BS that data informs decision making

“At the moment, bad data is bad and good data is also bad,” says a fund manager quoted by the FT. The person was saying market sentiment was generally bearish.

This leads me to remember this gem from either the FT or Economist

Monetary policymakers everywhere are promising that their decisions will be “data-dependent”, but how they interpret incoming data is what matters.

This in turn reminds me that our technocratic millionaire ministers interpret data and other facts from the perspective of Hard Truths.

Advertisement

Sad, dirty secret of why US inflation is at 7.9%

There are many reasons why inflation is roaring ahead. They include policy mistakes and complacency, energy price rises and then there are three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: pestilence, famine (The UN’s food price index has already risen by 24% from a year ago and is set to rise further.) and war.

But the main reason is the shortage of lowest paid workers.

And lowest paid workers are now getting big pay increases in the US.

The Hardest Truth of economics is that productivity must grow in line with this wage increase in order to keep inflation in check. But the signs are that this is not happening, and won’t happen. And neither is the supply of workers increasing.

It is likely, therefore, that in America and elsewhere labour markets will have to be cooled the old-fashioned way: by central banks raising interest rates, making it a little more attractive to save than spend and thereby choking off demand for labour. The Fed has already raised rates by 0.25 percentage points, and is expected to raise them by a total of 2.5 points this year. America may well prove an example of what happens when policymakers respond to a labour market that has become dangerously hot.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/are-labour-markets-in-the-rich-world-too-tight/21808579

The poor have to be satisfied with this promise by Jesus:

Blessed be ye poor: for your’s is the kingdom of God.

Extract from Luke 6:20-21 

But in S’pore, the PAP govt makes sure that there are FTs by the cattle-truck load to ensure that wages remain low. At least that’s what retirees like me should hope happens, what with our millionaire ministers saying die, die must increase GST.

Ingrates like me who don’t for the PAP must remember that we, the well off, get almost first world service and quality while paying (indirectly) third world wages. The plebs who die die vote for the PAP, save us from having to vote for the PAP.

Putin learning from the PAP?

I couldn’t help but smile when I read the Economist’s (the PAP’s go-to manual or bible: PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”) take on Putin in 2022

The Kremlin’s aim is not to throw out the right to vote, but to get rid of any alternative to Mr Putin.

Now isn’t this what one Harry Lee (Remember him? His son is now PM.) was always doing in S’pore: ensuring there would be no alternative to the PAP in S’pore. It’s a Hard Truth Jnr is trying to keep.

Interestingly, I’ve been reading (not from choice: but as a favour to my ex-boss who wants a review) of the just published A History of the PAP 1985-2021.

The author of the book says the book is both a narrative and analysis of the PAP. It certainly is a narrative with the added bonus that because the PAP was in power during that period the book is also a narrative of S’pore’s economy and govt policies.

As to whether, it’s an analysis, is shumething I’ll blog about in coming days.

Meanwhile here’s the views of someone who thinks the world of the PAP book: https://berthahenson.com/2021/12/27/history-of-the-pap-gems-in-the-footnotes/?

But then, she would say that would’t she?

An ex-colleague of hers in ST alleges that she was (Still is?) a cadre of PAP (Women’s Wing) and that she tot she could be ST’s editor. She resigned, it seems, when the present editor (whom it’s alleged she hates) got the job. She’s since been bitching about the ST’s declining journalistic standards. When she was there in a senior position, a story about a murder had to mention that a relation of the suspect was a WP member.

Whatever, if she was a PAP cadre, she should have declared this fact when penning the elegy to the book. But then ST journalists have double standards, telling us financial people to declare our interests, while they can keep quiet theirs.

Xia suay: life insurance makes a person want to die isit?

I tot the above when I read

[I]dea of unemployment insurance to help retrenched older workers has ‘serious downsides’: Josephine Teo

Constructive, nation-building media

The report goes on:

Mrs Teo said that the Government will “keep an open mind” on unemployment insurance, but pointed out that there are serious downsides to having such a provision. These include reducing workers’ motivation to find work as well as decreasing the willingness of employers to pay retrenchment benefits.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/workers-partys-idea-unemployment-insurance-help-retrenched-older-workers-has-serious?fbclid=IwAR3ODcCR7Oac220dDid0OpipeOJ5KMaLbGVhDPVjEhQc-nFoI_KCagZipvA

I’ll let Chris Kuan and Yeoh Lam Keong explain why Jos’ mouth is full of cock as usual.

Chris Kuan

Contrary to what the Minister said, there are plenty of countries with unemployment insurance and yet low unemployment rates. In my view, there is no universal evidence that it reduces a worker’s incentive to find re-employment, So the whole establishment narrative that unemployment insurance (and jobless benefits) leads to high unemployment is not a universal fact. It is just another moral panic button. However she might be right that unemployment insurance may prove unworkable in Singapore. Why? Because as long as there is easy access to foreign labour, such a scheme may not make it any easier to find re-employment or more importantly provide for better job matches to skills, experience and qualifications which is what it is meant to do. That’s what the establishment failed to mention – that employment protection / stabilization schemes run against the principal policy of growing the economy through access to cheaper labour. It is far easier to say to the plebs that unemployment insurance leads to high unemployment and not say why a labour market with such a hugh foreign worker content, makes it so.

https://www.facebook.com/chris.kuan.94/posts/1282587465264672

Yeoh Lam Keong

Unfortunately, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo does not seem to have a sufficient understanding of labour market economics required to see the important need for unemployment insurance ( UI ) in Singapore for at least three reasons.

First, Minister Teo’s portrayal that countries with UI “usually have persistently high unemployment “ is inaccurate at best and misleading at worst.

Of the 27 member OECD developed countries, 25 operated an unemployment insurance systems including many countries with low unemployment eg Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan including some much more competitive export economies with lower unemployment than Singapore ( Germany and Japan ).

Second, there is little evidence of an inefficient reduction in incentive to work in properly designed UI systems as Minister Teo claims . In fact, the labour market evidence shows that UI for about 3 months enables optimum job search that prevents workers from jumping at the first job that may not be such a good match for their skills or experience.

Third, Minister Teo seems oblivious to the trend that artificial intelligence is already increasingly replacing both unskilled and skilled workers and consigning them to a gig economy of much more frequent job shifts, often with lesser paying work.

There are currently an estimated 25-30,000 households who fall into absolute poverty at any one time because of such involuntary unemployment. Without an automatic unemployment protection system , many fall through the cracks of our Commcare and skills retraining systems.

Not putting in place an intelligent unemployment protection system is thus short sighted, inhumane and just poor manpower policy, imho.

More at https://www.facebook.com/lamkeong.yeoh/posts/3512139472194428

But not having unemployment insurance is a Hard Truth and PAP ministers die die must hold onto. It’s not a matter of economic pragmatism.

The Hardest Truth: I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy): PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”)

Hard Truths

How PAP can make S’poreans happier but won’t

Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST

The PAP way is the American corporate way

We have to move on: Moving on from Hard Truths To Hard Choices.

The problems are

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins

Hard Truth about Old Guard’s insight on home ownership

It’s a myth that LKY and Dr Goh etc were geniuses for their insight into the importance of home ownership in building a nation and their public housing building programnes.

They were juz good in copying and pasting best practice of ang mosh. From the PAP’s bible*:

After the second world war … Governments across the rich world decided that they had to do more to care for their citizens—both as a thank-you for the sacrifices and to ward off the communist threat.

To this end, they vowed to boost home-ownership. A country of owner-occupiers, the thinking went, would be financially stable. People could draw down on equity in their house when they hit retirement or if they found themselves in difficulty. In the late 1940s and the 1950s manifestos of Western political parties became more likely to identify home ownership as a policy goal, according to research by Sebastian Kohl of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Over time, the notion that owner occupation was superior to renting became common, even apparently self-evident.

Policies to promote owner-occupation proliferated. In America the Veterans Administration made mortgages with no down-payment available to veterans in the mid-1940s. Canada established the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for returning war veterans. In 1950 the Japanese government established the Government Housing Loan Corporation to provide low-interest, fixed-rate mortgages. Changes to international financial regulations also encouraged banks to issue mortgages.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/how-housing-became-the-worlds-biggest-asset-class

Related post:If LKY were alive, PAP govt wouldn’t publicly admit that HDB leases end worth nothing

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*PAP’s bible

I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy). It has been an Economist mantra that market pricing is “betterest” because it uncovers the “correct” price. It is also a PAP Hard Truth.

PAP’s bible

Line between living beyond one’s means and being mean is very thin

Argie president Mauricio Macri’s plan to delay payments on more than U$101bn of debt, is a de facto default.

Todd Martinez, director of sovereign ratings at Fitch debt agency, had earlier told the BBC’s Today programme that Argentina had three options to repay what it owes – most of which is in US dollars – and none of them “looks very viable”.

“It comes down to a simple equation,” he said. “Argentina can either (sic) dip into its savings, borrow new money or achieve a budget surplus.

True of a country, true of an individual. Over-borrowing and over-spending have consequences. Btw, a Hard Truth of the PAP is be prudent. Problem is this leads to the vice of being over-prudent and leads to meanness. Think PAP: Will PM, tonite, give peace of mind on CPF Life Standard?

But to be fair to the PAP: Reason why CPF Life so mean?

Vote wisely.

Terry Xu and cybernuts are really PAPpies

(Alternative title: “Why TOC and other anti-PAP sites never reported HK MRT trains’ collisions?”)

After I wrote TOC: A lot of bull

(where I reported that Terry had revealed that he employed foreigners to write for TOC because they were cheaper than true blue S’poreans, a lot cheaper)yesterday, I remembered another example where TOC and Terry behaved like PAPpies, not talking about news that diverts from the “right” view. TOC (and to be fair, otheranti-PAP alt media sites) didn’t tell S’poreans that a few months ago there was a very serious incident on HK’s MRT: shumething that never ever happened here.

Two subway trains have collided during a new signal system test in Hong Kong, halting services and threatening travel disruption for millions of commuters.

The incident occurred between the Central and Admiralty stations before the service was open to the public early on Monday morning.

…

Rail officials warned that repairs were likely to take “quite a long time”.

Network operator Mass Transit Railway (MTR) said sections of the Tsuen Wan Line had been suspended and urged commuters to avoid the route affected and to use other forms of transport if possible.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47607676

Looks like Terry’s and other anti-PAP types brains are like that of the PAP: when the public doesn’t know a fact, that fact never exists. Their readers will have no doubts that the our MRT system sucks when compared to that of HK’s.

Actually even with this HK cock-up, the HK system is a lot better. So why didn’t the anti-PAP publications not report the accident?

In 2011, I analysed a senior PAPpy’s and his team’s unhappiness with a TOC report.

[T]hey must believe in an 18th century philosophical theory that is now treated as a forerunner of the concept of “subjective idealism”. One Bishop Berkeley argued that there are no material objects, only minds and ideas in those minds. He summarised his theory with the motto “esse est percipi” (“To be is to be perceived”). In modern PR-speak, this translates into,“Perception is reality”, one of the major tenets of the PR and public communication industry.

This theory of “Perception is reality” is best summarised in the following example he gave. If a tree in a forest falls, but no-one sees or hears it fall, has it fallen? Berkeley argues that it has not fallen. It is still standing.

An example in the S’pore context would be that S’poreans were not aware of how close the voting would be on polling day in 1988 in Eunos GRC and in Cheng San GRC in 1991. The mainstream media did not report the sentiment on the ground in these two GRCs, so S’poreans were not aware that many S’poreans were unhappy with the PAP. The unhappiness did not exist because it was not reported.

https://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/%E2%80%9Clittle-disappointment%E2%80%9D-tony-tan-to-toc/

In Silence of SMRT, LTA & MoT explained,I wrote the following about Traingate

SMRT, the LTA and MoT kept quiet because they like Bishop Berkeley believe that “Perception is reality”. So long as the public did not know that there were cracks in the 26 China-made trains, and that the trains had been returned for repairs, there were no train cracks. There were no cracked trains because If a tree in a forest falls, but no-one sees or hears it fall, has it fallen? Berkeley argues that it has not fallen. It is still standing.

What they still don’t realise that in this age of social media and the internet where many people walk around with smartphone cameras, If a tree in a forest falls, someone will see it or hear it fall. And tell others about the falling tree, after taking a selfie beside the fallen tree.

This being the case, disclosure of problems or cock-ups, not cover-ups or silence should be the best (and default) policy for the authorities and corporations They should assume that news of the cock-up or problem will become public knowledge and that by disclosing, the news agenda can, hopefully, be controlled..

But in one-party states, silence or cover-up are the default options, not disclosure. And this is the weakness of one-party states where people carry smartphone cameras. The one-party state will, in time, be undermined.

Ban smartphone cameras PAP? After all internet access for public servants will soon be restricted in this wired, connected nation.

Today the PAP and the constructive, nation-building media believe that if it isn’t reported, a fact doesn’t exist.

Sad that ), and other anti-PAP paper warriors believe the same.

The PAP has won.

 

 

 

Why PAP is afraid of social media

They are scared that social media can quickly convince PAP voters that any Hard Truth (Example: “HDB flats are an appreciating asset” or “SAF cares for S’poreans who serve”) is BS.

Social change has sped up and social media is one of the main reasons why.

Some habit or behaviour is widely accepted. Then evidence emerges of the costs. Victims speak out, and organise a lobby to campaign for change. They get the ear, and heart, of those in power. Eventually public opinion shifts – and so legislators, and the law, follow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46483557

Even star TOC columnist thinks the PAP way

What’s the assumption behind this for Ghui, star columnist for TOC?

it is important to note that Heng will have a sharp learning curve. Unlike PM Lee and former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Heng has not spent years waiting in the wings. He only entered politics in 2011 and was made a minister immediately after his win at the general elections in 2011. With only 7 years or so under his belt and without the benefit of having spent years as a member of parliament (MP), does Heng have all the experience necessary to lead the country?

That’s right, she, like the PAP, believes that S’pore must have experienced leaders and political succession must be planned and managed. She seems to like the Chinese way, juz the the PAP.

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“Why CCP’s fears are PAP’s fears”

Keeping power in a one-party state

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Bit strange this because going by her other articles, she’s a progressive (not an ang moh tua kee) that believes that S’pore should be a liberal democracy.

Well in the Western liberal democracies, it isn’t a given that the government is always led by experienced, tested leaders.

Look at the US: Obama and then Trump became presidents with no prior experience in government. Along the way, they beat people with plenty of experience of govt (think Hilary Clinton).

And there’s France’s Macron.

And the UK’s PM is a great example of an experienced minister proving to be a useless leader.

As to succession being planned and managed, the whole purpose of meaningful elections in a liberal democracy, is that the Opposition, can become the govt. Managed change? What managed change? Two of the most successful govts in the UK this century came only after long periods in opposition (Labour 1997-2010 and Conservative/ Lib Dem 2010- 2015). There were practically no ministers who had previous ministerial experience.

My point is that the PAP has been in power so long that their Hard Truths are accepted uncritically by their critics or opponents, even those, who like Ghui, think. The anti-PAP cybernuts like the alcohol drinking, pork-eating, religious “bapak” from TREland or Terry’s Indian goons are even bigger believers in Hard Truths. They only want to their snouts, not the PAP ministers in the troughs.

How PAP can make S’poreans happier

But won’t.

Because it’ll go against one of LKY’s Hardest Truths: S’pore should not have supportive social systems and institutions thereby making it easier for people who don’t or won’t work hard (But do you want cybernuts living off yr money and dissing you and the govt for not giving them more money?) to fall through the cracks.

But seriously Hard Truths seem to have forgotten about those who can’t work hard because they are too sick, too old or have to care for others.

So we only 34th globally. But PAP govt will point out we are top dog in the neighbourhood. Bit like having a bungalow house surrounded by slums.

 

The UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network ranking of the happiest countries in the world

suggest that happy societies are those with supportive social systems and institutions that make it harder for people to fall through the cracks.

Why is Finland so happy? | March 2018

In March 2018 Finland was named the happiest country in the world by the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Three Nordic cousins—Norway, Denmark and Iceland—took the next places. The UN report uses global polling data from Gallup to measure how pleased people feel with their lives, and tries to explain the differences in results using variables such as GDP per person, social support, healthy-life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption. Its results suggest that happy societies are those with supportive social systems and institutions that make it harder for people to fall through the cracks.

(Emphasis mine)

 

Survey feedback: a really Hard Truth

The PAP administration is always asking for feedback via surveys etc. But even many of the 70% think that the whole exercise is a waste of time because they think the PAP administration already “knows” the results of the survey etc.

The feedback is for confirmation that the PAP administration got it right and is wayang.

To overcome this cynicism:

It is more important to follow through and take real steps to make people happier and more productive.

FT

Context of above quote

There is a growing view that too many companies think doing the odd staff survey is enough to tick the engagement box. It is more important to follow through and take real steps to make people happier and more productive. Put another way, a company can do as many surveys as it likes, but if it irks workers with doltish managers, idiotic dress codes, petty rules on attendance and worse, it should expect to be treated in kind.

The really Hard Truth:

The PAP administration can do as many surveys as it likes, but if it annoys voters with second rate but overpaid ministers, inefficient (think SMRT) or expensive public serices (water and electricity), bullying, agencies with bad culture (Integrated Health Systems*), petty rules or worse, it should expect cynicism: a “What’s it in for me?” attitude or worse even if S’pore remains a de facto one-party state.

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*Senior mgr chiak chua

The day before, a senior manager of IHiS’ security management department, Mr Ernest Tan, had testified that he was reluctant to raise the alarm to his superiors despite knowing about suspicious logins to the patient database, for fear of working “non-stop” to “deliver answers” to top management.

This had led to a delay in the reporting and detection of the cyber attack, which saw hackers make off with the personal data of 1.5 million SingHealth patients between June 27 and July 4.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/cultural-issues-ihis-hampered-detection-and-reporting-cybersecurity-incidents

 

 

Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins

(Or “Why oldies are getting more goodies” or “You massage my back, and I scratch yrs”)

The Merdeka generation are getting goodies, juz like the Pioner Generation. Both generations in their prime have given the PAP solid support (over 60% of the popular vote).

PAP is juz rewarding voters who keep it in power

Not only that, but as S’poreans are living longer, keeping the Merdeka generation (and the balance of the Pioneer Generation) contented with the PAP govt means that the PAP’s hegemony can last at another 20 yrs.

The average Singaporean can expect to live 85.4 years in 2040, up 2.1 years from the average of 83.3 years in 2016, according to a new study by a global health research organisation.

Singapore is expected to maintain its third-place ranking in average life expectancy in 2040, if recent health trends continue.

By then, Spaniards are expected to live the longest — an average of 85.8 years — pipping the Japanese, who are expected to live an average of 85.7 years.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/average-singaporean-live-third-longest-world-till-854-years-2040-study

Add to that having people like Mad Dog, Lim Tean and Meng Seng as opponents and the PAP will rule forever and a day.

 

The Harder Truth on hawker food

Further to The Hard Truth about hawker food

Will S’poreans still love (and eat) our hawker food if it’s no longer cheap because hawkers are paid more?

What if the Hard Truth is that they (especially the anti_PAP cybernuts from TRE love the food because hawkers are exploited in the making and selling of the food?

(My musings)

Seriously, here’s what doctor turned fatcat rentier said responding to the above link

Depends how serious govt views social impact of cooked / prepared food.

S’pore society today relies a lot more on buying prepared food as compared to 2 or even just 1 generation ago.

If govt treats having cheap prepared food as important as public healthcare, then there would need to be overt rent & price controls. No 2 ways about it.

The economic & social conditions that pushed people into hawking in the olden days is completely different from the economic, social & corporate realities today.

His solution to keep food cheap?

Just like foodcourt stalls, govt will eventually need to allow 3rd world foreigners (who are willing to accept much lower wages) to operate hawker centre stalls.

Er tot PRC reds already doing this illegally and using dog meat (from killed strays) to make char siew?

The Hard Truth about hawker food

Having read https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/big-read-grumbling-and-rumbling-social-enterprise-hawker-centres-whats-rub while there seems to be some hanky hanky about the way social enterprise hawker centres are run, the bottom line is that cheap hawker food is an unreasonable demand if the PAP govt is not willing to do something about rentals.

And if S’poreans don’t force the govt to rethink the issue of rentals, then Fishball Story’s Mr Ng is right to say

that Singaporeans should not continue to think that hawker food must be kept at traditionally low prices. When prices increase, hawkers can enjoy better margins and be more motivated to sustain their career “if they see good returns for their hard work”.

“We can start by paying a little more. If you want cheap food, I’ll give you budget-quality food. If you want good, proper food, expect to pay more.”

With the Government putting the pressure on hawkers to keep their food prices down, “there is no way hawkers can survive in the long run”, he added.

S’poreans have to realise that if rents are high, they got to Pay and Pay, juz like for ministers’ salaries, COEs etc.

Made in China

the ARJ-21, a disaster of an aircraft that the country’s own regulators forbid from flying in the rain for safety reasons.

Economist

Lucky we only bot PRC railway carriages, not trains. For once Hard Truth that ang moh tua kee is betterest turned out well, even if ang moh is French, not German.

Prosperity with S’porean, Chinese characteristics

Unique to both China and S’pore

Further to Bang yr balls ang moh tua kees

The case for a free press rests not only on classical liberal principles but also on hard data. Cross-country studies show strong and consistent associations between unfettered media, vibrant democracies and limited corruption. China, which has a tightly controlled media and perhaps the world’s most sophisticated censorship scheme, thinks it has proven that prosperity can be achieved without a free press. In less extreme fashion, Singapore shares similar authoritarian attitudes. Politicians everywhere do not much like to be criticised. To a worrying number of them, this Singapore model—or Beijing model, depending on preference—can prove more attractive than the Western approach of putting up with a pesky press.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/07/23/the-global-slump-in-press-freedom

Related posts

PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”

The PAP way is the American corporate way

Keeping power in a one-party state

Why I not KPKBing about MediShield Life

… while he feels that MediShield Life is inadequate in terms of making healthcare affordable to the masses, he acknowledges that it is “a huge advance in that it took in people with pre-existing conditions”.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/paul-tambyah-chairman-singapore-democratic-party-on-the-record-10527550

It’s really a big step from Hard Truths that it took in people with pre-existing conditions. The PAP is slowly but surely adapting itself to the realities of a modern, developed society.

Declaration of interest: I paid “peanuts” for my second cataract operation (first one was $1000 ++) because it was heavily covered under Medishield because it was the second eye operation within a yr.

Related post: Will Gleneagles sandwich cost me a fortune?

Public tpt: PAP ahead of the curve and flew off the rails?

Use of public transport is in decline in many wealthy cities. Blame remote working, Uber, cheap car loans and the internet. That’s what reported recently in the PAP’s bible*: https://www.economist.com/international/2018/06/23/public-transport-is-in-decline-in-many-wealthy-cities

So maybe when the PAP administration decided to cut  back SMRT maintenance all those yrs ago, they were way ahead of the curve and got biten by reality? Sometimes thinking long term is bad for everyone. It’s also mud in the eye for The PAP way is the American corporate way.

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*PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”

Why Tun M, Anwar, PAP won’t, can’t reform the status quo

Reformasi is in the air on both sides of the causeway, with even PAP ministers talking of the need to change.

I’m the first to admit that because I’ve had an active interest in M’sia since the 80s, I’m skeptical that A New Hope will be followed by the Return of the Jedi. It’ll be followed by The Empire Strikes Back (though that doesn’t imply the return of BN or UMNO).

As for the PAP, pigs will fly first before the PAP reforms S’pore.

Whatever,

[Alan Blinder, Fed Vice-Chairman when Greenspan was Chairman] draws various lessons[for reforms based on his experiences in helping get Reagan’s 1980s tax reform package passed]. First, start with strong but broad presidential leadership. Second, leave technocrats to design a policy combining effectiveness and simplicity. Third, find some wily political operators with tactical nous to sell it. Fourth, come up with an eye-catching symbol that defines the package (in this case, a massive reduction in the top rate from 50 per cent to 28 per cent). Fifth, allow a degree of backroom bargaining while the deal is constructed. And sixth, make sure the package is agreed as a whole, rather than picked apart by special interests.

Advice and Dissent, by Alan Blinder

Think Tun will do this? I have my doubts. For one, he wants to ensure the continuance of Malay dominance.

And it’s not only Tun who wants to ensure cont’d Malay dominance.

Anwar has assured Malays and other Bumiputras that their rights under the new government would not be sidelined, while stressing to all not to be taken with the false propaganda about the Democratic Alliance Party, which is also part of PH. Like Tun and the DAP, he needs the kilang and cina coolies to clean up the manure created by Tun, himself and Najib.

“Felda and Universiti Teknologi Mara will not be threatened but kangkung professors can’t (be accepted),” Dr Anwar said.

As for the PAP, so long as they worship Harry,  Hard Truths will prevail. Sad. Because Harry between the 1950s and the end of the 1980s had no Hard Truths to guide him. He did what he did to get power, then retain power and in the process help bring material prosperity to S’poreans and S’pore. He changed course several times: from socialist to fascist lite, from democrat to authoritarian, from multiracism to “English and Mandarin tua kee”.

He only tot up Hard Truths when he became goal keeper to keep himself busy because as goal keeper he had little to do other than manage the team. He was the first of the player managers. Sad.

Why I like Seah Kian Peng

Yesterday in Why Seah Kian Peng is right to say he’s “left of centre”, I said I would explain why I like Seah. I like him because he doesn’t let the Hard Truths of hypocrisy, morality and groupthink stand in the way of attempts to help an unfortunate group of S’poreans: unmarried single mothers.

In TRELand when the cybnenuts talk of unmarried mums, they compare them to prostitutes. Even PAP ministers, MPs and the IBers don’t go that far. They juz say “Undeserving poor. They bring it on themselves. Promoting moral hazard to help them.”

And sadly many, many S’poreans agree with them and the TRE cybernuts.

But Seah (and a few other MPs like Lily Neo) joins NGOs in trying to help them, and in trying to get the PAP and society to change their views on these “fallen” women. Power to him and the others.

Over the years, he has also spoken up for more assistance for unmarried single mothers.

In 2016, the Ministry for Social and Family Development finally announced that the Government is ready to extend the full 16-week maternity leave accorded to married mothers, to single mothers as well.

Their children also now have access to a Child Development Account, a savings scheme to help pay for childcare and healthcare costs.

MPs and women’s rights groups spent years campaigning for this and other benefits.

Mr Seah feels even more can be done to address their needs.

Unmarried mothers still do not get the Baby Bonus cash gift and parenthood tax rebates that even widows and divorcees, receive. When it comes to housing, they have to wait until they turn 35 to buy an HDB flat under the singles scheme.

“The challenges of raising children by themselves is already hard enough. But they have to still think about something as basic as housing. So on our part as a Government, how can we help?”

The Government has traditionally been cautious about equalising benefits for this group as it says doing so could send out the wrong signals.  A common argument is that such a move might be seen as condoning having children out of wedlock.

“Frankly, I don’t believe in this. But even if as a result, one or two people start thinking along those lines, so be it. We shouldn’t stop ourselves from helping people just because we fear a small group could end up abusing a policy.”

This concept should apply to every policy, he says, including to how much help should be given to the low-income in society and how even means-testing to assess a person’s eligibility for assistance is conducted.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/seah-kian-peng-mp-marine-parade-ceo-ntuc-fairprice-on-the-record-10459284

 

 

The real truths about public housing

Not Hard Truths but the truths about public housing as revealed by “Tan Jin Meng, a postgraduate from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He has an interest in social policy and economics.”.

But first, a reminder why the topic of HDB housing is a problem for the PAP administration what with its “asset enhancement” policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever happened to asset enhancement since 2013 Q2 is a question being asked by more than the anti-PAP activists and their allied cybernuts.

Back to Tan Jin Meng and his truths about HDB: writing in CNA he says

An over-emphasis on home ownership can come at a cost to society. Time for a review of public housing policy

And

Singapore’s housing policy started out with the aim of providing basic, comfortable and safe housing security for Singaporeans. Over the decades, strong public policy support may have led to an over-emphasis on housing ownership, leading to unintended consequences …

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/emphasis-home-ownership-hdb-lease-review-of-public-housing-10423116.

But if time-challenged juz read these two extracts

The first explains that the PAP administration has by way of subsidies (Uncle Leong and cybernuts will ask though “Subsidies? What subsidies?”) created an entitlement mentality in public housing:

Addressing the 99-year leasehold issue or the retirement security issue without a cost to the home owner would effectively need a cross subsidy from future tax payers.

Any changes to housing policy that impact prices would need to consider the fact that most voting Singaporeans have a vested interest in keeping house prices up.

The continuous subsidy of housing in Singapore has been underpinned by the Land Acquisition Act of 1966, which had used historical cost for acquiring land, managing to keep new HDB flat prices low. In 1959, the State owned 44 per cent of all land, and by the mid-2000s, it was 85 per cent.

Effectively, the Government redistributed land wealth from land owners to the rest of the population, aided by a growing economy supporting prices. This, however, cannot continue forever as housing leases start to run out, our economy slows, and our population ages.

The Government had, over the decades since independence, resisted calls to liberally expand the social safety net, in order to avoid the development of an entitlement culture – that once you give someone something, you cannot easily take it back without antagonising that person, and you may end up with an intolerable burden for future generations.

Yet, housing remains one social programme where much resources have been poured into.

The other very important truth is

A house is not just a shelter. It is also a leveraged financial asset. You are taking risk on both property prices and interest rates. Singapore’s rapid growth over the first 50 years from independence has led many people to believe that home ownership is a “sure win”, as house prices also rose from wage and population growth.

Sounds like the “asset enhancement” policies got a lot to answer for, and so has our PM who was DPM and the economy czar in the 90s, when the policies were introduced to fix the Oppo.

“Asset enhancement? What asset enhancement?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only if buy BTO flat leh, PAP will say. Go back and read what the PM, DPM and other PAP ministers said.

Wonder if our our constructive, nation-building media’s articles from the 1990s are as amendable as the media articles in Airstrip One in “1984”.

Productivity: Err maybe PAP not to blame?

And there are free lunches available: not juz for our Hali and millionaire ministers.

Cyberspace is full of complaints (self included)  that PAP’s FT is responsible for the low producitivity of the labour force.

But maybe we all wrong

One of the big thinkers on the economics of technology tells us why its impact is not being properly measured in GDP figures. Erik Brynjolfsson was co-author of the Second Machine Age, the book which really kickstarted the debate about the impact of automation and is director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.

He says the problem is that official data does not capture the value of services like Facebook or Wikipedia which are essentially free. He points out that in the early 1980s, information services accounted for 4.6% of US GDP – and the figure is exactly the same today, despite the huge advances in the technology sector.

Prof Brynjolfsson and his team set out to prove that value was being created by services like Facebook by asking people how much they would have to pay them to give them up for a month. The average answer was $42 (£31).

Why does this matter? “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” he says. If we had some way of working out what technological advances had done to our economy, then we might understand that the last 10 years had not been as bad as we thought for our incomes.

“We haven’t got richer in terms of dollars or pounds or euros. But we have access to all the world’s information through Wikipedia, we can connect with friends and family – these are unpriced goods.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44168096

So there are free lunches available for the taking.

Whatever, money is not the measure of all things: another Hard Truth demolished.

 

 

Taxes on MNCs: 4G leaders should relook

Recently I wrote:

To show S’poreans that saying that they want to earn the right to lead is more than BS, the coming generation of leaders should start looking at Hard Truths that have become irrelevant or were wrong in the first place.

Healthcare: user fees drives up costs

Here’s another Hard Truth that should be relooked. It’s a Hard Truth that MNCs should be given tax incentives so that they invest here. But the premise of such a Hard Truth no longer is valid

As Paul Krugman pointed out in his regular NYT column:

In the world according to Trump officials, or right-wing think tanks like the Tax Foundation, corporate profits are basically a return on physical capital — on bricks and mortar and machines. Cut taxes, and companies will add more physical capital, increasing competition for labor, and profits will go down while wages go up.

Apple, however, is nothing like that. Its profits come from its market position — its brand, if you like. It doesn’t matter whether you think it deserves its role as a quasi-monopolist; what matters is that given its position, it can and does charge what the market will bear, pretty much regardless of costs. If Trump cuts its taxes, it gets to keep more of its profits, but it has no real incentive to change its behaviour by, say, building more Apple stores. It just takes the extra money and either sits on it or hands it back to stockholders via buybacks.

Healthcare: user fees drives up costs

To show S’poreans that saying that they want to earn the right to lead is more than BS, the coming generation of leaders should start looking at Hard Truths that have become irrelevant or were wrong in the first place. They can do no worse than look at user fees in healthcare.

The PAP administration swears by user fees in healthcare because it says that not to have fees means that there’s a buffett syndrome: Welfare for insurers (cont’d)

It would argue

In the 1980s and 1990s many health economists were relaxed about out-of-pocket payments, also known as user fees. The World Bank saw them as a way of making sure money was not wasted, and of helping health-care consumers hold providers to account. There is merit to this argument. Research by Jishnu Das of the World Bank found that when Indian health workers saw patients in their private clinics, they spent more time with them and asked more questions than when the same health workers saw patients in public clinics.

Economist

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I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy): PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”)

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Well its bible now says that it’s not a

good idea to rely mostly on user fees to fund a health system. They stop those who need care from seeking it. Concerns that users will consume too much health care unless they have to pay are overblown. And when people are not getting vaccinated to save a few cents, others suffer, too.

Worse

Out-of-pocket payments are also “cannonballs of inefficiency”, says Timothy Evans of the World Bank, which is now sceptical about user fees. If spending is pooled, it can insure more people against the risk of ill health and put pressure on providers to cut prices. Of the $500bn generated globally by user fees every year, the World Bank estimates that 40% is wasted.

https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21740870-if-universal-health-care-become-ubiquitous-politicians-will-have-act-more

Re the issue that user fees

are also “cannonballs of inefficiency”

seems to apply here as DBS says govt should control costs of households esp in healthcare: See who’s telling govt to control healthcare costs/ What we be should be KPKBing about

S’pore: An illiberal democracy?

I’ve said repeatedly that S’pore is not a democracy but a one-party state like China (Keeping power in a one-party state) albeit a de-facto one where the voters every few yrs approve in overwhelming numbers in a de-facto referendum (never less than 60% of the popular vote) its continuance.

But could it be a democracy albeit an illiberal one?

Yascha Mounk who teaches at Harvard

argues that there are two sides to liberal democracy. One focuses on the first half of the equation: protecting individuals from the tyranny of the majority through checks and balances and enumerated rights. The second focuses on the other half: handing power to the people. For most of the post-war period these two versions of liberal democracy went together like apple and pie.

Today, though, the popular will is increasingly coming into conflict with individual rights. Liberal elites are willing to exclude the people from important decisions, most notably about immigration in the case of the European Union, in the name of “rights”; meanwhile populists are willing to dispense with constitutional niceties in the name of “the people”. Politics is defined by a growing battle between illiberal democracy, or democracy without rights, on the one hand, and undemocratic liberalism, or rights without democracy, on the other.

https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21738862-yascha-mounks-diagnosis-more-convincing-his-cure-how-liberal-democracy-fell-apart

But somehow I don’t see S’pore as an illiberal democracy because the PAP doesn’t believe in giving power to the people i.e. the masses.

Three quotes from LKY make my point about their contempt for the views of the masses

“I have never been overconcerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. If you are concerned with whether your rating will go up or down, then you are not a leader. You are just catching the wind … you will go where the wind is blowing. And that’s not what I am in this for.”

“Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.”

“You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/lee-kuan-yew-the-best-quotes-from-singapores-founding-father

Coldstore: Why Harry’s narrative or the highway

(Or “Why Harry’s Coldstore narrative must be the truth”)

The roughing up of someone who dares to publicly talk about a Coldstore narrative that is different from that of one Harry Lee has cyberspace talking cock and upset*.

Amidst the noise and fury, one important issue in both what constitutes “fake news”, generally,and, in particular, in the ongoing dialogue of the deaf about different Coldstore narratives has been forgotten.

The son of one of the Coldstore detainees recently said:

For some of the matters around national security, race, religion, economic and financial issues, public health issues, by definition that source of truth must be government-backed or state-backed. The most egregious issues, the issues with significant impact, significant impact on our social fabric, on our national security, on our public health, the issues of peace, stability, the facts behind those, if you’re going to have a source of truth, it needs to be state-backed.

Dr. Janil Puthucheary, a Jnr Minister, at the Select Committee hearings on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, 23 March 2018

As S’pore is a de facto one-party state (because the voters regularly agree to it), Harry’s version of ColdStore (Bunch of commie subversives who had to be locked up because they wanted to make S’pore Great for Communism) is the official version. 

And because it is “government-backed or state-backed” it must be the truth going by what the jnr minister said. (And don’t forget that the greatest of the Hard Truths is that “Harry is always right. Harry is never wrong”.)

Related post: Were the Coldstore detainees communists, progressives or leftists?

Coming back to the jnr minister’s comments, looks like he agrees with what a M’sian minister said is “fake news”:

“Any information related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) that has not been verified by the Government is considered fake news.

Datuk Jailani Johari (pic), the Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister, explained that fake news is information that is confirmed to be untrue, especially by the authorities or parties related to the news.”

What “fake” news will be allowed

What else does the jnr minister says about “fake news”? Fake news traffickers will be hanged.

But does the jnr minister disagree with the allegations made against his Pa and uncle who were Coldstore detainees, thereby contradicting the official narrative of “Bunch of commie subversives who had to be locked up because they wanted to make S’pore Great for Communism”?

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*The grand inquisitor explains why he did what he did

I have been asked why I spent some time asking PJ Thum questions.

PJ’s main point, in his written submission to the Select Committee, was that Mr Lee Kuan Yew was the biggest creator of fake news in Singapore, a liar, and Operation Coldstore was based on falsehoods.

These are serious allegations made in Parliament about our founding PM.

Either they have to be accepted, or shown to be untrue. Keeping quiet about them was not an option.

Thus I told PJ I will ask him questions, on what he had said.

PJ refused to answer many of the questions directly – if a person believes in what he says, and has gone through the documents carefully, then what is the difficulty in answering questions?

It took 5 hours plus to go through the documents and records carefully.

In the end, PJ said that he had not read some of the material published by ex-Communists on what happened in Singapore; that he disregarded the statements made by Chin Peng, the CPM leader; that the way he set out the most important documents (of December 1962) was not accurate; the key meetings of Barisan Socialis showed that they were prepared to use armed struggle to overthrow a Government of Singapore, if necessary; and the British had a honest view, in December 1962, that security action (which was Operation Coldstore), was necessary.

People know me – I am direct, I deal with the facts, and say it as I think it is.

I can see that Sonny Liew is not happy with what happened with PJ. It is quite understandable. Based on what he says, he and PJ are quite close; they work together in a venture. His award winning cartoon, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, is also based on PJ’s version of history.

I have not met Sonny, but I have to say he is a good cartoonist. He is a talent.

K Shanmugam Sc‘s post

Btw, I agree with the points he makes about Sonny Liew being a good cartoonist and about why he asked the questions he asked. He had every right to beat up PJ Thum. I make no comment on

PJ refused to answer many of the questions directly – if a person believes in what he says, and has gone through the documents carefully, then what is the difficulty in answering questions?

Btw, seems PJ gave as good as he got, so his whining seems strange. But that’s grist for yet another post soon.

CNA report shows public tpt Hard Truths are BS

Constructive, nation-building CNA visited Taipei and reported

How Taipei Metro turned itself around – and the lessons for Singapore’s MRT system
It suffered a spate of delays, then became one of the world’s most reliable subway systems. Talking Point travelled to Taipei to find out how the system is run.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/taipei-metro-subway-system-lessons-singapore-smrt-breakdowns-10046044

So far (and beyond), constructive, nation-building stuff.

But buried really deep in the report, there are things that contradict Hard Truths:

— “To appease the public, the Taipei Metro gave fare discounts …”

Where got this here? I don’t count the “early bird” scheme.

— “The Taipei Metro is nationalised and is majority-owned by the Taipei City government … the metro boss is Mayor Ko Wen-je – who is also one of Taipei’s most recognisable commuters, as he takes the train to work.”

Khaw or Ho got like this meh? Let alone Chairman and CEO of SMRT?

— The Mayor “told Talking Point that ticket fares have not changed in the past 20-something years.”

PAP MP Cheng Li Hui (Was she brown-nosing when she said it was wrong to cut fares, or juz stupid?) should note the above. As should other PAPpies including ministers.

— He also said: “If profit is the only criterion … then very quickly, the public transport will break down.”

PAP MP Cheng Li Hui (Was she brown-nosing when she said it was wrong to cut fares, or juz dumb?) should note the above. As should other PAPpies including ministers

Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST

Here corporates get welfare, not the people: and its foreign corporates that get the best goodies. PAP is not against welfarism so long as the beneficiaries are corporates, especially if they are foreign-owned. Ang moh tua kee kind of fascist movement?

Don’t believe me?

Well a friend, a respected economist, wrote

In Singapore’s case, there are other reasons to avoid the GST: In the context of an economy where there is an extraordinarily high profit share of GDP, is it appropriate that households bear a higher proportion of taxation than corporates? Our very rough estimate is that the direct taxes plus indirect taxes plus various levies paid by the household sector amount to about 11% of GDP, whereas the equivalent for the corporate sector is around 6%.

And

Given that foreign shareholders earn roughly half of the profits accruing to the corporate sector, the burden on Singapore households seems already to be unevenly high. This being the case, it does not seem appropriate to increase the burden on the household sector even more by increasing the GST rate.

Writer is Manu Bhaskaran. He was Tharman’s cell mate when they were convicted of breaching the Official Secrets Act. OK, OK, they were only fined. Btw, that incident showed that S’pore is a place of laws. Manu talked to his old boss in Mindef (Manu’s a scholar), BG Yeo, but BG Yeo couldn’t help. But maybe BG Yeo was ball-less or powerless, or both?

Sorry back to the article. Do read https://www.theedgesingapore.com/singapore-funding-its-rising-social-spending-right-way. Lots of other good stuff that show the fallacies of Hard Truths on Reserves, GST and govt spending.

Examples

And this brings us to the nub of the issue: What is the optimal savings rate for a country like Singapore? Savings is not an end in itself; it is the welfare of the citizens that is the end. Simply accumulating savings continuously is not the right thing to do — the right approach is to look holistically at all the determinants of welfare and then decide an optimal savings rate.

And

The thrust of the discussion above essentially leans to a view that Singapore is probably already saving enough and may even have exceeded the optimal savings rate. In that context, the better approach to funding rising social spending is to use more of the income from investments and to not raise taxes, be it the GST or some other tax.”

 

What PM should be telling local start-ups

He should tell S’pore start-ups that they should be more like Chinese companies

After all, big ang moh venture capital tua kee writing for the FT (Sorry behind pay wall) said Silicon Valley start-ups should imitate the hardworking and unfit Chinese tiger:

Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital told Silicon Valley start-ups to be more like Chinese companies, where longer work hours and a disregard for physical fitness is the norm and where discussions about “life’s inequities” are seen as distractions.

NYT Dealbook

As can be expected the ang mohs beat him up in the “Comments” section of the article, some even accusing him of wanting a return to slavery or serfdom.

Job mkt for NTU maths grads

But first contrasting HK and S’pore in one sentence:

Tycoons are as synonymous with the story of modern Hong Kong as founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is with Singapore.

FT

But thinking about it, both share a common preoblem resulting from this contrast.

The article then goes on to analyse why young Hongkies are unhappy with the legacy of these tycoons. They dominate the HK economy, stifying the aspirations and creativity of the young. Even a tycoon’s heir can feel so frustrated that he has to enter the family business, in order to get on.

Sounds like the legacy that Harry left us. Because of Hard Truths, TLCs and other GLCs dominate our economy, stifling the aspirations and creativity of the young.

And the job market ain’t that good even for elite local grads.

Recently I spoke to a friend whose daughter, an NTU maths scholar, is just about to join a big local bank’s data mining development team on a one year internship (very decent pay). So far so good.

But the catch is that out of the previous cohort of NTU maths grads who finished their internships, only 3 out of 10 manage to get permanent jobs, some continuing on a yr to yr contract. They are told it’s the economy.

Meanwhile LKY’s son rows with his siblings and fixed the presidency so that a presidency reserved only for Malays, has none of the three declared candidates having an i/c saying “Malay”. As I wrote here:

The PAP’s candidate and a candidate who speaks Malay badly both have i/cs saying “Indian” while the third person has one saying “Pakistani”. Even for me who knows about the thin culture line between Malays and some Indian Muslims* am shocked that there isn’t someone with an i/c saying “Malay” willing to stand. Don’t want to be regarded as selling out to the PAP isit? Or unlike “Indians” and “Pakistanis” feeling piseh to stand in a presidency reserved only for “Malays”.

The Hard Question about putting S’poreans First

This is something TOC, TRE and other anti-PAP new media outlets will never dare say.

Are we happy to pay more for goods and services if we try to only employ S’poreans? Because taz the Hard Truth consequence of paying S’poreans to do work that FTs do. Luckily for bleeding heart “progressives” who benefit from the lower prices that come from FT labour, this Hard Choice is made by the PAP administration who love FTs. The ang moh tua kees can feel good about calling for “S’poreans First” happily knowing that they won’t be given the choice of having it.

Here’s something from America from NYT. The employer’s tots are the tots of S’pore employers.

If you can’t get workers at $17 an hour, why don’t you offer higher pay?

In response to …, I got an email that said if we were to offer $35 an hour with health care benefits, we would definitely get people to apply; it said people who were highly qualified applicants with years of experience would probably line up at our door.

My response is: We would love to be able to offer $35 an hour as starting pay, but are you in turn willing to pay premium prices for your next roof replacement? A lot of customers we get through online lead services likeThumbtack are people looking for the best deal. They want to collect proposals from four to five businesses and most of the time choose the cheapest one.

We want to compensate our employees fairly for the work they do and the risk they take, but we wouldn’t be able to stay in business if we doubled the hourly rate. It’s not just their hourly wage that becomes a factor. Insurance in the roofing industry is extremely expensive. Not only are we required to carry expensive general liability insurance, we also have to have workers’ compensation insurance for employees on the roof. That comes to 40 percent of their wage. And on top of that, there’s payroll tax.

Hard Truths no longer relevant in PRC relations?

Many S’poreans were annoyed with the Chinese for seizing our military vehicles.  But are more savvy (or lazy?) than to KPKB in the streets (illegal anyway) or online. This can be seen in the parodies chiding China for being-minded.

But there is a sense among S’poreans that the PAP administration has been making missteps recently in handling international relations with China.

These missteps were probably due to a mixture of

— bad luck (APL not doing the proper paperwork despite being staffed by S’poreans. It was part of NOL and the retrenchments have not yet materialised now that NOL is no longer a TLC);

and

— diplomacy based on Hard Truths.

The Hard Truths applicable here are that

— so long as S’pore mouths the “one China” policy, China would keep a blind eye to our military ties with Taiwan forged in the days when Taiwan was a one-party state ruled by the KMT who also believed in “one China” because they considered themselves the legitimate rulers of China; and

— S’pore could be US’s regional cheer-leader and military base without upsetting China.

LHL’s administration certainly didn’t expect Trump to win and was betting on Crooked, Lying Clinton winning.

I suspect our strong statements on the South China Sea may also have been made in the hope of Lying, Crooked Clinton changing her mind again on TTP happen. If this is so, then this was a miscalculation, albeit with 20/20 hindsight.

Unfortunately an assertive China, a Taiwan ruled by the DPP that refuses to accept that it is part of China (a view that mirrors the view of held by more and more ordinary Taiwanese that Taiwan is not part of China),  a pak PRC US administration, and the rise of gblobal protectionism mean that we are conducting diplomacy as laid down in Hard Truths in a world where the Hard Truths are irrelevant.

Even more unfortunate, MFA doesn’t seem not to know when not to follow the manual. This is not surprising as the present lot “inherited the diplomatic playbook from the old guard and were probably selected to be maintainers of what was built, as less of rock-the-boat innovators” as someone oh FB put it.

Sad!

Finland is doing an experiment that could discredit a Hard Truth or confirm it

A Hard Truth is that welfare is bad because people will stop working if there is welfare.

Well according to the NYT Dealbook,

Free Cash

Finland is about to embark on a social welfare experiment that will test not just economic policy, but also human nature.

Jobless people in the country cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits. So for some laid-off workers, a guaranteed unemployment check is a better financial proposition than taking a leap with a new job or business.

The government wants to see if it can change that.

It is giving 2,000 unemployed people a universal basic income — automatic benefits, minus the bureaucratic hassle and penalties for amassing extra income.

Will these people set themselves up on new career paths once they are liberated from the time-sucking unemployment system? Or will they squander their money on vodka?

We will see as the trial progresses over the next two years.

Many will be keeping an eye on the results. The search for a way to lessen the vulnerabilities of working people who may have been affected by globalization and automation is gaining a sense of urgency as reactionary populism sweeps the globe.

What a load of BS from PM

And PM’s  behind the curve again. And Harry was right. These were my tots on reading his NDR speech.

But first, PM should reflect on whether talking BS is good for his health,

On Sunday night, he delivered two real hard turds in the usual truckload of watery cow dung that included why “Adak must make sure ababg becomes president, otherwise abang will never make it” and “Own race vote for own race”(Hello forgot that his Murali, black in white, whipped a charismatic Chinese dialect speaker’s ass? So hard that the latter was punch-drunk for a while. Yup his brain was in his ass.).

I mean

“We are… a nation where a young Singapore boy can achieve his dream,” he said. “Spurred by his parents’ and coaches’ unwavering belief; dedicating himself to his goal persevering through ups and downs; cheered on by the whole nation – And that’s how we produced an Olympic champion in Rio.”

“Joseph will inspire many more, younger and older, to chase their dreams, to make the impossible come true.” CNA

Ever since the Swimming Association’s Centre of Excellence closed in 2008 and until he won a University of Texas scholarship, Joseph was on his parents’ scholarship. He was lucky to have supportive parents rich enough to fund his (and their and Sporeans’) dream.

And along the way, Mum had to take on Mindef, (Doubtless, Colin was too busy?  Or horses for courses? M’sians braver than S’poreans. They dare protest on the streets,)

Is this “a nation where a young Singapore boy can achieve his dream?”. Come on, only if the parents are rich and reckless enough. While I salute the parents, let’s face it: they were big time gamblers. The odds were against them and Joseph: The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.

PM delivered another hard turd by propagating the world-view according to Disney, saying, “[Young S’poreans] chase their dreams, to make the impossible come true”. Another way of putting this would be “If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…”

S’poreans should remember one of Harry’s Hard Truths: Live in the real world. As Terry Pratchett puts it, “If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy”.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/books-film.

I’m sure our Harry would agree with him and not number one son.

It gets even funnier because the Economist (see above link) says Disney has been moving away from the theme of “If you trust in yourself…and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…” in its latest films (think Freeze) and edging towards the darker views of Terry (and Harry). PM (and PAP) behind the curve again? Like in GE 2006 and 2011?

Most of us (including the PAP’s natural aristocrats are not Olympians in sports, academia, commerce, finance or politics. At best, we are journeymen and women.

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“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

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The truth is that most of us are juz mediocre; accept this reality and be content.

How to be mediocre and be happy with yourself http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37108240

How to solve the longevity problem. the Hard Truths way

The PAP administration is always warning us that CPF funds will not be enough for retirement because we are living longer. Its solution is to mahe CPF “not our money” while pretending that “it’s our money”: taz CPF Life esp the standard plan and Our money but CPF Life solvency is our problem .

S’poreans, except the die-die must vote for any PAP monkey Think Eunice Chia-lom and Ashok Shamar), see thru the smoke.

Here are two (connected) constructive, nation-building suggestions on the longevity problem hat the PAP may want to implement that are logical and reasonable in that they flow from the logic of Harry’s Hard Truths.

From FT

Connected with the above is the solution in  the movie Soylent Green. Us plebs are encouraged to move on and our bodies then made into food for the other plebs.

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/synopsis

Err two Hard Truths got some truth

A Hard Truth is that mandatory entitlements are bad for S’pore because costs will escalate and there will be a subsidy is good and necessary mentality.. These two facts show that this isn’t BS. There is some basis

— Since 1963- mandatory spending (on welfare and other entitlements) as % of the Federal budget has more than doubled in the US

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/03/daily-chart-5

— There is  an assumption among Western left -leaning liberals and socialists that subsidies to interest groups are a necessary function of government ; that cuts are an unthinkable personal injury rather than a judgement about the rights of taxpayers relative to transfer recipients.

The other Hard Truth is that a shrinking population is not good: FTs (even if they are trash) are needed. Even Japan is thinking of allowing mass immigration.

The reports say the figure being mooted is 200,000 foreigners a year.An advisory body to Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, said opening the immigration drawbridge to that number would help stabilise Japan’s population—at around 100m (from its current 126.7m).

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/03/japans-demography

Interestingly Japan is trying to increase fertility S’pore style Last year a 20-member panel under the ministryproduced a desperate wish list to reduce what it calls “deterrents” to marriage and child rearing. It included a proposal to assign gynaecologists to patients on a lifelong basis and even to provide financial support for unmarried Japanese who undertake “spouse-hunting” projects.

BTW, this obviously doesn’t apply here

One of the first things Japan would need to do, says Kathy Matsui, chief Japan equity strategist at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, is make it easier for mothers to work. “Evidence shows that work-forces with a higher female participation rate also have higher birth rates,” she says.

In S’pore, women  too are wage slaves: “affordable” public housing makes this a necessity.

All animals and slaves are equal.

 

Moving on from Hard Truths To Hard Choices

“We have to move on because I don’t think we can tie ourselves to the past forever. The past is there for us to learn from, not for us to be shackled by,”Ms Aung San Suu Kyi recently said to the FT.

The Hard Truths are all about individual responsibility, selfless collective effort (example: LKY’s and other of the old guards’ salaries), lean social security and growth over distribution (growing the pie, not slicing it or eating it: waz the point of not eating it, juz growing it, I must ask?),

Whatever, Hard Truths were the basis of a successful social contract: S’poreans’ voting for and acquiescing in an authoritarian one-party (defacto)  state in return for material prosperity. The critics of the social contract like JBJ and Dr Chee argued (when they were rational and not on ego trips) that the cost was too high: an elected government that captures the courts, silences media critics and tinkers with the constitution to perpetuate its rule.

It was a winning formula notwithstanding their rants (or should they be prophetic warnings?) because many S’potreans (think me, despite having voted Oppo all my life because I tot PAP hegemony would not be good for the PAP and S’pore) judged that the PAP way as the right way to “get on and better ourselves”. After all Dr Chee and JBJ were upper middle crusts, not middle, middle class, lower middle class or working class. The latter even sent his kids to a posh English private school that prided it on turning out upper class English gents. To be fair to him and his sons, the boys didn’t go to the really posh schools, Eton, Winchester or Westminster. They went to a school more akin to St Andrews, where JBJ studied. As for Dr chee, he attended ACS: need I say more?

But, snide remarks aside, “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” (Alfred Tennyson,”Morte D’Arthur”).

The facts have changed. That social contract – optimal for places with young populations, rapid growth, full employment, and rising real wages – “would not be sufficient to ensure equitable and inclusive growth in the face of the changes unleashed by globalization, rapid technological change, and our own policies,”  argued five economists  in a paper released Monday on the IPS website. The authors include academics and former senior civil servants who carry significant heft in policy-making circles, including Manu Bhaskaran, a partner at consultancy Centennial Group and adjunct research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy; Donald Low, a former senior bureaucrat at Singapore’s finance ministry; Tan Kim Song, an economics professor at the Singapore Management University; and Yeoh Lam Keong, former chief economist at the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.

Analysts widely believe that the days of double- and high single-digit growth rates year-in, year-out are things of the past; Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said the city-state would do well to average annual growth of over 3% in the coming decade.

(http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/01/16/singapore-inc-needs-a-rethink-economists-say/)

In simple English these five were saying (my translation), “What is happening now is that ordinary people no longer have a sense that improving one’s lot in life is possible. Many S’poreans find themselves stuck, not getting on, doing their best not to go backwards.” They were like the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass:running frantically to stay in place.

These economists were making public in 2012 an argument that has been around since the late 1990s and early noughties. Something that s/o JBJ should remember when he claims that his ideas are being “borrowed” by the PAP: there is nothing new under the sun.

Happily for those of us who do not a one-party state, the PAP instead of listening continued to repeat, even louder, the Hard Truths of one LKY, especially the one on FTs being the future.

The PAP forget that politics is all about adapting to changing circumstances and navigating change. It was a deep intellectual failure of the PAP to understand and adapt to changed circumstances. It continued with its politics of growing the pie but not allowing people to eat more.

In 2014, we had Hard Choices. Two Singaporeans,  Donald Low (the same as the one mentioned above) and Sudhir Vadaketh, published a book that argued against the way the PAP govt provides housing and social support, and questioned how it has dealt with values such as meritocracy and identity.

At the launch of “Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus”, they said they wanted to encourage us to question the public policy beliefs and practices that had become hard truths.

Low said: “We think that policymakers, and Singaporeans in general, should be less guided by hard truths, the ideologies, policies and practices that have served us well in the past 30 to 40 years, and be more guided by this idea that perhaps there are few hard truths, there are very few eternal truths.

“The far more meaningful debate we should be having is what are the choices we realistically have.”

One such choice is whether Singapore must be a global city, said Vadaketh. He said the antagonism towards foreigners in Singapore is a result of tensions between those who see Singapore as a global city with a global identity and those who want it to have a more local identity. I would disagree with him here, it’s more about the belief that FTs help repress the wages of local PMETs and the PAP’s  administration ignoringpeople’s concerns about the impact on wages and employmentof an FT flood.

Mr Low and Mr Vadaketh wrote most of the 15 essays in the book, which also includes contributions from Dr Linda Lim, professor of strategy at the University of Michigan, and Dr Thum Ping Tjin, research fellow at the Asia Research Institute in NUS.

Mr Low hoped for a return of “the debate that used to characterise the Singapore Government” He referred to a 1972 speech by former deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee that raised concerns over Singapore’s continued reliance on foreign investments and foreign workers for economic growth. “I think we have regressed,” because debate had been “sucked out of the system” because of the Government’s success.

I disagree with him here. Unlike the likes of Dr Goh, Ngiam Tong Dow, Pillay, Howe Yoon Chong, the younger ministers and senior civil ,servants are more Catholic than the pope. They had to: who chose them to succeed the old guard, ministers and senior civil servants?

But let’s not think that the PAP is doomed like the dodo.

Bear in mind that Donald Low is the associate dean for executive education and research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Yeoh Lam Keong* is an an adjunct professor there too (in the days of Hard Truths), they’d be in exile to avoid the ISD)  and that Hard Choices saw the light of day (would have been banned)

Finally, pls note the policies advocated in Hard Choices are not too dissimilar in spirit and outline from those that the SDP is proposing (spin on the latest version). They are about

— whether people’s hard work would be rewarded by an improvement in their living standards (or how o make surepeople who worked hard to build a good life for their families got a fair deal); and

— controlling the quantity and quality of people that come into S’pore (which incidentally is a primary duty of government that this PAP administration has seemingly forgotten).

——

*One of above five and former chief economist at the Government of Singapore Investment Corp

His latest piece:http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015/02/singapores-social-compact-trilemma-the-dynamics-of-a-critically-uncertain-national-future/

 

Assumption behind “reasonable” pay for ministers badly flawed/ What’s reasonable pay for this civic service?

One study says top corporate salaries are a scam game, another that “executive managers’ pay is still determined by simplistic measures of performance that bear little relation to long-term drivers of companies’ value, according to an analysis of pay at FTSE 100 companies over the past decade”.

If so so how can our ministers’ salaries that are pegged to private sector pay be “reasonable”? Private sector salaries are “rigged”, not the result of rationality or even supply and demand..

How the salaries of top corporate executives are calculated is a scam according to the Economist, citing an academic study. (The Economist advocates things like GST, low income and corporate taxes, minimal welfare and charging owners who use their cars. All very PAP. I’ve called it the PAP’s bible.)

So the u/m is relevant in the light of PM’s comments about “reasonable”* salaries for ministers. (What do you think?)

You will be shocked, shocked to learn that your worst suspicions are confirmed. Yes, firms that hire pay consultants pay their executives 7.5% more than those who don’t. Yes, companies that hung on to their multi-service consultants paid their executives 10% less than those that switched to specialist consultants. Executives who work at firms where the board hired the consultants earned 13% less than when the consultants were hired by the management themselves. When executives get a big pay rise, their companies are less likely to replace their consultants in the following year.

The authors conclude that

our study finds strong empirical evidence for the hiring of compensation consultants as a justification device for higher executive pay.

So, be very suspicious of arguments that higher executive pay is the result of the “war for talent”, the unique importance of the CEO in a globalised world, or whatever. If such arguments were true, it should make no difference whether consultants are hired or not. This smacks more of the famous lickspittle courtier of Louis XIV, the Sun King, who, when asked the time, replied “It is whatever time your majesty pleases”. “Whatever pay your majesty pleases” is the modern equivalent.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2014/11/executive-pay

Emphasis mine.

The FT reports: Research from CFA UK and Lancaster Business School, which examined executive remuneration over the 10 years from 2003-2013 at 30 FTSE 100 companies, found there was scant correlation between the key performance indicators that companies highlighted to shareholders and the measures used to incentivise and reward senior staff.

Btw, Waz reasonable pay for this free civic  service

To residents and shopkeepers nearby, he is known as the “Mayor of Lorong 4 Toa Payoh”.For two years, Mr Paul Thanabal, 60, has acted as the area’s unofficial grassroots leader, hearing around 15 cases of elderly folk who have problems.These range from family disputes, housing issues, financial woes and medical concerns.“They come to me because they do not understand how to navigate the different (government) agencies. They don’t know what to do when they have a problem.“I act as their translator for government services,” says the stern-faced retiree.– See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/%E2%80%98everyone%E2%80%99s-problems-are-my-problem%E2%80%99#sthash.W7hBjn1G.dpuf

—

*Q: In China, particularly at the government level, the topic of Singapore’s clean government is often discussed. But very often people attribute its success to high salaries for office-holders. Do you think it is that simple?A: I think the topic of high salaries can cause a sharp reaction. In principle, we are not talking about high salaries, what we want are realistic and correct salaries. We want talent, we want morally upright people, and we want the right people for the right jobs. The most important job must be done by the most capable, the most trustworthy person. If we want the services of such capable and trustworthy people, then we must treat them fairly and equally. We must have a practical system – a realistic salary.At the same time our requirements are strict – your performance must be good. Legally, you absolutely cannot do anything you are not supposed to do, and if that happens, you will be punished under the law, and the punishment will be severe. So this is not just a question of salaries, it is also a matter of the system, an issue of transparency, and our whole culture.CNA report on his interview by a Chinese television channel.

What PM can learn from two other privileged kids

Here are what two leaders can teach our PM:who like him they came from privileged backgrounds. In fact they came from even more privileged backgrounds of wealth, where their fathers were very indulgent, at least a lot more than LKY.

One is the ruler of Dubai: For a man who does not need to go through that laborious indignity of seeking election or re-election, he is a brilliant “retail politician”. He posed for photos, shook hands with all and sundry, and deployed a warmth and easy charm that many a western politician could only dream of.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25711379

But then he didn’t get a double first at Cambridge. He too went to Cambridge but spent most of his time at the race track. He now owns the leading racing stable in the world.

Despite being a hereditary ruler, and  a serious player in racing, the sport of kings, he has the common touch, which our PM lacks.

The common, or popular, touch is very important as is shown by India’s PM. He can enthuse the people to vote for him and his party. The common touch is also important when it comes to getting people to forget inconvenient facts. Boris Johnson is the mayor of London. He is a Tory mayor in a city whose voters tend to the left. He is also a rogue (he has a record of fibbing and philandering) and buffon. And he comes from a rich family. But because he has the common touch (takes MRT when here), the voters in London adore him. He might even become PM.

The other is the PM of the UK. His grandfather was a director of HSBC while his maternal grandfather was a director of Chartered Bank (now StanChart). His father and grandfather were the senior partners in a leading City firm of stockbrokers. He went to Eton and Oxford (As did Boris Johnson).

But he knows what matters and how to say it.

“LEADERSHIP,” declared David Cameron, in announcing a series of proposals to curb immigration on November 28th, “means dealing with the frustrations” that millions of Britons to feel on this issue. “Not turning a deaf ear to it,” Economist few months back

Taz about right. Leadership is not about the application of Hard Truths and being vaguely dismissively about our concerns about their application to our daily lives, while asking for “blank cheques” despite not doing the right things by us.

And leadership is also about admitting screw-ups and correcting them. This extract appeared two yrs ago

Cameron, speaking on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, said it took courage for an administration to admit it was “ploughing into the brick wall” and change course on unpopular policies.

[Earlier in the week the chancellor had tom perform three u-turns in a row]

Cameron said, “… Nobody thinks this government lacks resolve, strength and grit.”

“It has all of those things and it also has the courage to say, ‘Look, if we’ve got something wrong, let’s change it; let’s not keep ploughing into the brick wall.'”

He added: “There have been difficulties in the budget and we’ve had to make some changes.

“When you’ve got something wrong, there are two things you can do in government: you can plough on regardless, or you can say, ‘No, we’re going to listen, we’re going to change it, we’re going to get it right.’ And that’s what we’ve done and I think that’s the right thing to do.”

(Emphasis mine)

A final tot. “The British prime minister has four distinct jobs: running the government, leading his party in parliament, leading the national party and being a constituency Member of Parliament,” wrote Sir John Major in his memoirs.

In his recent speech to the party cadres, PM seems to have forgotten that we too would know what he said by way of the constructive, nation-building media. What works for an audience of pigs cadres, doesn’t necessarily work for a audience of sheep voters, 40% of which are not happy with him or the PAP.

But most probably, he tot the sheep S’poreans would respond to the same message as the pigs cadres in a similar way (enthusiastically) because he knew that the media would report the speech.

And he wants “blank cheques”? How to give them to him? When he doesn’t understand that the PAP and the people are not one? Oh I forgot, it’s a Hard Truth that the PAP and S’poreans are one.

 

 

 

Describes two generations of PAP leaders to the T

I came across the u/m in FT. It was a reader’s comment on the UK political scene. But it applies here too.

“The current generation of politicians understand two things: how to attain power and to use the powers of office to retain power. There is very little evidence that they understand how government might be used for the public good, or the underlying mechanics of the economy and society that they are supposed to be governing.”

GCT and LHL (and their gangs) knew that to get into positions of power and retain the posts, they had to get top grades from one LKY. To do this end they applied his Hard Truths.

But they didn’t understand (like he and the Old Guard did) “how government might be used for the public good, or the underlying mechanics of the economy and society that they are supposed to be governing.”

So Hard Truths were applied mechanically as a way to pass their exams and earn the “reasonable” mega-salaries

Take the issue of globalisation and the rise of income inequality. The PAP administration until recently, did not really acknowledge inequality as a problem that merited serious policy action; simply blaming globalisation for the growing wealthy disparity here. It only started doing something because the voters were unhappy.

If it had not applied LKY’s Hard Truths mechanically, it could have realised, that the world has experienced two great eras of globalisation. The first combined minimal redistribution with minimal political power for non-elites. The second combined universal suffrage with substantial redistribution. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that redistribution is the price democracies pay for globalisation. – See more at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/07/inequality#sthash.7O8p4Lrl.dpuf. Emphasis mine.

In an essay in “Governing Asia: Reflections on a Research Journey” by Donald Low, author of “Hard Choices”, Donald Low wrote,That Goh Keng Swee was so ready and willing to question not just the country’s growth model but also its population strategy in 1972 – seven years after Singapore’s independence – speaks volumes about the state of the policy discourse in Singapore today. Goh’s remarks also hint at the fact that we have many more policy options than subsequent generations of government leaders have presented to Singaporeans, that our economic choices are not as stark and binary as they are made out to be, and that we are better off – as a society and economy – to have a robust and vigorous debate on these issues.

In 1972, there were no Hard Truths, juz pragmatic ideas to solve real and serious problems. Hard Truths hadn’t chiseled into tablets of stone to be memorised and deified by succeeding generations of PAP leaders.

 

 

Thanks Yacoob, Ms Koh

If I were the people featured in “To S’pore With Love”* and the film maker, I’d be sending flowers and fruit to Yaacon and Ms Koh Lin-Net the CEO of MDA, as a token of my appreciation, cause nothing could have created more interest in the film than banning it.  (To be ppedantic, it seems  the film has not technically been banned: only “public” screenings are banned; private screenings are OK. While we can have doubts on how the authoriies will intrepet “private” let’s not KPKB like the usual anti-PAP suspects. Wait and see.)

But given the views of those featured, it seems that they are not the kind of people who appreciate any gd deed of the PAP govt; always have to complain.

Seriously, if this is the objection

The Media Development Authority said it took issue with the film’s version of history. “The MDA has assessed that the contents of the film undermine national security because legitimate actions of the security agencies to protect the national security and stability of Singapore are presented in a distorted way as acts that victimized innocent individuals,” the agency said in a press release on Wednesday.

“The individuals featured in the film gave the impression that they are being unfairly denied their right to return to Singapore,” the agency said. In fact, it added, former Communists can return “if they agree to be interviewed by the authorities on their past activities to resolve their cases” while other “criminal offenses will have to be accounted for in accordance with the law.”**

(http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/film-about-exiles-is-banned-in-singapore/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=nytimesarts&_r=2&)

what’s so difficult about having a statement read out before each public screening setting out the “right” view?

MDA could also arrange for relevant extracts of Men in White*** to be handed out to the audience before the screening.

And get MediaCorp to rescreen the documentaries on the Hock Lee Bus riot and the 1964  race riot. Or maybe insist that public screenings of the “wrong” version of history, be preceded by the screenings of these MediaCorp documentaries. But then Maruah would bitch that this would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”: and I would have to agree with this complaint.

“Banning” is a really lazy, outdated, stupid way of handling alternate, unofficial narratives especially in the era of YouTube.

But it’s the Hard Truth way of doing things. And a reflection that the only way is the Hard Truth way. Even China, since the 1980s, has moved beyond  the tots of Mao, We still live with the unthinking application of Hard Truths, whether relevant or not.

———

*A documentary about the lives of Singaporean exiles has been banned in Singapore on the grounds that it undermines national security. [Actually the film has not technically been banned: only “public” screenings are banned; private screenings are OK. But I don’t expect Americans to be so subtle.]

“To Singapore, With Love” by the Singaporean filmmaker Tan Pin Pin was classified as NAR, the Media Development Authority said Wednesday. NAR stands for “Not allowed for all ratings,” meaning it can neither be shown nor distributed in Singapore.

Ms. Tan had traveled to the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Thailand to film the lives of nine Singaporeans, in their 60s and older. Among them were trade unionists, student leaders and Communists who fled in the 1960s and 1970s, for fear of being imprisoned under Singapore’s Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial.

In the film, they speak about their homeland, and how they cope in exile – by frying up a plate of Singapore rice noodles, or flying in to meet loved ones in neighboring Malaysia.

(http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/film-about-exiles-is-banned-in-singapore/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=nytimesarts&_r=2&)

**“A number of these self-professed ‘exiles’ were members of, or had provided support to, the proscribed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). The CPM sought to overthrow the legitimate elected governments of Singapore and Malaysia through armed struggle and subversion, and replace them with a communist regime,” MDA said.

“One of the interviewees in the film claimed that he had no choice but to join the CPM after he left Singapore when in fact, he was an active CPM member even before he left Singapore. Indeed, as another interviewee who left Singapore in similar circumstances admits, a number of Barisan Sosialis activists then were already members of the Malayan National Liberation League, the CPM’s political wing, before they fled Singapore with its help and subsequently joined the communist guerrilla forces.”

“Two of the individuals in the film conveniently omitted mentioning the criminal offences which they remain liable for, like tampering with their Singapore passports or absconding from National Service,” MDA said.

In its statement, MDA also said that the individuals featured in the film were not “forced” to leave Singapore, “nor are they being prevented from returning”.

The Singapore government has made it clear that it would allow former CPM members to return to Singapore if they agree to be interviewed by the authorities on their past activities to resolve their cases. Criminal offences will have to be accounted for in accordance with the law, it said.

“These facts had been published at the time of these events, and are on public records, even though some Singaporeans today may be unfamiliar with these cases,” MDA said

***Written by three ST men, and published by SPH, the book contains extensive interviews of PAP cadres, many of whom moved on out of the PAP to oppose it . I met two of the authors in May and commended them for calling these cadres as “leftists”, rather than the term “communists”, the term used by LKY and his gang.

Here’s another alternative narrative http://singaporerebel.blogspot.sg/2014/08/the-nature-of-paps-governance-is.html by someone who has called these “leftists”, “progressives”. Waz so progressive about adopting Mao’s tots or USSR’s practices? Btw, I don’t dispute his thesis that the PAP govt adopted the colonial apparatus; neither does the govt.

I hope this gets banned, so that more S’poreans will get to know that it exists, and watch it, hopefully.

PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”

I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy). It has been an Economist mantra that market pricing is “betterest” because it uncovers the “correct” price. It is also a PAP Hard Truth.

But now the Econimist seems to have second tots.

What if the “correct” pricing level were so high that it prohibited all but the rich from driving in the city? Gulliver paid £9 ($15) to park for a couple of hours next to a horribly overcrowded Dorset beach over the weekend. It was a scorching day, there was only one parking option and it was the first weekend of the school holidays. Unsurprisingly by the time I left attendants were turning away a long queue of cars. There was no public transport, and even if there had been it would have been impractical for Gulliver’s family and its array of apparently-essential beach tat. Who knows what the sweet price-spot on such a day would have been? Enough to put a day out on a public beach out of reach for many, I suspect. 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/07/parking-apps

Think CEEs and public housing. Is the “correct” pricing out of reach of most without access to cheap credit? I suspect so.

“A Changing world means changing policies and a changed party,” Tony Blair told a flock of die-hard supporters in London on July 21st reported the Economist.

Trouble is that the PAP’s other bible is “Hard Truths” by one LKY. But given that Tony Blair is now rumoured to be worth more than US$100m (he denies the allegation), maybe the PAP should respect his views on the need to change. A PAP MP eye doctor surely would.

 

The maths of salaries when mortgage rates rise 50%

Up to 9,000 Singapore private property owners could be forced to sell their homes if interest rates rise in the city-state, according to an analyst report published today.

On the back of news that up to 10 percent of Singapore households may have already over-leveraged their private property purchases beyond the new 60 percent limit that was recently imposed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), wealth management firm Religare Enterprises has cautioned its clients to avoid investing in Singapore property developers.
http://www.propertyguru.com.sg/property-management-news/2013/7/36279/analyst-9-000-troubled-units-could-be-on-market.

If debt servicing absorbs a third of your income when the rate is x% and the rate rises 50% to 1.5x%, it will absorb a half of your income. You will need a 17% pay rise just to maintain your non-debt spending and a 50% pay rise to return your debt servicing ratio to its previous level.

Think you will get this type of rise?

Taz why MAS is afraid, very afraid*.

(BTW, the MAS concern is a tight slap to the nation-building, constructive ST because on 3 July 2013, ST spun a rose tinted tale on a worrying statistic)

SINGAPORE households are among the most indebted in Asia relative to what they earn, according to a Standard Chartered report this week

Households had borrowings worth 151 per cent of their annual income last year, second in the region only to Malaysia, with debt at 182 per cent of income.

This is mainly because consumers here take on large dollops of property debt, amounting to 111 per cent of household income – the highest level in the region, Stanchart said.

On the bright side, households have a robust buffer of financial assets from high savings, so their debt levels are relatively low compared to these assets, the bank added.

“We are not concerned about household solvency in Singapore,” it said.

Thanks to low interest rates, the repayments that Singapore households make on loans are also among the lowest in the region as a share of income.

However, Stanchart warned that as rates rise, debt servicing may become more difficult for home owners who are over-leveraged, although current debt burdens are still manageable.

http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/infohub_article.asp?readid={617222427-18073-5858065485} BT, gave a more sober reading of the same report http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/infohub_article.asp?readid={617243129-18067-663266181})

Coming back to reality from STLand, StanChart is not the only one arguing that financial assets buffer S’poreans against over-leverage. While, rising household debt is a concern, it should also be viewed in context with the asset side of the balance sheet. If needed, they [borrowers] could draw down on deposits,” said Michael Wan, economist at Credit Suisse. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100882025

I suspect they are wrong for two reasons.

S’poreans may have financial assets, but some may have very tiny discretionary income to rely on for emergencies such as increasing mortgage payments. ST reported MAS as saying, One couple with a total monthly income of $6,000 were granted a new home loan of $400,000 on top of their existing debt, as they had a savings deposit of $90,000. But their total monthly loan repayments came to more than 90 per cent of their income. http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/infohub_article.asp?readid={568402008-18352-5608736872}

That $90,000 will be smashed peanuts if the equity in their property turns negative or juz drops, and the bank asks them to top-up. And what happens if, in addition, they have to pay higher rates of interest on their debts? As I wrote above, if debt servicing absorbs a third of your income when the rate is x% and the rate rises 50% to 1.5x%, it will absorb a half of your income. You will need a 17% pay rise just to maintain your non-debt spending and a 50% pay rise to return your debt servicing ratio to its previous level.

Then too, financial assets unless they are bank deposits can depreciate too as interest rates rise (example bonds, or structured products predicated on low interest rates). And if the deposits are in foreign currencies, these currencies may lose value against the S$.

The only financial assets that matter then are S$ deposits, which brings us to Moody’s comments on the local banking scene. While Moody’s is concerned. I wouldn’t pay much attention to Moody’s concerns over the banking sector. Credit agencies are now overcompensating for being super bullish over US sub-prime and bank ratings. Netizens, especially TRE posters should think ST, when they “rate” credit agencies’ BS remarks.

S’pore’ banks are among the safest in the world. In fact too safe, for investors, I”ve argued https://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/ocbc-look-after-yr-shareholders-not-yr-creditors-or-regulators/. FTR, I have Haw Par shares which owns shares in UOB https://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/haw-par-rediscovered-yet-again/

To end, let me repeat, “If debt servicing absorbs a third of your income when the rate is x% and the rate rises 50% to 1.5x%, it will absorb a half of your income. You will need a 17% pay rise just to maintain your non-debt spending and a 50% pay rise to return your debt servicing ratio to its previous level.”

Can get this kind of rise, or not?

‘

Better and funnier than Hard Truths

Get hold of this: “Confucius Confounded: Analects of Lee Kuan Yew” by Francis Seow, Forward by Dr M.

http://www.mphonline.com/books/nsearch.aspx?do=detail&pcode=9789679695663

Like Hard Truths, it quotes MM. But unlike HT, it keeps its quotes pithy and concise. MM should have consulted Francis Seow, and not ST, on how to produce a book that the young will want to read.

Sumehow I doubt any bookseller will bring this in.