Minibond saga - The Missing Conscience

Greed is good. But greed with no tinge of conscience is bad. And this is the message that I would like to see to come out from the minibond saga. But no, it was totally missing. The whole scam was a business and when the product was found unacceptable, it was simply removed. There was no social responsibility or accountability. No human beans involved in the whole process except the poor losers who bought the products. I think all the decisions were made by robots, machines and computers. There must be social responsibility and accountability in business. And this applies to the management of all institutions, public or private, finance or the casinos. The next problematical institutions is the stock market. Why is it that hedge funds were not operating in the casinos? They have huge resources to fall back on to their advantage. In the stock markets across the world, the hedge funds bully and exploit the small investors by their unfair advantage of huge financial resources, technology and unfair practices. No matter how big they are, inside a casino, the advantage of hedge funds and small gamblers are the same. At least the casino has the conscience to ensure a level playing field. We have seen how the minibond saga exploded, only when the pain was too big. We have yet to see or hear small investors crying foul in the stock markets across the world. Are the operating systems and procedures in the stock markets fair to small investors? Or is it a case of caveat emptor? There must be the conscience and social responsibility to protect the interest of small investors, to provide a level playing field. An organisation or country that has no conscience to protect the small people and the disadvantaged is a lost cause.

Mechanical Appointees

I have a solution that will help organisations to cut cost. Organisations that think that they are paying too much for their Chairmans can head to ToysRUs and grab a mechanical toy. Bring it back, pin a name tag on it with the word 'Chairman' and plant it on the Chairman's office. By so doing they can save all the cost of paying for a Chairman. They don't come cheap today. And the best part of it is that they can happily fire the Chairman to appease the unhappy employees or shareholders should the oganisation fail to perform or make losses. And they can walk back to ToysRUs to get a newer model, version 1.1 to replace the ineffective one. I don't think such toys will cost very much. The same concept can be applied to Directors of companies. Any busy director who is unable to attend board meetings can send a mechanical toy as his representative in the board meetings. At least when he collects his director fee his attendance record is perfect. I claim intellectual property rights to this idea and anyone practising it only needs to pay me 10% of his first year income. ToysRUs can also pay me a small commission for higher sales of mechanical toys.

Perfect ending to a perfect storm

After 7 months of thorough investigations the MAS has come out with its findings and punishments for the minibond fiasco. The investigation was done very objectively and the three objects that were found to be the cause of the financial storm were financial institutions, training and toxic products. And the punishment was to ban the toxic products and the financial institutions from selling them. No human is at fault and no one will be made a scapegoat. Thank god.

A little bit history

Many of you may not remember the days when the majority in this island was discriminated. Yes it happened. It was an anomaly of history which escaped the notice of many, and many today took it for granted that the majority in power is a norm and will be here to stay, forever. During the colonial days, the masters called the tune. The ruling class and its coterie of officers monopolized all the govt offices, including big western corporations and banks. Key appointments were held by the British and the English speaking elite comprising mainly the Eurasians and those imported from the East India Company. Forget about the Chinamen, they could not speak English and looked funny with their slant eyes. Or maybe it was the British form of meritocracy and the Chinamen were not meritorious enough. When self govt was returned to the locals, all the high offices were naturally taken over by those from Her Majesty Services, filling the positions vacated by the British. The majority Chinese were in the peripheral of the govt. They were either in commerce for the richer ones, semi skilled craftsmen or small time hawkers, and the rest odd job labourers. They were thus grossly under represented in high govt offices. When the PAP govt took over, this state of affair continued for several years with key govt appointments continued to be dominated by the minorities. It took several decades to moderate this historical discrimination and a more representative govt service based on the population profile. But in so doing, many of the Eurasians who were favoured by the colonial govt left for Australia. That was how things were then. Would the majority be discriminated against one day? Given the twist and turn of history, anything is possible.

Planning a City for Crawlies

I watched the news last night and was very impressed with what SBS is trying to do to help the wheelchaired commuters. They have a special point with a button to press and the bus will come to the entrance of that point to pick up wheelchaired commuters. It was so convenient and so pleasant for these commuters. Along HDB estates, new hand railings have sprung up all over the walkways for the oldies to grab as their crawl along their ways. We can expect 300k or 400k of the 70s to 90s in the next 20 years, crawling all over the place. Some will wheelchair into buses or MRTs to have a swing in Orchard Road, some jogging in the parts on their wheelchairs, and many going to work, to their offices, if they are still employable. Yes, we are going to have crawlies everywhere, not the vibrant young things in their fanciful gears and makeups. We are ageing as a population. I too will be one of the crawlies. Actually there could be a few hundred thousands even now. Surprising thing is that not many are seen crawling around. Are we expecting them to appear suddenly in the next few years to swarm the city? 200 wheelchairs queuing for the buses at the interchange at any one time. How many buses will have to be at the designated pick up points and how long will it take to clear the queue? The parks, shopping malls, HDB void decks, all littered with crawlies? Possible? I think I will be content to sit in front of a terminal banging away and enjoy a cup of kopi. The only thing that will still be active and have some energy to do so will be the little ones, the fingers, and a few grey and dying cells in between the ears. I really cannot believe that the 80s and 90s will be so itchy to be crawling all over the places. They will only pose a safety and security problem to themselves. We haven't seen or heard any mugging of the oldies yet, except by their children. It may happen, daily, if they offer themselves too freely and easily.