Politics, Economics, Business, Altruism, Classical Music affects us everyday in more ways than we think. Singapore; my home; my city; my country occupies an outsized real estate on this blog. Classical music from the era of baroque, classical and romantic are my favourites.
Ethics as the yardstick by which society measure actions.
Morality the self-administered litmus test by which
individuals ascribe their actions against their values.
Legality
for constitutional, legislative and precedential is the pragmatic yardstick of
black and white in society.
Universal values and mores is therefore a punch bowl of
these ingredients so black and white does not exists save for the wide spectrum of greyness in which man co-exists
Peter Lye aka lkypeter lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2022
Amidst the lockdown or to be politically correct mobility
circuit breaker due to COVID-19, I dusted something penned on Ebola
and SARS in 2014. Recomposing the current COVID-19 global crisis against my
old brainwave in 2014, there were striking similarities and differentials on
the societal and political fronts. Seems like our
human race is more xenophobic
and short-sighted collectively than many like to believe individually.
Collectivism and individualism could be at polar opposite especially on
orphaned issues.
From the comparison between Ebola and SARS, my narrative on
the biggest similarities and differentials were along the lines of lack of therapeutics
or vaccines, orphaned disease status of the poor and infectability in terms of R0.
Ebola was clearly an orphaned disease of poor Africa. COVID-19 and SARS share
most similarities excepting orphaned disease and the spiraling extensive spill-over
into the economic, societal and political fronts. There has been reports of
overwhelming over-arching philanthropy across economic lines from rich to poor,
societal margins from capitalistic to socialistic leanings through various
governmental support schemes and lastly on political and diplomatic agendas
from cross country aids as well as putting aside rhetoric like the trade war
between America and China. Major problems plaguing these as are their shallowness coupled
with lack of depth or sincerity and lack of a trust-worthy leadership to carry these
through. Philanthropy has been sparse and even for the few, they were more
Hollywood than reality.
Echoing current IMF views that a lack of post COVID-19 solution
like who would own or pay for the bill of the bailouts cannot be reason enough
in this hour as the impact of stasis is un-imaginable chaos that will be harder
to see daylight, this line of reasoning carries the hazard where the fittest might
leverage to maximize their interest instead of being applied to the needy. This
is not an unreasonable worry as 2008/2009 schemes like the troubled
assetrelief program (TARP) in USA has mainly benefited Wall-Street who
were the main culprit leaving much of main street to shoulder the burden
although Wall-Street would opined that they re-paid every penny but imputing
the risk adjusted interest on these re-payment makes a joke as Wall-Street are supposed
to be good at pricing risk. They operate the primary risk market not only for
financial risk but a broad spectrum from food to natural resource like wheat, corn to
oil and metals. The best legal and law making minds must be deployed to craft
caveats to guard against such through either a combination of policies and wide
ranging prosecution measures embedded to make such attempts improbable. The
process of law making and has mostly tipped in the favor of industries through
their lobbying machinery against limited resources of the populace. In addition,
history through the ages and across civilizations have taught us that legal
frameworks does not ensure that justice is served in all cases as at the
perimeters, the powerful do get away normally out of legal technicalities or
the voiceless poor given all but cosmetic legal aid defense or not getting the
necessary time of day from the public prosecutors who holds some discretionary
power. Although this is not the most urgent, its importance cannot be thrown
under the bus of urgency.
The current COVID-19 situation is slightly different as the
source seems to be a product of mother nature although the verdict is not or
will never be out on it as with the likes of SARS, better to focus on the
solution for now. Unlike events like WWII, nipping the bud in terms of eradicating
the primary agents like the Axis of Evil will not solve the problem. This is entertaining
the wildest far fetched imagination that it might be a product of scientific laboratory
malfeasance or accident unless the source possess the formulary to the anti-dote
in the form of a combination of therapeutics or vaccine.
If the therapeutics and vaccine path is unlikely to yield significant
results in the short run even if FDA fast track the time to bedside
usage or relaxes the criteria and hasten the approval of non-approved pipelined
drugs on compassionate grounds, it is good that the medical community is visiting
the re-purposing of existing drugs used for HIV, Cancer, Flu and the 100 year
old plasma therapy to fill in the gap. These initiative are important as COVID-19
can do a lot of damage in the minimal 12 to 18 months it takes to get a new
drug in. Perhaps, targeted research should be directed in this direction in the
short run as what we need is a tool that can drive in the proverbial nail and
not necessary the perfect hammer.
Another big hurdle is the accuracy, speed and cost of
testing for COVID-19 for more effective epidemiological and public heath
measures to work. No test is perfectly accurate but the existing gold standard using
certain RT-PCR process has an exceeding low level of accuracy in both type I
and II errors as well as a big indefinite band in statistical speak. Head of
WHO has gone on record in an earlier press briefing comparing the accuracy of HIV
test against COVID-19 test with the former having a confidence level of more
than 99% and he did not reveal any percentages in the case of COVID-19 but add
that he is less sure. A possibility is the newness of the test and lower population
size to arrive at higher degree of confidence. Some health authorities have
adopted the 2 to 3 serial consistent testing results to increase the level of
confidence. Speed of the test is crucial with a fast spreading disease like
COVID-19 and current RT-PCR test takes hours or days to turn around. Some of the
processes in RT-PCR involves centrifugal spinning of samples and re-agents repeatedly
that cannot be short cut. Cost was a hurdle in some countries as the cost of
RT-PCR test can be in the hundreds (USD) and initial USA health insurance
coverage presented a cost issue as some patients without requisite insurance
coverage and large co-payment might not be able to afford or simply do not see
money well spent for the test. This has been largely addressed in most health authorities
by having the government bearing the cost of the test. On this note, it surfaces
that cost of health care is no longer entirely a private and individual concern
can be dependent on the least common denominator in our population and
therefore perhaps another case for social medicine.
Some diseases like COVID-19 do not live in a vacuum and pull rail
truck loads of collateral damage the length and speed of the Trans-Siberian
Railway along with them. Although the collateral damages and its interlinkedness makes it difficult to
separate between cause and effect, perhaps centrifuging the maze of collateral
damage might spread them out on a spectrum for better visibility and addressable
bit size.
Economically, it would generate simultaneous demand and
supply shocks resulting in massive un-employment or a newly coined temporary
non-employment with wage freeze. Unemployment in USA is north of 10% within
weeks of limited lock down measures. Airlines were the first industry to be impacted
intensively and extensively at the speed of light. It didn’t help that Boeing, one of the two largest
aircraft manufacturers globally was already reeling in a safety crisis
resulting in planned shutdown of some facilities after two crashes of her new
737-MAX leaving about 100 newly built 737-MAX aircrafts sitting parked in their
facilities un-deliverable as airlines refuse delivery and some even threatening
to cancel orders or not exercising purchase options for pipelined orders. Problems
of another nature surfaces as shortage for personal protection equipment (PPE)
to both protect front line staff especially those in medical and essential services. Key amongst the shortages were for surgical masks, N95 masks, ventilators and
disposable protective suits. Complicating this problem further progression or
some say regression, the manufacturing process and supply chain has become longer
and more complex. Most end products traverse continents with thousand of
touchpoints each of which is highly specialized to be optimized. This could be
one of the reasons to keep some of these manufacturing facilities and supply
chains mothballed instead being liquidated to pieces with lesser hope and longer to
re-assemble after the crisis. There is always room for re-organizing and re-purposing
resources for shorter term needs but the choices have to be made holistically for
the longer run and not solely on economic basis.
The central banks have been quick perhaps too hasty in re-acting
to ensure proper functioning of the banking system and liquidity a float. Central
banks have chiefly operated in the domain of interest rates, reserve ratios,
government bonds and the like even during various quantitative easing
undertaken previously. Even wildest dream could not envision central banks dabbling in
corporate bonds even venturing onto those rated as junk by the big 3 rating
agencies so long as the downgrade to junk happened after the onset of the COVID-19
crisis or can be attributed to the COVID-19 crisis. This might be done on the
one market without any restrictive covenants limiting certain top executive
compensation, share buy backs, dividend payments and declaration or the likes imposed
on companies that took money under TARP. This can present itself as a money making
trading opportunity by tail coating behind this novel and more opaque move by
the central banks with little or no accountability.
As most currencies are principally issue on a fiat
basis with some like HKD based on a peg to USD, a lost in trust in any major
currency could fall quickly like domino into a global monetary system collapse. The result
might be a return to the ancient practice of barter trade. Barter trade might
not necessarily be a bad temporary solution. However, the slide into barter
trade will be anything but orderly and might entail societal anarchy if not properly
unwound.
Politically, the COVID-19 crisis could polarize countries
further. It is a funny phenomenal that as our world become more inter-connected through
technological leaps in air, sea and land transportation and tele-communication,
countries are turning more xenophobic. This could further fracture crack lines already
present in relationship between countries and escalating into trade wars,
border disputes and perhaps limited scale local or regional conflict. Such
conflicts can leveraged by super powers into a proxy war with an enlarged foot print.
Assuming that humanity crosses this sea of danger to land
safely on solid ground, economic frameworks for distribution of wealth,
societal norms for power allocation and political boundaries and agendas might
have to take a reset. Communism might attempt to green-shoot but its track
record is both too poor and tainted. Capitalism will most probably still win
the day but the wide ranging GINI might not withstand the weight demanded by
social justice and the clarion call for a more egalitarian society. Finally, humility and transparency should trump over over-confident smug calls by the authorities. We might be in the early days where the known-unknown and the unknown-unknown dominates the scene. This is no time for evidence or fact based decision not that we throw caution to the wind and make decisions recklessly. It does call for novel, adoptive and practical approach in place for bureaucratic norms and precedents. For example, the not wearing masks in public is a poor judgement just because there is no proof that wearing of masks reduces spread of the disease. Why not explain that we might not have enough masks as we do not know how long the crisis might last and and need to prioritize for front line healthcare workers and are working on the supply situation actively either through local manufacturer or overseas sourcing. It was quite clear that masks were hard to come by in retails pharmacies and even at government pharmacies at times. Now that we have photos of our PM and his cabinet wearing mask during their meeting tells the obvious. The lack of public hospital beds has been a problem of many year with the long wait time between transfer from A&E to wards taking hours sometimes up to 12-20 hours is proof of that. We cannot degrade this deficit in healthcare facilities under the bus of more urgent matters any longer without paying a dear price as has been shown in various parts of the world recording needlessly higher mortality due to a lack of hospital beds and ventilators.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2019
Differential between power and authority is so dated and infantile and needs no introduction for any exposed to introductory management and further verbiage would be waste of previous newsprint. The same might NOT be for power and influence.
Earliest record has Influence as a borrowed word from the French language around 14 century AD as an astrological term. Streaming ethereal power from the stars acting upon the character or destiny of men was described by Webster. This was when understanding of celestial or astrological bodies were more folklore and religious in origin than fact based science. One could attribute a more indirect, persuasive or even mystical intonations to it although later usage does imply the inclusion of power as one of the components.
Power on the hand according to Merriam has its etymology from a vulgar Latin root word possibly equivalent to modern day potent. It has paw prints synonymously with the likes of authority, possession, control of, establishment and most importantly force. A possible diametric complement to imply use of a large force instead of sporadic or individual sustenance can also be reasonably attributed.
The Orwellian maxim of absolute power corrupts absolutely and the USA constitution on the right to bear arms must have some parallelism as the first major constitution of republican origin. The last major preceding was most probably the magna carter under a royalist backdrop where not all man are born equal. The central theme is not gun control or anywhere near that for the matter.
Influence generally have to be earned constantly and would ebb as quickly if not faster than it rises so it is less of an issue. Power once attained can be monopolized or entrenched ad infinitum legitimately, illegitimately or pseudo legitimately. Power like opium is highly addictive and a reading of political history from ancient times to recent past will attest.
Democracy is the governance through the will of the majority represented by their candidates through regular elections for a term of about 4 - 6 years generally. The minority will therefore have to live with the will of the majority so long as their basic human endeavors are not trespassed grossly. A direct democracy is not sustainable save perhaps in utopia.
Limits on term of government like in USA to 2 terms is a possible safeguard though not perfect as a puppet or proxy could very well overcome the limitations but it is not easily mounted. The bigger challenge of limited term is the challenges of seat warming by office bearers in their final term for which there is no easy answer. If auditors of public or listed companies are beginning to be rotated, why mot politicians.
Another apparatus is the segregation between, executive branch consisting of the politicians voted into office, civil service which must be apolitical and serve the executive branch within legislature. A good read or watch of the twin volume/serial of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister by BBC would provide good public education on it in a comical setting. Last but not least is the judiciary for which independence is like the capstone of ancient architecture. Though small as compared to the rest, its absence can cause the entire structure to collapse.
There are no easy answers to such difficult questions nor should there be confrontational my way or highway which is so ancient, archaic and infantile especially for elected office bearers. A more congenial way is a good way forward as it will make the process of any power transition less painful. Unless the incumbent is hopelessly addicted and only intends to stay forever.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2014
Explaining 'meta-data' is like double talk as it literally means data about data. It is fine to be
confused for the moment as the concept shall unveil itself by the end of this piece or I would be in trouble.
The Book
The latest spin in Singapore's chapter of cyber space revolves around the media regulator Media Development Authority (MDA) decision to attach a Not Allowed for All Rating (NAR) to the 2013 film "To Singapore with Love" by Tan Pin Pin. NAR is the apex rating meaning fully banned without exceptions and possession can be criminal as well. Statement from MDA on their rationale for the NAR is as follows; "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 victimised innocent individuals"
The NAR news went viral quickly on Internet with a plethora of varied comments. Some in
Tan Pin Pin
coarse to the more refined academic and poetic language. Language aside, the contents of the discourse runs through a common vein. Allow it to be screened and let the public be the final arbitrator of truth privately and not collectively as opinions are not likely to be uniform. Perhaps, the dispensation of communism, race and religion can polarize Singapore into disarray has passed. Singaporeans have grown up and no longer an immature populace requiring paternalistic oversight by the government to keep us safe from harms way. Not withstanding these, I tend to support that some government operations have to be covert for national interest and even USA acknowledges this. However, these agencies like Secret Service, CIA, FBI and Homeland Security are accountable to a very select and small Congress oversight committee. They do have some form of blank cheque but large cheques will be scrutinized by the oversight committee after the fact as many of these covert operations are time sensitive.
The dictum today's news is tomorrow's history is even embraced by Lee Kuan Yew. He recognized this in his memoir mentioning that most probably some doctoral candidates might choose to research the dispensation on Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew during his rule. Finally, the raison d'etre for this piece is to facilitate the explanation of the concept of Meta Data. So please do not attach any political affinity to this piece and the author. There is no denying that chatter ( Meta Data) about the film and its rating by the government most probably generated more and varied materials than the film itself. Some of my friends in sales and marketing went so far as "Dirt Sells" by way of free news print acreage. People are curious by nature. Banning it will generate more curiosity. Perhaps law makers should consider censoring 'Meta Data' if there is ever such a phrase or even possible.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2014 Wikipedia®Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Why Government Services Fails Sometimes? A Singaporean Perspective-March 2012
There has been enough negative press about the state of services provided by our government, governmental agencies or government related companies. It ranges from train, bus services and road congestion in the transportation sector to cost of public housing both in the new and re-sale market in the property segment. Cost of tertiary education and basis of allocation of these highly competitive seats as well as entry criteria into primary schools have also invited comments of all shape and size. Even the environment ministry was not spared for the increase incidence of flooding as well as cost of rental of hawker stalls contributing to escalating cost of hawker food which is quite a staple for most Singaporean.
After thinking hard about the surficial causes instead of the root causes being a practical person with limited resources of an arm chair hobbyist commentator, citizenry is not totally innocent for all these as they have only elected the current government into office in the 2011 general elections including the recent presidential elections where the president was elected to add injury to the whole matter. Did the nation’s consensus and consciousness failed terribly in voting in a stupid and incompetent government and if so, we must live with the consequences until the next election and perhaps beyond as some policies of the current government will outlast their term of office. I can almost hear war drums of the vast majority descending upon me that the election was only fair within the sandbox drawn by the long suffering oops I mean long serving incumbent party and personas of People’s Action Party (PAP) which has been the ruling party since time immemorial since Singapore gain independence. Policies such as electoral boundary, group representation which can distort the electoral results in conveying the will of the citizenry but let’s grow up as no election rules will result in simple majority prevails. However, if we were to use the percentage of parliamentary electoral seats against the percentage of individual votes, the gap seems fairly wide. Perhaps some study should be made about this in Singapore and published as an academic paper from the birth of our nation to the last election in 2011 and see how the empirical information paints the situation.
Causes of Failure
There are very good reasons why government services fail sometimes we must recognise some of these premises before we can be part of the solution for the greater good of society. Being a capitalist at heart and one the believes in minimal government, I have seen fairly concerned and critical about the growth of government, this discourse seems out of place as there is a large element in defence of the government. I have not changed my surname nor DNA.
Firstly is the issue of transparency. Except for a few areas like defence relating to external and homeland security, diplomatic relations and perhaps justified covert operations if any. We sometimes forget about the tremendous constraints, cost associated with making transparency in its various shades of hues from opaque, frosted, tinted to switchable variety On one end of the continuum, where and what I decide to have lunch, is a totally private matter. I do not need to publish my rationale for doing so and whether there were interested party involved in the decision. In all likelihood, there might be an interested party like going down to a café owned by my aunt. On the other end of the continuum, in government decision making, there is a presumption it is rationale, free of conflict of interest and if there are, it is properly declared, and can withstand the naked scrutiny of oversight bodies or the public. Transparency is not binary in practice and it ranges from privacy of private individuals which the government must protect in some areas to private companies for which it need only transparency to a small pool of private shareholders to public listed companies accountable to larger audience of shareholders for which anyone can become a shareholder by paying the requisite market price. When private companies go public, they normally suffer the shocking underwear syndrome and see them retching from their mouths that they now need to declare what type and colour of underwear. For the more liberal male captains of these companies that might harbour or like to wear swanky G strings meant for the fairer sex. Metaphorically speaking.
Universal access is the second plague that I sometimes nickname it the 7Eleven solution. A private business have great latitude in deciding what product and services, when, where and who it decides to do business with. For government services, there is a presumption of universal access for all within bounds of stated level of service like operating hours, grade of service etc. For example, we expect police service to be available to us anytime we need and at the force level that mirrors and exceeds the threat we face on hand. However, when we engage the services of a private security company, the expectation is only for the stated hours and for so many people armed in a certain manner. The private security company could plan their resources based on expected volume of business with some expectation that utilization will not be 100% as demand might not be a linear or so closely correlated to the supply. If demand exceeds supply, the private company can call a stock out situation and not provide the service. Of course there would be many stock out cost to be considered in addition to the short term lost in profit opportunity like longer term customer satisfaction and of repeat customers. However, for the police service, if it fails to respond to any call for service, it risks a major public affairs situation as well as potential political collateral damage to incumbent elected officials. To be fair, the police can only plan their resources based on past records as well as future projections. The journalistic maxim of 1 life too many can result in an over staffed and resourced government services.
One of the commonly cited rationales that some services like certain segment of public transport cannot be privatized because of the need to provide universal access in terms of hours of operations and route to cover unprofitable hours and routes to provide universal access. My challenge is to re-examine the operations of the 7Eleven franchisor/ franchisee model whereby shops are kept open 24 hours a days all year round including new year holidays. This business model has been so successful that its operations is almost global and have even attracted copycat franchisor operating similar models in some countries. Perhaps the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) that is both regulator and licensor of transportation services both private and public should re-consider their current practice of licensing public transport to a handful of companies to operate rail and bus to consider the public suggestion of allowing a larger pool of private small bus operators to be a part of the public transportation services like in Hong Kong which has quite similar population density and size as Singapore. Big buses and rail transportation is not likely to be a good answer to off peak hours as well as less densely populated areas and could actually represent a larger carbon footprint than private cars. Work on the licensing and oversight practical to small private operators and this could well be part of the solution to our current transportation woes than multi-billion dollar funding for more buses, bus lanes and bus stops.
The third item comprehensive planning to me is one of the greater joke. While failing to plan is planning to fail but planning like crystal ball gazing is comprehensive to the extent that is takes into consideration currently known variables and certain reasonable assumptions. Legislators and judges act as if current wisdom as embodied in the constitution/statutes and case law respectively are evergreen. I used to work in healthcare once and know of the need for the health ministry to license clinics and hospitals to ensure that they comply with certain requirements to ensure that they can provide their services safely and this is a very good idea. If a qualified doctor decides to operate a doctor on wheels service providing care to patients only on a house call basis without a physical address, I wonder how his so called clinic can be licensed. It makes sense in land scarce Singapore where rental cost is high and is passed onto patients indirectly. Here I go again getting LTA in the picture as it might be illegal to use a vehicle as a clinic as it is only meant for transportation purposes.
Smart Government
The basis for deciding whether a particular goods or service should be the exclusive enclave of the government or best left to the private sector is a very academic one and I would not want to repeat the wisdom of many before me here. There should be an oversight committee tasked and empowered by the people for the people to make recommendations to parliament. This is to ensure that in areas where the government should be playing a role and is not doing so be brought to task. It would also be empowered to investigate governmental involvement in the economy through various government owned subsidiaries, joint ventures or related companies. If the government needs to invest excess funds in the economy of Singapore, there should be a proper blind trust that does this for the government free of executive over lord or interferences.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter Safe Harbor Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Copyrights of all contents in this blog belongs to Peter Lye unless stated otherwise.
93 lives vaporized in a matter of about 90 minutes in Oslo on 22 July 2011 because 32 year old Anders Behring Breivik wanted to ensure that the authorities gave his beliefs the necessary attention. This event would change the Norwegian way of life like what 911 did to USA. Instead of taking his own life, he allowed himself to fall into the hands of the law and face the prospect of 20-30 years behind bars if convicted and accorded the full force of the law as Norway has no death penalty. Perhaps he wanted his day in court to promote his far-right ideology as by default, court proceedings are open to public and journalist. However, from his indictment proceedings which is unprecedentedly a closed one, his newsprint hours in court might not be that full. It was a surprising move as closed proceedings are the norm mostly in cases involving minors or of a sexual nature. Even the 911 court proceedings were open in US.
His actions are definitely pre-mediated over a period of 9 years but it most probably would not qualify for first degree murder as the victims are sort of random in nature. As of now, they prosecutors have not actually decided on what to nail Breivik and court has allowed a special 8 weeks of solitary confinement where only his lawyer is allowed access to give the prosecution more latitude in the conduct of the investigation and finally arriving at a charge. Perhaps extraordinary events call for extraordinary measures. On a lighter note on this very grave issue, perhaps it is a sort of reverse class action.
This event set me thinking on what can Singapore and Singaporean learn and take precautionary measures beyond policing and intelligence spheres but also on public, political, economic arenas and also rethink the meaning of justice beyond the restrictive meanings of those in the lawyering and judiciary profession. Perhaps also the parliament where our laws are made.
Punitive Measures
As a maturing society, we ought to come to terms that no amount of effort is enough to totally prevent such risks. On the same note, much can be done by our government and society acting in concerted effort to minimize the risks. To throw caution to the wind and do nothing just because it is an impossibility would amount to gross negligence.
The maximum punishment that laws in various countries differs widely but it can be classed as 3 broad categories. Death sentence by which ever means, time limited life sentence which can vary from 20-30 years and life sentence till death with no time limit. Various comparative especially between death sentence and life sentence and its impact on serious crime rates has not been totally conclusive that death sentence reduces serious crime rates. This is not a pro-life debate and one thing we can conclude that death sentence appears to be a cheaper alternative for the government in terms of managing such criminals. There is some co-relation that most first world nations consider the death sentence as cruel and so do away with it but in many states in USA, the death sentence is still the order of the day for serious crimes. It is rather conclusive that in almost all countries, the law is sufficient or perhaps too punitive in some cases.
Besides the law,the co-joining factors relates to policing and judiciary process. Being mostly libertarian at heart, I think that we need to titrate the level of policing to a sufficient level to have an acceptable level of public safety and law and order and not be driven to the extreme of being a police state with little or no freedom for the citizenry. This is a complex issue that the government in consultation with the citizenry must decide not only on the level of policing but also the matter and form as well.
Judiciary process is a very loaded item and I would be very careful else I run foul of the law. Basically, the two main categories are a judge based or jury consisting of the citizenry. There is no conclusive evidence of one over the other. I stand very economized here.
In terms of punitive measures, I am of the opinion that we overall fairly sufficient altogether there have been some controversies on both end of the spectrum. We had to contend with and grow up as a nation with regards to the escape whilst under Singapore custody of a key potential terrorist element Mas Selamat arrested by the police of our neighboring country Malaysia succeeding man hunting down Mas Selamat and extraditing him back to Singapore. On the other hand, we have also been criticized by NGOs like Amnesty International for Internal Security Act which allows for detention without trial. I recognized that this act is a caricature left behind by the British that used to be our colonial masters. I also see reasons for not dropping or changing this Act as Singapore was facing substantial struggle from communists or communalists elements both internally as well as externally like the Communist Party of Malaya and fast breeding of communism in our corridor like Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma with their larger over lords of Russian and China. This dispensation is most probably passe with communism running out of style as well as being reformed greatly like in China. Let not in our haste for popularism throw the baby out with the bath water by eliminating the Internal Security Act altogether but can explore changes to it to fit the political climate. USA enacted the Patriot Act and created a Homeland Security Bureau in reaction to 911 and perhaps having the backbone of an Act of similar nature, we can revise the Act instead.
As in all things, we must sought for balanced and well considered position rather than a knee jerk and more extremists measures. No doubt time is of the essence but we can always have temporary legislation subject to further review with a given time frame perhaps. The Patriot Act in USA is not without detractors internally as well as fear of turning the country into a police state or fear of misuse by those in powers for their own ends.
Social Glue-GINI index and Social mobility
There are research evidence co-relating high GINI with either terrorist activity, revolt and war. I see social mobility as part being a big part to address high GINI index overtime. It is my worry here as a Singaporean that our GINI index has been increasing even with a growing GDP. I am all for a meritocratic value system but it must be tampered with a humane heart and safety net for the those at the bottom of society as well as those that falls through the strict rules of the safety net. I know that the current PAP government is very resolute in not encouraging a lethargic socialist populace by holding back on expanding the social safety net. I am very concerned in this arena as a widening rich poor gap coupled with fairly porous immigrant labour laws which is a major part of the ingredients capitulating into the Oslo carnage.
Back on social mobility, history has shown that it is easy for a meritocratic society to transform into a class stratified society. The rich and powerful overtime will be tempted to change the rules of the game to preserve their place in society. Our now retired but still influential statesman Lee Kuan Yew recently was quoted by the press that he will feel sorry for Singapore if we were to have a two party government granted he has various merits for a one party system. History has proven in Animal Farm speak that absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a very common tendency based on the strength of self interest as stated by Adam Smith. Many have mis-quoted or misunderstood his self interest for selfishness and if we look deeper, there is a big differential between self interest which is lawful, moral and normal to selfishness which can disintegrate a society into the vestiges of hell surely though it might not be immediately.
We have to be true to ourselves that in the same breathe that we speak of meritocracy, we cannot deny the fact that blood the flows in us is thicker than water. This is why I was very concerned when the PAP government decided to scrap Estate Duty totally as estate duty is there as one of the tools to guard against poverty trap. In addition, we ought to watch out and arrest the spread of nepotism as we push towards an equal opportunity society as it is a very human tendency to do so. The spread of the tax burden is also a very key policy instrument and I am in favor of an across the board consumption like our GST as a good and efficient tax practice as it is easier to administer, has fewer tax loopholes as well as encouraging savings for future versus consumption. GST also tend to have a negative effect of shifting the tax burden towards the poor as generally, the poor will save less than the rich as a percentage of their income. To add injury, we have also lowered corporate tax as well as skewed the personal income tax in favor of the rich by reducing the tax rate for those on the higher tax brackets. The rationale explained by the government for the corporate tax to for us to stay competitive with neighboring economies like Hong Kong and the tweaking of the personal income tax to discourage 'tax planning' activities. Perhaps we ought to re-examine the corporate tax, personal income tax, estate duty and GST holistically together.
I am certainly no anglophile but I endorse their making equal opportunity, transparency and equitable society as non-negotiable. England was as feudal state as one can be and remains one of the last few larger economies to continue constitutional monarchy. It took England about 200 years to transition itself from an executive monarchy to constitutional monarchy in a fairly peaceful manner although there has been bloodshed compared to the number of people that died in the communist revolution that overthrew the executive Tsar monarchy in one swoop.
This is not an opportunistic endeavor to use the stage of Oslo carnage to further my personal views but looking at the Oslo Carnage through Singapore looking glass.
GINI is not a mis-spelling but a play of the words Genie and GINI. GINI coefficient is strangely used more widely by economists although it originated from an Italian sociologist Corrado Gini in his 1912 paper "Variability and Mutability". In essence, it postulated the dispersion of wealth within a socio-economic grouping. A value of 0 for total equal distpersion; everyone one in that socio-economic group gets the same measurable unit of value or money. 1 on the other hand represents maximal dispersion or spread. I have used the word dispersion in place of equality commonly used with GINI on purpose as dispersion measures the distribution strictly in a statistical sense whereas equality and inequality have a more complex bouquet of connotations of a moral, economic, and societal dimensions.
Lets deal first with GINI strictly based on dispersion. The dispersion of wealth in any socio-economic group is a multi-factorial matters some of which has its roots in the law of the land, migration/emigration, demography, governmental socio-economic policies, transfer payments, social safety nets which are likely to me more controllable over the horizon than factors like societal stratification,religion and commonly accepted moral mores. This list is not exhaustive lest my more scholarly colleagues strike me with their pen before I can begin. Let's first agree that a GINI coefficient of 0 is not tenable in any society including communal and communistic regimes nor is 1 acceptable as it is likely to result in anarchy mostly sooner than later. The answer is nether the mid-point 0.5 as each socio-economic grouping have different ideas on what it acceptable starting from 0 and also different threshold towards 1 before anarchy happens.
Secondly, lets attempt to thread the minefield of the more complex issue of equality and inequality. Dispersion measures the distribution of the fruits of labour without consideration of variability of efforts by individual in producing the fruits. These variability can be a result of more controllable elements like personal effort, education, foresight, equal opportunities etc. Thereafter the more tricky less controllable elements like demography, race, religion, migration/immigration, inheritance, intellect and congenital disabilities. I do not want to pretend to have an iota of how to define equality, what equalizers we can put in place and how far do we want to equalize the opportunities but not the outcome as each of us have to be responsible for our outcome to some extent. This affects people at both ends of the wealth spectrum and the sandwich class more to a greater extend
I sincerely hope that the committee looking into this would attempt to consider these factors. Their task is not an easy one as it is not a formulae to be dealt with but a multitude of complex issues. At first, I had a sense of shame as a Singaporean when it was announced that Gerard Ee was appointed by the PM to tackle this issue as at the back of my mind, no or not many countries have seen a need to do so. Politicians are supposedly in it wholly if not partly out of altruistic reasons but I am mindful that monetary dimension of the reward have to be enough for them to lead an acceptable level of living and not be aptly tempted to corruption. However, I also subscribe that if politicians have a tendency towards corruption, no amount of monetary reward is enough for this group. When Paul Getty one of the richest man of his era was interviewed at his death bed on what is enough, his answer was just a little bit more. However, great politicians like Ghandi was never motivated by the rewards but on the converse, it was the hardship that motivated him to do greater things.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Copyrights of all contents in this blog belongs to Peter Lye unless stated otherwise.
The recent election results in Singapore have been termed water-shed for the ruling party People Action Party (PAP), opposition parties especially Workers Party (WP) and all voters. The outcome can mean many things to many some of which includes:
time and tide might NOT heal everything and over time, people might NOT forget. Politics is no longer a once in 5 year event during election campaigning,
whether there is a need to revamp the voting system especially the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system towards a system that moves us towards a more direct form of democracy,
what messages are the voters telling both PAP and the opposition parties on the brand of democracy they want to see in Singapore not only in the future but also in the near future within reasonable bounds,
last but not least, voters were politically emphatic about the voting scene due to the lack of choice in credible alternatives opposition parties in the past but is begining to realize that every vote counts and it starts with their own vote now that we have more credible, brave and altruistic opposition parties.
My position is not a binary one that runs along party lines of PAP or the opposition but how we as citizens of Singapore can participate more actively in the political process rather than treat it as a once in 5 year event. The fault for current state of democracy lies both with PAP as well as our political empathy in the past 30 years or so creating a vacuum of political power dominated by PAP. Perhaps the one party rule in the last 30 years by PAP has been an accidental fortune in that sense. A focused non-partisan rule could have been one of the major ingredients for our phenomenal economic and social growth achieved mainly by well tried and tested economic development model based mainly on foreign investment, regional service centers and export led of certain industrial clusters likes petrochemical, electronics, disk drive, wafer-fab, pharmaceutical and bio-technology. Leveraging our labour cost advantage, investor friendly policies and good industrial infrastructure, the unemployment problem was plugged by PM Lee Kuan Yew and his team. The foresight and gumption of the second generation leaders lead by PM Goh Chok Tong with the advantage of Lee and his team supporting Goh. The single party enabled Goh to execute a unilateral risky but calculated strategic move away from labour intensive to skill intensive by raising wages, skills and infrastructure in one bold orchestrated move and it worked again.
PM Lee Hsien Loong son of Lee Kuan Yew took over the reign from Goh. Lee jr started his reign with an unfair disadvantage having to defend nepotism right from the start. His father's generation was equated to building the hardware. Goh's dispensation built the software. Now that we have a complete solution in computer speak, Lee jr now is now charged with building the heart-ware to bring it from 3rd world to 1st world. Besides nepotism, Lee jr did not have a good economic and political developmental template to depend on unlike his dad and Goh. His team actually did not have the full mandate with his dad and Goh still looking over his shoulders closely most probably until recent past with his dad and Goh stepping down by exiting the cabinet formally.
Lee jr filled his team with capable technocrats that mostly graduated in the top tier of ivy leagues and I believe that most were well meaning in wanting to bring Singapore to 1st world. Besides the unchartered water that Lee jr and his team were maneuvering into, they also had to face an aging and dwindling population as the total fertility rate headed south to reach 1.2. The technocratic team went into short term mode to cure it in a measurable manner that they knew best and with dated advice from his dad and Goh. Tax incentives and more child friendly policies were put in place to very little effect and the team sent in the crash cart and tried to revive the dying patient by immigration on a massive scale. Being a relatively young emigrant country, it was in the process of building a common identity. The mass immigration created a whole host of issues like depressing the wages of the lower strata of society and lead to a growing GINI index that accompanied good news rise in GDP. All was not exactly rosy on the domestic front for example health care cost faced by the population escalated because of a combination of aging population and public healthcare policies like mean testing. The escalating price of private housing spilled into public housing. Transport system was also facing congestion on public roads as the Electronic Road Pricing and Certificate of Entitlement meant to curtail usage and ownership respectively were not only unable to curb the congestion but lead to an increase in transportation cost overall. Public transportation was faced with sardine packed mass transit railway during peak hours mirroring the situation in Japan.
Many initiatives were put in place in the arena of heart-ware like giving the arts and cultural scene a lift and liberalizing censorship laws. These initiatives not only take relatively more time than hardware and software to show results but is also less measurable.
My reasons for choosing Bruckner as the theme song or symphony for this occasion are due to the following historical insights on this piece:
this symphony was the piece that launched the composer Anton Bruckner career into stardom. I sincerely hope that this particular water-shed election results will lead to a right angle turn for our country as a whole,
the second movement Adagio was used to announce 2 historically significant turning points like when Admiral Karl Dönitz announced Adolf Hitler death on 1st May 1945 and also just before announcing his defeat in Stalingrad on 31st January 1943. On this note, I do hope that the election results as a clarion call for danger ahead if we maintain status quo and dismiss the election results as noisy crying babies that can be easily pacified and forgotten.
It cannot be business as usual for PAP, opposition parties and the voters all alike and may we have a right angle turn like what Bruckner had with this symphony.
For those that like to have a deeper understanding of Anton Bruckner and Politics, there is a book "Bruckner's Symphonies-Analysis, Reception and Cultural Politics" by Prof. Julian Horton. Cambridge University Press (2004) ISBN-13 978-0-521-82354-8. I have not read the book personally but a cursory browse says it can be quite academic.
Cheers,,,,, Peter Lye
Safe Harbor Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Copyrights of all contents in this blog belongs to Peter Lye unless stated otherwise.
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