Before Utopia

The communist ideology talks about an utopia in the horizon waiting for the workers. All workers will be paid almost equally in that place where the fruits of labour will be equally shared by everyone, from the top to the bottom. But such an utopia will never happen given the fact that human beans are flawed and will never overcome the seduction of power and greed. What would happen before utopia was not explained in the communist bible. It just assumed that utopia will be next. We have seen how China and Russia and other communist states are progressing. What Marx could not imagine is that before utopia, the greed and power crazy communist leaders would have usurped power and wealth for their own benefits, and more shocking is that they will take to the path of capitalism. The worker leaders will still boast of their humble working class background, to give the impression that they were workers too, before. What they did not say is that they are now rich beyond the workers imagination. They have actually turned themselves into rich capitalists and landlords, the very people that the workers chopped their heads off during the revolution. Before utopia is capitalism where the capitalists and landlords will amass wealth and fortune as in a capitalist system. Income gap will continue to widen to a point of no return. And this will set the stage for another communist uprising and head chopping. And the cycle will go on and on. Utopia is only an ideal state that is never achieveable given the nature of humankind. Communism will lead to capitalism and capitalism to communism. It is a vicious cycle.

Let's do away with mother tongue

Why force our children to struggle to learn a foreign language? The language is foreign since my dad and my ah kong had given up using it at home. We are truly native English speakers. Yes, many Singaporeans are truly using English as their mother tongue. And Chinese, I am not sure about Malay or Indian dialects, is really a foreign language. It is better to do away with this foreign mother tongue. The whole country will benefit from such a change definitely. There is a lot of economy of scale and savings not having to repeat and translate so many languages all at the same time. First thing to do is to remove all the signboards with different languages. This should be easy. And we do not need so many translators, especially in Parliament. As for MTL teachers fearing the loss of their jobs, have no fear. The tourist industry is booming, and there are two casinos, and they definitely need a lot of translators and interpretors. Let's see how and what the change will bring about. Our children need not read all those funny tales from dunno where which they cannot relate to. They can truly and happily enjoy Cinderalla, Snow White, and sing London Bridge is falling down. And the youngsters will be glued to classics like Robin Hood and King Arthur and Merlin the magician. What Wu Song and Pan Jin Lian? Never heard of, so uncool. And yes, there will be Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, Superman and Batman, all great classics. Not forgetting Harry Porter and his little friends. As for the well heeled and educated adults, talking about Shakespeare or Italian opera will not draw a blank. They will be so comfortable when all the sophisticated citizens sit in the Theatre at the Bay to enjoy a night of high class performance. No noisy wayang and wayang kulit to annoy them. Their taste for good quality entertainment could be well satisfied with the casinos bringing all the world class acts from New York and London. I am already feeling so high and sophisticated just writing this stuff. And the schools should just simply teach English. Such an easy language to learn and oh, so marvellously English. As for second language, let the parents choose an easier language if MTL is too foreign. I think French is equally easier and fun to learn, and so romantic when in Paris. Media Corp could save some money by closing down the rest of the Channels leaving just Channel 5 and CNA. Mike Lee and Jack Neo and all the pretty Channel 8 ladies can go to Taiwan and Hongkong or China to sell their skills. Gurmit and his gang no longer have to labour to try to please the uncool Channel 8 viewers. They can be truly themselves acting in Channel 5, and no need to speak funny. But there still need to have more changes when we do away with MTL. All those difficult to pronounce names like Tekka, Hougang, Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Choa Chu Kang, Sungei Buloh, Tekong etc etc must change to something like riverdale or morningdale, these simply sound so good. We can have Chicago for Choa Chu Kang, Houston for Hougang, Tennysee for Toa Payoh. Wow, I stay in the town of Manhattan East. Where is that, oh, it used to be Gu Chia Chwee, but since torn down and rebuilt. And what kind of name is Changi Airport? How about Kennedy Airport? No this one taken. Obama International Airport will do. And stupid names like ECP, AYE, PIE, etc can be renamed, Ellington Highway, Arlington Expressway, Parkingson Expressway, hmmm, so nice. With a change of policy in MTL, we can change the whole society dramatically to whatever we want. And yes, our children will be happy calling themselves Megan and Oregan. And all the people from Asia will flock to this new city/country called New York or Paris of the East, to learn English and enjoy being a little like Europeans and Americans. I think we have a good case to do away with MTL.

Reactions stronger than expected: PM

This is the headline of an article in the Today paper. Does the govt expect a less robust response to the red herring, or was it a red herring? The reaction from the public was serious enough for Hsien Loong and Eng Hen to call a press conference to explain the govt's stand. And what is the stand, no change is weightage but change in methodology to cater for different abilities of the students. This is the tricky part. How to implement a system that does not change the weightage while accepting that the grades will be different. Would all be given A grades but at different standards? Or some will still fail and some will still score? And how will the standard and weightage be maintained? We can expect a lot of changes coming this way and possibility more reactions from the public.

Death penalty saves lives

When I posted my view on the death penalty I expect many people to disagree with me. Fair. There is a very nice young man waiting in the gallows and many are pleading that his life be spared. I too would want to plead for him as well. We are after all human beans and do understand what is compassion and what it means to take the life of someone and how their loved ones feeling the grief and pain. Am I that ruthless and wicked? Sometimes the saints are more deadly and wicked. And in this instance this is exactly so. Saving one life may lead to more adventurers taking their chances here and destroying more innocent lives by exposing them to the destructive nature of drug addiction. As AuntieLucia has said, we must think of the judges' position as well. It is not an easy job to put the hangman's noose on anyone. They too are human beans. The death penalty is not put up to kill. It is put up to protect our citizens. Yes, if our loved ones got into such a fix we will have to talk softly and not take such a tough stand. This is called vested interest or having a stake in the issue. But when one is a disinterested party and looking at it objectively, which is a better alternative? I still stand to support the death penalty. As for people being fixed up, let the court find out the truth. So far death penalty is given only to those that are found guilty without an element of doubt. That is the job of the court. What I would want the govt to do is to use a loud hailer and tell the whole world, without fear nor apologies, that drug trafficking means sure death in paradise. Make it absolutely loud and clear to make sure that no one can miss this message. And the airlines be made to made an announcement about the death sentence before touching down at Changi. And this can be followed by an advisory for those carriers or traffickers to dump their drugs into the toilet bowl before exiting the aircraft if they do not want to be hanged. Let that be their last chance. The same procedure can be applied in all the check points. Let the whole world knows that we mean business. I think this will be a kinder thing to do. The death penalty will end up hanging no one. But once we get soft, we may end up hanging many more and seeing many of our citizens destroyed or harmed. Our message is simple. No drugs.

I support Shanmugam and the Govt's position

I have no issue with Shanmugam and the Govt's tough stand on the death penalty for drug trafficking and kidnapping. Everyone coming into Singapore must know that death is what they get if they play with drugs and kidnapping. The other crime that demands a death sentence is terrorism. The terrorists, the drug traffickers, the kidnappers, are not nice people playing with toys and water pistols. They are out to destroy lives. I can understand the little softness in a human bean to want to be kind. But make sure kindness is given to the right people. People who show kindness to the evil and wicked, the killers, including drug traffickers, are evil without knowing it. They think they are kind and all goodness without knowing that their kindness is going to cause more evil and more suffering. There must be zero tolerance for such crimes here. Period. Let the whole world knows that this is what we will do to such crimes and let those who know and still want to dabble with it here know, without a single doubt, that death will follow. Only then will this island be freed from such crimes, or at least minimal occurrence. The criminals who chose to commit such criminal acts came with their eyes open. They knew what they are in for. They chose to play with fire and they must know that they will be burnt by fire. PS. Any compromise or softness on this tough stand will only encourage more criminals to try their luck here. The people who are fighting for the cause of such criminals are encouraging more to come. They are in a way accomplices, advocates of such criminal acts.

Yes, we got the message!

Haven’t you Singaporeans got the message? What message? Alright let me tell you all in plain simple Singlish,’No Govt cannot do.’ Yes, all the so called privatization for efficiency, competition for the good of consumers, are plain bullshit. Singapore needs the Govt to run all the major services, from hospitals to telecommunications, to transport, childcare and burial services. If you need further proof of how important and effective the govt is in providing fair and affordable services, without being held at ransom, just look at the recent World Cup fiasco will do. If the telcos were one, if own by the Govt, we would not have to pay through our noses, paying more than anyone else, and Fifa standing there, high and haughty, telling us take it or leave it. Let’s petition the Govt to take back all the organizations and services that have been privatized. We need the Govt to run this place efficiently and cheaply. Unless you think the hospital fees are cheap, public transport are cheap, watching football is cheap…HDB is also privatized and you know the story. Just claiming that it is affordable does not mean so. Take back HDB and return it as a statutory board. The HDB of the past was a pride of Singaporeans, providing the people with cheap and good housing. Singaporeans are forever grateful to the HDB when it was a statutory board. Need more reasons why we cannot do without the Govt running this place? Need more reasons why privatization is bad, why competition is bad?

Thinking simplicity

The debate on mother tongue continues. And it boils down to how difficult and time consuming it is to learn a language that is of less functional value. Teach maths, science, innovation, creativity, moral values, integrity etc etc except mother tongue. When we simplify our thinking and reduce our minds to a machine, we will fail to think through an issue holistically. Is teaching the mother tongue so simple, just about an emotional attachment, about racial identity, about culture...? Come on all you silly buggers, despite all the education that you received, can you be so blinded by your individual interests to look into a pin hole and say there is the problem, a pin head? Teaching a language encompasses everything that comes with that language, its history and culture, the moral values, the ethics, the collective wisdom, a sense of being, a moral and historical compass, and everything, including creativity, innovation, science, integrity, morality and all that is about living and life. It is not simply about communication, a tool, a function or dysfunctional tool. A human bean without a language and all that comes with it, no matter how intelligent, is nothing but a machine. Living with just the English Language will determine a person's make up and a set of values, culture, philosophy, history and all that comes with it. It applies to other languages as well. Do not simply discard a language and say anything will do. A language is not simply a language. A language is the living soul of a civilisation.

The ruthlessness of being BIG

I wrote an article ‘The regulators say Yes’ to expose how dangerous the big funds are when they acted for their selfish good and with impunity. They are untouchable as the regulators believe that they needed the big funds to turn the wheels of fortune, to move the stock markets and lubricate the financial industry with their ingenious products and huge liquidity. The regulators became willing accomplices, appeasing the big funds in all their demands. Goh Eng Yeow wrote an article in the ST about learning from the Asian financial crisis when the speculators raided the markets for a big killing and almost bankrupt several countries. He is advocating that more regulations and safeguards be introduced to limit the irresponsible acts of the speculators. Actually he meant the big funds. Small speculators cannot do much harm on their own. They could only if they gang up and work in unison. Fortunately this is rare. On the other hand, the big funds, a handful of them working together can destroy a whole market of even bankrupt countries. And their untouchable status, like diplomatic immunity, only encourages them to turn wild. The ruthlessness of big financial institutions has manifested itself in all the major and minor financial centres, and Obama in particular is trying to do something to curb their extravagant and irresponsible ways. They need to be cut into smaller bits to be effective. They must be laws and regulations to limit how big they can become before they become too big to fail, and too big and dangerous. Then of course the regulators need to look in the mirror and ask how much of the crimes were part of their own doing, inviting the wolves into the dining room and dining with them. If the regulators continue to sleep with the devils, and probably benefitting from the association, this rewarding relationship will compromise their objectivity and moral responsibility to doing what is necessary for the good of the system and the investors at large.

Remembering Charlie Chan

The older generations may still recall this Hollywood creation called Charlie Chan. I think he was some kind of a Chinaman detective with the Fu Manchu moustache, slit eyes and everything of a stereotypical Chinaman except the actor. Charlie Chan was always acted by a caucasian. In those days it was difficult to find a Chinese actor to play a lead role in any Hollywood films or TV serials. I am wondering how the movies of Charlie Chan would be received today. I suspect there will be cries of racism. In the Today paper the Australian Chinese are crying foul again. The Australians are making a film about an Australian Chinese war hero during WWI. The soldier, Billy Sing, was a very successful sniper who killed more than 200 enemy soldier in the Gallipoli campaign, and was a decorated war hero. Isn't it generous for the Australians to want to make a movie of an Australian Chinese soldier? Now why the outcry? Oh, they could not find a Chinese actor for the lead role and it went to a white actor. I just hope they did not put a set of Fu Manchu moustache on this Billy Sing, and to make it more authentic, an additional pigtail will be just fine. : )

How much did we pay to be kicked around?

Heard someone said it is so cheap, only $1 per game! Really? $1 of what? How is this $1 derived? Fee divided by 4.8m people? Or fee divided by the 10% or so football fans? Then do we know how much are the rest of the world paying? How much are the Germans or Japanese paying? These are the more sensible people who would not throw their money away simply at any price? Or for that matter, how much are the football crazy nations like Brazil, England and Argentina paying, using the same formula of course? Then there are the countries that are in the competition and have more reasons to want to watch the games, how much are they paying? Cannot tell, cannot tell! Trade secret, malu? Another case of overpaying? All CEOs of corporations, public or private, have a social and fiduciary duty to make sure that money is well spent and not throw away just because it is other people's money. There must be accountability. Maybe prudence is no good. Yes this must be the reason, since we are making our consumers pay for as much as they can afford, no need to be prudent. Pay any price and just charge it to the consumers.

Football to be kicked around

Yabba dabba doo! We have the World Cup on tele! Time for big celebration. Otherwise Singapore will have go through a month of mourning. The more serious cases will suffer from withdrawal symptoms. That was how dangerously close we got to not having live World Cup football to watch. Kind of scary. Luckily someone has some sense of proportion to understand the severity of the issue and get the deal done. Never mind, football is a game of a ball being kicked around. Never mind how much. No need to know. It is money well spent, every cent of it. We have triumphed in our darkest hour. No one can deprive us of this habit of watching football. With a little money all problems can be solved. Thank you Fifa, for being so kind and generous. Thank you for fixing our craving needs. PS. Maybe someone run through the numbers in the computers and find that paying whatever to make Fifa happy is still cheaper than having Singaporeans going overseas to watch footballs. Singapore, the city that never sleeps, may become a ghost town.

Deja vu on Mother's Day

Shops catering to the love of mother are doing a roaring business these two days. Mother and motherly love sre in everyone's mind. The Sunday Times has this touching article on Madam Tay Et and her 21 year old young Kevin who is struck by muscular dystrophy. Kevin has been bedridden for the past 11 years and is reduced to nearly skin and bone. His life depends on his mother. His mother did everything for him, including brushing his teeth or changing his sleeping position. The intensity of human love knows no bounds and particularly stronger in a mother child relationship. Mother is there, always sacrificing, for their children. The human milk of kindness is not limited to just humans, and animals too can benefit from it. Many are pampering their pets with things that the average human beans can never think of. Spas, daycare, fancy food and cafes, foie gras and strollers. We are bettering ourselves from living harmoniously with all races to living harmoniously and lovingly with animals. Some even regard animals as families. And some consider animals better than children who could turn out to be spoilt brats, cruel and ungrateful. And there is this picture of two ladies pushing a beautiful pram with tender loving care. And inside sits a beautifully dressed up shih tzu. They must be part of this new family composition. The shih tzu must be calling the elderly lady grandma. And the lady must have introduced the shih tzu to her friends as my baby. Somehow I got this strange sense of sadness flowing through my veins. I could not pin point what it is, but it won't go away. It can't be deja vu for sure.

The Regulators say Yes!

There are now wild cries about what happened on Thursday in Wall Street when the stockmarket plunged nearly 1000 pts because of a likely error trade that triggered the machines to do the necessary. The stock market went into a tailspin leaving the traders and Regulators terrified but not knowing why and what to do. They are still trying to find out. They may have known the answer but refusing to face the truth. The truth is that the whole stock market system is mismanaged and completely flawed, and is a system of fraud to favour the big crooks. And all because the Regulators say Yes. The Regulators say Yes to the crooks and scoundrels who had them by the neck and telling them or dictating to them what to do. The crooks say we want to play very big and need big limits to trade and the Regulators, say Yes. The crooks say we want to trade very big and with no cost, no commission, maybe a little pittance for the Regulators, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want to use machines, high speed computers to do their tradings and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want an open trading system to enable their machines to hook to the Regulators machines, to have all the information of traders in the market, the buy and sell orders, etc, and the Regulators say Yes. And the Regulator dismantled their proprietary system and installed an open system for the crooks to play. The crooks say they should not be penalised for using unfair means and unfair advantage against the small traders, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say in such trading they cannot be sure if they buy and sell to themselves which is against the rules and regulations of trading, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say in some of the things they do it could not be transparent, trading in the dark side, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want to create plenty of worthless papers like CDOs and all kinds of derivatives to sell to the investors, with no guarantees, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say the investors may not know what derivatives are all about and the Regulators must train them, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say if the investors refuse to trade in derivatives, the Regulators must force them to trade in derivatives, and the Regulators say Yes. And the crooks say because they are trading big, they want to have lesser regulations or deregulations, and the Regulators say Yes. And the crooks also want to short the market, sell short, even bringing down prices of good stocks at will, and the Regulators say Yes. But it is against the rules to sell short. The crooks say they can borrow scrips to settle, and technically not shorting. They want the Regulators to create a system for scrips borrowing, and the Regulators say Yes. And the regulators did not know why Dow crashed on Thursday? And the American public suddenly are so much wiser, including the professors, and are crying foul and wanting an overhaul of the system determined by the crooks and approved by the Regulators who say Yes to the crooks.

The Apple is rotten

Have no doubts about it, the Apple is rotten to the core. The superficial skin deep good look cannot hold out for long. The subprime crisis, the toxic notes, CDOs/CDS, the heavenly pay out to the bankers and finance crooks, to the lawyers, the high debt of living on borrowed money, and the whole financial system, are rotten deep inside. The stock market and the financial system need an immediate overhaul. What happened yesterday is not going to go away. It is saying it will come back again and again. The super computers and programme assisted tradings shall rule again. They are the best inventions, together with derivatives for the stock markets. Any silly country that still salivating on how great the American and western system is needs to have a reality check. To continue to ape the Americans in their wayward and irresponsible ways is a sure road to the abyss of financial destruction. What I am saying is pure bullshit. The American system is the best system to be incorporated to all the countries around the world. Then we can have everyone being as rich as the Americans and spending like the Americans. The world needs to support the Big Apple and make sure it remains pretty looking.

China coming down hard to control sky high property prices

There was a report yesterday that a property developer is slashing its prices by 15%. This must be the result of pressure from the Chinese govt to bring down the prices. Wonder if this developer is private or govt owned. If it is a private developer then it is wrong for the Chinese govt to make them slash prices. But maybe they can do it in an authoritarian state. But this will interfere adversely with market forces and market pricing. And developers will not be able to make more grotesque profits. The Chinese govt must understand that private developers are only there to make profits. Making them slashed prices is bad. But if this is a state developer, then there are reasons to do so as the govt has to manage the housing prices to make them affordable to the people. The Chinese govt will have to tussle between making housing affordable or pricing as high as possible as long as the buyers can afford to pay. The latter is obviously good as they will have more money to raise their own pay unless they are contented to be paid lesser than the private sector. At the moment it seems that they are willing to suppress the market forces and sacrifice their own pay for the good of the people. Who says authoritarian govt is bad? When they know what is good for the people and act accordingly, even a dictatorship is good. But when the govt acts against the interest of the people, even western democracy is bad.

Dow plunged 998.5 pts at its worst

Dow was trading weak yesterday but still within reasonable limits until a sudden plunge one and a half hour before closing. This is almost a 10% drop in a day and panic was in the air. It quickly recovered 650 pts to close at 10520, losing 347.8 pts. Though buy orders kicked in after the sharp plunge, the sentiment was badly hit. It was reported that it could be due to a trading error and programmed sell orders just kicked in to complete the massacre. Many people must have lost a lot of money during that 20 minutes. The stock Accenture fell from $42 to 4c but recovered to close losing only $1. Nasdaq has announced that it would cancel all trades between 2.40pm and 3pm on grounds that they were obviously error trades. What we have seen is the destructiveness of programme trading. When machine takes over, they can kill without any qualms. Programme trading in itself is an unfair advantage in favour of those with cash and machines. It is better that this process be curtailed and remove from the system before it inflicts more severe damages to the financial systems around the world. No one is pointing a finger to the possibility of an act of terror, an intentional as opposed to accidental error. Even if it is not a sabo act, a sabo act can still happen one day. This over reliance on the machine must be tempered with human control and not machine control.

The mother tongue debate

This perennial problem is resurfacing again with the MOE sending out signals that the weightage will be lowered. The two camps have their valid arguments. The pro mother tongue group see the emotional and cultural importance of their language and identity being eroded. The pragmatists just would not bother about such 'wishy washy' sentiments. All they are concerned is the utility value of the mother tongue. And if they couldn't see any value in it, and if it is too difficult for them to learn, too high an opportunity cost, do away with it. Lump it and move on. All of us went through this process of learning and schooling as children and as parents or would be parents. Learning something is never easy, especially when the heart is not there, and able to see any value in it. I had my difficulties in learning languages as well but more because of the lack of interest, neglect and not willing to put in the effort. I hardly read anything when young, not even the text books unless compelled to. Under such circumstances you can expect my grades for all the languages, Malay, Chinese and English, all bordering on the red. Eventually both Malay and Chinese were dropped and all I had now is pasar Melayu and fortunately still able to make a decent conversation in Chinese, and able to recognise some words to get by. But I regretted not doing more for these languages as their utility values are much more than I thought. They become very useful and essential when travelling around, Malaysia, Indonesia and further away. How to flirt with the mei meis if one does not know Chinese, or the sayangs if one does not know Malay: ) On the part of mother tongue, the older one gets, the more one gets sentimental and emotional to it. It is part of one's identity, one's root. It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable in situation when one is expected to know one's mother tongue. But of course if one has erased the meaning of race in one's mind and make up, then mother tongue is totally irrevelant. And one can stand up tall and proudly proclaim that one does not know any word about one's mother tongue and would not be bothered to know. And my English was just as bad. Nearly failed at O level, or actually failed. That was bad huh. I only picked up when I started to read more and write more. There was an urge to read and a necessity to write when one wants to submit a paper for a grade. And the more one reads, the more one writes, the easier it becomes. Be it English or mother tongue, it is the usage, the constant use of the language that makes it easy to learn. If one is from a home that does not use mother tongue, and does not make any effort to make it a working language, it is tough, sure. Let's see how Eng Hen addresses this emotional and sentimental issue in the face of the protest from the utilitarians.

Two little traders caught

They got this guy Jerome Kerviel for chalking up a loss of $8.9 billion while trading for Societe Generale, and a Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs for concocting ‘Frankenstein products’ that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. Both were traders in their early thirties. And for all the things that they had done, the huge sum of money involved and the papers that were pushed around for approvals, no one seems to be responsible or know anything about their wrongdoings except themselves. This gives the impression that the two must be running the two banks independently, just like Nick Leeson, without supervision, without reporting to anyone, and answering to no one. And there are no internal audit and control systems to check their actions. And for what he had done, Jerome said he was treated like a hooker, being praised daily for the earnings he made that were good. And it could be pretty quite the same in the case of Fabrice, the darling or Fabulous Fab of Goldman Sachs. Jerome has written a book about the ‘big bank orgy’ that he witnessed as a young trader. And the rest of their superiors, the administrators and regulators are all so innocent. This is what Jerome got to say, ‘I am struck by the fact that nothing has been done during the past two years of the financial crisis so that the causes of the crisis are addressed and a situation like mine does not happen again.’ Was there a crisis? Uh no. Anything happened? Uh no. The financial system is kicking again, and the banks are making big bucks too. So what’s wrong? The financial system is fine, just fine. Time to loot again.

A Malay elite’s response

Hussin Mutalib, an Associate Professor, responded to Muigai’s recommendation to consider a ‘stimulus package’ for the Malays in a letter to the ST forum. He said that there was some merit in not dismissing Muigai’s report altogether and a little tweaking might be good. While saying this, he acknowledged that there were some govt policies that were needed from the pragmatic point of view, ie barring Malays from sensitive appoints in the SAF and the adoption of GRCs to prevent qualified Malays from defeat in an election. There are good and bad in such policies which are obvious. Hussin also dispelled the beliefs that the Malays were being discriminated against, and non Malays were simply smarter than Malays. The former is generally true except for the appointment to sensitive positions but there is a pragmatic angle to it. The second belief has been proven wrong in many instances when Malay students have excelled and better themselves over the other races on their own merits. Every 500 years a genius could be thrown up from any race or class while every group will have their talents and duds. The disparity in the progress between Malays and the other races has been there since independence. Historically, during colonial days and post independence, the progress of the various races, particularly in schools, were left primarily to their own individual effort. All started from the same footing with no special assistance or affirmative action. Why then is there a need to have some form of affirmative action to help the Malays now? In this line of thought, there is an assumption that the Malays will do better than what they are today if given some assistance. Also, the disparity is seen as something abnormal and unacceptable. What if the disparity is in favour of the minorities and not the majority, would affirmative actions be deemed necessary? There are some questions to be asked. After more than a century of coexistence, the present status quo could be the natural balance of things. If this situation has come about naturally after so many years, would a window period of a few years of affirmative actions make any difference? What if, after affirmative action, and the Indians or Chinese become the least progressive, does it mean that there will be a need for affirmative action as well? Where will all these lead to? Would it be satisfactory only if the majority is the group that is lacking behind the minorities? Or is the expectation that an acceptable status is that all three groups are progressing at the same rate? Is this natural or possible, or a should be situation? Given the rate of progress that is being made by all groups, would it be a better objective to raise the level of every group, to improve their well beings, rather than to harp on the fact that one group is two steps behind another? It is never the natural order of things that everything is the same or can be the same. Can all countries in the world progress at the same pace and be at the same stage of economic development? Seriously, is affirmative action the answer? If the community is not honest enough to face the problems and address them squarely, no affirmative action can bring about positive changes.

Time to fix the rating agencies

The scoundrels at Capitol Hill are sleeping with the bankers and finance thugs in New York and are skirting around many areas that they should be looking into. According to a New York Times editorial in Today's paper, they have completely missed out the rating agencies like Moody's, Standard and Poor, and Fitch. These agencies are equally culpable for the mess in the financial meltdown with their triple A ratings on toxic CDOs. The editorial commented, 'It is not just that raing agencies are incompetent, made wrong assumptions about the housing market and used flawed models to evaluate mortgage-backed securities. Their business is rife with conflicts of interest.' The last sentence is the crux of the matter. Conflicts of interest among financial institutions and the products they are selling. The call for banks to return to its traditional business and not be allowed to dabble in all kinds of investment is a move in the right direction. In the local context, conflicts of interest is also a serious problems. But of course in the land of demigods and immortals, they could not see themselves compromising on their heavenly integrity. They will never be faulted for conflicts of interest. They could even be tasked to self regulate their activities. A similar case to the rating agencies that have been allowed to get away scot free is the lead managers and auditors that brought in shady companies for listing. Several have gone down the drain despite the glowing reports put up by the auditing companies. And no one is taken to task. The whole finance world is run by scoundrels and crooks protecting each other's backside. The world is looking to America to take the lead, for they do not know how or want to do anything.