1MDB – modus operandi of SWF

The way the 1MDB operates and the attacks on its integrity have become a great publicity case in Malaysia and a political football between those in power and those waiting to unseat those in power. Given the fact that both sides are quite equally matched in political influence and with significant support on the ground, the contenders are not going to get away easily or be thumped down without putting up a big fight.

In the rumour mills, there have been speculations as to how a fund like this would or could make money for the people behind the fund. And it is interesting to see the different processes involved and how money is being made. The first part is the source of fund. As a sovereign fund, the funding is easy if the people behind it could use all the political influence and power to get cheap fund without having to go through the due process of qualifications as a reliable and credible borrower. It is a case of just demand and the money will appear, OPM, or from govt linked organizations where there is no individual owners to talk about.

Such funds are not only easy to come by, the terms of repayment are just as fluid if not hazy. It can be on a continuous basis with no beginning and no ending, round tripping or refinancing and refinancing with the funds remaining in the SWF forever and unaccountable to anyone. With this part secure, there is money, plenty of money, unlimited supply of money.

The next big question is how to siphon the money out from the fund. Oh, I have skipped the investment part completely. Maybe I should touch on this, as suggested by some analysts as to how the SWF will invest the good money to make good returns. The trick is NOT to make money. Profitable investments are only good on paper but not worthwhile if the money cannot be taken out from the fund. So paper profits or cooking the books to show profits would do.

The best and easiest part is to lose money, the more the better. Any bad investment would mean the money in the fund can be drawn down, or lost, spent. With this model, investment becomes so easy and needs only a little bit of ingenuity. Find junk companies, boost up their share prices, inflate them as high as possible, buy high, very high. Then let the price falls and sell at the bottom. Junk companies can be created by proxies or cronies. Some junk companies can be a shell or fictitious, never mind. The intent is to lose money in order to get the money out from the SWF.

Just imagine if each investment in a junk or fictitious company would lead to a loss of $300m, how much could be pocketed if 10 such companies would to fail? Easily $3b and setting aside a few hundred millions for the cronies and proxies would be small change and everyone very happy.

The other important trick is to keep the accounts secret to allow the fund to write whatever profit or loss it so desired. In a way the fund can keep on running in perpetuity, with new money coming in and pocketed by announcing bad deals and big losses. Then top up with more of OPMs.

This is a very simple model of how to make SWFs make money for the people behind them, no transparency, no accountability, just get a few cronies to go through the motion of investing in loss making companies over and over again. No one will bother to check it out, no one will bother to complain and ask for accountability. 1 MDB was just unfortunate that it could not keep its activities under wrapped and was exposed prematurely. If not, it could be a golden goose that would lay unlimited golden eggs.

The genuine SWFs got to sweat to make money, to justify to shareholders, to govts and auditors, and be accountable for the profit and loss. It is not easy to make good and profitable investments. Not everyone is a Warren Buffett. But making ‘sure loss’ investment is a piece of cake. The small difficulty is how to make the loss as big as possible and still look genuine.

This is great fun, oops funs, to operate. No stress, no need to work too hard and money is coming in by money going out in loss making investments. Simply ingenious!

Expats agree Singaporeans should be employed first

‘It seems there are just VERY FEW good jobs on offer in Singapore because the market IS SO SMALL.
Having said this, why does your PAP Government even allow Pinoys and Indos to take PR and then take SENIOR MANAGEMENT JOBS?

These jobs (which are the same jobs I am competing for) are in EXTREMELY LIMITED SUPPLY and, in my opinion, should be RESERVED EXCLUSIVELY for local citizens and foreigners should be told to fxxx off.

You see, while I compete with Pinoys, Indonesians, Indians and Chinese (not locals) for these jobs, I have seen on many occasions that my interviewer is actually NOT EVEN A LOCAL SINGAPORE CITIZEN.

I feel the PAP is doing a great disservice to the local Singaporeans.’ By Sam

The above extract is posted both in Transitioning.org and TRE, supposedly by an expat called Sam.
The main question is why are Singaporeans, PMETs and young graduates, facing so many problems and hard times getting a decent job here? Singaporeans are complaining not because they are against expats and foreigners working here. The angst is that why are so many Singaporeans not able to get a decent job and ended up unemployed, underemployed or retired prematurely? And we have practically full employment. And we have a few hundred thousand foreigners here with good jobs.

Why is it so difficult to get all the Singaporeans, especially the PMETs and young graduates employed? Singapore is not facing a situation when there are not enough jobs to go round. We have so many foreigners happily employed here and many found it so easy to get a job while our very own citizens are having trouble landing a job.

Any politicians still cannot understand or see the point or the angst the Singaporeans are facing? I must conclude that such people are simply daft, dumb or pretending to be daft and dumb, looking the other way.

And no, for the monkeys who are accusing the jobless Singaporeans of having an entitlement mentality, I say stuff it in your ass. Singaporeans should have priority for jobs here, good jobs.  Level playing field is not good enough. This country belongs to the Singaporeans, not to any asses. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t have to work and underperform. The lazy and spoilt PMETs would get the boot. They should get preference, especially in govt or GLC jobs but it must not be an iron rice bowl and they could be fired if not performing.

We have so many jobs to go around, to 500,000 foreigners. There is no good reason that Singaporeans who want to work cannot find a decent job commensurate with his qualifications and experience. Please don’t give any crap reasons like lack of skills set. Rubbish! Sometimes a little training, orientation and OJT would be enough to work someone into a job until the job is so specialized or technical in nature. It is so sinful, a crime, for fake foreigners to take the good jobs of qualified Singaporean.

There is no excuse for not providing jobs to Singaporeans. There are plenty of jobs for Singaporeans and foreigners and for fakes. Even if all the PMETs and young unemployed Singaporean graduates are employed, there will still be hundreds of thousands of good jobs available for foreigners.

Let’s not short change the Singaporeans, the citizens of this country. Singaporeans must not accept this state of affair. Not doing anything to right this wrong against Singaporeans is unacceptable. This is the chance for politicians to prove that they are there to serve the interest of the Singaporeans, to look after the voters who voted them into Parliament. Did anyone say they need to take care of the interest of foreigners first, to give them jobs because they are better than Singaporeans?

Please kee chiu.

Who would you employ, degree mill or legit university?

Many people have wisen up to omnipresence of fake degrees here and all over the world. It is real, no joke. And many have started to question the value of the degree and the intelligence of the graduates, degree mill verses legit university.
 
Employers are interested in good and intelligent graduates. And this used to be a graduate from a reputable university, best an Ivy League university. It used to be that simple. A good graduate from such universities means a tested and proven one. No need to look further.
 
Things have changed so much. Today a degree from an Ivy League university could be a printed fake degree unless one do due diligence to check it out. And there are also many fake degrees with degree mills with very similar names to Ivy League universities.
So employers have changed tack. The piece of paper is not important anymore. It is whether the candidate can do the job. I believe anyone can now be an engineer or doctor or software expert without going through the mills of a legit university. The proof is in the pudding.
 
I think employers could have been seriously looking at those with degree mill degrees to check for intelligence, creativity, street smart, and the ability to take short cuts. A degree mill graduate has all these qualities, including the communications skills to get pass whoever is on their way. It takes a lot of ingenuity to get that degree mill degree, of getting it cheap and fast, saving so much effort and money. This is surely a measure of intelligence out of the box. And better still if they can con, I mean convince, the employer that a degree mill is ok. The employer would definitely benefit from such clever employees, to be able to cut cost and cut corners and talk their way out even in a sticky situation.
 
Getting a straight jacket legit degree graduate is at best an honest, decent conformist, run of the mill graduate, who would just follow all the rules and system. This kind of employees can be easily replaced by robotics, cheaper and more reliable.
 
Unlike this robotic type of employees, a degree mill graduate would have the confidence to bluff his way through any situation and has a lot of guts to do things and get things done, at the quickest, shortest possible time and cheapest cost. That is the real value of such employees, highly creative and ingenius.
 
No wonder there is now a new thinking, don’t waste time chasing that degree. Got degree good, no degree better. Some employers are now looking at other things than just a piece of paper. This is the real world, the new ethos, new work ethics.
 
Oops, did anyone say cheating is the flavor and desired quality to survive in this fake new world, where fake is the in thing?

China – The nonsense that the analysts would want you to believe

China is in big trouble economically. Its growth rate has gone down from double digits to barely 7%. Serious trouble! There was another article in the msm few days back with the title ‘China’s miracle is running out of steam’ with the author gloating that this is a truth that he had been writing about and is coming true, inevitable.
 
Let’s take a look at China’s 7% GDP growth rate. This is considered bad and China’s economy is going to collapse. Relatively speaking, from more than 10% to 7% is a drop, a substantial fall. Do the opinion makers want to tell you why it is 7% now? When China was growing at more than 10% they were also crying father and mother. Unsustainable, overheating, it will go bust. Now China reined in its runaway economy to make growth more sustainable, intentionally restraining the galloping away economy, it is also bad.
 
And countries making 3% or 4% growth are great, damn great, well done. Even the US and Europe with their less than 2% growth rate is something cheer about, but China’s 7% growth rate is troubling, even if it is intentional held back to cool down the economy. See the bull? They would not even want to know that China has a war chest of more than US$3 trillion to be used, if needed, if intended, to steam roll its economy. It can easily push it up to double digit by burning a bit of its reserves. But that is not what a prudent govt will do. China is engineering a soft landing, and has everything under control and with a lot of money to make it whatever way it wants? Serious trouble?
 
The other issue about China is about not enough immigrant workers from the country side and running out of steam due to labour shortage. What kind of ass thinking is that. China has 1.4b people, many are just breaking out of the poverty trap. Because of the ageing demography, China is short of labour supply? There will be lesser labour supply as the population aged, sure. Is it a good thing or bad thing given a population of 1.4b? Would this lighten the pressure on resource allocation and consumption to bring down the population and allow a good opportunity for restructuring the economy from a low skill to high skill economy with higher productivity and higher value add but less demanding for numbers? The ageing population and the older workers were the less literate population that is something best to reduce and do away with.
 
China’s next phase of economic development and growth could be from a paradigm shift that many developing countries had gone through, from quantitative change to a qualitative change. China has a lot of room to upgrade its economy, to move up the skills ladder where quality workforce is more desirable than quantity of low skill labour.
 
What is the problem? The Chinese leaders are daft, one trick pony, depending on labour and more labour to grow its economy, like the daft labour intensive policies in Singapore? China will see a transition to a new level of growth and it is not even rocket science but a natural progression. The refocus on domestic economy, domestic consumption instead of the high reliance on export, which still has a lot of room to grow. The whole of Asia and Africa is China’s market for growth, not counting Europe and the Americas.
 
China is in deep economic trouble, with US$3 trillion reserves to boot, with an economy growing at a managed 7% growth rate, with a 1.4b pool of untapped talent and a continental size country that needs to be redeveloped?
 
Which are the countries that are really in trouble, with low or negative growth rate, with barely any reserves and high debt, with high cost of living and low productivity, high consumption and low production? China is a low consumption and high production economy with very low cost of production and consumption.
 
Would you believe the silly analysts who wanted you to see what they themselves wanted to see, wanted to believe and keep screaming the glass is half empty? The USA, you wait. China is going to run over and be ahead, to be the world’s number One economy, if not already there, and holding its horses to run at a more manageable pace.
A 7% growth rate for such a huge economy is frightening in absolute numbers. Many countries will be crowing and gloating themselves silly with this number. Sure China has a lot of problems, so do other countries. The fact that they have rode the problems for the last 40 years and still growing speak for itself. Every country will have their host of problems, no exceptions, and China is no exception. It’s the net surplus or positives over the negatives that matters.

The myth of skills set

You need to have the right papers, right experience and the right skills set to be hired. Many PMETs are no longer employable because they don’t have the skills set to be employed. What are the skills set that is needed for one to get hired or to be suitable for a job, especially a high paying one?
 
Should I ask Lim Swee Say? He just said, or ‘believes that his successor is the "right person" for the job.’ Ok, he did not say Chan Chun Sing has the right skills set for the job of Secretary General of the NTUC. He said he believed. Actually not much different, just semantics. 'Kar ki kong, kar ki song'.
 
Chan Chun Sing’s background was a general in the army, a soldier. He had a stint as a minister in the Ministry of Social and Family Development, nothing to do with labour or workers or trade unions. Now what would the skills set be like for someone to fill Swee Say’s position in the NTUC? What are the job specs or job description? What kind of work experience that are related to this job?
 
Other than being a general, and a minister with some relevance in management and making policies at ministerial level, there is totally no relationship in Chan Chun Sing’s experience and training to the job of Secretary General of NTUC. In all counts, ask the recruitment specialists, they would throw his resume out. No relevance, no skills set for the job. Even if he produces a MBA would not be of much relevance.
 
So, how come a person of a diverse background, with unrelated job experience, be the ‘right person’ for the job? This analogy is not to say that Chan Chun Sing is not a super talent? He is a super talent and touted to be the next PM. But if you were to use the same reasoning to dismiss those PMETs who have lost their jobs, it makes his appointment and being the ‘right person’ for the job a bit funny isn’t it?
 
How could a sweeping statement like no skills set be good enough to rubbish all the PMETs as no longer employable but a person with Chan Chun Sing’s military background, nothing to do with workers and trade unions, be suitable, have the skills set for the job?
 
What is wrong with the skills set myth? It is only applicable to PMETs. Or super talents are exceptions? Luckily this position is not thrown to an international recruitment agency to find the right candidate. I am pretty sure Chan Chun Sing’s resume will not match anything for the job. No skills set!
 
What do you think? Got myth or no myth? Why no one says got not skills set? This is what they used to say, head I win, tail you lose.
 
PS. No disrespect to Chan Chun Sing. Just using this example to show the silliness of the no skills set myth. If a recruitment agency wants to reject him for the job, it is so easy to use the no skills set myth and it sounds so logical. Did anyone say political appointments no need to talk about skills set, even for million dollar jobs?