Why are they so happy?

Yesterday was an historic day. Barack Obama became the first African-American to be elected to the White House. The scenes of jubilation reminded me of the time when US troops invaded Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled.

I ask myself. Could some of the happiness of the American people be due not so much to Obama’s having defeated his Republican rival John McCain, but that somehow these people have mistakenly seen this as a toppling of the immensely unpopular George Bush?


Related posts - Wrong move

The Palin Effect

Lately we have been hearing a lot about the Bradley effect. Supporters of popular US presidential candidate Barrack Obama are worried that in even though all the polls showed Obama to be ahead of his Republican rival John McCain, he may still lose due to the Bradley effect.

I think McCain’s supporters should also worry about what I call the Palin effect. Although many of them fiercely support her, on the actually polling day, it might suddenly dawn on them that there is a very real chance that the 72-year old John McCain may not survive his full term in office if he wins, and then, horror of horrors, Sarah Palin will take over as president of the United States of America.

PM did not address the real issue

Our prime minister has finally spoken on the issue concerning the Lehman structured products. But sadly, he did not address the real issue. Word for word, this is what PM Lee Hsien Loong said according to this report:

“I think this is a very difficult and not satisfactory way to do things in the long run because:

First of all, the government should not be making decisions for individuals. Individuals should have the right to decide for themselves ……

Secondly, the government is not in a position to guarantee what is safe and what is not safe because there is nothing that is 100% safe.”

(The reporter speaking) “PM Lee said that the government’s role is to ensure that the financial system runs smoothly and fairly; not to guarantee the outcome, but to make sure that its people know what they are doing.”

I completely agree with everything the prime minister has said. But that is not the real issue with the present problem is it? The real questions which Singaporeans (at least this one) are asking is this:

1) Shouldn’t the government be alert to what is going on in the financial world; that large numbers of highly-risky products are being sold aggressively and in a not entirely honest manner to old, uneducated and thus highly vulnerable members of the public?

2) If the government is aware, shouldn’t it have the foresight to anticipate today’s ‘fiasco’? I recall that every time a top leader of this country argues for the high salaries of ministers and civil servants, they quote this ability to foresee trouble and take preventive action as one of the qualities that Singaporeans are getting in the bargain. The alternative is to suffer much costlier consequences, such as seeing the economy falter and our hard-earned savings and assets dwindle overnight; which seems to be exactly what is happening here.

3) When products that are harmful to the public are being sold to thousands of unsuspecting citizens, isn’t it the duty of the government to step in and put a stop, as what the AVA has done in the case of the melamine-tainted milk products from China?

We need a watchdog to watch the watchdogs

What SM Goh Chok Tong refers to as ‘The Lehman fiasco’ and the Straits Times calls ‘The Lehman Debacle’ has hoarded the newspaper headlines lately. I think a more appropriate label is The Lehman Tragedy. The Great Mas Selamat Escape we can call a ‘fiasco’ (meaning an event that is completely unsuccessful, in a way that is very embarrassing or disappointing) or ‘debacle’ (meaning an event or situation that is a complete failure because plans have failed). But this one is far more serious and far-reaching in its effect on the lives of Singaporeans, nearly ten thousand of them.

This tragedy has highlighted a big problem in our country. The watchdogs in whom we have so much faith have been caught napping time and again. It appears we need another watchdog to watch over our overpaid, over-complacent watchdogs.

Just look at this headline. MAS (The Monetary Authority of Singapore) views mis-selling seriously. If so, why do you wait till now, after much damage has been done before you start to take action? Who needs watchdogs that only start barking when the burglar has long escaped with the loot?

To matters worse, their response to citizens’ cries has also been found wanting. According to a Today article of 18 October, Mr Tan Kin Lian lamented thus;

“Singapore investors had to make complaints with the financial institutions which sold the products to them, which resulted in some of them being challenged or ridiculed in some cases. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority adopted a better approach. They set up a hotline and service centre and employed 100 people to record the complaints and investigate the case where there was evidence of mis-selling.”

How disappointing. All along we thought that in this country we have the best talents that money can buy serving in the government and civil service.

And yet another watchdog has only just woken. Take a look at this other headline, also from the Straits Times:

As usual our MPs only start to raise issues in parliament long after the problem has been widely publicized in the media or the internet. Isn’t this a case of closing the barn door after the horses have bolted?

Here are a few more issues that I am watching to see if our watchdogs are going to take action before disaster strikes again.

Problem no. 1 - The scams by housing and education agents.

These crooks prey on innocent and ignorant foreign workers and students. The foreign workers thought that Singapore was an ‘honest’ country where people are all law-abiding. They hand over their hard-earned savings to unscrupulous agents who promise to find them jobs and lodging. But once they come into this country, they find themselves stranded; without jobs, without a shelter over their heads. And to make matters worse, the authorities show no sympathy to their plight. Some are arrested, imprisoned and caned and then unceremoniously kicked out of our country.

Likewise, many foreign students have been conned into paying their parents’ hard-earned savings to housing agents who make lots of promises and then disappear with their money.

If our government does not do something about these two problems soon, we are going to find ourselves being branded a country of crooks by some international newspapers or rating agencies. At that time, you can be sure that our authorities will start to make a lot of loud protest and write long letters accusing our detractors of biased-reporting or ignorance. Why don’t you act now?

Problem no. 2 - Heavy vehicles that that are driven like Formua 1 cars on our expressways.

So many complaints have been raised by ordinary citizens in the newspapers and blogs about these drivers from hell with their dangerous cargoes. Other than a few standard letters to the press claiming to take ‘a serious view’ of the problem and citing some statistics, nothing much seems to be done. Everyday, our lives and property are still being threatened by these road bullies. I guess we have to resign ourselves to the fact that we need a major accident like this one before the government will act take real action.

Again I ask. What is the use of having watchdogs that do not watch? We have one that is supposed to watch the transport operators. Yet we see these monopolies increasing their fares on a regular basis as if it is a law of nature; and totally oblivious to the cries of the public. And then they have the cheek to report record profits every year, and no doubt reward themselves with fat bonuses.

And then there is the one that is supposed to watch over the Singapore Power, another monopoly. Everyday we read of falling oil and petrol prices and what do they do? They increase electricity prices by a unbelievable 21% this month. Oh you peasants do not understand the intricacies of energy pricing. Yeah sure we don’t; just as those aunties and uncles who lost their life savings do not understand the intricacies of mini-bonds and high notes or what have you. What I do know is that the petrol companies have been reducing their prices repeatedly these past few weeks. When, I would like to know, is the Singapore Power, and the transport companies going to reduce their prices. Can the watchdogs assure us that when the time finally comes to reduce the prices, it will be done in a fair manner?

Why? What is the root cause of this problem? The answer is simple. The people are lazy and gullible. They leave everything to the government, reasoning that since we have the highest paid and most highly rated leaders at the wheel, we can safely leave them alone to do their jobs. Unfortunately, as recent events have shown, these watchdogs have become complacent. They keep praising themselves to justify their high salaries. But nobody seems to notice that many of the highly paid executives from financial institutions, against which our leaders have benchmarked their salaries, are now branded as incompetent and greedy by one and all.

Thus I say we need a watchdog to watch the watchdogs. But who can fulfill this role? We can’t depend of civic-minded individuals like Mr Tan Kin Lian. There are just too few of such heroes around.

How about the opposition parties? I say they are even worse. They are not napping. They are hibernating! But unlike their counterparts in the animal kingdom, these guys do not hibernate for just a season but for 4 years; waking up only when election time comes around.

So we have to rely on ourselves. And the only weapon we have at our disposal is the internet.

I don’t support Singapore's F1 night race

Recently Singapore hosted the world’s first night Formula One Grand Prix. Many of my friends were so excited about it. I am happy that they had a good time.

The event was hailed as a big success and everybody, including our prime minister was ecstatic that Singapore not only got itself noticed by millions of television viewers worldwide, but had our reputation as a super-efficient city confirmed by many visitors who rightly proclaimed that “only Singapore could have pulled this off.”

Personally, I don’t support the F1 and did not even watch the race on TV. Somehow in this age of universal distress over global warming and dwindling energy resources, I find it difficult to get excited over a bunch of petrol-guzzling machines speeding round and round an arena lit up by artificial lights till “it was like day”, and getting nowhere.

But I did not want to be a spoilsport and thus chose to blog about it after the event is long over.

** CC Photo byFlickr member bernardoh

Of DSLRS, Printers and COEs

The recent edition of Digital Life carried a series of articles about the rapid fall in prices of digital SLR cameras in recent years. As a result sales have gone up tremendously. Whilst these articles loudly extol the wonders of DSLRs, they left out one important detail. Without lenses, the potential of these gadgets are severely limited. Neither did they mention that prices of lenses remain high, often costing more than the camera body and a basic kit lens. The manufacturers certainly know that with more and more photographers switching to DSLR, it is only a matter of time before sales of lenses will rise correspondingly.

Such sales strategy is also adopted by manufacturers of printers, Better and yet cheaper printers are being introduced regularly. But do you see the price of printer cartridges and toners coming down? The answer again of course is no.

Now what has these got to do with car COEs in Singapore you ask?

Don’t you see the car population increasing rapidly in Singapore in recent years. Our government has been so kind to us motorists who simply love to own cars. Instead of reducing the number of cars on the road, they have been releasing more and more COEs causing the prices to come down and Singaporeans rushing to the car show rooms.

Now with so many cars on the road, and complaints of traffic congestion everywhere, the government is justified to increase the number of ERP gantries. Consequently the ERP system is fast living up to its name of making "Every Road Pay". Certainly after forking out thousands of dollars for your precious car you are not going to leave it in your car park are you? So we simply Pay and Pay. Some pay once a day, some twice a day and some even twice within 5 minutes, as I did the other day when I drove into town via the CTE exiting at Merchant Road and then turning into Hill Street as I have been accustomed to doing.

And with more cars on the road, and ever skyrocketing oil prices, do you see the government reducing the fuel taxes? No way! was the reply when some naive Singaporeans actually made the suggestion.

Yes, the prime minister is right. Our government is not stupid.

Our government is not stupid

Of course our government is not stupid. In fact they are brilliant – especially when it comes to collecting money from us.

A financial guru once said (I wish I had read this when I was younger) that the best way to earn a high income is to build pipes that bring in money on a continuous basis and not carry them individually by buckets. This is exactly what our government does with unmatched skill. They build lots of small pipes which collect money from us on a daily basis; GST, ERP, COEs, fuel taxes, causeway toll charges etc. etc. etc. Then they put aside some in a bucket and give it back to us once in a while and the figure appears so generous, $3 billion! Contrary to what the prime minister said last night about not publicizing that enough, the ministers and the newspapers never tire of talking about it. What Jack Neo joked about in his movie Money No Enough 2 is common knowledge and all over the internet.

Another feature of our government’s money-collecting technique that is simply brilliant when compared to, say our neighbour up north, is that they collect our money even before we spend it. Let’s take the example of the cash card. All of us have at least two of them. Before you use it, your money has already been collected. If you are so careless as to lose one ..… too bad. If you forget to insert one into your IU when you drive under an ERP gantry ….. again too bad.

Likewise for our car park coupons. Most of us have at least $30 to $50 worth of coupons sitting in our glove compartments. If you are so careless as to accidentally tear off the wrong tab for the year or month ..… too bad. If you underestimate the amount of the time you need to park ….. again too bad. The ever-efficient and friendly parking wardens will come along and issue you a surcharge. If you overestimate the time you need to park your car and tear 1-hour coupon when you need only to spend say, 35 minutes ..… too bad. You cannot even sell the remaining 40 cents to the next driver. In this aspect, I must say that the Malaysian authorities are really dumb compared to ours. In many Malaysian towns, they still use the primitive coin-operated parking meter system. Any unused time can actually be utilized by the next driver.

So the PM as usual is right. The government is not stupid. MP for Hong Kah, Ms Amy Khor puts it best (when commenting on 2007 budget surplus of $6.47 billion):

“It is this far-sightedness and prudence, as well as the many timely and astute policies implemented, that have played a major role in bringing about such a large surplus.”

Our Angsana mentality

Last Sunday, I stumbled upon a very insightful documentary on Arts Central. Entitled, Singapore Standard Time, it was one of those low profile, low budget, local productions. And typical of the Singaporean, “local ginger not hot” (本地姜不辣) mentality, Media Corp hardly gave it any publicity. In fact, as you can see from the TV programme that appeared in the Sunday Times, this documentary wasn’t even announced to the public. I think they just decided to insert it to fill the empty time slot after the movie, Cages, ended. What a contrast from the huge publicity that Channel News Asia gives to its expensive, imported Documentary of the Week shows like this one and this one.

Produced by Lo Hwei Shan and Directed by Joycelyn Khoo, this documentary takes a good hard look at Singaporeans’ obsession with instant results; or what I would call, The Angsana Mentality. Featuring interviews with a number of Singaporeans including Dr Wee Yeow Chin, a botanist, Dr Woffles Wu, a cosmetic surgeon and Ivan Heng, a famous theatre director and playwright, it “explores the ways speed has taken root in Singaporean culture. Driven by an ethos of efficiency and instant gratification, we have taken speed to unique heights, from setting the world record for the world's fastest SMS text message, to the patented 20-minute facelift.” (quoted from the synopsis at this website)

Dr Wee, the botanist, for example spoke about our Garden City campaign and how we planted lots of trees propagated by stem-cuttings to provide ‘instant trees’ for our roads and parks. Another gentleman, an aquarium owner spoke about the craze for luohan fish at one time, because many superstitious Singaporeans wanted to look for numbers on the fish’s body to ‘buy 4D’ and acquire instant wealth. Yet another interview was with a businessman who had developed an ‘instant’ Hainanese chicken rice package for sale to tourists. The final interview was with Ivan Heng. He lamented the decline of interest among students for literature in our schools; possibly because it was a difficult subject to score an A in; and if I may add, of little value in ‘pragmatic’ Singapore.

I find botanist, Dr Wee’s narration of how we transformed Singapore into a garden city in 40 short years most telling. Initially, we planted a lot of Angsana trees to provide instant shade and greenery to our roads and parks. But it was soon discovered that Angsanas were prone to branch breakage, especially during heavy storms, and infection by a fungal disease known as the "Angsana Wilt", which has killed many of the trees. They were later replaced by sturdier trees like the Raintree. He also explained why trees grown from stem cuttings were not as resilient as those grown from seedlings. A tree planted from seedling develops vertical roots which are anchored deep in the ground. In contrast, a tree grown from stem cutting develops roots that spread out sideways and thus could not provide as strong an anchor. But the latter provides fast results.

Coincidentally, over at Channel 5, they were airing the daily news roundup of the ongoing Beijing Olympic Games. As Singaporeans well know, this year we are keeping our fingers crossed that our athletes will finally bring back a medal. Our hopes rest on a handful of mostly foreign sports talents like Li Jiawei and Tao Li. I cannot resist drawing a comparison between these foreign imports and Dr Wee’s stem-cut trees.

In recent years, our government has been going all out to woo foreign talents to come to our shores. We offer them lots of attractive incentives and hope that at least some of them would settle down and ‘sink their roots’ on Singapore soil. Would they form deep roots like us local ‘sons of the soil’ who are born and bred and served our national service here? I hope so.

I have argued before that our foreign talent policy is in fact quite short-sighted. After watching Singapore Standard Time, I understand that our leaders too are suffering from the Angsana mentality. Such a mentality is best exemplified by former prime minister Goh Chok Tong’s famous 1998 National Day Rally Speech where he openly declared that with the help of foreign talents, Singapore is going to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals. He thought that by waving the mighty Sing Dollar, the likes of Zinedine Zidane would flock to our shores.

I can think of many other examples of such Angsana mentality. One of them is our abortion law. In 1970, we decided to legalise abortion because we were afraid that Singapore would have a population explosion. Now we are contemplating ‘unlegalising’ abortion because we facing a ‘shortfall’ of babies. It is really laughable if it weren’t so tragic. While other societies agonise over the moral dilemma of taking innocent lives, here in ‘pragmatic’ Singapore, we debate about baby shortfalls and low yields of our women’s wombs.

Another example is our language policy. At one time, we were worried that Singaporean’s standard of Mandarin was too low. Dialects was singled out as the chief culprit. Overnight they banned Cantonese tv programmes and movies. Overnight, they changed the names of our towns into hideous hanyu pinyin names like Hougang, Yishun, Bishan and Zhujiao. Suddenly, all our deep-rooted heritage like Chua Chu Kang, Pek San Teng, Nee Soon and Tekka were excavated and incinerated.

Anyway, the documentary ended on a slightly optimistic note with both Dr Wee and Ivan Heng acknowledging that our Angsana-land is a miracle of sorts. "Which country in the world can go from third world to first world in 40 years?" asked Ivan Heng. "And which country can turn a third world slum into a beautiful garden city simply because one man willed it?" asked Dr Wee?

Still I hope we never have a Katrina or a Nargis to test those roots.