The Missionaries

As Dr Goh's body lays in Parliament House awaiting a state funeral, the people came from near and far to pay their last respects and tributes to a great and honourable man who had done so much for so little for his country. All the words were of the works that he had conceived and done. They remembered the times they met him when he was serving as a minister and busily doing what he had to do. And words would not be enough to describe all the things that Goh Keng Swee had done in his ministries. One word was starkingly absent. No one mentions anything about sacrifice. No one tells how men of his time, including senior civil servants, slogged through days and nights just to get the job done. If I can recollect, even when he was a minister, he had never complained about the sacrifice he made for the people and country. For he did not need to justify for himself or what he was doing. There were plenty of works to be done and they went about it like missionaries. A calling, a duty to the people and the country. And they did a damn good job for it without the glamour and the trappings of extravagant rewards to go with it. They were men and women on a mission. Dr Goh was an exceptional missionary.

Twisted logic of high finance

Attacking a country’s currency, stock market or financial system, if done by a country is tantamount to a hostile act, an act of war. Done by a bunch of fund managers, it is ok. They can bring down the currency or financial system of a country and it is considered legitimate, part and parcel of investment strategies! And sovereign countries allow this to happen and could not do anything about it. Who are these fund managers? A bunch of crooks, or are they a cloak and dagger operation of some govts? The latter seems easier to handle while a bunch of crooks are free to do whatever damage they could to bring a country to its knee, to bankrupt countries. And the US is accusing China as a currency manipulator for controlling the exchange rate of Yuan. They want China to free the Yuan to allow the crooks to manipulate it under the guise that if it has a weakness they have the right to bring it down. With the crooks operating as an irresponsible wolf pack out to destroy countries and their financial system, it is better that countries return to the fixed exchange rate system to protect themselves. Mahathir in this sense has done the right thing. China is also doing the right thing to protect itself. Let the West and their freedom to act, irresponsibly, to destroy themselves at their own time. But Obama knows that this is wrong and trying to curb the madness in the finance industry inside the US.

How much did we subsidise tertiary education?

In my article yesterday, the British universities are charging EU and their own citizens a flat fee of 3,290 pounds and international students at 21,400 pounds. In our case, we charge our citizens $7000 against $11,000 for international students. Two points to make from this comparison. The cost of education in British universities are much cheaper than ours as relatively their cost of living are higher. The second point is that they make international students pay 7 times what their citizens paid. This means that if the cost of education is double what their citizens are paying, guessing only, then each international students could be subsidizing 50% of the tuition fee of 5 UK/EU students. It is a case of looking after their citizens first. Let's take a look at the tuition cost and subsidies as published by the NUS website. For an Arts and Social Science course, the grant or subsidy is $19,000. This plus the $7,000 fee the students are paying will make up the full tuition cost, ie $26,000. And if we apply the same formula for the cost of education in the UK, the British are actually charging international students the full fees, with practically no subsidies. What about our international students. If the full cost is $26,000 and our international students are paying $11,000, then they should be receiving a subsidy of $15,000. According to the NUS website, the full fee for international students is $30,000 and they too get a $19,000 grant. I am not going to quibble why the full fee between citizen and non citizen has a $4,000 difference. But why do we need to offer international students a $19,000 grant? Could we charge international students a little more to subsidise our local students like what the British are doing? Of course we can't charge them the same 21,400 pounds or about $42,800 pa. We may also be world class but no foreigners will want to pay the same for a Singapore education if they could get a British one. Still we could raise it to maybe $15,000 or $20,000 if our education is really world class, and at a 50% discount to what the British universities are charging, it must still be a bargain. We could then charge our citizens much lesser, subsidised by international students instead of the govt subsidising international students to a tune of $19,000.

Time to arrest the big fund managers for treason

I just read this from the Telegraph. From Telegraph “Germany’s ‘desperate’ short ban triggers capital flight to Switzerland” A year ago, Germany’s financial regulator BaFin warned that the toxic debts of the country’s banks would blow up “like a grenade” once hidden losses from the credit crisis caught up with them. An internal memo at the time showed that BaFin feared write-offs might top 800bn (£688bn), twice the reserves of Germany’s financial institutions. Nobody paid much attention. But the regulator’s shock move on Tuesday night to stop short trading on banks, insurers, eurozone bonds as well as a ban credit default swaps (CDS) on sovereign debt has left markets wondering whether the slow fuse on Germany’s banking system has finally detonated. BaFin spoke of “extraordinary volatility” and said CDS moves were jeopardising “the stability of the financial system as a whole”. It is unsettling that the BaFin should opt for such drastic measures a week after EU leaders thought they had overawed markets with a 750bn rescue package and direct purchases of Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt by the European Central Bank. BaFin’s heavy-handed move seems to proclaim that the rescue has failed.... The big fund managers think they are very smart in shorting the Euro or any stocks or currencies in a big way to make money. Such action is an equivalent to a run on the banks. It is a deliberate attempt in creating fear which could precipitate into a crisis while govts and regulators are trying to solve the problem. Those involved in such activities should be arrested for treason. The sentiment in the stock market is now so bad that everyone is staying out. The cumulative actions of the big speculators will destroy the world's financial system if not put to a stop. They are criminals!

How much is our world class education?

Singapore citizens pay about $7000 tuition fee per year at NUS for year 2010/11. International students pay about $11,000. We consider ourselves very lucky to receive a tertiary education in one of the top universities in the world. The tuition fee for Imperial College of London, the top 3 university in UK and ranked 5th in the world by Times is 3,290 pounds for UK and EU citizens. For international students the fee is 21,400 pounds for an Engineering course. Am I right to say that a UK or EU citizen is paying lesser for a world class education in Imperial College than our citizens in NUS? The exchange rate is S$2 to a pound. In fact practically all the universities in UK is charging the same tuition fee for UK and EU citizens.

Going after short and naked sellers

If you are short and naked, and a seller in stocks, the German Stock Exchange will ban you from trading. You can be short but not naked, or naked but not short. Or better to be tall. The action by the German Stock Exchange to curb wild sellings led to another rout yesterday. Edward Krudy reported in New York that the SEC was treating the symptoms instead of the cause of the failures of the stock exchange. The stop gap measures of having circuit breakers are not dealing with the cause of the big plunge in the market. They must go after the high frequency traders. All of them are treating the symptoms and not the cause. The real cause is the problem of being too big. In the past, local syndicates were considered too big to manipulate the stock markets and were watched like a hawk. They were monitored and policed very closely to prevent them from doing mischiefs and harm. But these syndicates are like a little mouse compare to the hedge funds and investment banks with their billions to thrash around. These are the biggest threats to the stability of stock markets, currencies and countries. They could ruin them by their concerted effort to sell down markets or currencies and destroy a country and its economy. Then the investors have suddenly realised that Goldman Sachs was making billions of profits while their clients were losing billions following their recommendations. Why? It's elementary. Conflict of interest. Investments banks must not be allowed to make recommendations and trade for themselves and their clients. Period. All the regulators must wake up from their stupor to rein in the big funds and banks from their destructive selling and buying activities. The big funds have a huge unfair advantage and are hundreds of times more dangerous and destructive than the local small syndicates. Would anything be done? I doubt so. And stock markets across the world will continue with their roller coaster rides, dictated by the big funds. And the victims are the small innocent investors.

MRT jumpers, a cheap and easy solution

Another jumper missed the train, or the train missed the jumper. The jumper was on the track but train stopped in time. Jumper hauled up and sent to hospital with minor injuries. Looks like the jumpers are ever ready to smash at the train as long as the sophisticated screen doors are not installed. The multi million dollar system is still waiting for full delivery, or maybe SMRT are monitoring its effectiveness before commissioning the whole works. Actually a cheaper and easier solution can be found and be implemented instantly. Why can’t the trains be made to slow down to a speed that would not kill as it near the station? Is that so difficult to implement? How much time will it lost, 10 sec per station? The little time lost can be made up with a small increase in speed on its way to the next station, and no time would be lost at all. And once the jumpers know that the train speed is slow enough not to kill, they would not risk jumping down to get injured only to live. See, no need to spend multi million dollars and complicated system. And there is a high recurrence and maintenance cost to foot in the long run. Just a little procedural change and training were all that is needed. This is common sense and the same principle is being applied to road speed. Why so many roads are limited at 50 kph and the expressways at 90 kph? Safety, and to minimise road accidents of course. A slowing down of train speed before hitting the station could solve the jumper problem so easily and cheaply. They better pay me for consultancy fee. I don’t offer ingenious ideas for free.

The shame of the diplomatic corp

Is Silviu Ionescu a typical example of the character and integrity of a diplomat? If he is, then the whole diplomatic corp is a sham. How could a man of such low integrity and despicable conduct be chosen by a country to be their representative? And presumably he is the best that Romania can find. It is either their system is so flawed, or the quality of their civil servants is suspect. And if they do not bring him to justice it will reflect very badly on what Romania is all about. On the diplomatic corp here, what are their views and stand on this Ionescu incident? So far they have been very quiet. It would be nice if the head of the diplomatic community take a stand to distance themselves from this obnoxious man whom they wined and dined and embraced as one of them. If they still think that Ionescu is one of them and a good one, then the diplomatic corp will become a joke in town.

The MTL Debate

The debate continues. Actually it is a very healthy exercise to talk about this issue as it affects practically every school going child and the parents. And the outcome will have a very significant impact on the future of the generations of children to come, and what Singapore will be. At the moment the tussel is between those for and those against MTL with some in between. Both camps have strong reasons to argue for their cases. In between there is a middle camp that accepts MTL but wants it to be made simpler or easier. Ng Eng Hen and his team would now have to sweat it out to come out with a compromise solution to appease the parties. I doubt that in this case they would dare to use the compulsory sword and just decide and make the people accept it like CPF Life, Medisave, Minimum Sum etc etc. Taking such an option will be very costly politically. Whatever the final decision on this, let's hope it is a wise one. The unfortunate thing is that not everyone is going to be happy about it no matter how it turns out. This is clearly an area that is not white or black. Maybe he can fall back on his policy as a long term one as the consequences of the policy will take generations to bear fruits, be it sweet, sour or poisonous. Only the future will tell.

Notable quote by Goh Keng Swee

"A system may arise in which the dominant minority... arrogate to itself not only the openings to the seats of power, but also the avenues by which individuals can fit themselves out for such positions of power. The dominant minority is thus able to point out those outside of the charmed circle just do not have the necessary qualifications to be admitted to the elite group." Dr Goh Keng Swee I copied the above quotes from Loh Chee Kong's article posted in Corporate Observer. In the same article there are several quotes that are worth readin, to freshen up from the staleness of the new mantras that violate the wisdom of the old. Reading his speech and the quotes gives one the impression that he had seen it coming and was warning us of how things could turn out in the future. His reticence after retirement could say a lot.

CPF threatening to sue and fine

I read Gilbert Goh’s post about CPF demanding him to pay for the shortfall in his Medisave account for a sum of $16,600 as his contribution for being self employed. All self employed, regardless of age, must contribute to the Medisave for as long as they are alive and working. Isn’t this a cock policy when people are starting to collect their CPF savings at 55 and some delayed till 62? Why should people who continue to work after 55 be expected to contribute to the Medisave when they are in a better position than those who have retired and not working? These self employed are economically active and earning an income to support themselves and no need to draw down or depending on their savings to support themselves. According to the Medisave Act, there is no exception. So if one is working at 100 years old, the old hag must still contribute to his Medisave. How outrageous. But no one is complaining. Like the story goes, when they came for the Jews, I kept quiet coz I am no Jew. When they came for the Christians, I kept quiet, coz I ain’t no Christian. When they came for the Commie, I kept quiet coz I ain’t no Commie. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me.

In Goh Keng Swee's time

Those were hard times. People lived in tiny cubicles, many people inside a room, one room for a family and often more than a family, with share common kitchens and toilets. Goh Keng Swee went out to move these people to HDB flats, where a family or maybe an extended family could live in a flat of 3 rm or 4rm. The strange thing then was that no one ever mumbled or complained that the flats were expensive or not affordable. That was a non issue. The flats were simply affordable. No argument, no need to put one's foot down to insist anyway. Today, the flats are affordable, still. Because the govt said so. But the people don't think so. And the argument is pissing off a lot of buyers who could not afford the flats. But they have to accept the govt's argument that the flats are indeed affordable. That settles the argument though deep inside the people's heart they knew that the flats are very expensive and very unaffordable to some. And it is still an outstanding issue that is going round and round. This is the real difference between the govt of Goh Keng Swee's time and the govt of today. They did what was necessary and what was right, and the people believed and were grateful to the govt. And no need to argument until the face turns green, with statistics, when deep down the people knew what is and what is not affordable. Housing was a success story. Can't really say of the present as the consequences of high prices will only tell some way down the road. Buying a flat then was a happy thing, a roof over the head. Today, buying a flat comes with a big debt and big worries. PS. I am talking about buying a HDB flat. Buying private or landed property is a happy thing. The buyer will simply plonked down his millions in cash. No need to worry about big mortgages to pay.

Defying conventional wisdom

The financial crisis started in the US led to the revelation that several of the financial institutions in the US,including AIA and investment banks, were too big to fail. When their turns came to fall, trillions of dollars were pumped in to save them. Then the wise men in the US got wiser and pronounced that the mantra of being big and strong is dangerous and these giants need to be dismantled. It is another case of putting too many eggs into a few baskets. Obama and his boys are working hard towards a new direction, the breaking up of big financial giants and regulating their activities, including manufacturing of toxic notes and products. Today there is big news that Prudential is mounting a historical take over of its Asian rival AIA to the tune of US$35.5b. It is billions, not millions, and would probably create another giant that is too big to fail. And the good news or encouraging news is that eager beavers are queueing up to have a stake in the proposed takeover. Such juicy news is always greeted with excitement than with suspicion and caution. Below is a quote from TimesOnline, ‘A number of large Asian investors are believed to be waiting in the wings to bankroll Prudential if its existing shareholders get cold feet on the deal.' Thiam is believed to have been offered personal assurances from the Singapore government that the state investment funds GIC and Temasek are willing to provide billions of pounds. I am deeply concerned that the funds lining up for a piece of the cake are Asian funds and not Western funds. Why are the Western funds shying away from such a lucrative investment? Is it that they did not have the dole, or did they know things that the Asian funds did not? When the too big to fail American institutions were in deep shit, they had the US Govt and the American public to foot the bill. In the event that an international institution like PruAIA is in deep shit, who is going to do the bail out? Asian Govts? A deal that is too good to be true must always look at with guarded skepticism. It is only a good gamble when one has a lot of money to place on the table, and can afford to lose.

From Ah Beng to Jason and then Jayson

Jay Chou is so famous that his concerts are fully sold out and the black market price goes as high as $1,500. His fans are going gaga over him and his song writing skills. He isn't that good looking, they admitted. Neither does he write or sing in English. His is an mandopop icon and have millions of followers snapping up his albums and posters. Jay Chou is a beneficiary of our MTL programme. This is also applicable to the Malay and Indian pop idols. Without the MTL, the fans would not be able to know what he writes or sings. The fans would probably be chasing after Linkin Park or Michael Jackson. But with their understanding and appreciation of another language, they could follow him and want to be like him. Without MTL, the Asian pop culture would at most be within a smaller circle in China, Hongkong and Taiwan. Our Channel 8 would eventually lose its viewership. It is a vicious cycle. It feeds and grows on one another. The fans of pop culture willingly and happily wanted to learn the language and sing the songs. Many English educated professionals are enjoying their learning process to read Chinese characters when they croon Mandarin, Hokien and Canto pops in the Karaoke joints. When learning is fun, when there is a desire and motivation to learn, there is no compulsion to make them want to learn MTL.They willingly want to learn. The MOE may want to include pop culture as part of the learning process for MTL, make MTL cool and fun and enjoyable, at least at the primary and secondary school level. This would give the young a good foundation to start with. Trying to learn MTL using traditional method and ancient poems or literature may not be that attractive to the modern young. A different approach to learning MTL may change the mindset.

The mentally challenged

I am not talking about the academically less inclined students, and neither am I talking about those who have to struggle just to pass their MTL. I am freakish by those that are mentally unsound and living in our midst, our close neighbours. The worst kind, and waiting to destroy the lives of the innocent neighbours, are those that are prone to violence. There have been many cases reported, while many suffered in silence, fearing that reporting will only make things worst. Many live in constant fear of how a mad man could strike them or their children in the corridors, or may burn down their homes. So far we have not seen many ugly incidents yet. The worst were killer litters that sent a few to hospitals. Some came to blows and some got stabbed, and likely some could have been dead. The spate of child killings in China is a stark reminder to those responsible not to take the mentally challenged lightly, that they were just a nuisance. Killer litters were also a nuisance. Getting hit by a falling litter is as good as hitting jackpot. A confluence of timing must be so perfect to make a hit. Living near a mentally challenged person who is proned to violence is a different proposition. The likelihood of a strike is so much real, only waiting to happen. Who is responsible for allowing residents to live in fear and in danger of being beaten or maimed by a mad man? The MP, the police, the town council or the resident’s committee? Or it is the responsibility of the residents themselves to be alert and keep away from harm themselves? Anyone bother to take a proactive look into such situations and take steps to prevent them from happening? Or are those responsible waiting for things to happen before they will act, just like the killer incidents when skulls were fractured and the victims in the critically ill list? Or are they waiting for a killing spree before they wake up from their sleep? Having a mentally challenged person who is violent next door is more dangerous then a walk in the jungle.

The callous use of a simple word

The Straits Times headlined, Passing of a Spore titan. And many other local media also reported on the passing of Dr Goh Keng Swee. The same news is being reported by overseas media but treated in a little careless or callous way. And their headlines read, Dr Goh Keng Swee dies, Goh Keng Swee dies, Dep PM Goh Keng Swee dies, …. There is nothing wrong or incorrect to say Goh Keng Swee dies. But reading it gives one a different feel of the event. He dies, you die, instead of he passes away, departed, called home to be with the Lord, you see, the latter sounds so different or at least polite. Imagine the media starts to report the king dies, the president dies, so and so’s father or mother dies, or the king is dead…. I still like to use more pleasant and civil terms like pass away, passing away and better still, called home to be with the Lord.

Of frugality, thrift and poison

In the MediaCorp tribute to Dr Goh Keng Swee broadcast over the its channels yesterday, three words stood out prominently to describe this giant of our founding fathers. He was known to all as an economist and steep in the values of thrift and frugality. He was saving cost everywhere and in everything, even in his own personal ways. He was said to prefer to walk several blocks to save a couple of dollars which people may find it amusing in a time when spending tens of thousands for a cooking class in Paris is just a weekend past time. Maybe the country had underpaid him at a time when money was not easy to earn. Maybe he too did not see it right to pay himself as much as he would want it to be. Maybe when he was around, extravagance was frown upon to the extent that permanent secretaries were spoken highly of for driving around in a small Japanese jalopy. That was the ethos of the years of Goh Keng Swee. He spoke about watching out for poison in investment and economic enterprises. Would he be worried looking at how we invited hedge funds and big investment banks to steam roll into our financial industry, adopting controversial systems that the Americans knew were dangerous and have started to curb these practices? Would he be angry with the poison that the people were fed in the forms of toxic notes and worthless papers called derivatives? Would he allow these to go on through repackaging and not called poison but something else, and let the people have it as long as they know the danger, that the danger is explained to them? With the passing of Goh Keng Swee, would we be bless with another careful thinker to guard our national interests and remove or keep poison out of our system? The unfortunate thing is that history does not throw up great men too often for the benefit of human beans. Often, after the passage of a blazing meteor it is followed by a long interval of darkness. Singapore has the exceptional good fortune of having a cluster of good men during its early years of independence. With the passing of Goh Keng Swee, we have yet to find another equally able and gifted group of individuals of their calibre to sustain our good run into the future.

Dr Goh Keng Swee

Dr Goh passed away this morning at the age of 91. He was famed for being the architect of Singapore and for laying a sound economic foundation that allowed Singapore to be what it is today. And many people now can claim credit when the tough part was done by Dr Goh and his generation of leaders. He was a great mover of people and resources. One minute silence for this grand old man of Singapore.

Paying more in advance

So the Medisave minimum sum will be raised from $32k to $37k. The reason, Singaporeans are living longer and healthcare cost are going up. So who wants to live longer? What this Medisave thing is about is that Singaporeans who are strong and healthy will have to pay first, to the amount of $37k. Whether they use it or not is a separate matter. Any statistics to say how many will use it? But this is a good policy. No one will know when they will fall seriously ill and need money to pay the expensive and ever increasing medical bill. I would like to recommend that the amount in the Medisave be raised to as high as possible. Then no one will complain that they cannot afford to pay their medical bills or that hospitalisation is too expensive. With a big saving in the Medisave, hospital bills will definitely be affordable. No need to worry about how medical cost keeps going up. Just make sure to top up the Medisave Account.

More kicking around

Asia Media Journal, 13 May 2010 Hong Kong – Singapore’s future as a regional media hub is under threat as a result of new government rules for the pay-TV industry, said the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA), which represents the interests of 130 content producers, pay-TV platform operators and equipment-and-service suppliers across 16 Asian markets. The above extracts showed how a stupid decision could snowball to bigger problems and requiring ever bigger intervention by the govt. And this thing is not going to stop and the international players are not going to say, 'Enough, let's move on.' Maybe the three telco should be merged into one to avoid more problems coming our way.