2/02/2014

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.

8 comments:

Abao said...

The Kingdom of Shu was well managed. Yet it only lasted 30 years after Zhuge liang's death.

If history is a mirror what does it say about us?

Anonymous said...

The Kingdom of Shu was well managed?

Please lah.
Kingdom of Shu's decision-making centred around Zhuge Liang.
And the Kingdom of Shu also had a clown/crown prince ... Liu Shan.
Son of the famous Liu Bei.

That's the problem with Chinese people.
Being loyal to their incompetent self-serving Chinese rulers.
Instead of being loyal to the universal ideas of democracy, freedom and human rights.

We swear unquestioning loyalty to a Chinese guy who at the beginning seemed very capable and good.
(Probably because he was still young and un-senile)
And we eventually end up suffering under a senile old emperor or one of the emperor's jiak liao bee sons.

It's the repeated history of Chinese people for the last 5,000 years.
When will we ever learn?

The smart Chinese who learn will of course emigrate to USA.
People like Betty Liu of Bloomberg News.
If Betty Liu emigrate to Singapore, she would have been made pregnant by some Singapore guy.
And gotten sacked by her Singapore employer shortly after her pregnancy started.

So you tell me lah.
Which is better?
Loyalty to a Chinese ruler?
Or loyalty to universal ideals like the American system.

http://topics.bloomberg.com/betty-liu/

Anonymous said...

"Invest in companies that even an idiot could run, because sooner or later some idiot will"
- Peter Lynch

Similarly, Singaporeans and PAPigs need to learn.
Set up a system of government that even an idiot can run.
Because sooner or later some idiot will.

Then we don't have to pay million dollar salaries.
And always hear PAPigs complain about how difficult it is to find talent.
And always have to keep looking for foreign talent.

Yours Sincerely
Li Con Yew
(pseudonym)

patriot said...

From this Article, Chua Chin Leng has through his analyses of our Sin Uniqueness clearly shows how the Political System and Leadership have been perverted.
It does not augur well for a young country and the Danger that it(the Country) may not last due to the Perversion.

There is a dire need for the People to wake up to the Reality that things are not quite in order of propriety.

patriot

Perplexed said...

To unwind the system, people must be educated with moral uprightness and sense of justice with the willingness to act knowing that they may lose their position of power, material wealth and comfort. Rare breed! Not by Singapore system of education. Conscientious but self-serving people formerly or presently in high places may just sigh privately or utter some inconsequential comments while continue to feed from the gravy train.

Can we find any Singapore counterpart to Edward Snowden? What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Long live kuan yew

Papigs sure win cum general eRection, cos papigs r the bestest bastards

Knnccb .... papigs sure win

Veritas said...

LKY designed the imperial exam system of Singapore, design to groom scholars as well as princes. The system is a mix of communist party commisar as well as China mandarin system.

He think that Lee dynasty and families will have no challenge if he rope in all high IQ guys.

There are numerous flaws in the system and we are suffering it now. For example many of these top scholars could have become the next Bill Gate or Google guys are now in office playing politics.

We deprive ourselves our engineers and entrepreneurs that need to be fix by importing.

The Mandarin system come hand in hand with the scholarship system. LKY scholarship system is a joke. To make sure he do not look like a clown Kuan Yew got to entice smart guys to apply. To entice smart guy to apply, he got to pay them high salary.

When you drop civil service salary, no one will apply scholarship or even civil services job given that their reputation is already odious.

Also during the 90s, Kuan Yew wanted to screw the poor. He and Chok Tong wanted to create asset inflation, and he has to bribe civil servant by high salary to shield them from ill effects.

The system is blowing up now.

Anonymous said...

The clown prince was slated early on to lead by virtue of his superior genes. The eugenics theory of the Ministers' Mentor must not be disputed and anyone with greater talent or merit must be eliminated or subdued with the risk of losing his high salary if he attempts to outshine the anointed one.

How else do you think an idiot gets to be PM and screw the citizens?