From First World to Third World

Having lived in a First World city for the last decade, it is quite an interesting experience to walk into a Third World village. I did that, visiting a model Third World village with a lot of pretensions to be a paradise. It was a nice little village, clean and orderly, quite prosperous, and strategically located along a busy trade route. The villagers were quite well off than their neighbours.

My first impression was a great place to live in, virtually crime free and the villagers were hospitable. The village chief was elected once every two years and very popular. He had done a lot to improve the lives of the villagers. With growing affluence, many villagers were able to send their children overseas for a western education, including the village chief’s children.

Not all things could be fine and to the likings of the villagers. There were bound to be things that annoyed or irritated in big or small ways. And the villagers would gossip like all villagers do. The village chief did not like it, thinking that the villagers were ungrateful. He put up some notices in the village coffee shops forbidding discussion of village affairs in groups of more than 10 people or in front of foreigners. The despot he was could not hide for long.

The villagers were careful not to talk about village affairs as the punishment would be street sweeping. And the streets were clean, super clean, as many villagers ended up sweeping the streets. They did not think talking about a missing mango could become village news or village affair until it was reported as theft. They did not think a poor crop of mangoes would be village news until it was reported as crop failure. They did not know that when their sons fell off a bicycle was village news until it was reported as an accident. And they did not know that among the 9 people in the coffee shop, there were foreigners.

I spent a few great days enjoying the hospitality of the village and villagers. It was a nice experience seeing how a Third World village pretending to be first world with all the trappings of a First World. But beneath the veneer of richness, the Third World mentality is still living. No matter how big they acted, they still behaved small. No matter how big they thought they think small, small minds. It is not easy to break out from the Third World mentality just because they have gained wealth and even with western education. It could be a kind of Third World disease carried by some Third world virus.

After my visit, I keep asking myself, would this Third World pretending to be First World village ever become a truly First World city?

Latest govt control on online media

The latest announcement by the MDA to control online media is out and will be effective on 1 June. 10 sites have been identified as online news website and will come under the new regulation. They are :

'asiaone.com, businesstimes.com.sg, channelnewsasia.com, omy.sg, sg.news.yahoo.com, stomp.com.sg, straitstimes.com, Tnp.sg, todayonline.com, zaobao.com.'

According to CNA online 'Only online news sites which fulfil two specific criteria will be subjected to individual licensing.

1) That the sites report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore news and current affairs over a period of two months.

2) They must also have been visited by at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month, over the same period.'

Many bloggers are wondering how would this new regulation affects them. TREmeritus and TOC plus a few blog aggregators are not in the list. Would they be caught in the same net as well? So far those mentioned are commercial news site while TRE, TOC, Singapore News Alternative etc are run by volunteers and not full time news websites in the truest sense. Then there are thousands of blogs that blog about Singapore affairs and news. Would these blogs come under the same regulation?

In the case of blogs, they are mainly commentaries of individuals and not business enterprise of news websites. It will really be something if this first world country and govt will put blogs under the same regulations as news websites just because of the above two criteria.

I think bloggers need not fear that this news website regulation will tie their hands and legs. The fact that a $50k bond is also needed means that the MDA is targeting commercial news website. Applying to blogs will mean an immediate cemetry of blogs will be erected to replace Bukit Brown.

Let's wait for further clarification from MDA. Otherwise I will end up blogging about animals, and may write a sequel to the Animal Farm.

Too much money we can afford some luxuries

We are so rich as a country. In fact we are the richest country in the world on a per capita basis. No I am not complaining. You cannot complain about being the richest people in the world unless one is crazy.

We are so rich, some becoming multi millionaires, millionaires or half millionaires, and we also have one of the largest national reserves to boot. I think the govt must be feeling very good, smiling at the statement of our reserves everyday. There is nothing wrong with this either. Why shouldn’ t the govt smile when we have so much money to spend and to buy whatever we want, including luxuries?

Like all the rich tycoons, as a super rich, we have the spare cash to go for a little bit of the nice things to make us look good and feel good, buy whatever we fancy. We can have the things that are good to have but not really necessary. Why not, when we can afford them?

We have one of the most futuristic and expensive artificial garden that cost billions and hundreds of millions to maintain. Necessary? Obviously not but good to have when our pockets are overflowing with cash. We spent to have Formula 1 car racing here. This one they said intangible benefits outweighed the tangible cost. Small change for some great fun. It is like throwing a great party for our high society guests.

We build world class universities by paying the best professors in the world to be here. Would we miss anything if we just have a few lesser like in the past? I don’t think so, but very good and nice to have.

We build joint universities with the best mortar and the most brilliant professors as well. Hopefully the output, the students will be the best as well. Money well spent? Controversial but never mind when money is aplenty.

We have several prominent schools on international and national policies, some called it think tanks, filled with academics from all over the world. What for? Prestige or what? Maybe Singapore will one day become a centre of academic excellence. Dunno how much but money well spent? Necessary? Never mind, money not an issue. We can afford these think tanks and to pay the professoris of the world to be here to write papers and exchange ideas. It is only a matter of time before the world will be begging to read the great papers from our think tanks and inviting our think tank professors to speak. Tangible returns may not be much, but intangible benefits, goodwill, reputation and image must be damn shiok. Singapore is not just a casino or sin city, but is where great intellectuals resided. The modern day Picassos, Van Goghs, Rembrants, the Newtons, Einsteins may emerged from the great and stimulating environment we have created. This island could have the biggest concentration of the best minds and academics one day.

A Singapore renaissance is in the making. Only rich country who are willing to invest in the richness of living will get this kind of richness in life. Money is really convenient and useful to live in dreams and make dreams materialized. Poor countries would never be able to afford such luxuries.

An appreciative Immigrant

An African arrives in Singapore as a new immigrant. He stops the first person he sees in the train and says…

‘Thank you Mr Singaporean for letting me into this great country, giving me subsidised housing, money for food, subsidised education, no taxes, subsidized medical care, no need to do NS, good jobs, and free travel on the MRT.’

‘Sorry, I am from India.’

The African repeats the same to the next commuter in the train.

And the commuter says, ‘Sorry, I am from the Philippines.’

The African repeats the same to the next commuter in the train.

‘Sorry, I am from China.’

The African repeats the same to the next commuter in the train.

‘Sorry, I am from Vietnam.’

The African repeats the same to the next commuter in the train.

‘Sorry, I am from Myanmar.’

The African then asks the next commuter, where are the Singaporeans?

‘They are in JB, Batam and Bintang.’

The number game

Playing with numbers can bring great benefits to some and make losers of some innocent folks. One simple number game is the estimation of utilities usage that affects every household. For instance if the average utility bill is $100 pm, and if the meter is only read every third month, the usage of two months will be estimated. To maintain some consistency, the estimates must be done with care, probably by using the latest readings or the moving average, or something in that order, to keep the estimates realistic. But in practice, the method can still bring about distorted results.

Take for instance a festival when there more cooking take place or more people are at home, that particular month would drive up the bill and would affect the next average. It is ok actually if not of the GST or taxes based on the month’s bill. When there is a surge due to a wrong estimate, the household will end up paying more taxes for that bill. When the bill is readjusted after an actual reading is made, would the extra taxes, though small in amount, be refunded? The extra payment comes about when the rate is variable and higher at higher usage particularly water tax. Some households will thus have to pay a bit more taxes that they don’t have to but because of estimation.

In the corporate world, the numbers can also be juggled to give the best returns to whoever wants it. As an example, if a profit of $1m is expected and no extra bonus will be paid, a company with 3 or more years of $1m profit will not have to pay extra bonuses to the management on a profit sharing scheme. But by recognizing, in line with or overriding accounting principles, some profits may be delayed or not recognized and accumulated to another year. So a company may show 2 years of $500k profits only to show a startling performance of $2m profit on the third and ending with a big payout to the management.

This could be a deliberate result of manipulation. But at times, it is due to business cycle. The best example was quoted by Prof Tan Khee Giap during a programme on GDP aired on CNA. He pointed out the great GDP growth of 15% in year 2011, I think, was such a case. The result of that spectacular growth was due to the shrinking of the GDP in the previous years. The base for growth computation shrank accordingly. Thus when the economy returned to its previous numbers, the growth rate or percentage of growth became so much bigger than normal.

A reward system that is based on the growth rate will thus compute a huge payout to the management. And because the growth rate was so big, the payout could be disproportionally big relative to the average payout though the company/economy did not do anything spectacular in real terms.

What happens or could happen in such a situation is for management to take recognition of the low base and the real productivity and massage down the payout. If not, the management will be rewarding themselves happily with outrageous bonuses and still looking very legitimate and deserving, because the bonus formula said so.

The number game can be played very cleverly and ingeniously to benefit the players or designers of the game.