If the stork did not bring in Hsien Loong and Hsien Yang

This is a hypothetical scenario and with no disrespect or intent to smear anyone. It attempts to look at another aspect of our social political development and how it became what it is today because of the stork. Three areas will be greatly different in our system, the politics of the island, the fast track promotions of super talents and the grotesque salaries of the elite.

In politics, more natural and talented individuals would rise to the occasion, picked by the best and objective system based on an individual’s talent. The criteria would be very stringent, just like how so many of the second batch of ministers failed and were dropped. When the decision maker was looking at performance on purely abilities, only the best would survive the process. The presence of Hsien Loong/Yang had in many ways clouded many judgements and decisions, just my subjective view, and let to many poor and biased decisions. When the crown princes had been conferred, it was just not possible or right for other crown princes to come into the picture meritocratically or intentionally. The crown princes were there, period, and the search for more and better men ends there.

One of the greatest flaws in our administrative system, contributed by the stork, is the rapid promotion of young talents to top positions before their pubic hair appeared. This was simply not how a mature and durable system worked in the normal way. It may be necessary in the case of the sudden birth of a new nation when not all the right people were in the right places and many needed to be inserted quickly. In the case of rapid promotions, not only that the talents are too young and lack the maturity and wisdom that come with age and experience, their presence taxed heavily on the system of natural attrition. Many good men and women just peaking in their careers would have to make way for the immature kids to replace them. On one hand the system lost some of the best talents that were just blooming. On the other it inherited some young punks that were still wet behind their ears and could mess things real bad for lacking in wisdom and experience.

To compound the problem, exceptionally and irrationally high salaries were introduced to reward the yet to achieve anything young talents. And the system continued to grow rapidly with each new cohort entering the system. They kept feeding on a system, drawing huge sums of money that was unsustainable in the long run. After 30 years, it is taking its toll, the drain on the treasury is showing and drastic measures are needed to keep filling a fast depleting purse due to excessive salaries and high expenditure on grandeur and the unnecessary.

If the system could be reset, many older talents would have more good years to hone their skills on the job. New and young talents would have more time to learn the rope and be wiser in the process before taking on bigger responsibilities. The financial burden in the system would not be so strain as the salaries would be more down to earth, less financially demanding. No paymaster under normal circumstances would be so eager to justify and pay the young punks unspeakable salary in public office. Blame it on the stork for this anomaly and perversion of the remuneration system. Today, I believe many in high places are seeing the folly of these abnormalities but could not unwind them without creating unbearable pains to those in the gravy train. But the breaking down of an unsustainable system is only a matter of time as it is grossly extended and overstretched in all areas.

To have young mavericks at the top of their professions is often an accident of nature. It happened in history now and then. In normal cases, many in their 30s and 40s are still not ripe to be in position of power and authority. Simply too brash, have not seen enough of life. The painful sights of some young parliamentarians and top civil servants struggling to make meanings in what they were doing are testimonies that such abnormalities must be rectified. The young and old have their right places at the right time. Putting the cart before the horse often doesn’t work well.

To reset to the system is difficult and to be avoided, but it will be reset with great pains to many in its own ways.  It must reset to take away the overheating or it will just burn out by itself. How things would have been so different if the stork did not come with good tidings, or was it a bad one?

Blame it on the stork I suppose.