Racial Harmony Day

Vivian is talking about racial harmony and the need to be mindful, conscious and sensitive to this delicate balance in our multi racial society. We have been talking a bit about such issues and the perception and bitterness of the minority that they are discriminated and disadvantaged. I wish such issues can be resolved once and for all and everyone can live happily thereafter. The reality is that discrimination will be there in all countries and societies, racial discrimination, religious discrimination, social and economic discrimination, even in our case, local born or foreign born, new or old citizens. Human beans are born with a little sainthood in everyone and a little devil as well. How much sainthood and devil in a person varies, genetic, biological, social, wealth, education etc, will all affect a person's mindset. At times it is circumstances, environmental. But this does not mean that we shall live with discrimination. What we can hope for is that discrimination is not permitted by law and practice. The individual part is more difficult to deal with as any incident can be changed from a disagreement between two losers into a racial thing. Let me quote an incident when two guys were having kopi in East Coast Park Hawker Centre. They sat in a table next to a couple. The man told off one of the guys for wearing shorts as it violated his wife who was there. The two guys could have stood up and told the man off which could end up in a fight. If they were of the same race, it would be just a quarrel and a fight. If different races were involved, it could be flamed as a racial dispute. If we keep on wearing the colour lenses and look at things in our chosen colour, we will continue to live in a world of colours. We can also remove our colour lenses and try to make the best out of the system. America has the most laws to protect its people from human rights and racial discrimination. It is also the country that flouted these laws the most, and racial discrimination is not only history but existing daily and in very bad forms and dosages. We have done very well in our minority majority relationship and a live and let live ethos. Everyone, minority or majority, will be treated as fairly and equally under our laws. There will be the odds and difficult situations and occurrences. But generally, we are doing ok and will keep improving as we move forward. What we must be wary of is for small groups of agitators that will want to flame every incident and turn it into a big issue. We can handle issues or problems as human beans or as colour beans. It is all in our mindset.

Making a statement

A political secretary to a Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was found dead after being interrogated by the MACC, Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission, on his boss. He was not the target of the investigation. 30 year old Teoh Beng Hock, due to get married next week, was found dead 9 floors below the MACC office in the wee hours of the morning. Did he commit suicide after a fierce marathon interrogation session? Or there was foul play? Selangor police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the police had not rule out foul play. And if there were foul play, who would be in the MACC office in those hours were obvious. Or would it be some thieves who entered the building and saw Teoh and decided to bungle him over the window? An ordinary citizen being called up for interrogation inside a govt office ended up dead from falling over the window. How could people die so easily inside a govt office? Is someone trying to make a statement or a kind of warning? What is the statement that is being made and to who? Would it be better to pronounce him insane and lock him up in a mental hospital, or file a sodomy charge against him instead of simply bungling him over the window? The statement is a statement of fear, of who is the boss.

Blind to our own destruction

The green movement is gathering steam to warn the human specie that they will destroy themselves in their folly to exploit mother earth to its fullest. By employing technology and the cunning of the human mind, they harvest the land, farm the sea and eat up everything beyond their replacement rate. We burn and consume so much natural resources and fossil fuel that the temperature will become too high to sustain many life forms. But this road to our self destruction will have many more years to go. The fastest and shortest road is to destroy the world economic and financial system. We have been warned. It is so easy when we are blind to our greed. When everyone is singing, Greed is Good, and believing in it, and participating in the ripoff, the very people who are there to manage this insatiable appetite, become part of the marauding party, we are doomed. We will not learn as long as the benefits to the few cheats and swinders are shared among the leaders. All will party at the expense of the small guys, the losers, so they called them. It is pointless for the small guys to kpkb, useless, no one will listen to such foolishness in the wilderness. Let me bring in the big guns. I was reading Paul Krugman's article in the ST this morning, The only good news is at Goldman Sachs, he said. The writing is on the wall. Yes we will commit the same sins again and again. And the regulators will join in and say good, go ahead. Goldman Sachs is making a lot of money again and is going to shower its employees, especially the top manager, with tons of money, just like yesterday. They will pat their backs again and said how clever. But that is not the problem. The problem is how they make the money, in Krugman's words, 'financial firms...directed vast quantitites of capital into the construction of unsaleable houses and empty shopping malls. They increased risk rather than reducing it, and concentrated risk rather than spreading it. In effect, the industry was selling dangerous patent medicine to gullible consumers.... While other banks invested heavily in...toxic waste...selling to the public at large...Goldman ... made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages - then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed... All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers. And Wall Streeters have every incentive to keep playing that kind of game.' This modus operandi is not confined to just selling toxic products. The stock markets are operated under very similar principles. The big funds, with the help of technology, managing information, will sell down stocks and force out the small and weak investors before buying back at rock bottom prices, at any opportunity or negative news, real or imagery. Then they will buy back frantically and unload at much higher levels to the same suckers. And all this time the fundamentals of the stocks remain unchanged. The process is repeated every other day. And the regulators of stock exchanges knew what was going on, all perfectly legal. And they have vested interest to keep playing the game or let the game go on.' The excuse is caveat emptor as long as there is no blood on the streets. As long as there is no mass protest like the toxic bonds, the game will be legal. When greed rules the head, greed is good. Selling snake oil is fine as long as the few will amass a fortune from it and the suckers continue to pay willingly. There is no qualms and no need for moral responsibility. The chase for rapid economic growth, the high property prices and the property game, all falls into the same modus operandi. Create demand to drive up prices when there is no need to, but for the greed of profits or economic numbers.

The relative truth

What is truth is all relative and depends on a person's background and what he/she wants to believe in. Some once exclaimed that $600k is peanuts. Temasek and GIC lost several tens of billions, near to $100 billion, but no one really bats an eyelid and no one say that it was a huge sum. Today we heard MAS lost $9.2 billion and the phrase used is this - 'So heavy were its losses that they wiped out about 80 per cent of MAS' combined gains of $11.29 billion in the preceding two profitable years...' Why was this loss described as so heavy when several tens of billions were simply another loss? If I were to put it, I will say $9.2b loss is peanuts. The truth, the real truth, depends on the person saying it, and the people listening to it also have their own truths and interpretations of the truths. When Chiam See Tong asked for some money from the reserves to be used to help the citizens, the response was that it would kill the golden goose. And I think he was not even thinking of a billion bucks. After losing several tens of billions, the golden goose is still healthy and swaggling around, still can afford to loose a few billions.

HDB flats are heavily subsidised

'New HDB flats are heavily subsidised and the board's priority is to help those who need such housing the most, such as those who are buying a flat for the first time and families who cannot afford private housing.' This is from a reply by Chan-Wong Jee Choo Lily, Dep dirctor, HDB. I am wondering whether old flats were heavily subsidised? I am also wondering how heavily subsidised were the flats at Duxton Pinnacles when they were sold at about $200k more the than the first launch at market prices?