Motivating the elite: learning from N Korea

Maybe MM Lee shld take a lesson from N Korea, even though S’pore is not N Korea    https://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/our-swfs-staff-shld-be-thankful/

No not execute* the GIC and Temask executives whose judgement lost us billions and made MM look no longer like a sage that he undoubtedly is, but an ordinary mortal that is stupid. He had defended the bank investments saying they were for 30-yrs. Now we know that it might take that long to recoup our principal in UBS; and that Temasek sold out of BoA while a top hedgie was buying.

But he could do something to those who goof up, so that others are more careful of messing-up. Even if those who goofed do not deserve to be punished.

What about caning them? So that the executives in GIC, Temasek , TLCs and GLCs will buck up. My friend heard him say at a lunch some years back of “Lining up some people and giving them six of the best [cane them]”. He was speaking at a lunch in his honour when he last visited KL. My friend was seated beside him, or so my friend claims. But my friend has been known to tell fibs.

If caning sounds outrageous in a civilised place, in the mid-18th century, the British court-martialled and executed an admiral for failing to “do his utmost”. It was meant “to encourage the rest”**. As the admiral executed was the son of an admiral, all naval officers (aristocrats, gentry or upper middle, the lot of them) knew that, if it could happened to a lord and an admiral’s son, it could happen to any of them.

A naval historian wrote that the execution forged “a culture of aggressive determination which set British officers apart from their foreign contemporaries, and which in time gave them a steadily mounting psychological ascendancy”.

For the rest of the 18th century and the whole of the 19th century, Britannia ruled the waves.

BTW the admiral had reason and justice on his side (just like the SWF executives, I’m sure): little gd it did him. And little gd should it do the executives. There are more important things that justice and fair play for individuals when matters of state or profit are concerned.

Hmm, maybe the N Koreans know their British history, better than MM, a Cambridge man.

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*They executed the finance chief who messed up a currency reform resulting in protests and a climb-down by a government that is usually brutal towards protestors.

** Another reason was to appease public opinion. People were upset that as a result of his actions (very reasonable), a fortress was lost.

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