live in Tai Keng Gardens, a small quiet residential area near Paya Lebar, and I recently learned that my new address is under Aljunied GRC.

There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind who I need to vote for. After all, I am intelligent, educated, well-informed and concerned. So effectively I have no choice. I have to vote for the Workers Party. Because I can see so clearly that the PAP's performance over the past five years is just taking this country on a one-way trip into slow deterioriation and gradual collapse.

Things have already reached such a bad stage that I can sincerely say this: if you genuinely support the PAP and want them to succeed, then you must vote for the Opposition. For the PAP can improve and do better - it has that potential. What the PAP needs is to be shocked out of its own complacency.

The best thing that can happen for the PAP is that they lose 10 seats in this election. Then suddenly they will wake up, remember the people whom they are supposed to serve, and start getting their act together. The PAP does have some talented, capable people in their midst. It's just that they have lost their way, over the past five years.

------------------------------------

I see from the newspapers that Kuan Yew has been busily making statements to create fear in the electorate. Something about how the Workers Party (if they win) will bring down the property values of Aljunied GRC.

What's that old saying about old dogs and new tricks? Fear-mongering is one of Kuan Yew's favourite tactics. Woe betide you, foolish Singaporeans, if you do not listen to me, then the sky will fall on your head. Some of his statements are so far-fetched that it's amazing he still has any credibility left.

Remember this stunning proclamation from Lee Kuan Yew, in 2007? The PAP ministers were just about to give themselves another fat pay raise, and Singaporeans were questioning this. Lee Kuan Yew's reply was that if the PAP ministers did not get their increase, the women of Singapore will become "maids in other people's countries".

Oh, come on, Kuan Yew. Can you at least try to keep your fear-mongering a little more .... rational?

Regular readers of my blog know that I am a keen watcher of the property market. I'd like to share a few personal observations on the content of Kuan Yew's latest fear.

LKY's basic point is that the WP is incompetent; that they will mismanage Aljunied; and the area will be so badly run that property values will fall sharply (relative to PAP constituencies).

But let's look at the facts. Low Thia Kiang has been MP for Hougang, for twenty years. If Low can ruin property values through his sheer incompetence, then Hougang should be a slum by now. But it is not. It is a clean, vibrant HDB town, with its own lively suburban malls, hawker centres, supermarkets, bus interchange, sport stadium, two MRT stations and more.

I can honestly tell you that, as a person who is familiar with the area. My brother lives in Hougang, my kids used to go for tuition in Hougang, and I still go there with my family quite often to eat and shop in Hougang.

Most Singaporeans wouldn't realise it, but I'll just say it straight out here. MPs do lots of important things, such as debate, discuss and shape national policies in Parliament and meet residents to help solve their personal problems. MPs and their grassroots supporters also organise community events like Plant-a-Tree Day and Chinese New Year dinners etc, and make appearances at schools' Prize-Giving Day to hand out awards and make speeches. All these types of MP work have their value and are important in their own way. But none of them has any direct bearing on the value of your property.

In other words, whoever you elect as your MP has very, very little influence on whether your property value will go up or down. May I quickly give you a big bunch of illustrations? Okay, let's go:

Your MP does not look after the roads in your neighbourhood (the LTA does that).
Your MP does not look after the parks (the National Parks Board does that).
Your MP does not look after your public library (the National Library Board does that).
Your MP does not look after your sports stadium or public swimming pool (the Singapore Sports Council does that).
Your MP does not build shopping malls for you (property developers such as Capitaland do that).
Your MP does not manage your MRT line (SMRT does that).
Your MP does not manage your SBS buses (SBS does that).
Your MP does not look after your electricity supply (SP Power does that).
Your MP does not look after your carpark (the URA does that).
Your MP does not investigate crimes (the Singapore Police Force does that).
Your MP does not put out fires (the SCDF and their NSmen do that).
Your MP does not ensure that top schools are near your home (whether a school is top or not depends on the students' efforts).
Your MP doesn't prevent mosquito breeding (the NEA does that).

Your MP does engage the cleaning contractors to clean the neighbourhood (which, in terms of level of difficulty, is not exactly rocket science and shouldn't be a challenge for any self-respecting MP, whether from the PAP or not). Apart from the cleaning contractors, your MP also builds playgrounds, fitness corners, maybe a couple of covered link ways here and there. None of these little projects require great ability or vast competence, nor will they have any significant influence on your property value.

There, hope it's all abundantly clear now. Abundantly clear that Lee Kuan Yew is mongering foolish fears. Don't be his sucker.

Vivian Balakrishnan Casts Doubt on His Own Good Character

2011-04-26T19:12:00.009+08:00

Oh, Vivian. SM Goh Chok Tong would be so disappointed in you.

Just a few days ago, Goh expressed his desire that the elections would be “a clean fight” with “no personal attacks”. Now here you go, with your cunningly crafted press statement on Opposition candidate Dr Vincent Wijeysingha.

"Cunning? But what was the cunning part?" you innocently ask.

Please, Vivian, we're not that stupid. All over the Internet, bloggers have already seen through it and are writing about it. For example, here is what ex-Nominated Member of Parliament Siew Kum Hong has got to say about it:

Today, it was this personal attack by the PAP.

The PAP can try all it wants, but the objective here is transparently clear to everyone: to tell the world that Vincent Wijeysingha is gay, and thereby win the votes of that part of the population that will vote based on just this single wedge issue, regardless of any other issue.

The rest of the statement -- in particular the allusion to an alleged discussion about "sex with boys and whether the age of consent for boys should be 14 years of age" -- is just outright unjustified mudslinging insinuation that seems designed to imply a linkage between Vincent Wijeysingha and that discussion. If you watch the video in question, you will find that ... Vincent Wijeysingha does not talk about sex with boys or lowering the age of consent for boys.

Vivian, I want you to know that as a Singaporean citizen, it matters a lot to me that the leaders are of good character and possess honour and integrity. Your conduct in this matter (and the conduct of your fellow team members) does not leave a good impression on me at all.

I don't think I'm the only one either. As I surf the Internet, this is what I find people saying about you:

".... building on misinformation and irrational and ill-informed fears, to perpetuate continual social and institutional discrimination of sexual minorities in Singapore. To associate this despicable insinuation with a man and a political party says a lot about the human being that is Dr Vivian." Sam Ho.

"Dr Vivian may be a shrewd tactician, but he’s certainly not winning the moral war." Terence Lee.

"Balakrishnan is as good as shooting himself in both feet, if he decides to play the religion card and the homophobic card at one go." Tatler.

"Basically Vivian must be damn worried about the serious competition he is facing that he has decided to personal attack. This is really demeaningful, it only shows our SUPER SCALE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR MINISTER is a low esteem scumbag." Ben.

"Even the most apathetic layman can see that Dr Balakrishnan's accusation is an unwarranted personal attack WAY below the belt. If he thought this would divert attention away from his dismal handling of the YOG, or the neglect of our needy citizens, he is sadly mistaken. I only have this to say to him: Have you no decency?" SG Dino.

" .... I am saddened by the appearance of such gutter politics from one of our Ministers and his PAP teammates, Mr Christopher De Souza, Mr Liang Eng Hwa and Ms Sim Ann, who signed off on this misleading statement." Lisa Li.

".... a process of character desecration in what comes across as an attempt to appeal to particular religious lobbies. This is an unfortunate attack on the secular nature of our country. It is reflective of a colonialist dark age to divide and rule. It will hurt our society in the long run." Dharmendra Yadav.

"There are no words that can adequately describe the amount of contempt I have for this brand of gutter politics, from a man who heads a ministry that aims to foster community building." Ng E-Jay.

"Mr.Vivian has shown that he will sink to any depth, to win an election." Mr Owl.

"Vivian slithers in the gutter." Helluo Librorum.

Vivian, Vivian.

I want to let you know that I also searched and googled to hear the other side of the story, to find out if anyone had anything valid to say in your defence, or if anyone had anything good to say about you concerning this matter.

I found nothing.

__________________________________

UPDATE. Read the Online Citizen to see how Singaporeans expressing their criticism of Vivian Balakrishnan's conduct on his Facebook page are getting their comments deleted. Furthermore, the comments feature on Vivian's Facebook is now disabled.

Please Look at the Fundamentals Before You Vote

2011-04-26T15:00:00.012+08:00

From Channel News Asia:

SINGAPORE: Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has a simple message for voters in the heat, dust and clamour of the election campaign - he has urged them to look at the fundamentals.

In a statement issued just two days before Nomination Day, he reminded Singaporeans not to risk their assets, property values, and job opportunities.

He said the People's Action Party is fielding 24 new candidates of proven character, of high calibre, and with a track record of performance that showed they will not fail in taking on responsibilities.

This, after the Party combed the whole of Singapore to select those with the highest integrity and ability to chart the way forward for the country.

I also urge Singaporeans to vote wisely.

Not only that, I will provide a few concrete & useful tips about how to vote wisely.

My first tip to Singaporeans is not to fall into the trap of mistaking the past for the present. What do I mean?

If you look back far enough across the decades, you will see that indeed, the PAP has had an excellent track record. That is why you will find that nowhere in this blog have I ever said anything bad about the PAP leaders of yesteryear - for example, the likes of Goh Keng Swee, Lim Kim San and S Rajaratnam.

For these men were highly dedicated, capable and resourceful leaders, men with vision, and truly committed to the nation. The result of their leadership speaks for itself - in the history of Singapore, in the story of how this nation rapidly transformed itself from a developing country into a developed nation.

The mistake we mustn't make is to believe that just because the PAP has had its past glories, therefore today the PAP is as excellent and wonderful as it used to be. Or that, going forward into the future, the PAP will always be as excellent and as wonderful.

Goh is dead. Lim is dead. Rajaratnam is dead. Lee Kuan Yew is 87 years old. Political parties are always changing, the faces come and go. This year alone, Jayakumar, Lim Boon Heng and Abdullah Tarmugi are stepping down.

What I urge Singaporeans to do is to recognise this inevitable truth - that the party is always, always changing - and just because the PAP may once have been a good party doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a good party forever.

Look, just look honestly, at this statement by Lee Kuan Yew: "Our new candidates are of proven character, of high calibre, and with a track record of performance that shows they will not fail in taking on responsibilities" ...

.... and then watch this video:

Tell me, how is it possible NOT to doubt Lee's words?? The PAP "combed the WHOLE of Singapore" to find candidates of the "HIGHEST ability" ... and this was the best they could come up with? Honestly?

What Singaporeans should do is carefully scrutinise the PAP government's performance over the past five years since the last elections were held. This will give you a much better indication of the current quality of our leadership.

Five years of stagnant wage growth; five years of deteriorating public transport; five years of escalating healthcare costs; five years during the costs of public housing shot up immensely; five years during which the income gap between rich and poor widened more than ever before; five years of increased GST.

Five years of continued failure to improve fertility rates; five years when the inequities suffered by NSmen vis-a-viz competing foreigners working in Singapore remained unaddressed; five years during which the Home Affairs Ministry let a terrorist almost nonchalantly walk out of a supposedly "high security" prison; five years when GIC and Temasek remained as opaque and unaccountable as ever, about how they handle the people's hard-earned money ....

In the past five years, has the PAP government achieved ANYTHING good at all?

Lui Tuck Yew Shocks a Citizen During His Walkabout

2011-04-24T12:48:00.003+08:00

I saw this on my Facebook. The story seems to be getting a lot of attention in cyberspace. It's all about a Moulmein resident's unpleasant encounter with PAP candidate Lui Tuck Yew.

Dear Friends

I am forwarding you an email I sent to the incumbent MP for Moulmein, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, and his subsequent reply. (They are reversed in order below). I have only deleted my name/addresses and Mr Lui's address for the sake of privacy in the event that you may wish to forward this to your own friends. I trust you will not use this email to "flame" (hope I used the term correctly), but instead to educate and perhaps generate informed discussion.

I am sending my friends this because I feel that it is important that you hear what happened to me personally, and how Mr Lui reacted to me during what I thought was a simple, agreeable conversation. Those of you who know me well know that I do not go around deliberately antagonising people or creating trouble of any kind. So the flow of the conversation that took place left me shocked, and I must admit, sad. Mr Lui explains his "disengagement" in his reply attached below. I will leave you to read the whole story and the two emails and then come to your own conclusions.

First, the background to this whole incident.

I have been a resident of Moulmein my whole life, and not once have I ever had the chance or privilege to vote. So you can imagine how excited I was when I realised that there may be a strong possibility that Moulmein would be contested this time round. Prior to Mr Lui being the walkover MP, our MP was Mr Khaw Boon Wan. If Mr Khaw had still been our MP, I would most likely have voted for him as Mr Khaw had made his presence felt strongly in Moulmein, even at a social level, and it had always been a very reassuring presence. Mr Lui, on the other hand, has not had much of a presence.

So, on a recent walkabout in Moulmein, I happened to have what I thought at the time, was the privilege, to meet Mr Lui and get to know him better. He started off very friendly and handed me the Moulmein newsletter. He asked how long I'd been living here, and I let him know that I have been in Moulmein my whole life, and that this was the first time I may get a chance to vote. His immediate reaction was, "Yes, blame the Opposition! I don't know what they ..." and he went on to say something more which I couldn't hear because my brain was trying to process the fact that he had actually openly said, "Blame the Opposition" in a serious tone, laced with annoyance. He might have sensed my confusion (I'm guessing here). I then changed topic and pointed out to him that I had felt Mr Khaw's presence much more than his, and I requested for him to let me hear some of what he had done for Moulmein.

He told me to refer to the newsletter. I then said that I really wanted to hear from him, and not read what other people (ie his grassroots team) had created. He immediately started listing all the playgrounds they had done up (there was always the word "We") and spoke about a unique-to-Moulmein schools programme, which I liked very much. I interrupted him a few times to clarify a few things he had said.

I next asked him to let me know why I should vote for him. (I'm serious about voting, and I have thought this through so carefully. I told myself that no matter what, it was my duty to try and understand each candidate and approach them one-to-one before I cast my vote. And it was, and still is, my resolve to ask each candidate this question - why I should vote for them.)

I'm now going to recount the dialogue word-for-word as it is still clearly playing itself over and over in my head:
Me: Could you please tell me why I should vote for you?
Mr Lui: You should NOT vote for the Opposition because they ...
Me: The Opposition? No, I want to know about you. Please tell me why I should vote for you.
Mr Lui: You should vote for the PAP because we ....
Me: The PAP? No, no. I'm not interested in the PAP or the Opposition. I'm interested to know about you. Why should I vote for you?

At this point, Mr Lui shot me a look of pure anger, waved his hand about in the air, declaring, "We could spend all night talking about me!", pointed to the newsletter and snapped, "It's all in the the newsletter!" He then swung round and stormed off.

I remember standing there, in total shock, wondering what on earth I had done wrong to deserve such an intense reaction. I watched as he couldn't get beyond two or three steps as he was stopped by someone else wanting to meet him. I watched as he switched on his smile, said a few polite words, thrust the newsletter into her hand and disappeared, still angered. (Those who know me well, know I did my MA in nonverbal language, and know how accurate I am with "vibes".) I watched as his posse scurried after him, not one of them daring and/or caring to turn to look at me or say goodbye, not one of them.

I had asked a simple question. I was not expecting rocket science for an answer or any deep psychological profile to be shared. Just a simple answer from the heart would have sufficed, or even a more measured response. But not anger, never in a million years would I have thought anyone would have, or could have, responded to my simple question with anger.

And I feel sad.

Sad that after all these years, what people have been saying has finally been proven true to my face, literally.

I then turned to the Moulmein newsletter, ploughed through it in the hope that perhaps there was a lot about Mr Lui in the newsletter. No, there wasn't. Not a thing. Instead, I was left very impressed with the Moulmein Citizens Consultative Committee, the various Neighbourhood Committees and the Residents' Committees - all of which I am sure will not disappear if there is a change in leadership.

So I sat down, and penned an email, which I have since sent, to Mr Lui. I chose to be polite and measured in the email, and not angry nor accusatory because to be angry would have been to stoop to Mr Lui's response towards me, and that would not do anyone any good. If he's going to continue as Minister (and it does look like he's on the PAP fast-track if he's voted back in), then really, he needs to hear, he needs to understand, he needs to be educated. And he needs to learn how to answer simple, non-threatening questions!

It's such an irony that prior to the dissolution of Parliament, he was the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.

You'll find the email below, and Mr Lui's response (in reverse order), which I just received a short while ago.

If you should choose to share my experience with any of your friends who need or would wish to read this, I request that you not include my email address and name.

Love and hugs everyone.

-

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tuck Yew LUI (MICA)
Date: 22 April 2011 16:53
Subject: Re: Moulmein Walkabout
To:

Dear - ,

i am sure this may not apply to you given that you have now taken the trouble to write this note but unfortunately I encounter some people whose minds are made up and whose main intent seem to be to slow us down in our outreach. And nothing, we say, no explanation we give whether to do with cost of living, etc will ever be good enough.
The pragmatic way to deal with this is simply to disengage at an opportune moment.
Dont worry, it didnt leave a sour note with me nor a poor impression of you.

Regards,

Lui Tuck Yew

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 21, 2011, at 10:18 PM, "-" wrote:

> Dear Mr Lui,
>
> We met briefly at the walkabout at xxxxxxxxxx last evening. Unfortunately, I seem to have upset and angered you which was not my intention at all.
>
> If I appeared rude or aggressive in any way, then I apologise. I don't usually take too well to answers that are off-tangent, they tend to confuse me, and I always re-direct answers back to my original question which often means that I can appear too direct or clinical and therefore somewhat aggressive. As a teacher by training, I have always emphasised the importance and merits of listening carefully and answering to the point questions that are addressed to my students.
>
> I hope you understand that this is the first time in my life as a Singaporean I may be asked to vote. I take that responsibility very, VERY seriously, weighing all factors involved. Each political party has its own aims and objectives and track record (or none where some of the opposition are concerned) all of which I am very well aware of. The ONE thing which is not clear, and which is difficult to determine, is the individual politician - the person who will represent me in my constituency. It is this individual politician that I am genuinely interested to know. I need to know and understand what this individual can bring to the table.
>
> That is why I was so keen for you to convince me why I should vote for you. Not why I should not vote for the opposition. Not why I should vote PAP. But why I should vote for you. I was genuinely interested to hear your answers. Instead, not only did I not get direct a reply from you, I caused you to turn away in anger. Maybe it was the end of a very long day for you, maybe my tone and questions threw you off-centre. Either way, it left a sour note behind, I believe, for both of us.
>
> Right after you left, I immediately sat down to read the Moulmein newsletter cover to cover (the bits in English) exactly as you suggested I should do to find out more about you. Unfortunately, it doesn't shed any light on your as an individual or as the leader of Moulmein. It tells me instead about the wonderful grassroots teams and wonderful committees that have come up with truly great ideas, which I like very much. But it doesn't tell me about you. And so I am still left clueless.
>
> The questions I asked you will be the same questions I will be asking whoever decides (if at all) to stand against you in the elections. If the opposition candidate is equally stumped and/or angered by me, then you can rest assured that I will be forced to find another way to come to a decision well-thought through.
>
> Before I end, I would like to stress that I am not against the PAP in any way, nor am I for any particular opposition party. I am merely a Singaporean, proud and excited at the thought of a chance at finally being able to exercise my right to vote.
>
>
>
> With Regards
> -

I couldn't help feeling surprised by Lui's email reply to the Moulmein resident. Specifically the part where Lui wrote: "Don't worry, [the incident] didn't leave a sour note with me nor a poor impression of you."

In my opinion, it is Lui's own behavior which would leave a sour note with voters, and a poor impression on them. Singaporeans don't owe you a living, Mr Lui.

Singapore's Top Election Issue

2011-04-23T14:07:00.006+08:00

This simple, heartfelt letter to the ST Forum reflects the nation's top election issue:

Apr 23, 2011
A senior citizen's musings...

SENIOR Minister Goh Chok Tong acknowledged that the prevailing high cost of living in Singapore would be a likely issue in the coming general election ("Rising costs a likely issue: SM"; Tuesday).

He asked the people to decide who they thought would have a better solution to such problems.

I appreciate his forthrightness and am thankful for his timely reminder on this matter. But his comments have evoked mixed feelings for me.

Every time we are assured that things are still affordable, we find prices rising higher. Now we are cautioned to choose the right team to provide the solution.

The ruling party has had ample opportunity to resolve these issues, but the problems still plague us. I may now be an economically unproductive senior citizen, but I still love my country.

Fu Jiat Joon

I'll add some perspective.

Right now, the cost of living is rising in many countries, not just Singapore. One cause is the US monetary policy - as they print more and more dollars to tackle their economic woes, the excess money supply feeds into the global system and leads to inflation worldwide. In addition, food prices are escalating around the world, for a complex host of different reasons that the experts are still debating.

Nevertheless, the rising cost of living in Singapore cannot be solely attributed to external factors. In fact, the average citizen's difficulty in coping with the rising cost of living is very closely linked to an intrinsic, uniquely local factor. That factor is the PAP government's policy on immigration and foreigners. I'll explain.

A rise in the cost of living is not a problem, if it is matched with a rise in average wages. Unfortunately, over the past five years, Singaporeans have NOT been able to earn more money. Singaporeans are working as hard as ever (and in fact, hold the current world record for working the longest hours), but their incomes have been stagnating. If you don't believe me, read this.

To put it simply, while Singapore's economic growth has arguably been decent, this simply hasn't translated into a better life for the average Singaporean in the street. Our reserves may have grown; our government ministers may be drawing bigger and bigger salaries; the Bangladeshi workers and the Filipino waitresses may be feeling satisfied - but the average Singaporean just isn't getting any benefits out of the nation's success.

Why is this so? Well, wages are related to productivity. To earn more money, the Singaporean has to raise his productivity by learning new skills and gaining more knowledge in value-added areas. Companies have a role to play in this too. They have to innovate, become more efficient, invest in new technology, and in training their employees. That's how productivity can increase, together with sustainable wage growth.

But this isn't happening in Singapore. On the contrary, our labor productivity has fallen to shockingly low levels. In 2009, for instance, labor productivity growth was worse than zero. It was negative (-14.9%). And why has labour productivity fallen so badly in Singapore? It's because the PAP government's policy on foreign workers actually discourages productivity. Instead of getting Singaporeans to increase productivity by learning new skills and knowledge, the focus has instead very much been on importing more and more cheap foreign labour to do the job. To quote the Wall Street Journal:

By some estimates, a third or more of Singapore's 6.8% average annual growth from 2003 to 2008 came from the expansion of its labor force, primarily expatriates, allowing Singapore to post growth more commonly associated with poor developing nations.

At the same time, though, foreign workers have driven up real estate and other prices and made the city-state's roads and subways more congested. Their arrival has kept local blue-collar wages lower than they would be otherwise, exacerbating Singapore's gap between rich and poor.

Some economists say the most damaging effect of the immigration is that the influx appears to be putting a lid on productivity gains, as manufacturers rely on cheap imported labor instead of making their businesses more efficient. Labor productivity, or output per employee, fell 7.8% in 2008 and 0.8% in 2007—a phenomenon that could eventually translate into lower standards of living.

Lee Ah Lee, a 58-year-old who makes 850 Singapore dollars a month (about US$600) clearing tables in a cafeteria, says the flood of immigrants has made it hard to make ends meet by pushing down blue-collar pay in Singapore, which has no legal minimum wage. Sitting nearby in a drab apartment block built by Singapore's Housing Development Board, a state-owned body that constructs and sells subsidized housing, 79-year-old Lee Kwang Joo says low-skilled foreign workers are often housed in corporate dormitories, meaning they have no housing costs and can survive on lower pay.

So I hope that the direness of the situation we face, as a nation, has become clear. Obviously, we cannot completely shut the door on foreigners, especially not on foreign talent. But there is a balance that should be kept. When labor productivity falls to -14.9% and Singaporeans' wages stagnate year after year after year despite the fact that the economy is actually growing, you know that the balance has not been kept.

Goh Chok Tong talked about the rising cost of living and posed this question to Singaporeans - "Which party do you think can solve this problem?". But here are the better questions to ask yourself. In the first place, which party caused the problem? Which party IS the problem?

If you are an intelligent person, you know the answer. Vote wisely.

Mah Bow Tan is "Proud" of the Asset Enhancement Policy

2011-04-23T08:25:00.002+08:00

While busily arguing with the Workers Party, Mah slipped up and uttered a blooper. He said that he was "proud" of Singapore's asset enhancement policy.

People who understand this topic will remember Mah's statement, long after the 2011 elections are over. For this statement is a very naive and foolish one.

If you are too young to know what the AE policy is all about, just click here to read Tan Kin Lian's old post. His explanation is simple, short and sweet.

Essentially, the AE policy makes HDB flats more expensive. According to Mah, this is a good thing because your home becomes more valuable.

For most Singaporeans, this statement is largely nonsense. That's because people need homes. If you cash out by selling your flat, you still have to buy another home. If you buy a similar home, it will cost as much. So obviously, the AE policy is not making you rich.

(God, this Mah person drives me crazy. To think that I have to explain such obvious things on my blog).

The real danger of the AE policy is that it will seriously drain your CPF savings. First, let's get back to basics. Recall that the main purpose of the CPF is to help you to save for your own retirement.

This is especially crucial in Singapore, because the government here (unlike most developed countries) has no safety net for the old. You have to look after you, in your own old age.

However, the government also encourages you to use your CPF to pay for your HDB flat. In fact, after all these years of stagnant wage growth, many Singaporeans would not be able to pay for their HDB flats, if they were not allowed to use their CPF.

Now, as the AE makes HDB flats more and more expensive, what does that mean? You will be forced to use more and more of your CPF money to pay for your HDB. In turn, that means you have less and less money for your retirement.

That is why older Singaporeans are often said to be "asset rich, cash poor". They have a roof over the heads, and it might even be a very nice roof. But they have little money to meet their everyday needs, and many of them will have no viable option to monetise their home.

(Please note that I do not consider selling your home and living in the void deck as a "viable option").

That is also why in recent years, the government keeps reiterating that you need to save more for your retirement, and that your CPF money is not going to be enough, for your old age.

For it is true. The asset enhancement policy (which Mah is so proud of) is steadily making the CPF system a failure.

Mah Bow Tan is so Disappointing

2011-04-22T10:56:00.003+08:00

The Workers Party had a few ideas about how to make public housing cheaper for Singaporeans. The main idea was to peg the prices of new HDB plans to the median incomes of Singaporeans applying for them.

I did not find this idea impressive. By that, I mean that the idea did not make me go "Wow, brilliant!". I did feel that the idea was generally okay - it was reasonable; sensible; not terribly exciting; and some gaps needed to be filled in. But overall, the idea was at least worth further consideration.

What appalled me was the PAP's reaction to the idea. More specifically, Mah Bow Tan's reaction. It was an utterly misguided, defensive and insecure reaction. The worst part was when Mah accused the WP of trying to "raid" the nation's reserves, as the government would have to sell land at lower prices.

To some extent, I can understand Mah's defensiveness. After all, he's been doing a terrible job at managing public housing. For years, Singapore's population had been rising sharply (due to the open-door policy to foreigners), but Mah forgot to build more flats. Consequently, HDB prices spiked massively, and lots of people couldn't afford a home anymore.

Nevertheless, Mah's "raid" comment was entirely unjustified. (You can imagine that if Mah's and Low's positions were reversed, the PAP would have launched a defamation suit and sued Low to death or bankruptcy, or maybe locked him up under the ISA for speaking words to incite social unrest).

Firstly, "raiding" the reserves means that you're like a thief or a robber, taking out money from the national reserves in a dishonest or unethical manner. However, the WP's proposal has nothing to do with taking money from the reserves. It has nothing to do with the reserves suffering any loss. At worst, it means that the land sales give the reserves a lesser gain.

For those of you who are not clear, let me elaborate. Suppose that in a given year, the PAP ministers give themselves a 20% pay increase. The next year, they give themselves a 10% pay increase. This isn't a loss. This isn't a pay cut. This is a pay increase. The increase is 10% lower than the previous year, but it is still an increase, not a decrease.

Secondly, if you look carefully at the mechanics of the WP's idea, you will understand that in principle, it doesn't even necessarily mean that new HDB flats must become cheaper. Instead it just means that the price of new HDBs should move in tandem with Singaporeans' median incomes.

Thus if the average Singaporean earns less, then the price of new HDB flats should decrease. If the average Singaporean earns more, then the price of new HDB flats can increase. The WP formula is not meant to make the government poorer, or even "less rich". The WP formula is simply to ensure that public housing remains affordable at all times, for the average Singaporean.

Sounds fair and reasonable, right? LOL, no wonder Mah objected.

Tin Pei Ling and the Real Reason Why Singaporeans Are Annoyed

2011-04-01T09:49:00.003+08:00

So I understand that the PAP is fielding one of its youngest candidates ever - a certain Tin Pei Ling, aged 27 - and that many Singaporean citizens are annoyed. There is a flurry of angry posts and comments on the Internet about how Pei Ling is surely too young, too immature or too inexperienced to be a Member of Parliament.

I do not know Pei Ling. Perhaps she is exceptionally talented and capable. Perhaps she is not. All I can say is that in a normal, healthy and genuine democracy, Pei Ling's youth, in itself, would not have caused such an outcry. Why not? Because:

(1) any adult citizen (barring the bankrupts, the insane and so on) has the right to put herself up for election, and;

(2) all other adult citizens have the right to vote against her, if they consider her to be inadequate for the job.

However, Singapore is not a normal, healthy and genuine democracy. And that is why there is a public outcry. People already know that most likely, Pei Ling will not contest on her own in a single-member constituency.

Instead the PAP will field Pei Ling in a GRC team, under the protection of one or two much more experienced PAP heavyweights. Pei Ling will mostly ride on their strengths, rather than her own ability, to sail safely into Parliament.

And once she gets in, the citizens of Singapore will be forced to live with her youth and lack of inexperience, for at least the next five years.

I pity this country.

Not because of Pei Ling's youth. But because of the GRC system. For two decades, it has been an avenue for the PAP to successfully shoo their weaker candidates into Parliament and shield them from the people's political choice.

And this country then has to live with the sad consequences.

What is The Value of Paper Qualifications?

2011-03-28T14:40:00.001+08:00

Unfortunately, that was not a rhetorical question.

It seems that in the process of moving house, I have managed to lose a box. In that missing box, there is a file. In that file, I have almost all my educational and professional qualifications.

That includes my O-levels; my A-levels; my university exam transcripts; my Dean's List certificates; my Postgraduate Practical Law Course certificate; my admission to the Supreme Court of Singapore; my Capital Markets & Financial Advisory Services certificates; my CCA certificates; and my certificates for having attended various short courses.

And also all the employment contracts and other documents which go towards establishing my job history over the past decade.

My wife and I spent five hours yesterday trying to find the damned file/box. My children helped too. To no avail. I suspect that the file might have been accidentally thrown away, during the unpacking process. Duh!

Now that the initial panic has died down, I am trying to think clearly.

In the worst case scenario, the file is gone for good. But I can try to write to the relevant organisations to get the replacements for at least some of the documents. And before that, I need to try to work out a list of all the missing documents.

As I am doing that, I start to realise that perhaps I've outgrown many of these documents. They may not serve any purpose any more.

Why would I need any of these documents? Really - only for three possible kinds of purposes.. The first purpose is an application for emigration. The second purpose is an application for further studies. The third purpose is HR verification, if I were to accept an offer for a new job.

I don't intend to do either of the first two things, anytime in the next five years. So there's no rush there. However, the third purpose is a possibility I can't ignore.

Yet I doubt that any prospective employer would be interested in my O-level or my A-level certificates. Certainly, my CCA certificates would be of zero interest to them. Certificates concerning short courses and seminars I've attended over the years would also be irrelevant for their purposes.

They probably do want to see my university degree (this document wasn't in the missing file, so I do have it). They will also want the formal proof that I'm an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore (I should be able to reapply to get this).

Once I get that proof, I probably don't need to show my Postgraduate Practical Law Course certificate. The PPLC certificate is really nothing but a stepping stone towards the advocate & solicitor status.

I would like to be able to show a new employer my "Dean's List for Academic Excellence" certificates. But perhaps that's just my vanity at work. With more than a decade of working experience, such certificates, at most, would be a small plus point. I could mention these achievements in my resume, and if asked to show the documentary proof (and if I were not able to get the replacement documents), I could truthfully tell the HR department that I've lost the certificates. If necessary, I could give the HR department permission to contact NUS directly for verification.

I also lost my CMFAS certificates. I'm fairly sure that I could reapply for replacements. On the other hand, I don't intend to work in any job where these qualifications are a pre-requisite. They are, at best, little extra selling points about myself, not essential. Most people holding my current kind of job don't have CMFAS qualifications anyway.

In my missing file, I had a few testimonials. On the other hand, so what if I lose them and can't get the replacements? In the past 10 years, I've changed jobs several times and no one has ever asked to see any testimonials. A new employer would carry out its due diligence on me, but typically it would not rely on written testimonials.

Instead it would rely on its own network to informally contact my ex-bosses and ex-colleagues, to ask questions about me - whether I was reliable, smart, a team player etc. I would also provide a prospective employer with the names of persons that it could contact, to ask questions about me. That's how the industry typically operates.

It's also possible that I never change jobs again. I stay with my current employer for the next seven or eight years, and retire early (it is my ambition to retire early) and perhaps thereafter I may earn a small income trading stocks or via some kind of small, part-time business of my own. I wouldn't ever need to show any educational or professional qualifications, to do that.

So what is the value of paper qualifications? Perhaps the most important purpose of a certificate is to help you get another certificate (for example, the PSLE cert helps you to get the O-level cert which helps you to get the A-level). At some point, however, the actual work experience outweighs the paper qualifications in significance, and then it seems that the certificates would cease to matter much.

Let me say that again, because the statement would probably surprise some Singaporeans. At some point, the certificates do cease to matter much.

A final tidbit for thought. The next time the PAP tries to portray a candidate as impressive and voteworthy because he was a scholar blah blah blah, do pause for a moment to reflect.

Should we really give a hoot about the guy's exam results and CCAs, from a long, long time ago when he was 18 years old? In Singapore, exams and CCAs are what makes a scholar, a scholar. Yet why should his certificates matter that much? Perhaps we should be scrutinising his real-world experience instead.

Gilbert Koh Appears in Man/Born/Free

2011-03-17T21:54:00.003+08:00

I mentioned several posts ago that I'm getting included in an anthology featuring writers from Singapore and South Africa. At that time, I didn't even know the title of the book, but now I do. It's Man/Born/Free, and from what I've gathered, contains political overtones and is, ahem, mildly subversive in nature.

For those interested, the book launches on 26 March, as part of a wider event at the Arts House (it's their 7th anniversary celebrations). Details, details:

Imitation Earthquake Victim

2011-03-17T15:09:00.005+08:00

Well, my feet are aching, and so are my calves, and I think I may have cracked a rib, but the good news is .... I'm alive!

We just moved out from our rented place to our new cluster house, lugging along 50 boxes and miscellaneous pieces of furniture. Moving house is always stressful, but what makes this move even more challenging is that our new place is still not quite ready. There's dust and debris everywhere, and workers keep dropping in to do more renovation.

For the next two weeks or so, we will be living in the basement and one bedroom. The rest of the house is still under renovation. We have no kitchen to do any cooking (the kitchen is in the process of getting rebuilt), so for the time being, we are going to eat out and/or live on food like sandwiches, fruits and milk. At night we sleep on mattresses placed on the floor, and we are living out of boxes. I'm on leave this week, but next week I have to get back to work - and I hope to be able to find my working shoes by then.

I imagine that normally, I would be quite upset about living like this. What's keeping me (relatively) sane and composed is, oddly enough, the earthquake in Japan. Thinking of the 350,000 homeless folks in Japan, plus all the others living without electricity, makes me feel quite unable to complain. It makes me feel glad for my blessings, actually.

Singapore's disadvantage of a lack of natural resources is counterbalanced by its lack of natural disasters. We don't have gold, coal, steel or oil, but equally we don't have earthquakes, tsunamis, blizzards or hurricanes. All things said and done, life for the PAP government is pretty easy because they never have to deal with natural calamities such as Australia's floods, Japan's tsunami, New Zealand's earthquake or the snowstorms in New York, for example.

All such events are a true test of a nation's leaders and, well, our leaders have never been tested. In fact, many of them have never even contested in an election (they just "win" by walkover). We are a nation led by "leaders" who mostly look good just on paper.

Investing the Templeton Way

2011-03-08T15:03:00.005+08:00

I am currently reading this book - Investing the Templeton Way - which is all about Franklin Templeton (a billionaire investor and a modern legend in the investment world) and his strategies.

Sir John Templeton died a few years ago, at the ripe old age of 95. He was the founder of Franklin Templeton Investments, which is one of the world's biggest players in the mutual funds industry.

Investing the Templeton Way was written by Sir John Templeton's nephew, and is partly a biography, and partly a guide on investing money. The book contains many interesting personal anecdotes about Sir John Templeton, starting with his childhood, to his impoverished teenage days during the Great Depression, and ultimately to his billionaire investment decisions in the late 1990s.

(I think Sir John Templeton then retired around that time, and spent the rest of his life focusing on philanthropic activities).

The book makes the recurring point that Sir John Templeton liked to buy shares at the "point of maximum pessimism". The best time to buy is when no one else wants to. The book contains many examples of Templeton made his millions (and ultimately, his billions) through this approach. Templeton was a bargain hunter, in an extreme sense of the word.

Conceptually, the strategy is easy to understand. In practice, many investors will not have the guts and the clarity of mind to consistently execute the strategy, even if they intellectually understand its merits.

Take a look at the Middle East now. Due to the recent turmoil in Egypt; the political unrest in Bahrain, Oman etc, and most of all, the ongoing civil war in Libya, stocks in the Middle East markets have dived sharply in the past month.

To most investors, this is bad news. To Franklin Templeton, this would have been a time to rub your hands in glee. Or at least to sit up, pay close attention and monitor, looking for the chance to dash in and buy good stocks at ridiculously cheap prices.

Because you really don't get wars every day! They are rare, excellent buying opportunities.

Notes from a H1N1 Survivor

2011-03-05T10:01:00.009+08:00

February wasn't a great month for me. I fell ill shortly after Chinese New Year and had the worst flu of my life. It was probably the H1N1 virus which is still running amok in Singapore.

After the fever, the sore throat, the body aches and the runny nose were all over, I was left with a lingering cough that transformed itself into bronchitis. I've been coughing and wheezing and having difficulty breathing. I've been coughing so much that my ribcage is hurting.

In the past few weeks, I had gone twice to see the same doctor, who had prescribed cough mixture, Salbutamol, a course of steroids and a course of antibiotics. None of these worked, and today I went to see another doctor. This doctor gave me six kinds of medicines, including three types of sprays. This is the first time in my life I'm using sprays. I think that they are supposed to be very effective, so I'm pleased.

My medical bill was $175. That's a rather big bill for treating a cough, albeit a bad one. I'm glad that I work for an employer which pays fully for all such medical expenses.

I'll take a moment here to discuss medical benefits for employees. It's my perception that in Singapore, foreign MNCs are generally much more generous than local companies, about granting medical benefits to employees. By local companies, I mean the likes of, say, SIA, DBS, Keppel, CDL, SMRT and so on. I don't know whether my perception is correct, so I invite my readers to comment and share their experiences.

I'm working for a European bank which will pretty much pay for 100% of my outpatient medical expenses, and those of my wife and children. It doesn't matter whether I see a general practitioner or a specialist. I am also free to choose any clinic I like (in other words, I don't have to go to a pre-approved list of panel doctors).

My employer will also cover the medical expenses of an employee's partner, regardless of whether they are married or not. As a matter of fact, my employer will cover the medical expenses of the employee's gay partner. Also, if I remember correctly, my employer will cover the medical expenses of your illegitimate children (but I think that there are some rules on the maximum number of illegitimate children permissible).

I can't see the likes of SIA or DBS offering such benefits. Nor the Civil Service, that's for sure. What about you?

The HR policies of European MNCs in Singapore are influenced by their headquarters back in Europe, where they actually have, you know, human rights. Generally, it isn't considered proper to discriminate against an employee because of reasons such as his race, age, religion, gender, marital status or sexual orientation.

But that's in Europe. Not Singapore.

Maids and The Singapore Family

2011-02-24T11:44:00.005+08:00

A letter in the Straits Times Forum:

Most families can do without maids

THE issue of maid shortage is an ongoing problem, not only in Singapore but also in neighbouring countries.

In the past, having a live-in helper was a luxury, but now, many families with working parents have come to see a maid as a necessity.

I believe only two types of families cannot do without maids: those with young children, and those with elderly or sick members.

For all other families, there are many other options, such as day care, childcare or part-time help.

I used to have a maid to look after my young children when I was a working mother. But I am now a stay-at-home mum.

Our family could afford to continue hiring a maid, but we decided instead to train our two boys - then eight and six - to do some housework, and my husband agreed to help out at home when he is not travelling.

Every family member learns to do something in the house, such as making the bed, folding the clothes, or doing the dishes.

Instead of going to enrichment classes, the children do housework with us (bonding), learn to prepare a simple meal and clean up after cooking (basic life skills).

We were so used to having a maid for eight years that it had seemed impossible to live without one. It has been 11/2 years now, and our family is managing well.

When my children's classmates ask why they have no maid, they can answer proudly that we do not need one.

Having a maid is an easy option, as it is still fairly affordable to hire one in Singapore. But if our children grow up seeing all the cooking and household chores done only by the maid, they will grow up thinking there is no other option.

Emily Leong (Ms)

The title that the Straits Times chose for this letter is somewhat deceptive. It says that "most families" can do without maids. However, Emily Leong didn't actually say that.

What Emily did say was that families with young children, and families with elderly or sick members, do need maids (while other types of families do not). In addition, when Emily offered her own personal circumstances as an example, she pointed out that she doesn't need a maid because she is a stay-at-home mother.

So that would be another type of family (in Emily's opinion) that doesn't need a maid - families where there is a stay-at-home mother.

However, how many families in Singapore neither have a young child; nor an elderly person; nor a working mother? I doubt that there are that many such families. Certainly, I don't think that such families would constitute "most families" in Singapore.

In fact, I have never known any Singaporean family of the "young, married, no kids" variety, who bother to employ a maid at all.

Now, I offer a simple reason why so many other Singaporean families are dependent on maids. It's because Singaporeans have the longest working hours in the world (another one of our nation's unenviable world records):

Singapore sweats away the hours - and productivity
Singaporeans may not be aware that they have overtaken the industrious South Koreans in notching up the highest number of hours worked per year worldwide.
Sun, Jan 31, 2010
The Business Times

By ANNA TEO

Here's a world-leading pole position for Singapore that probably explains quite a bit of its dismal productivity record of late.

Beavering away doggedly, Singaporeans may not be aware that they have, for the past two years, overtaken the industrious South Koreans in notching up the highest number of hours worked per year, worldwide.

Clocking 2,307 work hours in 2009 - a number that apparently has stayed constant since 1992, according to The Conference Board's data - the average Singaporean surpassed the other East Asians, the most hardworking globally.

Going by The Conference Board's Total Economy Database - which carries 'annual working hours' for 51 countries dating from 1950 - the South Koreans had been the undisputed workhorse world champions for three decades, ever since they overtook the previous leaders, the Taiwanese, in 1975. The Koreans and Taiwanese were clocking well over 2,700 hours a year for years.

But - as is the trend worldwide - annual working hours have fallen over the decades, including Korea's.

Singapore's 'constant' 2,307 annual hours exceeded Korea's in 2008. For 2009, Korea's 2,259 work hours fell behind even Hong Kong's 2,287 hours. Taiwan clocked in at 2,156 hours, while Japan's 1,722 is close to the US level (1,742 hours).

Apart from the East Asians, virtually everyone else (except Greece, Chile and Mexico) put in fewer than 2,000 hours a year, with many well under.

For Singapore, the long hours - especially in a year of poor output such as 2009 - would explain its recent poor productivity figures.

If Singaporeans spend so much time at work, the inevitable consequence is that they have less time to do their own household chores. Hence the dependence on maids.

Editorial Indiscretions by the Straits Times

2011-02-21T16:50:00.005+08:00

Somebody working at the Straits Times propanganda department has goofed up. The newspaper published two particular articles today, and it obviously shouldn't have, because one article contradicts the other.

The first article declares that the government has done a great job (and has the resources to do it), as far as making life better for Singaporeans is concerned. There is even the bold assertion that what the Singapore government has done, "very few" other countries in the world can do.

PM Lee: Not many can do Budget, S'pore styleSurpluses enable Govt to dish out goodies but economy must grow
By Elgin Toh & Rachel Chang

THE new Budget, with hongbao to help Singaporeans cope with the rising cost of living, took an approach that very few countries can, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday.

Calling it 'pro-growth' and 'prudent', he said it also reflected how the Government intended to make life better for Singaporeans.

That's a nice piece of positive propanganda for the government, and it's quite important because the elections are coming up. Unfortunately, the newspaper also published an article which exposes the deeper truth behind the "better lives" that Singaporeans supposedly enjoy.

ST Feb 21, 2011
Only 14% of S'poreans ready to retire, money wise: studyBy Linette Lin

ONE in three Singaporeans plans to retire/was already retired before he reached 60 years of age, two years earlier than the current statutory retirement age of 62 years old in Singapore, according to Nielsen's Global Aging Report.

However, only 14 per cent of the Singapore consumers surveyed admitted they are financially ready for retirement - the lowest when compared to the Asia Pacific (22 per cent) and global (18 per cent) averages.

..... More than 26,000 consumers in 53 countries throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America took part in Nielsen's Global Aging Report.

So here we see, from this international study, another powerful world record achieved by Singapore.

The percentage of Singapore residents who consider themselves financially ready for retirement is the lowest not only in the Asia-Pacific region, but the lowest in the world.

(More precisely, the lowest out of 53 countries covered in the study - but 53 countries is a large number of countries and a pretty good proxy for the whole world).

How come the Straits Times propaganda department goofed up so badly? This is a bad mistake. The second article should have been suppressed. PM Lee will probably be quite displeased.

Our Brand New MRT Stations

2011-02-18T08:38:00.009+08:00

Two posts ago, I had mentioned the problem of leaky ceilings at our MRT stations. I said that quite apart from giving rise to the hazard of slippery floors, the constant exposure to rainwater had discoloured the floor tiles.

Yesterday I took a few more photos, just to show you what I mean. Here they are - two images of the floor tiles, in their dry state:

Pretty sad that this is happening at an almost brand-new MRT station (which opened only last year, on the Circle Line).

As I had mentioned earlier, my point is not only to complain about the shoddy state of our MRT infrastructure, the lack of quality control and so on. If only life was really so simple.

I said that I saw these signs as a metaphor for the slow and steady deterioration of Singapore as a whole. For we are degenerating and deteriorating in a wide variety of ways.

Go think carefully, about issues like public housing; the income gap between rich and poor; the failure of median incomes to keep pace with the rise of the cost of living; our national soccer team; the affordability of healthcare; our safety nets for the aged and the sick; the stress levels in our education system; the safety standards of the SAF and the welfare provided for servicement who get severely injured or killed in military accidents; the transparency of our government about the people's money held by Temasek and GIC .....

And just ask yourself. Did Singapore, as a nation, see any improvement on these issues, over the past five or ten years?

Or did we just slowly and steadily get worse and worse? Just like the floor tiles and ceilings at our MRT stations.

Today No Bucket

2011-02-17T10:22:00.006+08:00

Took this photo with my iPhone this morning.

It wasn't even raining today. But the MRT station was still leaking water from the ceiling.

The dripping was not so bad today. They didn't need a bucket. They just placed several layers of rags on the floor to soak up the water.

Still, one wonders - if not the rain, then where is the water coming from?

Leaky water pipes? Leaky air-conditioners? Leaky sewage pipes? Hmmm.

The Slow & Steady Deterioration of Singapore

2011-02-16T10:30:00.008+08:00

Right now, I am living near an MRT station. So every morning I take the MRT to work. The station is almost brand new - it's on the Circle Line which only started operating last year - and in terms of aesthetics, it is quite pleasing. The colours and the materials they have chosen are rather nice.

However, the ceiling leaks water. Every time it rains, the ceiling leaks water. I am not talking about the heavy, torrential kind of rain that we get once in a while. I am talking about moderate rain - that's already sufficient to cause a leak, a steady drip-drip-drip of water that falls down to the platform waiting area.

Then the MRT station officers place a large piece of canvas on the floor to soak up the water, and on top of the canvas, they put a big plastic pail to catch the water, and next to the canvas, they place a big sign - "WARNING - WET FLOOR" - so that passengers don't slip and fall.

This isn't the only MRT station where I have noticed such leaking. I have also seen the leakage problem at the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station (note that this is a major train interchange, in the heart of town, where three MRT lines intersect). In fact the leakage is so bad that you can see - at the area where the rain falls through - that the floor tiles have become stained and discoloured (rain water is not pure water, so constant exposure to rainwater causes the marble tiles to discolour).

To me, the leakage at these stations - and who knows how many other stations - is like a poetic metaphor of Singapore today. Superficially, things look okay, even nice. In truth, the system is breaking down, and leaking water.

There was a time in Singapore, when the idea of having a wet MRT station was just unimaginable. Back then, as a nation we were known as efficient and productive, and to take pride (an almost-obsessive pride) in our basic public infrastructure - trains, airports, housing, schools, hospitals and so on. Things worked. The basic things, at least, worked, and worked well. The thought that our clean, modern train system could leak water on a rainy day would just not have been acceptable.

That has changed. I suspect that many Singaporeans have not actually noticed, because many Singaporeans have short memories (that is my polite euphemism for saying that many Singaporeans are actually quite stupid).

Every year, the Singapore government announces some new grand plans - to be an international hub for this, or that, or something else - but the truth is that the Singapore government has been failing. Let's not even talk about the grand plans. The Singapore government has been failing on the basic, basic stuff .... such as:

(1) providing affordable public housing;
(2) providing affordable healthcare;
(3) narrowing the income gap;
(4) creating an environment where Singaporeans feel it's actually safe and okay to have children.

What is the use of having world-class casinos? What is the use of paying ministers their world-class salaries? What is the use of hosting the Grand Prix, or becoming a medical tourism hub, or giving foreigners scholarships to study in Singapore? What is the use of spending $1 billion to build beautiful flower gardens at Marina Bay?

When you cannot even get the basic things right.

Healthcare for Singaporeans in Malaysia

2011-02-15T11:07:00.005+08:00

This is one of the rare occasions on which I disagree with Lucky Tan (who is, by the way, one of the most read-worthy bloggers in Singapore).

In a recent post, Lucky discusses a New Paper article which talks about Singaporeans being able to use their own Medisave savings to seek medical treatment in Malaysia. Lucky writes:

If your healthcare system is not universal and becomes so expensive that citizens have to go to a developing country for treatment, it is a tragedy, not an achievement. However, if you read today's New Paper, it seems to be saying the MOH has helped Singaporeans to save money by allowing them to use their Medisave for hospitalisation in Malaysia. All of us have to thank Minister Khaw for this flexibility of being able to save money by travelling to Malaysia when we get sick.

The article doesn't ask about adequency of govt support for poorer Singaporeans when the cost of private care in Malaysia is less than half (according to New Paper) that of subsidised care in Singapore. It doesn't ask why these people have to go to Malaysia to save money when Minister Khaw can get his heart fixed for $8....so poor people pay more and rich millionaires like Khaw get cheap healthcare - there is certainly a moral issue here.

The New Paper article is filled with smiling patients who are happy to save money going to Malaysia for treatment but I believe the story in many real cases sound more like tragedies. Take Singapore singer Yue Lei case as an example[Link]. He had to sell his home and go to Mahkota Hospital for cancer treatment because healthcare in Singapore is too expensive. Singapore often boasts of having one of the highest standards of medical care in the world but when the govt wants to keep its expenditure on subsidies down by sending poorer sick Singaporeans to Malaysia, it says the standard of care in a developing country is just as good as Singapore's.

Being able to get poor Singaporeans to go to developing countries for medical care takes the pressure off the govt to do more to contain costs and ensure universality in our system. We shouldn't have allowed this ...it is a tragic development for poor Singaporeans who get sick and don't get adequate help.

I disagree with Lucky, because I think that the New Paper article did the public an excellent service, by highlighting the fact that Singaporeans can use their Medisave to seek medical treatment in Malaysia.

It is important for more Singaporeans to be aware of this, especially because the costs of healthcare in Singapore can be so high. It is useful for all of us to know that there are viable alternatives for us, just across the Causeway.

Lucky goes on harping and complaining about why isn't the Singapore government providing affordable healthcare for Singaporeans in our country. These are ridiculous assertions and the sooner you realise it, the better for you.

The government isn't here to take care of you. The government isn't here to serve Singaporeans. The government isn't here to care for the poor and the sick.

The government is just a large, unwieldy, faceless piece of machinery programmed to carry out its own political agenda; pursue its own policies; and serve its own interests. Those interests may or may not coincide with your interests. If they do, well, that's just a coincidence.

YOU need to take care of you. The sooner you understand this, the better for you. You will see the pointlessness of complaining about why the government is not providing affordable healthcare to Singaporeans. You will see the value of gathering knowledge about how to better survive on your own resources.

Knowledge such as how to go to Malaysia and get medical treatment there.

Mr Wang and South Africa

2011-02-15T09:21:00.005+08:00

A Completely Safe, Good Poem

This old poem of mine, which has been published in various places over the years, will soon make another reappearance in a new book.

I don't even know the title of the book yet, but it's going to be ready quite soon, in the next few months. The book is a collection of short stories and poems from writers in Singapore and ..... South Africa.

This is part of this year's Spotlight Singapore programme. It's a cultural diplomacy platform hosted by The Arts House. Spotlight Singapore uses artistic, economic and educational activities, to bring together the arts and business communities of Singapore and other countries.

Over the years, Spotlight Singapore has focused on Hong Kong, Japan and Russia. This year, Spotlight Singapore is tying up with South Africa.

Mr Wang Writes a Book Review

2011-02-01T11:01:00.005+08:00

Late last year, I was invited to review a book for Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, so I did. The book was Reaching for Stones, a collection of poems by Chandra Nair. You can read my review here.

Paying for Your Financial Advice

2011-02-01T06:20:00.007+08:00

An email from a reader:

Dear Gilbert,

I read your recent post, as always, with much appreciation for its practical content that impacts on Singaporeans from all walks of life. I do have a quandary though and in your post where you mentioned that you just hired a financial adviser sparked me to write to you.

I'm not exactly that savvy with my investments and I have come to a point where I seriously need to find a financial adviser that is not some run of the mill insurance agent type peddling products that I might not necessarily need at all to boost my nest.

I'm 26 and I have no qualms paying for one that could really help me before I fall back even further. Not asking for a recommendation, simply a finger to point in the right direction to find a decent one adviser and the basic points to take note of when choosing a financial adviser. Hope you can take some time off your busy schedule to write back with your thoughts.

A happy Chinese New Year to you..

Regards,
[ xxxx ]

I recently got a financial adviser, because I recently made my first investment as an "accredited investor". For me, this is a new corner of the investment universe, so I need some advice to help me get acquainted.

"Accredited investor" means an investor whose income, net assets or lump size investment exceeds certain levels, such that the law no longer regards him as an ordinary retail investor. Therefore he can be offered different types of financial products which may not be approved for the ordinary retail investor in a particular country.

But anyway, back to the question of financial advice, for the general investor.

Financial advice comes with a cost. You have to pay for it. A financial institution cannot carry on a business that includes providing financial advice, without finding some way to charge for it. Otherwise it would be losing money. Because the financial adviser is himself a fixed cost - the financial institution has to pay him a salary - and because the ability to provide financial advice needs to be backed by an infrastructure that itself costs money to run (for example, a bank's research department).

The cost of financial advice can be passed on to the customer - (that's you, dear reader) - in a variety of different ways. For example, theoretically it could be a flat fee or time-based fee (although this is uncommon in Singapore). Or it could be a trailer fee (charged quarterly or annually) on the total amount of investments you place with your financial adviser (that's "Assets Under Management", or AUM for short). Or it could be built into the upfront sales charges for the investments you make.

Let's look at the following illustration. Here are three scenarios.

Scenario 1

You are an ordinary retail customer. You walk into a bank branch. You ask a financial consultant to recommend some investments to you. She asks about your financial goals; discusses any other investments you already have; determines your risk profile through a questionaire; talks about market conditions etc.

Then she recommends XYZ Equities Fund to you. You agree. You decide to invest $10,000. You pay 5% in sales charges, which is typical for an equities fund. That works out to be $500.

Scenario 2

You are a "priority banking" customer (this typically means that you have placed at least $200,000 with your bank). You walk into a bank branch.

You ask your relationship manager to recommend some investments to you. She asks about your financial goals; discusses any other investments you already have; determines your risk profile through a questionaire; talks about market conditions etc.

Then she recommends XYZ Equities Fund to you. You agree. You decide to invest $10,000. Being a priority banking customer, you typically get a discount and pay 3% in sales charges, for an equities fund at a bank. That works out to be $300.

Scenario 3

You are an ordinary retail customer. You visit a website such as Fundsupermart or Dollardex. The website has dozens of articles about financial planning, regular updates on market news and plenty of online tools. However, it's essentially a DIY process. You do your own reading and research. No one is there to specifically talk to YOU about your money.

You then decide to invest $10,000 online, in a particular equities fund (gee, guess what - it happens to be XYZ Equities Fund). Typically, you pay 2% in sales charges. That works out to be $200.

* * * * * * * *

Note that in all three scenarios, you bought the same exact equities fund (the XYZ Equities Fund). However, in Scenario 2, you paid less than in Scenario 1. And in Scenario 3, you paid less than in Scenario 2.

Despite being an ordinary customer, the Scenario 3 ordinary customer actually got a better deal than the priority banking customer in Scenario 2. Why? Because financial advice costs money.

That financial consultant, or that relationship manager, may have been pleasant, well-informed, patient and helpful. You may indeed have found her advice clear, informative and useful. But you have to pay for that. The payment is ultimately reflected in the extra 1 to 3 per cent you pay, in the sales charge.

This is not to say that paying for financial advice is necessarily a bad idea. This is to illustrate that financial advice does come with a price - even if you are not explicitly told that it comes with a price. What you then have to decide is whether the value of the advice you get is worth the price you're paying for it.

That in turn depends on a variety of factors, two of which are (1) your own level of financial knowledge, and (2) your willingness to learn on your own.

TO BE CONTINUED ......

Calculating Your Personal Net Worth

2011-01-24T16:25:00.003+08:00

My New Year's resolution was to tidy up my financial matters. So far, I've been making good progress. Among other things, I reviewed my insurance policies; closed two useless bank accounts; switched to a better online funds distributor; switched to a better mortgage package charging lower interest; engaged a financial adviser; opened a trading account; rebalanced my wife's investment portfolio and redeemed all my credit card points.

I realise that financial planning is not exactly the most exciting topic in the world. However, it is a highly practical topic and therefore it's very much worth knowing something about it.

Today, just for general educational purposes, I'm going to explain how to calculate your personal net worth (that really means - how rich or poor you are).

If you want to be very exact, this could be a rather tedious exercise. However, for most people, it works fine if you just want a "big picture" snapshot of your current financial condition.

Step 1. List your biggest fixed assets, such as your apartment and your car, at their current market value.

Step 2. List all of your financial assets, such as your cash savings, fixed deposits, shares, unit trusts, CPF balances etc.

Step 3. List any other possessions which you might conceivably be able to sell, if you needed the money. Gold and other jewelry, for instance.

Step 4. Add together all of the above, and you get your total assets.

Step 5. Subtract all of your debts, such as your mortgage, car loan and credit card balances, from your total assets.

And there, the result is your net worth. An instant snapshot of how rich or poor you are, today.

That should start you thinking about how you can improve your financial condition. Sometimes there are ridiculously easy ways to cut a few expenses or make a bit more money.

Keep your spreadsheet or that piece of paper somewhere safe. One year later, do this exercise again. Hopefully, you'll find that you've grown richer. Good luck.

CCAs and the Government's Edusave Top-Up

2011-01-24T08:26:00.008+08:00

Jan 24, 2011
$155 million top-up for Edusave scheme
By Kor Kian Beng & Leow Si Wan

THE Government is pumping some $155 million into the Edusave scheme to ensure that students can continue to enjoy enrichment classes and IT-enabled programmes, despite higher inflation.

The top-up is the biggest since the Edusave scheme was launched in 1993.

The Edusave account of each student in primary and secondary school will get a one-off boost of $130 this year.

This brings the total amount that a primary school pupil gets this year to $330, and a secondary student, $370.

The account top-ups will total $54.8 million.

Announcing the news on Sunday, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen added that the Ministry of Education (MOE) has given an additional $100 million in Edusave grants to government, government-aided and independent schools.

So in the run-up to the elections, here's the government trying to look generous. But it's really not generous at all. Let me elaborate.

I have two children. Both are in primary school. The girl goes to an all-girls school and the boy goes to an all-boys school. In fact, this is the boy's second primary school (he had transferred from elsewhere).

So over the past few years, I have become well-acquainted with the in's and out's of three separate primary schools. I know a lot about how they operate. And through them, I also have a good sense of how Singapore's primary schools operate.

For instance, I know that nowadays, schools take their CCA activities very seriously indeed. If you are an "outsider" to the current school scene, you would really be surprised.

In the old days, "CCA" (or "ECA", as it used to be known) was often little more than letting the boys randomly bounce a basketball around on the court, after school hours. Kids were not supervised. Every CCA had a teacher in charge, but the teacher didn't necessarily know anything about the activity at all.

(For example, when I was in primary school, the chess club was run by a teacher who didn't know how to play the game. She couldn't even tell the difference between the king and the queen).

Those days are over. CCAs are now much more structured, and well-planned. There is much more focus on proper accreditation, accountability and objectives. The "KPI" management style of thinking has invaded the universe of school CCAs.

The teachers still don't necessarily know anything about the CCAs, but now they don't have to. Nowadays, primary schools regularly engage external professional instructors to conduct the courses and activities for the children.

For example, my daughter has taken up ballet as her CCA. Her school has engaged ballet instructors from the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) to run this CCA. RAD is the local subsidiary of the RAD in London, a well-established, 90-year-old ballet school whose syllabus is taught in 82 countries around the world.

Music lessons are also compulsory for all students in the school, from Primary One to Primary Three. The school has a three-year programme leading up to a Grade 1 examination for the ABRSM Theory of Music. Again, external music instructors are engaged to conduct the course.

Meanwhile, at his previous school, my son had joined Speech & Drama. This CCA had plenty of fun activities (including a short public performance at Bishan National Library). But again there was a proper underlying structure. This CCA adopted the Trinity-Guildhall exam syllabus from London. Taken far enough, it would lead to a formal certificate in Speech & Drama that is the equivalent of an O-level subject.

Why are schools, even primary schools, taking their CCAs so seriously?

The answer is simple. It is a consequence of certain changes that the Singapore government had made to the education system, over the years.

In the past, academic results were all that mattered, in helping you to get from primary school to secondary, or secondary to JC, or JC to university. Nowadays, however, the student's CCA achievements can be used to help him gain admission to the next stage of education.

For primary schools, the specific driver is the Direct Schools Admission policy. It is now possible for a Primary Six student to secure a place in a top secondary school, even before his PSLE results are out (in fact, even before he has actually taken his PSLE exams). All he has to do is demonstrate a sufficiently high level of CCA achievement.

Schools are now restructuring their CCA activities, such that their students' CCA achievements are more objectively verifiable. In some cases, this means that the CCA ultimately leads to some accredited certification (for example, a certificate from Trinity Guildhall, Royal Academy of Dance, and so on). In other cases, it means getting the students to participate (and win some prize) in a nationally recognisable CCA-related event (such as an inter-school sports competition).

I like the idea of systematic, well-run CCA programmes. This is because I believe that young people should get the chance to pursue their personal interests, beyond the academic syllabus. Overall, it makes for a more well-rounded education. I'm also a believer in the principle of "If you want to do it, then do it well - otherwise don't do it at all.". That's why I like the idea of properly-qualified instructors running the students' CCA programmes.

On the other hand, there is the very relevant consideration of financial cost. Parents have to fork out more money to pay for their children's increased CCA expenses.

In the old days, taking part in a CCA was free or cheap. But nowadays, CCAs cost money. That is because external instructors cost money. So do their exams, their materials and their equipment (just imagine the cost of buying enough Yamaha keyboards for all Primary 1, 2 and 3 students in a school, to have weekly music lessons). Here's another example - when my son took his Speech & Drama exam, an external examiner was flown in from London to Singapore, to conduct the exam. Somebody's got to be paying for that man's flight and accomodation.

It's worth noting that as a practical matter, CCAs aren't optional. They are compulsory. Your child may get to pick his specific CCA (for example, a sport or a musical activity), but he MUST pick at least one. Also, depending on the school, some CCAs can be compulsory for all the kids.

Personally, the money doesn't bother me. I can afford the costs of my children's CCAs. On the other hand, I am much wealthier than the average Singaporean. So I do wonder how the average Singaporean parent is coping.

Back to the Straits Times article.

We learn that the government has given a $130 Edusave top-up for each student. This means that each primary student gets a total of $330. Edusave is meant for enrichment activities, i.e CCAs and the like.

Now, using my daughter as an example, let's see how helpful the Singapore government's top-up really is, taking into consideration actual expenditure in practical reality.

My daughter's ballet leotard cost about $80 (I bought the cheaper one, the most expensive version recommended by the school was about $120). The ballet class itself costs $300. The compulsory music course costs $40 (after the school subsidy). There is also a compulsory Gymnastics & Rope Skipping programme (again, external instructors are engaged). This costs another $40.

That's a total of $460. The Edusave account has been completely wiped out. More than completely wiped out.

And note that right now, it's only January. The school year has just begun. As the year goes on, there will be more fees to pay.

Still think that the government is generous?

*********

Here are a few points that I would like to know.

When the Singapore government introduced schemes such as the Direct Schools Admission policy, did it not anticipate that schools would then start beefing up their own CCA programmes? And that the costs of these programmes would start escalating dramatically?

If the Singapore government knew this, then did it not foresee that a large part of the costs would be passed on to the parents? If so, did it stop to consider whether the average Singaporean parent can cope with these increased costs? What's being done, to help the poorer families?

"Would You Die For Each Other?"

2011-01-22T17:20:00.005+08:00

I read this question in the Straits Times today. The article was about Lee Kuan Yew's new book. The question posed to Singaporeans was - "Would you die for each other?". The Straits Times is even doing an online poll.

I could not help laughing. The question is so dramatic that it is melodramatic. Like a line from one of those weepy Taiwanese soap operas.

To the PAP ministers I would say - "What about you? Would you even pay yourselves anything less than the highest ministerial salaries in the world?"

But then we already know the answer. The last 20 years have made it clear.

Possible New World Record for Singapore?

2011-01-21T13:35:00.005+08:00

Floods have caused hundreds of thousands of people in Sri Lanka to become homeless. As many as one million people - including 400,000 children - may experience food shortage.

And the Singapore government is donating ..... $25,600?

That's less than the price of one C.O.E.

Surely this must set some kind of international record. For stingy-ness. This could be the smallest sum ever donated by one sovereign nation, to another sovereign nation, for a humanitarian cause.

I wonder if the government of Sri Lanka feels insulted.

One single primary school like Anglo-Chinese School could probably raise three times that amount in a week, just by asking parents for donations.

$25,600 flood aid for Sri Lanka
TODAY 05:55 AM Jan 21, 2011

SINGAPORE - The Government is contributing US$20,000 ($25,600) in aid to flood-stricken Sri Lanka, the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a statement yesterday.

Floods and mudslides in Sri Lanka over the past several days have reportedly killed 40 people and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The MFA said the money will go towards post-flood rehabilitation efforts undertaken by Mercy Relief.

The humanitarian organisation will be distributing water filtration units for fresh drinking water to those affected by the floods.

President S R Nathan had earlier sent a letter to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to express his sympathies to the people and government of Sri Lanka over the loss of life and destruction caused by the floods, the MFA said.

Meanwhile, international humanitarian group Save the Children warned that the damage to agricultural land and loss of livestock is so serious that it could leave up to a million people - including 400,000 children - without enough food.

The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Investment in Singapore

2011-01-19T06:07:00.005+08:00

Ismail Gafoor is the CEO of Propnex, one of the largest property agencies in Singapore. I came across his bio-data and was quite impressed.

Among his many achievements, Ismail holds, as an NSman, the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is currently the Deputy Brigade Commander of one of the SAF's infantry brigades.

This is notable especially because of his race. It's an open secret that the SAF is biased against the ideas of Malays holding senior appointments in the military.

(Actually, that's not even a secret. Lee Kuan Yew has spoken publicly about it before).

Anyway, I digress. What I really want to talk about is Ismail Gafoor's new book, "The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Investment in Singapore".

I bought the book ($34.99 at Popular Bookstore), even though I don't expect to be buying or selling any properties in the next two or three years. The book is informative and well-written, and I feel that its useful shelf life will extend beyond a 2 or 3-year period.

At 337 pages, the book provides quite comprehensive coverage of its topic. There are chapters about HDB flats; landed properties; condominiums; property auctions; bargaining strategies; being a landlord; obtaining a home loan; understanding the URA Master Plan; evaluating a property's location; planning your budget, and more.

Highly recommended, if you're interested in real estate in Singapore.

* * * * * * * * *

Anyway, here's one interesting nugget from the book.

If you're interested in private property, you probably know that on a per square foot (psf) basis, landed property is usually much cheaper than condominiums. The question is - why?

I have always assumed that it's because Singaporeans are willing to pay the extra premium for the condo facilities. Typically, that means the swimming pool; the tennis courts; the gym; the barbecue pits; the clubhouse; the children's playground; and so on.

In contrast, a house is, well, just a house.

However, when Ismail discusses the question, he doesn't even mention condo facilities at all. (I take it that this means he would consider my view to be either irrelevant or wrong). Instead, here's what Ismail says:

"How is it possible that a space in the sky is actually more expensive than land on the ground?

The answer basically lies in the rules of land ownership. In Singapore, foreigners are generally not allowed to buy landed homes, unlike condominiums. Foreigners who desire to own a piece of land must fulfil the criteria and submit an application to the authorities, which will only be approved based on its merits."

So according to Ismail, you pay more for your condo, because you're competing with the foreigners. All these years, they've been jacking up your price.

In contrast, landed properties are cheaper (on a psf basis) because the foreigners are still kept out (not entirely, but largely) by the laws and regulations. Foreigners can buy landed properties, only if they first succeed in getting government approval.

The Partial Myth of the "Asset Rich, Cash Poor" Singaporean

2011-01-18T18:52:00.009+08:00

Consider this scenario.

Mr Tan Ah Kow is a Singaporean in his mid-30s. He has about $80,000 in his POSB savings account, and about $80,000 in his CPF Ordinary Account.

Every month Mr Tan needs to pay about $800 for his HDB loan. Should he pay with his POSB money, or with his CPF money?

Note that Mr Tan's CPF OA earns interest at 2.5% per annum. Meanwhile, Mr Tan's POSB money earns interest at a much lower rate of about 0.125% per annum (20 times less).

If this difference in interest rates was the only consideration, Mr Tan would surely use his POSB money to pay his mortgage. After all, his POSB money is earning so little interest.

However, in reality, most likely Mr Tan would use his CPF money to pay his mortgage.

Why? Because Mr Tan wants to reserve his POSB money for all his other financial needs and purposes. In other words, Mr Tan wants to maintain his core liquidity.

Mr Tan also knows that if he doesn't use his CPF OA money to pay his mortgage, then all that money would remain largely locked up until he reaches the age of 55 years.

Or 62 years. Or 65 years.

(Or maybe 85 years, depending how the government decides to fiddle with the rules, over the next few decades).

In other words, Mr Tan's CPF funds are subject to long-term political risk. The more money Mr Tan has in his CPF Ordinary Account, the greater the political risk he is exposed to.

Mr Tan may not know the technical terms - such as "core liquidity" or "political risk" - but Mr Tan is not stupid. The extra interest he could earn on his CPF monies (in comparison to the interest on his POSB savings) is almost certainly not going to be sufficient to entice him.

Almost instinctively, Mr Tan will seek to spend as much of his CPF money as he can, on his home loan. In fact, Mr Tan may even use his surplus CPF OA funds to prepay a large portion of his HDB loan.

Meanwhile, if Mr Tan is a prudent man, he might also save for his retirement needs, by investing some of his POSB savings in shares, bonds, ETFs, unit trusts, investment-linked policies and the like. With some care and a little luck, Mr Tan can build up a tidy sum of money over time, to meet his retirement needs. It's just that this money won't be coming from his CPF account.

* * * * * * * * * * *

If Mr Tan's case is common among Singaporeans, then what does this say about the CPF? Possibly, one could draw the the following conclusions:

(1) The CPF is a mandatory savings scheme, not so much for your retirement, but for your housing needs. Thus the success of the CPF scheme should be measured not necessarily by the number of Singaporeans who can retire comfortably with their CPF savings, but by the average age and the number of Singaporeans who own their own homes and have fully paid up their mortgages.

(2) If you actually expect your CPF money to cover your retirement needs, you could be seriously screwing your own financial health. Instead you should be actively saving and investing for your retirement, with your non-CPF funds.

In addition, due to the long-term nature of the CPF scheme and the government's power to write and rewrite the rules, one may also conclude that your CPF monies are exposed to a significant degree of political risk.

But then, just like Mr Tan, you already knew that.

Didn't you?

My Thoughts on The Online Citizen Getting Gazetted as a Political Association

2011-01-16T09:45:00.005+08:00

I always knew that it was going to happen.

It was just a matter of time.

To me, the only surprise was that it took so long for the government to gazette The Online Citizen as a political association.

Then again, the elections are looming. So this too is the right season for the PAP to do what it did.

Years ago, I already realised that in the Singapore blogosphere, group blogs commenting on sociopolitical issues were at risk. The more well-organised, prolific and popular a group blog is, the higher the risk it would face.

That is one reason why I never joined any group blogs.

(The other main reason is that I like the freedom of having my own individual blog. Apart from yakking about sociopolitical issues, I can also yak about anything else that interests me).

In my opinion, as far as raising public awareness; promoting active citizenship and encouraging critical thinking among Singaporeans, the best form that the blogosphere can take is as follows.

(1) Lots and lots of individual bloggers.

(2) Many, many intelligent voices providing reasoned, constructive views.

(3) But no individual voice should be so compelling and outstanding that it becomes an obvious nail for the PAP to hammer down on (whether by defamation suits, political gazetting, public ministerial attacks, police investigations or the like).

(4) An amorphous, informal network among the active bloggers, so that they interconnect themselves with plenty of hyperlinks, "Friends", "Likes", blog comments etc.

The gist of the idea is that the Singapore sociopolitical blogosphere should be as big as possible, so that its collective influence is far and wide, and yet sufficiently diffuse, so that the PAP lacks obvious targets to attack.

Anyway, I'm reading the Internet commentary out there, and I see that many posters commented about the "foreign funding" aspect of the Online Citizen issue. (Gazetted political associations are not allowed to receive funding from foreigners).

This is a red herring. Or a non-issue. It just isn't the point.

Seriously, it costs peanuts to run a website. (And that is what The Online Citizen mainly is - a website).

Using Blogger, Wordpress and the like, you can set up free blogs and web pages within a few minutes.

If you pay for your own server space, that costs a bit more money. You get to pick your own domain name; you have more space to upload files etc. But seriously, it just costs a bit more money.

One doesn't need "foreign funding" to achieve that.

Personally, I don't see what's the big deal about foreign funding.

This is not the US, where political campaigns can be expensive. In Singapore, even if an opposition candidate has billions of bucks, the government will allow him only x minutes to appear on TV and talk to the people of Singapore.

It's not as if he's able to buy more airtime with his money. He's already constricted and tied down by a host of government laws, regulations and rules, on his campaigning activities.

Got money, also cannot spend.

Anyway, every other Tom, Dick and Harry on this island is a foreigner. The government adores them, talented or not.

So what's the big deal? About foreign funding?

Oh, remind me to write about something else in my next post. About my favourite poem. Or my daughter's IQ test. Or my new furniture.

Something non-political. Otherwise, who knows? Maybe the government would change the law again and say that even an individual blogger can be a "political association". LOL.

Singapore's Official Retirement Age To Be Extended

2011-01-15T07:04:00.007+08:00

The Straits Times makes me cringe. The subtlety of their propagandising is so lacking that it makes the hairs on my arms stand. I mean, really. The hairs literally stood up, as I read the article below.

ST Jan 15, 2011
Singaporeans welcome new retirement age of 65

EVERYONE looks forward to retirement, but many Singaporeans still feel capable of working beyond the age of 62, so many rejoiced at the government's recent announcement of lifting the retirement age to 65.

Singaporeans "welcome" the new retirement age? They "rejoiced" at this?

Where are the parties? Where are the celebrations? Where are the big balloons and waving flags and smiling happy faces? Where, at least, are the survey results to show that Singaporeans are happy with their retirement age being stretched to 65?

They don't exist. All the Straits Times did was scurry around for to find a few people to interview. The journalist managed to find a grand total of two Singaporeans, who would say something moderately nice about working in your old age.

Based on that, the Straits Times boldly declares that "Singaporeans Welcome New Retirement Age at 65"! And that we are "rejoicing". Owwww. Down, my hairs, down.

Ramesh Prakash Sharma, 66, is so good at his job that when he turned 62, he was given a promotion instead of being asked to retire. His company Qioptiq, an optics manufacturing company, made him a Technical Mentor to show younger employees the ropes. He says: 'I love my job. Optic is in my blood.'

Under the new Retirement and Re-employment Act passed in Parliament on Tuesday, employees who turn 62 will now be given the option to work for another three years. The new re-employment law will be in place from January 2012 and will affect some 20,000 workers.

Another gainfully employed sexagenarian is Elizabeth Hendriks, a 63-year-old steward with Fairmont Singapore who has never missed a day of work in her 13 years with the organisation.

She says she is happy with her job as it keeps her active, and she has only taken 2 days of medical leave in the last 5 years.

Come to think of it, neither Ramesh nor Elizabeth (as quoted above) actually said that they welcomed the government's new policy. Instead both just said that they love their own jobs.

I guess the Straits Times could not actually find any Singaporean who would say, 'Yes, I welcome the official extension of the retirement age to 65, and I rejoice in this!".

Most Singaporeans probably do understand the real significance of the retirement age extension. Later it will just become a political excuse to further delay the full withdrawal of your own CPF savings.

The Community Care Endowment Fund and Income Inequality in Singapore

2011-01-10T14:03:00.008+08:00

An email from a reader:

Hi Mr Wang,

I’m a student who have been reading your blog for the past two years. Recently, I've been reading online blog entries on income inequality in sg and it’s true that there are many elderly cleaners and tissue paper sellers around today especially when I’m dining at Bedok Hawker Centre.

But with existing schemes like Comcare, Workfare and Public Assistance Scheme to help the needy, I really don’t understand why it’s not helping this bad situation that has been ongoing for years. Why are these cleaners not going for workfare? Are they not informed or are they not eligible? I thought the govt has been pumping in $ for workfare all this while?

("The Community Care Endowment Fund, or ComCare for short, represents the Government’s commitment to do more for needy Singaporeans. Since the launch in 2005 by the Prime Minister, it has disbursed more than $200 million to help 160,000 needy Singaporeans, and the government has been progressively topping up the Endowment Fund which now stands at $800 million." taken from MCYS News Dec 3 2010)

I dunno much about this but is 800 million too little to provide safety net for the society? So what's the solution to the unequal income distribution in Singapore?

Firstly, I should say that I have not looked closely at Comcare, and do not know the details of its schemes. But we can do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, based on this paragraph:

"The Community Care Endowment Fund, or ComCare for short, represents the Government’s commitment to do more for needy Singaporeans. Since the launch in 2005 by the Prime Minister, it has disbursed more than $200 million to help 160,000 needy Singaporeans, and the government has been progressively topping up the Endowment Fund which now stands at $800 million."

Firstly, $800 million is the amount set aside to help needy Singaporeans. But this is not money that has actually been disbursed yet. When will this money be disbursed, and under what circumstances, and in what amounts, and over what period of time? Your guess is as good as mine.

The amount that has actually been disbursed is $200,000,000. This amount was disbursed over five years. That money went to a total of 160,000 needy Singaporeans.

We don't know how long, on average, each Singaporean stayed on the ComCare scheme. For example, some may have received ComCare assistance for a year, while others may have received it for the past five years. Let's say that on average, ComCare recipents received help for 2.5 years.

Then, according to this reader's calculations (thank you), each person received an average amount of $1,250 per year, or about $104 per month.

This will be roughly enough to buy one packet of chicken rice ($3) per day, with a few coins left over for spare change. It does not sound like much of a safety net to me. But form your own opinion .......

Food Price Inflation - The Next New Global Theme

2011-01-07T09:54:00.005+08:00

Suddenly, food price inflation has become the new global issue. From the New York Times, 5th January:

U.N. Data Notes Sharp Rise in World Food Prices
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Here's a more Asian perspective, on the same matter.

I just have a sneaky suspicion that one cause of the current food price inflation is increased activity by financial investors and speculators. It was just last month that my financial adviser was talking to me about investing in agricultural commodities.

Also, in the past few years, investment banks worldwide have been growing increasingly interested in the commodities business. As far as I'm aware, the bulk of their interest has been in metals such as copper, gold and steel. But really, if there's money to be made, they would just as well move into sugar, rice or corn.

In the end, it's all just money to the bank. Doesn't matter whether it's sugar or gold; rice or steel or widgets .... as long as it makes money.

The Inexact Science of Property Valuation

2011-01-06T07:30:00.009+08:00

Saw this in the Today newspaper:

These sellers are not serious
Flat owners re-valuing flats for profits
Letter from Gurmit Singh Kullar

THE latest cooling measures have admittedly had some effect in curbing the cash over valuation (COV) for resale HDB flats but we are still unlikely to see any decrease in valuations.

I have come across some sellers who have had their flats re-valued even before their current valuations expired so as to lock in a further gain.

A flat owner who rejected my offer did exactly that because he was convinced by property agents that his flat was "too cheap".

In another case, a property agent tried to convince me to buy a particular flat because the valuation had increased by $10,000 since the last assessment two months earlier.

Is this practice of multiple valuations for a HDB flat across such a short period condoned? Can the value of a flat really increase so rapidly?

Since valuation prices are based partly on previous assessments, frivolous seller behaviour causes unjustified increases in baseline prices.

In addition to focusing on buyers, I feel that the HDB also should introduce steps to weed out non-serious sellers ....

Gurmit is wrong. In the current market, sellers who constantly seek revaluations are not only serious, but savvy.

Property valuation is not a science. We should think of it more as an art. Or even better, just as an opinion. Supposedly an independent, educated and informed opinion - but in any event, still just an opinion.

So for instance, let's say that we simultaneously ask for three property valuations of the same HDB flat. Even though all valuations are done at the same time, the first valuer might say "$500,000"; the second valuer might say "$520,000"; and the third valuer might say "$540,000".

In all three cases, the respective valuer will support his opinion by citing a list of relevant factors in his report. For example, he would look at the recent sale prices of similar properties in the same neighbourhood. He would consider the nearby amenities (is there an MRT station nearby? Or any top school? Or a good shopping area?). He would also take note of the physical state of the apartment itself (for example, whether it has a good view, or has been renovated nicely).

But all these factors have subjective elements. For example, what is a "good" view? Which schools are "top"? How faraway can an MRT station be, and still be considered "near"? Since the answers to these questions are merely opinions, it should be obvious that the valuation figure itself is also merely an opinion.

Particularly in a rising market, a savvy seller may seek revaluations. Why? Because, as I mentioned earlier, property valuers will consider the recent actual sale prices of similar properties in the same neighbourhood. If market prices are generally on an uptrend, the valuation you get in January is likely to rise by April. That's because the April valuation would have taken into consideration data on sale prices that had become available only in February and March.

Although property valuations are merely opinions, they have a lot of practical significance. Among other things, they determine the maximum amount that a bank would be willing to lend to the buyer. In turn, this influences the price that the buyer is willing to offer to the seller.

So Gurmit is both wrong and right. He is wrong to say that the sellers are not serious. He is right to say that they are out to make money. The sellers are serious. They are serious about making money.

Snakes and Other Creatures

2010-12-30T12:55:00.009+08:00

A letter to the ST Forum:

ST Dec 30, 2010
Passing the buck on snake menace

MY DAD came across a 1m snake in the grass area about 10 steps away from the bus stop in Upper Thomson Road on Dec 17.

He told me to call the relevant authorities before the snake slithered to the bus stop, or to the nearby terrace house.

When I contacted the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), the operator transferred me to the unit which she claimed could help in this matter. However, the woman who picked up the call did not even give me three minutes to speak. When she heard 'snake', she said 'Call the police please'.

Meanwhile, a commuter at the bus stop called the police.

I called AVA again and asked the operator if it is indeed the police's job to be catching snakes. She immediately said she will transfer me to corporate affairs but the call was transferred to a mail box instead.

In the next 15 minutes, neither the police nor AVA staff turned up. My dad and I looked on helplessly as the snake slithered back to the bushes and disappeared.

Angela Tang (Ms)

All I can say is that I feel glad for the snake.

Most likely it was a reticulated python (quite common in Singapore). The police are indeed the right people to catch them, but not all police officers are trained to handle snakes.

Captured snakes are passed on to the Singapore Zoo. The zoo receives so many snakes per year that it cannot possibly keep all of them. The zoo simply releases healthy snakes back into forested areas of Singapore. The less-healthy ones are euthanised.

More rarely, cobras are also found in Singapore. These are pretty nasty fellas and are best avoided. Fortunately they will also tend to avoid human beings. I had a close encounter with a black cobra once (near Kent Ridge Park), and it was spectacularly unforgettable. Big black hood, the head rearing up well above ground level, and all of that - very intimidating. A cobra's hiss sounds nothing like what you might expect a snake's hiss to be like. The sound of a cobra hissing is more like a big dog growling. It's pretty scary.

I don't like venomous snakes, but I'm okay with non-venomous ones. I've handled them and petted them on many occasions.

Other animals which I have fed, handled and petted include stingrays, elephants, lions, koalas, wombats, kangaroos, deer, goats, horses, mynahs, dolphins, alpacas, orang utans, giant tortoises, macaws and pigs. In case you're wondering, I do not go on jungle expeditions or wilderness trips. Many of my encounters have been at places such as the Singapore Zoo, Underwater World and similar places in other countries.

I would like to pet a tiger one day. That would be fun. There's a place in Thailand where you can do that. Click here to see the pictures.

But one of my most beautiful wildlife experiences was to hold a hummingbird in my two hands. The little bird had gotten itself lost and trapped inside a building and had grown exhausted, after hours of fluttering around vainly, beating its head against glass doors trying to get out. I gently picked it up, took it outside and set it free.

A hummingbird is so small, and so delicately and carefully designed by Mother Nature. Its fine, subtly luminous colours remind me of a precious jewel.

The IQ Test

2010-12-18T19:26:00.009+08:00

The background to this post is here. So anyway, today I finally got around to taking my little girl for the IQ test.

I didn't tell her that she would be going for a test. I just told her that I was taking her somewhere to play some games. When she asked me what kind of games, I just told her, "Oh, puzzles. Many different kinds of puzzles. They're really fun!".

At the clinic, the psychologist had a brief discussion with me and my wife, and then asked us to leave our daughter behind and come back in 90 minutes. We went off to do some shopping. When we came back, my daughter had completed her IQ test and happily announced to us that the puzzles were really fun and she had enjoyed herself.

We asked the psychologist how my daughter had done. The psychologist said that she couldn't give a definitive answer yet - she had to do some analysis and compute the scores first. However, the rough estimate was that my daughter was well above average on an overall basis, and probably in the gifted range for verbal reasoning, but perhaps not in the gifted range for other areas.

I know the technical term for this. It's "asynchronous development". Human intelligence isn't a single attribute - instead there are about eight different types of human intelligences. For example, a person may be gifted in logic; but average in interpersonal intelligence; and poor in his linguistic intelligence.

Asynchronous development is the term to describe people who are unevenly gifted. The psychologist's comments indicate that my daughter is linguistically gifted - her natural ability to communicate, analyse, reason and express herself by using language is very high - but that she isn't gifted in all other areas.

I guess she takes after her daddy. I know that as a child, I learned to speak, read and write well at an unusually early age (those were my first steps towards becoming, at different times in my life, a top law student; a published poet; a nationally prominent blogger; a litigation lawyer and a writer for the SAF). But at the same time, I also know that I was never smart in the way that my big brother is EQ-smart with people; nor in the way that my other brother is smart with visual images and artistic ideas.

Anyway, it will take some time for the full report on my daughter's IQ to be produced (because the clinic is temporarily closing down for the Christmas and New Year holidays).

I like to think that everyone has a special talent in something, and that the only big difference is that some of us have discovered our gifts, and the rest of us have not. Of course, as a parent, I am particularly interested in helping my own children fulfill their potential.

Underwear What Colour?

2010-12-15T18:16:00.007+08:00

I was at work. It was about 5 pm. It was going to be another long day (or rather, night). I planned to finish three more tasks before leaving the office.

The first task was to attend a meeting to discuss our new deal with a London-based asset management company acting for a sovereign wealth fund.

The second task was to read a document about the proposed corporate restructuring of one of our clients, a major Asian oil refining company.

The third was to review a set of legal documents that we were planning to sign with a stock exchange. The stock exchange was hoping to receive my comments by tonight.

It was all very serious work. But first I needed to pee. I went to the bathroom, pee'd at the urinal, and casually tugged at the zip to pull it back up.

Unexpectedly, the zip broke off.

Okay ... Not good. Retreated into a toilet cubicle and closed the door. Took off my pants completely and tried to fix the zip back. Not successful. Gave up after 5 minutes.

Put on my pants again and discreetly walked back to my desk. Looked down a few times to inspect myself. Unfortunately, this was one of those pants where the fly, if not zipped up, would open very wide. So wide that one could easily see my underwear. Which happened to be white today, very conspicuous against the dark colour of my trousers.

Under these circumstances, there didn't seem to be much of a choice. I couldn't be seen around the office like this.

Too bad for the sovereign wealth fund. And the corporate restructuring. And the stock exchange. I quickly left the office, clutching my bag somewhat awkwardly at the front of my body. Downstairs, I hopped into a taxi and went straight home.

An early day for Mr Wang, for once.

That wasn't so difficult, after all. All you really have to do is ... just ... walk .... out ....

Work/Life Imbalance

2010-12-04T17:47:00.009+08:00

The manpower jinx in my department continues.

A week ago, one of my colleagues suddenly fell very ill. He had to be sent to hospital. A CT scan revealed a serious problem. It was literally a life-&-death matter. He had to undergo emergency brain surgery. The surgery went well, and he is out of Intensive Care, but he is still in hospital. He won't be back at work for several weeks.

Meanwhile, yesterday, it was announced that another colleague had resigned. Not even bothering to stick around to collect the bonus for 2010. Mr Foreign Talent, who came to sunny little Singapore 4 years ago, with wife and kids in tow, is now packing up and going back to his home country. He hasn't found a new job. He just doesn't want to work here anymore.

Throughout 2010, people have been quitting and most of them have not been replaced. The office has so many empty desks now that it's depressing.

Last night was also my department's Christmas party. All these years, I've always made it a point to go to the Christmas party. This time, I didn't go. I would have liked to. But I had too much work. So instead I was in the office working till slightly past midnight. As I worked, new emails continued to arrive into my inbox - from London and New York. These are the perils of working in a global investment bank - the sun never sets, and the work never ends.

I've been told that I'm well on track for promotion. Barring any unexpected circumstances,m the promotion should happen in February next year. I suppose this is a good thing. I suppose that I should feel happy or excited. On the other hand, I cannot honestly say that I feel happy and excited. Right now, nothing about working here feels happy or exciting to me.

Part of me is angry with myself, because I know that I am responsible for maintaining my own work/life balance. I know that I am at liberty to just walk out at 6 or 7 pm and that no one would say anything about it. What compels me to stay later and later in the office - as the overall manpower shrinks and my own workload grows heavier and heavier - is my own sense of responsibility and professionalism. It's my own warped drive and determination to get my work done, with a certain degree of quality and care.

I was discussing this with another colleague yesterday - he consistently works late too, in fact, later than me. I know that like me, he still tries his best. What did I tell him yesterday? I said that one day, if he notices that I'm regularly leaving home at 6 pm, then this means I don't care anymore and I've given up on this place.

As of today, I haven't given up. Yet.

Poetry on a Friday

2010-10-24T19:04:00.009+08:00

Meet Anna, the latest addition to my daughter's doll collection. If you notice that Anna seems to be wearing something very similar to a CHIJ Saint Nicholas uniform, well, that's because she is.
I received this little doll last Friday afternoon, as a token of appreciation from the school. CHIJ was organising a poetry event, and I was one of the two invited speakers. The other invited speaker was Marc Nair, who had recently published his second book, entitled Chai, which is a collection of his travel poems.

About 250 students attended. Most were from CHIJ Saint Nicks itself, but there were also perhaps 20 students from other schools including Anderson Secondary and Deyi Secondary. I spoke about how to explore one's everyday experiences and circumstances and use them as material for creative writing. In retrospect, I probably could have simplified my presentation and made it a little less high-brow.

I also read five poems from my book Two Baby Hands. One of the poems was The Couple Next Door, a poem about wife abuse, set in the HDB heartlands. Coincidentally, a CHIJ literature teacher told me that another school, Singapore Chinese Girls School (SCGS), had just used this poem to set an exam question in their literature prelim paper.

The Couple Next Door

This time not so bad, no need to see doctor.

I cannot go. We are already married.

He won't do it again. I know he won't do it again.

Perhaps a little overly dark, for teenaged students. But then again, perhaps not - since SCGS had seen fit to use it as an examination question. Ah well.

Quite a number of secondary schools in Singapore use my poems for their literature lessons from time to time. It all started several years ago, when the Education Ministry asked for my permission to include my poems in their official "teaching resources" file, for literature teachers. Although I don't get paid for this, I am pleased that this allows many of my poems to get a regular readership, year after year, among Singapore's literature students.

Even if my poems are now ... homework. :D

Babies and Fractures and Einstein on the Violin

2010-10-15T07:39:00.007+08:00

In terms of manpower, my department has been jinxed most of the year.

Here are the developments in October alone. One colleague went on paternity leave. Another colleague will go on paternity leave any day now. And another colleague fell down a staircase this week, fracturing her leg, so that means six weeks' MC.

I am happy for the two new dads. And very sorry for the stairs-tripper. I am also sorry for myself - because guess who has to do all the work, while all these other people are away?

Rather ironic, because next week I am to give a talk at CHIJ Saint Nicholas (it's a literature camp, for students from six schools) and one of the things that the organiser asked me to talk about is how I successfully juggle my career with my creative writing.

Since blunt honesty is one of my more endearing traits, I don't think I will paint a pretty picture for them.

It's bloody tough. My progress on Book 2 is slow as snails.

One thing I will say is that everyone should have at least one passion, outside of and away from their career.

Doesn't matter what you do for a living, doesn't matter even if you really, really like your job. That one passion, away from your main job, allows you to recharge, renew, gain another perspective, live and learn and grow in a different way.

If creative writing is your thing, then that's great. If it's something else, that's great too. As long as you find it.

Einstein used to play the violin. Did you know that?

In other literary news, I'll be reviewing a new book - Reaching for Stones, by Chandra Nair - for Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. This is a pretty hefty collection, compiling his poems from 1963 to 2009. No further comments from me at this stage, as I just received the book (free review copy, yay!) yesterday and haven't read it yet.

Also, my publisher just told me that he's in talks with an electronic publisher in the US to license them the rights to reproduce and distribute my poetry book Two Baby Hands in any "electronic format or media, now in existence or hereafter developed".

I wonder whether that means I'll be able to read my own book on my iPhone. I would love to be an iPhone app - wouldn't that be cool?

The Perils of Not Attending Kindergarten

2010-10-10T17:43:00.003+08:00

Okay, this is my situation (I mentioned it briefly in my previous post too).

My wife and I got some hassles from the Education Ministry this year, when we registered our daughter for primary school. The reason was that we hadn't sent our daughter for Kindergarten Two.

The first hassle came, when my wife was actually at the school, on Registration Day. My wife had to fill up a form, and at the space where she was to write the name of the kindergarten that my daughter had attended, my wife wrote "N.A". Then the MOE officer became quite rude, kicked up a fuss and said things like "How do we know that your daughter is ready for primary school, if she hasn't even done her K2?"

My wife pointed out that:

(1) Currently, kindergarten isn't compulsory in Singapore;

(2) There is no basis to reject a child from a primary school, just because she hasn't done her kindergarten;

(3) It isn't that we didn't give our daughter any education. Quite apart from homeschooling, we also sent her for various enrichment classes. It's just that our daughter did not go to kindergarten.

Finally, the MOE officer grudgingly registered my daughter, and we thought that this would be the end of the matter. However, over the next month or so, my wife continued to receive a number of telephone calls from the Ministry, with someone on the other line constantly asking my wife questions about why we hadn't sent our daughter to kindergarten.

The questions had a somewhat accusing tone, as if we were negligent, useless parents ... or parents too broke to send the child to kindergarten.

Finally, feeling quite exasperated, I sent a very long email to the Education Ministry telling them, in effect, to "get lost", and also informing them in great detail why we didn't send our daughter for K2.

Briefly, my daughter is very bright. She found K1 very easy. It bored her. She was way ahead of most of her peers, in her reading & numerical abilities. She's also very much ahead in other areas like social development. 85% of her first year in kindergarten was basically a waste of time for her.

So after she finished K1, we decided not to send her for K2. Instead we sent her to a variety of enrichment courses at different places (English; Chinese; Maths; and Speech & Drama), picking centres that customise their teaching to cater for kids of different ability levels. This has allowed my daughter to learn at a pace quick enough for the lessons to stay interesting for her.

On a weekly basis, my daughter still spends much less time in a classroom setting, than she would be if she were attending K2. But that's not the point. Most of the time in a K2 class would be irrelevant, boring and useless for her. At least now, whatever time she spends studying is spent on materials and lessons at an appropriate level for her.

Anyway, after further discussion with the Education Ministry, their tone changed at some point. And now they are advising my wife and me to send our daughter for testing, to assess whether she is "gifted".

The thing is - I'm not too sure where to send my daughter for testing, and what that process is all about. The Education Ministry did give some tips, but I would still like to know more about this whole matter. Also, if any of you can recommend a suitable psychologist, I would appreciate this. Thanks .....

But I Am Really Not Dead

2010-09-25T19:17:00.007+08:00

In the past few weeks, I've been getting emails of a certain kind, from a few of my readers. The emails sound carefully phrased, as if the reader genuinely wants to ask something, but isn't sure how to ask it without coming across as intrusive or presumptuous, and is therefore picking and choosing his words delicately.

Well, here's the answer to the question. No, I am not dead, nor dying, nor ill, nor has any drastic event unfolded in my personal life. The reason I have not been blogging is just that I have not felt like blogging. In fact, I haven't felt like blogging for a long time. I haven't even experienced any withdrawal symptoms.

Work has certainly been keeping me very busy though. Right now, I am working in an environment which not only refuses to hire additional lawyers to deal with the increasing workload, but also refuses to hire replacement lawyers (to replace those who have left). So basically, a shrinking pool of manpower is taking on an expanding amount of work. Then the remaining employees grow stressed and unhappy and become more prone to quit, thus feeding the vicious cycle.

Oh well, what is new? This is not the first place where I've seen this happen. Very large organisations are like very large dinosaurs - they are strong, powerful but not necessarily very intelligent. In fact, I was only 18 years old when I got to see a very strong, powerful and stupid organisation close-up. No prizes for the right answer.

In other news:

1. My new house is still not quite ready, but I hope to be able to collect the keys sometime next month. (Please recommend a few out-of-the way places where I can buy cheap, good furniture).

2. I am still diligently swimming, currently averaging about 90 laps per week, and finally, I have taught myself to do a decent flip turn (well, decent by my own humble standards).

3. I bought myself a new classical guitar! And I am trying to grow the fingernails on my right hand, to achieve that brighter, clearer quality of sound when plucking the strings.

4. I have a new blog. But it's going to bore the hell out of you, unless you happen to be working in the same kind of job as I do (heck, even if you work in the same kind of job as I do, you might still be bored to death). Anyway, here it is - the Asian Banking Lawyer blog.

5. Next month I'm giving a talk to about 250 Literature students from six schools, about poetry and how to write it and read it. It's an event organised by CHIJ Saint Nicholas.

6. I recently met up with two Singapore filmmakers (a producer and a director) who wanted me to share the juicy details of what DPPs really do for a living. The two filmmakers are making a new film that involves crime - and the main character is a DPP.

7. Ever since I registered my daughter for Primary One (that was back in July), the Education Ministry has become aware that I haven't sent her to Kindergarten Two. Since then, every fortnight or so, someone from the Education Ministry calls up my wife to ask why. I guess that my wife and I, as parents, are now being suspected of being negligent or very poor.

8. I have now got an iPhone 4! For $50 only!! And I pay zero dollars for the monthly subscription!!

What? You were hoping that I'd give you some news about socio-political issues in Singapore? Instead of all this boring, trivial stuff about my own life? Sorry, folks. I haven't really been reading the newspapers myself.

Mr Wang at the Esplanade

2010-07-06T22:44:00.008+08:00

Just received an email from someone working for the Esplanade. In conjunction with National Day, the Esplanade will be holding a national poetry exhibition in August. Selected works by Singaporean poets will be exhibited at different areas throughout the Esplanade building.

The Esplanade wrote to ask for my permission to use a poem of mine - it's entitled Construction. I said okay.

I feel somewhat happy for this poem. The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore previously published this poem and it also appears in my book Two Baby Hands. But apart from that, Construction has not received much airplay or attention.

Construction

............ ......... ..............

.............

New York, New York

2010-06-25T04:49:00.007+08:00

I had some free time to explore New York. This was my first time there, so it was quite interesting for me.

I spent most of my time in museums. New York has some really spectacular museums - you could spend an entire day or two in a large one, if you really wanted to see all the exhibits.

Here's a picture I took at the Natural History Museum. The museum has plenty of dinosaur fossils and the picture shows one of the largest ones.

When you're standing right there, close to the fossil, it's pretty remarkable to think that once upon a time, such a massive creature was real and alive, and stomping and stamping its way around planet Earth.

I also visited the world-renowned Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Quite delighted to see many famous paintings which up till then, I had only come across in books, postcards etc.

Here's one of the paintings, The Death of Socrates. A painting that you would appreciate a lot more, if you saw the real thing in full size, and also know the story of how Socrates died.

I also went to the Apple store to buy an iPad for a friend. The iPads are still selling like hot cakes. You can't get them unless you place a prior reservation. And the rule is that the reservation lasts for only 24 hours - you need to pick it up within that time.

I would have bought one for myself, but I'm not sure how an iPad would gel with the data plans in Singapore.

It seems to me that in the long run, an iPad is the way to go, for a book lover like me. I've often had to restrain myself from buying more books, because my house is already full of books and they take up so much space. I throw away and give away books, and yet I still have so many.

With an iPad, I could switch to reading ebooks. Right now though, I'm not too sure what the range of available book titles would be like.

The Reality TV Show

2010-06-25T04:01:00.010+08:00

I'm back from New York. I passed my reality TV show - not with flying colours, but I passed, and that's that. So I guess I'm on track for promotion early next year.

One really interesting thing we did was a complex business simulation exercise. The course participants were broken up into six groups. Each group was supposed to be one company.

At the beginning of the game, each company has exactly the same balance sheet, sells the products and owns the same kind of factory equipment. Each group then has to make a set of decisions, on issues like how much to invest in R&D; how much to spend on employee training; how many employees to hire or fire; whether to purchase new industrial equipment or not; and what price to set for the products.

At the end of each round, each team's decisions are entered into a complex computer model. Decisions made by any one team influence the result of all other teams, because the parameters of the game are that all six companies are operasting in the same market.

The model then spits out a detailed set of results, which are publicly announced. These include results such as which team gained the most market share; which team wins an award for "Best Factory"; which team produced goods with the highest quality; at what price each team sold its products etc etc.

Then there is a set of confidential results for each company, detailing its financial performance in that particular round, and also details about its inventory holdings, and its productivity ratios.

The objective of the simulation exercise is to see which team can generate the highest retained earnings, over seven rounds.

The game is quite complex, and takes into account a wide range of factors such as the depreciation of assets over time; the life cycle of the factory machines; fluctuations in market demand; and changes in interest rates. The teams also have options to do things like borrow money from the bank.

Each team can also carry out quality improvement projects; engage external consultants; purchase market forecast reports etc. Each of these decisions come with a price, of course, and each company has a limited amount of money.

The game ran over a period of one and a half days.

Anyway, I was the CEO of my team and we won - yes, we were No. 1, making 67.1 million dollars over seven game periods.

You can think of the game as a very complicated kind of Monopoly.

The other interesting feature of the game is that each team had a psychologist sitting in the room of each team. The psychologist was there to observe each participant in the team.

This part of the exercise was to focus on intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. After the game, each participant gets to discuss his own performance with the psychologist, who will comment on the participant's observed behaviour.

Each participant also receives a grade, on a very broad set of different criteria, such as whether he was collaborative; whether he communicated clearly; whether he was confident etc.

Although I was the CEO of the winning team, I only got an average score as CEO. The psychologist said that my weakness, under time pressure, was in commanding and persuading my team members, whenever I had to articulate an innovative strategy or complex idea.

I was also criticised for being poor in delegating. I personally over-focused on details, when as CEO I should be splitting up the tasks more, and getting my team members to do the analysis.

Innovation and far-sightedness were noted, as my key strengths. In Round 2, when my team members were mostly thinking about Round 2, I was already strategising and planning ahead for Rounds 5 to 7.

Oxford University Press - Gazing at Stars

2010-06-25T02:42:00.006+08:00

Got an email from Christine Lindop, a freelance editor with Oxford University Press. She is working on a new book - a collection of short stories specially edited for readers for whom English is a foreign language.

This is part of a series entitled Bookworms World Stories, which showcase the work of writers in English from different parts of the world. Christine's volume is scheduled for publication in 2011 and will consist of stories from Asia.

I'm known for my poetry rather than for my short stories, but Oxford University Press told me that they would like to use one of my poems, entitled Accident, in the preliminary pages of their book. That's because my poem has inspired the title of their book, Gazing at Stars.

I said ok. This is the poem:

Accident

And I,
gazing at stars,
stumbled over you,
tripped
and
fell painfully in love,
couldn't get up
for ages.

Okay, the actual poem doesn't really look like that. The lines are arranged and spaced in a certain way, to suggest serendipitious wanderings and a sudden fall. But Blogger doesn't seem to give me any option to replicate the line arrangements - it automatically aligns all the lines for me.

Little Snippets From Mr Wang's Daily Life

2010-06-05T18:29:00.004+08:00

Professor Edwin Thumboo is compiling a new anthology of poetry and wanted to include one of my poems in it. My publisher emailed to ask if I had any objections. A slightly strange question, since my publisher holds the copyright for the next nine years and I have no grounds to object anyway. But anyway, I am perfectly okay and happy with the idea.

The new anthology is aimed at students in Singapore schools, and will contain a selection of poems from writers all over the world. The objective is to expose the students, through poetry, to a variety of different social, cultural and linguistic contexts. Edwin Thumboo wants to use the following poem of mine:

My Father Takes My Son For A Walk

"But I Didn't Tell A Lie ... I Just Didn't Tell The Whole Truth" - The SAF

2010-05-26T13:24:00.004+08:00

In March, an SAF training accident occurred. A few days ago, the Straits Times reported it:

ST May 25, 2010
SAF commando shot by Thai villager
By Jermyn Chow & Lester Kok

A COMMANDO on a night training exercise in Thailand was accidentally shot by a local villager out hunting.

First-Sergeant Woo Teng Hai, a regular from the 1st Commando Battalion, suffered head injuries in the incident on March 13.

The 25-year-old serviceman was hit by pellets from a shotgun, the Defence Ministry told The Straits Times yesterday. He is now on medical leave.

Mindef spokesman Darius Lim said 1st Sgt Woo was taking part in a 'routine training exercise' in a 'designated training area' in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok.

But the story was not complete. It was missing a very material piece of information.

Another SAF servicement had been shot. He is a 19-year-old NSF. More than two months after the accident, the shotgun pellets are still lodged in his cheekbones and shoulder.

How did these facts now come to light? Did Mindef tell the public about it? Nope. Mindef kept very quiet about it. Instead it was an unnamed relative of the NSF who called the Straits Times, to report it.

ST May 26, 2010
Another SAF soldier shot by Thai farmer too
By Jermyn Chow & Lester Kok

NOT one but two Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers were hurt while out on a night military exercise in Thailand in March.

A local farmer out hunting accidentally shot Private J. Pritheery Raj, a full-time national serviceman (NSF). Two shotgun pellets are still lodged in his cheekbones and his right shoulder.

The 19-year-old is now on medical leave.

News of this second shooting surfaced after a relative of Pte Raj called The Straits Times on reading its report that a villager had fired his shotgun at First Sergeant Woo Teng Hai. The regular commando is said to have been blinded in his right eye.

The Defence Ministry, which had confirmed the accidental shooting of 1st Sgt Woo on Monday, admitted yesterday that another soldier had also been hurt in the same incident.

It was a cover-up. Exposed by the NSF's relative.

This is a simple example of why Singaporeans do not trust the SAF. All too often, the SAF just does not behave with integrity.

My only hope is that the SAF will treat both servicemen - the regular and the NSF - fairly, and give them proper compensation.

And not treat them in the the way they had treated ex-NSF serviceman Lawrence Leow.

Life Without A Blog

2010-05-15T16:17:00.002+08:00

A few readers have asked why I have been blogging less and less frequently. One colleague expressed his "disappointment". Another reader asked if everything was okay in my life.

Well, everything is okay. Except that I've been too busy with various things (mostly work and family), to be blogging a lot. That's one answer, and it is true. However, another answer (equally true) is that I just don't feel that interested in blogging anymore. In fact I have been feeling distinterested for some time.

It seems a waste to just abandon the blog, especially when I've kept it going for quite a few years. On the other hand, to keep it going just for the sake of keeping it going also seems to be an illogical decision.

Well, everything is impermanent. Blogs are no exception. Most of the Singapore bloggers whom I once considered as my "contemporaries" have largely vanished from the scene as well. That includes Xeno Boy; Molly Meek; Singapore Angle and Singabloodypore. I wonder how many people even remember those blogs/bloggers now.

I've noticed that the less I blog, the less I bother to keep up with the news. Once upon a time, reading the online Straits Times was pretty much a daily habit for me. Now, many days might pass, before I bother to read it once. I still read Today quite frequently, but mostly because I often get handed a free copy while on the way to work.

Due to my regular inattention to the news, I feel somewhat out of touch with this country now. Nevertheless my life goes on smoothly. Sounds a little strange, but it seems eminently possible to get by just fine in one's own life, without knowing too much about the broader national developments. I mean developments in areas like politics, government, education, healthcare, the economy etc.

Maybe the nature of the world now is that people can just easily zero in on the specific information they need, when they need it. For example, you don't need to be reading the newspapers regularly, to know what's happening in the property market. Instead, right at the time when you want to know, you can just google to find out what you want to know. And you could get much more relevant, detailed information from a few dedicated property websites, than from the mainstream media.

I've considered blogging about topics other than current affairs. To some extent, I've already done it. In many of my posts this year, I have often mixed news articles with personal anecdotes drawn from my own everyday experiences. Then again, perhaps the most important question is whether I'm wasting my time blogging here. And whether I should be doing something else.

It's been almost a year since my book Two Baby Hands was published. Part of me feels that it's high time I got started on a second book (I'm considering short stories - I have plenty of ideas floating around in my head). But writing a book takes a lot of time, and I'm not a full-time writer. To succeed, I need to decide exactly what I want to do or not, and after that, I just have to avoid spending any time on things that I don't want to do.

So the question for myself is - do I want to blog, or not? Hmmm.