It’s Easy to Start a Fight – Finishing the Fight is Another Matter

I know it’s not manly to admit but I avoid getting into fights. I did get involved in a few school-yard scraps at school. However, after my first-year at Churcher’s, fighting was done in the controlled environment of the Karate Dojo, and my non-contact career ended in an inter-house tournament at Charterhouse School, when my opposite number clipped me in the eye and the matron refused to let me continue. The only period of my life where I had to deal with physical violence was in my first marriage and that as they say was thankfully terminated.

So, while it may not seem manly to admit that I avoid fighting, I will state that this position comes from experience of having been in fights rather than any form of cowardice. Having been in a few school-yard scraps, I quickly learnt that there are some key lessons about fighting; namely:

1.       Fighting is a two-way streak – just because you can throw a mean right hook, it doesn’t mean the other guy can’t;

2.       Nobody wins a fight – both parties will get hurt; and

3.       Fights are damn easy to start – finishing them on the other hand is a different story.

I believe that physical force should only be used as a last resort for those very simple reasons. Yes, sometimes you may not have a choice and so, you fight with the full intention of eliminating the threat against you but that should only be the last resort.

I talk about my school-yard scraps because what I learnt from them has shaped my views on leadership and conflict. A good leader should always look for every solution possible before going into conflict. Then, if one goes into conflict, one needs to do everything possible to win it quickly and to get out. Where possible, a good leader should never throw the first punch and most importantly he or she needs to have an idea of how the fight finishes.

The two instances that come to mind are George Bush, the elder, who handled the first Gulf War in a masterly fashion and Mrs. Margaret Thatcher who set clear objectives for her military during the Falklands War.

Both leaders did not throw the first punch (Saddam invaded Kuwait and the Argentinians moved into the Falklands, which is sovereign British Territory). Mr. Bush, played it correctly by imposing sanctions via the UN, trying to negotiate and building a coalition of Arab Nations (Saudi, UAE, Egypt etc) to remove Saddam from Kuwait. While Mr. Bush was criticized for allowing Saddam Hussain to butcher people in Iraq in the aftermath of the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, it turned out to be the correct legal (UN mandate only allowed for the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, not the invasion of Iraq), and in some ways, moral decision (Iraq did not descend into ISIS led chaos).  

Both leaders did what they needed to finish the fight. Americans in particular have worked on the principle of “shock and awe” in their military campaign, where American firepower has overwhelmed and won the battle. In Gulf War I, this was exceedingly successful – the Iraqi forces couldn’t respond to what hit them and the fight was finished before it was over. Overwhelming force wins battles (in little Singapore, we always work on fighting with a three-to-one advantage – so you can imagine how much more the Americans bring to the table).

Intelligent leaders fight as a last resort and when they do fight, the fight with the full intention of winning and knowing how to finish.

The opposite extreme are the stupid ones who enter fights without an idea of the end game. Just as Bush the Elder who entered a fight in Iraq with a clear objective, you had Bush the Younger rushing into Iraq with no end game in mind. Yes, lots of said about getting rid of Saddam but there was no after thought of what would come after. As bad as Saddam was, he had a functioning state of sorts and Iraqi’s preferred him to what followed – namely ISIS.

While its no secret I disliked Bush the Younger’s eagerness to get into fights without thinking, I abhor the current administration that picks fights for the sake of it. There has been no clear objective of what any of those fights were meant to achieve – think of the fuss made over NFL players who kneel during the national anthem – who cares – haven’t you got better things to do?

Seriously, how do you treat 70-year-old bully’s seriously? The Donald will pick fights with allies because the fights are only verbal and guess what – they don’t hurt him personally. The Europeans for example, are not going to move against Trump Organization’s miniscule investments in Europe no matter the times he berates them for not spending enough of defense or slaps a tariff or two on them. His biggest fight is perhaps against China. Let’s take note that this is a “trade-war” and not an actual war. He’s crowing about how he’s screwed a telco company from China and US farmers pay the price. The costs of the trade war are not coming from his pocket.

It’s a different story when it comes to people who have shown a willingness to do real damage. The Donald become a sniveling sidekick to Mr. Putin whenever they share the same stage. Why is that? Mr. Putin is physically more menacing; the intimidation is not a bluff and Mr. Putin has shown a willingness to spill human blood to get what he wants. Donald, who very keen to fight with the disabled, migrants from shitholes and 16-year-old girls, suddenly craps in his pants when in the presence of someone who is obviously quite happy to strangle people with his hands.

Bush the Elder had a great America that not only had an overwhelming amount of firepower but an uncanny ability to build coalitions and got the world to unite behind America’s cause (the one and only time all permanent members of the UN Security Council have agreed on a resolution).

The school bully by contrast, has all pissing with laughter at America. The man is making America great by showing us that Americans are shit scared of a group of peasants from the third world that they have to hide behind the said wall and they need the world’s strongest military to point everything it has against …..wait for it….a caravan of half literate migrants (I can help but repeat myself-ad nauseum – they couldn’t get out of Syria fast enough – the Syrians have declared their intention to shoot at them).    

Donald is of course, only the most famous school-yard bully who can only pick on people with disabilities. The world is filled with them and managing them is a skill that has become increasingly necessary in today’s world that celebrates impotence.

Appeal

Being an independent blogger, taking on and discussing issues is tough but important work. Keeping the discussion on issues that may not be popular but need to be discussed has a value, especially when it gets people thinking. In an age where everything is about the big collective voice, it has become more important to have platforms that allow independent voices to be heard.

In this regards, the Tangoland Blogs, would appreciate any donations so as to have funds to invest in a platform that does just that. We shall be exceedingly grateful for donations no matter how small, which can be made the following paypal.me link.

https://paypal.me/tangligotitdone?locale.x=en_GB

The Problem with Adults

Back in my school days, I had a guardian who used to advise me on a regular basis that I should never grow up and remain a child. His argument was simple – “Children only recognize if you’re a good person or a shit. Adults on the other hand allow their judgement to get caught up in things like, is he rich or powerful.”

I didn’t appreciate those words and the importance they held until I read the reactions of a few people to 16-year old Greta Thunberg’s impassioned speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. In that speech the 16-year old called out the great and powerful of the world for doing nothing about a serious ecological issue.

It was an emotional but rational speech, outlining the concerns of a young lady, concerned about her future. It was one of those heartening moments, to see a young lady confronting the world about an issue that she cared about. The achievement is enhanced by the fact that Ms. Thunberg has Asperger’s, which is a mild form of autism and was speaking in her second language. It was one of those moments when you look this 16-year old and you think “wow – she’s taking on the world – where was I when I was that age (back in the Mount – my junior boarding house, looking to get laid unsuccessfully).”

Well, I seem to have missed something here because, some of the adults in the room decided that it was time to take down this young lady. The most prominent was the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who famously tweeted that he saw a happy child looking towards a bright future. The nicest thing that could be said about the Occupant’s tweet, was the fact that it proved the British adage that Americans don’t get sarcasm to be wrong. Given the Occupant’s inability to pick fights with people his own size (We are talking about the Commander in Chief of the world’s strongest military who couldn’t get the troops out of Syria, where they have real guns and the intention to use them on Americans, fast enough so that they could fight against a caravan of migrants with the evil intention of cleaning the shit of Americans), I guess this was no surprise. Here are some of the links on Mr. Trump’s tweets:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/trump-slammed-comment-greta-thunberg-fervent-speech-190924091035382.html

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/24/20881541/trump-greta-thumberg-tweet-un

What was a little more disturbing, was the fact that people thought it was appropriate to post pictures comparing young Ms. Thunberg to the children than were used as propaganda during the Nazi era as you can see from the picture below:

Mr. Trump was not the only world leader to take on a 16-year old with Asperger’s. Not to be outdone in the area of machismo, Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr. Scott Morrison decided to take on Ms. Thunberg for “subjecting Australian children to “needless anxiety.” The report on Mr. Morrison’s comments can be found at:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/25/morrison-responds-to-greta-thunberg-speech-by-warning-children-against-needless-climate-anxiety

As if taking on the US President and the Australian Prime Minister, Ms. Thunberg had to take on another big name in the world’s great and good – Singapore’s most prominent blogger, Xiaxue, who described Ms. Thunberg’s speech as “Damn Cringe.” The report can be found at:

https://mothership.sg/2019/09/xiaxue-greta-thunberg/

If I were Ms. Thunberg, I would have an immense sense of pride in getting the most powerful people in the world getting worked up by what she was saying. That is an achievement. I can help repeating this – I don’t have Asperger’s and communicate in my first language most of the time and can’t get people to react to anything I say – she, by contrast is doing it in her second language and having people like the US President and Australian Prime Minister crap in their pants. That is an achievement.

The best part about this whole speech is that Ms. Thunberg should have been more emotional. She has collected the science for her case and she has said – “Don’t listen to me – listen to the science.”

Yet, we the adults have refused to listen. The evidence that climate change and its ill effects have been with us for a while. Clean technologies are getting better (even in hydrocarbon dominated economies like the UAE are investing in them. I also think its better to invest in clean technologies that create high value jobs that cling onto the old polluting stuff) – so why aren’t we doing anything about the problem.

In the last month, I’ve sat in a very wealthy country in privileged surroundings choking on an environmental issue started in another country. I look at the brown patches of grass in my neighborhood lawns because it hasn’t rained for ages and I live in the tropics where rain shouldn’t be a problem.

Come on, it’s so obvious that Ms. Thunberg has a point. Isn’t it time we get off our arses and do something to ensure we have a vaguely livable environment rather than drilling our heads into the proverbial sandpit of happy ignorance and stupidity? Seriously, is the only solution for Mar-A-Lago to be hit by a tropical storm?

Appeal

Being an independent blogger, taking on and discussing issues is tough but important work. Keeping the discussion on issues that may not be popular but need to be discussed has a value, especially when it gets people thinking. In an age where everything is about the big collective voice, it has become more important to have platforms that allow independent voices to be heard.

In this regards, the Tangoland Blogs, would appreciate any donations so as to have funds to invest in a platform that does just that. We shall be exceedingly grateful for donations no matter how small, which can be made the following paypal.me link.

https://paypal.me/tangligotitdone?locale.x=en_GB

It’s Only A Problem when it Affects Me

One of the perks of not being in a corporate job is that I now have the time to catch up on all sorts of strange things that I enjoy. One of them is watching comedy, which in the age of Trump, has become one of the most mind-enriching forms of entertainment known to man.

This morning’s great snippet came from watching Trevor Noah, host of the Daily Show, interviewing Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old Swedish climate change activist. Much has been said about climate change and Ms. Thunberg’s leadership of the world’s youth in shaming the world’s powerful for their inaction on a pressing topic, so I won’t dwell on the politics of the topic. However, what caught my attention was a portion of the clip where Trevor Noah asked her what she thought of how people in New York thought of climate change and what they thought of it at home. Her reply was very apt – she said people in New York thought of climate change as a belief while at home people treated it as a fact. The clip between Mr. Noah and Ms. Thunberg can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhQVustYV24

I noticed this segment because it reminded me of a particularly sad truism – a problem isn’t a problem until affects a person. Why should I care about something that does not affect me?

Ms. Thunberg is Swedish, and the signs and risk are climate change are real in Sweden, so the Swedes are going to take climate change, global warming and so on as fact that needs to be dealt with. In America, particularly in places like New York, the affects of climate change are not obvious and so, people don’t take it seriously enough to elect a President who, despite all the science thrust under his nose, has declared climate change as a “Chinese Hoax” bent on crippling America. There were people who cheered for the Donald when he pulled America out of the Paris Climate Accords.

In a way, you can’t blame Americans for not treating things like climate change the way the Swedes do. It is human nature to feel the pain of anything only when they actually feel it. A problem is only problem when it becomes personal. Unfortunately, when it comes to things like the environment, particularly things like climate change, the nature of the problem is exceedingly real and global. Sure, I’m living in Singapore, which as far as I know, not in any imminent danger of sinking. However, so I need to wait for things to get so bad that Singapore faces the dangers that the Maldives currently faces?

If one looks at the way humanity has tried to impose its will on nature, one will find that nature has always found a way of sticking it to the human race. What’s worse as that many of our so called “crisis” are not new. Climate change was discussed when I was in school some 20 odd years ago. Only difference between then and now is the fact that countries were not in danger of disappearing into the sea. The other more unforgivable aspect is that things like alternative energy sources were not economically viable in many cases back then. Today, sources like solar power and hydroelectricity are.

Let’s go back to the topic of climate change, which America’s champion of the working poor, Donald Trump, claims to be a Chinese hoax. When America withdrew from the Paris Accords, the world’s largest polluter, China, stayed put in the Accords and worked towards trying to cut its Greenhouse emissions. Although there is a long way for China to go and in many ways the signs are not optimistic, thanks to the trade war with Donald’s America, the Chinese did, for a time reduce their emissions. Today, China is a large market for wind and solar power.

It’s not that the Chinese Communist Government particularly cares for the global environment. For years, the Chinese accused global environmental movements of being a leftover of Western imperialism bent on keeping China down. What changed? The air in the places that count, namely places like Beijing and Shanghai became unbreathable and the problem became real enough for the CCP to realise that this was the very thing that could get them ejected from power.

I think of Bhutan and its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (“GNH”), which looks at things like environmental preservation as part of its development goals. As I type this blog from “haze-filled” Singapore, its become clear to me that the Bhutanese obsession with environmental preservation is not an idealistic dream. It is a very practical tool. Keeping trees where they are helps prevent landslides (in part of the world where landslides are common). Giving free hydropower and solar panels to rural people stops them from burning down trees. Selling hydropower to India, reduces India’s need to use polluting sources of power.

Another good example of a leader who understood that environmental preservation was a practical tool, was that late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, for President of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, who planted trees throughout his emirate. Result of his gardening was the fact that he managed to cool the temperatures. What’s particularly interesting here is the fact that most of his money was made from hydrocarbons. In his neighboring emirate of Dubai, I remember the pride that buildings took in being environmentally friendly. Why was that? I believe that although the UAE’s main source of revenue has been hydrocarbons, the rulers have been wise enough to see that they have to take care of the environment in order to have real prosperity.

Yes, the problem is only a problem when it affects you. However, one needs to be far sighted enough to understand that you shouldn’t wait until the problem reaches you. It’s best for all of us to do something about global warming now, when it’s a few atolls in the ocean being affected than to wait until it hits home. We have the technology and the money, now we just need to political and human will to act. As Ms. Thunberg has said, she should be in school, not trying to make the great and powerful understand their responsibilities for keeping the planet alive. Do, we really need to Mar Largo in Florida to get flooded for something to happen?

Note

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The Uber effect on everything, but mostly on clear thinking and customer service.

By Peter Coleman
Director at Aegis Interaktif Asia Pte Ltd

This post is not about the benefits or not of Uber and other "sharing economy" services such as AirBnB. This is a post about how the taxi business, particularly one operator in Jakarta, handled the advent of new technology and competition badly, thus affecting their employees and paying customers.

Back on  Tuesday 22nd March, 2019,  tens of thousands of taxi drivers in Jakarta caused wide-spread chaos across an already chaotic Jakarta by blockading many of the main thoroughfares of Jakarta. If you don't know how bad the traffic is without such vigilante tactics understand that an average car commute to an office is 2 hours or more, on a good day. On that Tuesday it was actually impossible to do anything that was even close to normal and most of us stopped wherever we were, got coffee, got updates from the police on social media, gave up and went home again. A day totally wasted.

Of course the drivers have the right to demonstrate, they had a permit from the police allowing them to do this. Indonesia is a democracy and so they exercised their democratic right to withdraw their labor and make their point, whatever that was, to the rest of us in the most inconvenient way. That is what a strike is all about. There were some very unattractive incidents during the day involving rock throwing, broken windows, beatings and other acts of random violence against passengers, drivers and taxi drivers. Not unexpected.

The reference to the Luddites in the banner is well intended of course. Those in the incumbent industries are always frightened of new technologies. They are Luddites of the 21st century just as much as those of the 19th. Sharing economy models are here to stay one way or the other. You can fight them but you cannot win if they make things more efficient, and lets face it, cheaper. The catchphrase is "Adapt or Die".

However it is what the taxi company did on the next day that was a gift to Uber. The main company, BlueBird, gave free taxi rides to everyone for a full 24 hours. Sounds like a fantastic PR master stroke. Sorry you couldn't get a taxi yesterday and we caused you inconvenience. So here, have as much taxi as you want for free. Sounds good? Sounds stupid. It was IMPOSSIBLE to book a cab using phone or mobile app all day. Why? Well people who never take a taxi were out in the street going all over the city for free. Fantastic for them. Simply impossible for any of those people, like me, who rely on a safe and reliable taxi service to take us to meetings and the airport.

Who came to the rescue? Uber. A service I have never used before was now the only service I could use to get me to the airport.

So I want to say thank you to Bluebird for forcing me to use Uber. Your PR exercise did nothing to improve your image to the public you should care about the most, those of us who use you every day and pay for the privilege. It almost makes one think that your PR team were paid by Uber to come up with this masterpiece of idiotic customer service. If I was Uber I would be sending flowers and chocolates to the Bluebird PR team, they have won you more new customers, who will probably stay loyal now, than if you had thought this strategy up yourself.

The point of this post? If you give something of value away for nothing and the wrong people take advantage of it you have done nothing but damage your brand. It's the law of unintended consequences that could have been so much better with a bit more thinking.

An Important Missing Component of a Social System

I just saw an article in the Independent.sg (a portal that has republished some of my blog postings), in which was reported that the Reform Party (one of our opposition parties) has declared that if elected, it would return all CPF (Central Provident Fund – Singapore’s main pension system and bedrock of Singapore’s social security system) monies to those who reach 55 and it would make CPF a voluntary scheme if elected. More details on the story can be found at http://theindependent.sg/reform-party-promises-to-return-cpf-at-age-55-and-make-cpf-savings-voluntary-if-elected-into-parliament/

It suddenly looks like the Reform Party has found a hot button issue, in which it should be able to hurt the government. The topic of CPF savings has been a sensitive one. There have been occasions when things like the “minimum sum” and the age in which you can withdraw your CPF have been raised. To a worker contributing 20 percent of his monthly income, such moves are frustrating. It’s a case of being forced to save but never being able to see a penny of your savings. To put it bluntly, contributing to CPF no longer feels like contributing to a compulsory savings account but paying an additional tax.

However, while the perception of what is happening to CPF monies is not positive, there is a reason behind things. Firstly, life expectancies are raising and so are working lives. Someone who takes the money at 55 is very likely to outlast it. Then there’s also the fact that if people treat the money like a lottery windfall, they’re likely to look to the government to support them once they’ve gone through the money.

Furthermore, for all its faults, the CPF system remains the only system that Singaporeans have in place to ensure that there is some form of money available to them in their old age. As I get older, I understand that while I may not see much of my CPF money when I reach retirement age, the 20 percent of my salary that I’ve set aside has allowed me to do things like ensure there’s a roof over my head and there’s some form of medical insurance to ensure that should I get hospitalized, I won’t end up in the dog house. Assuming that all your citizens will be prudent about saving for old age is going to make an ass of any government, particularly one of an aging society like Singapore.

If Mr. Kenneth Jeyaretnam, the Secretary-General of the Reform Party, were serious about helping the population in their old age, he would have been better of focusing on how make the system better (easier for the worker to access the money without running it down) rather than tinkering with it to suite his political needs.  

Furthermore, Mr. Jeyaretam has also missed a valuable opportunity to address one key issue, namely what happens to people who lose their jobs in their later years. The current CPF system works on the basis that one’s working life and therefore contributing life will be consistent. Hence, it takes into account things like paying the monthly mortgage (which I am doing) and that you won’t have to use your disposable cash pool to fund a medical procedure and there should be a lump sum once you’re no longer able to work.

What the system does not cater for is the fact that working lives are no longer consistent. This is something that has become an increasing reality as Singapore enters an age of slowing economic growth and corporations get disrupted and the need to hire workers gets shorter. Retrenchment of workers has become more common and one has to ask what does one do about this.

I take myself as an example. At the age of 45, I am experienced enough to be useful but at the same time, I’m not exactly what companies rush to hire based on the fact that I’m perceived as a less energetic old dog, who will cost money and be difficult to teach. OK, I’m an unusual case in the sense that I’m relatively comfortable in the gig economy and have gone down the proverbial social ladder to do blue collar jobs. I have to effectively write off the fact that I am probably out of the corporate game.

Unfortunately for social planners around the world, I’m not the only 45-year old who no longer has a corporate job. A while back, I was on Facebook chat with an army buddy who told me that a few of his friends have been retrenched and found it difficult to find new work. This should be worrying for Singapore’s social planners. Worrying about what happens when you’re 60 is something distant. Worrying about what happens now is a different story.

What Singapore needs to do is to recognize that retrenchment and unemployment will be a fact of life for many. We also need to recognize that the period in between jobs will be longer. So, there must be a safety net for people who find themselves jobless through retrenchment.

The obvious solution would be an “unemployment insurance” scheme. This should not follow the “dole” system used in Western countries in as much as it would be a burden on tax payers and it should be very clear to all parties that the system should not disincentivize work – it should still be better to have a job than to get money off the state.

Currently, social assistance schemes are funded via community groups. I pay 50 cents a month to the Chinese Development Association (CDAC) and that rate is because I’m part of the ethnic majority – my Indian, Malay and Eurasian friends pay more to their respective communal organisations. However, these social assistance schemes are only valuable to the very poor and helpless.

What we need is a social insurance scheme, funded for the worker by the worker. Across the cause way there is an Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESIC), which is paid by employers on top of the EPF contributions (Employee Provident Fund – Malaysia’s version of CPF – rates of contribution are lower than in Singapore -12 and 13 percent versus 20 and 17). Costs is not significantly higher.

Alternatively, given that Singapore’s CPF contribution rates are significantly higher than Malaysia’s, why can’t it be possible for a small portion of the CPF contribution to be set aside for unemployment income.

You can place restrictions on such an insurance scheme. For example, it should be for people who get retrenched rather than for people who chose to leave their jobs. Such monies can then be added back to the retirement system should a worker never utilize it.

My Jeyaretnam was onto something when he talked about CPF but he was off focus. This is a pity because he had the chance to tackle a real issue that no one else was looking at. Perhaps some of the other politicians should be thinking of getting such a scheme implemented.  

Fresh Food & Green Bonds! - Green Bond for Solar Power at 4.05% for 5 years!

By Paul Raftery

Director at Projects RH

First it is important to define what a “green bond” is. “A green bond is a bond specifically earmarked to be used for climate and environmental projects. These bonds are typically asset-linked and backed by the issuer's balance sheet, and are also referred to as climate bonds.”[1]

They are : “…designated bonds intended to encourage sustainability and to support climate-related or other types of special environmental projects. More specifically, green bonds finance projects aimed at energy efficiency, pollution prevention, sustainable agriculture, fishery and forestry, the protection of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, clean transportation, sustainable water management and the cultivation of environmentally friendly technologies.”[2]

Just before Easter there was huge news in the Australian financial markets a retail group had closed a AUD 400m (USD 300m) green bond issue 4 times over subscribed – Wow! Woolworths Group (ASX:WOW) proposes to use the funds raised   “to further reduce its environmental impact by becoming the first retailer in Australia, and the first supermarket globally, to issue Green Bonds certified by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI)”.[3]

What will “Woolies” do with the money ?   Install commercial solar-roof-tops.[4]

Woolworths do market themselves as “the fresh food people” and have positioned their brand as being environmentally conscious and environmentally friendly.

Woolworths[5] is almost a dualistic retail food retailer (its main competitor is Coles, and together they oversee 80% of the Australian retail food market).

The “Green Bonds” were based on Green Bond Framework in line with the Green Bond Principles 2018 developed by the International Capital Markets Association. Woolworth have prepared a compressive issue document.[6] I am sure it is a template many will copy.

The Bonds were rated BBB[7] and paid 120 bp over the five year swap rate (2.85%) – today the yield is 4.05%. The key is not the price but the diversity of additional investors who were interested. We are seeing global impact and ethical investors wanting both social good and yield this bond offers both. Whilst the funds were raised from only 90 investors there is clearly now a large pool for Woolworths, and others, to return to.

Whilst this not the first issue of “green bonds” in Australia, one can expect other firms to follow this path.

I expect in Australia Projects RH (www.projectsrh.com.au) and internationally Tabatinga (www.tabatingasg.com) we will see international firms using their ability to borrow to fund cost reducing strategies but more importantly to assist renewable energy project by providing not only offtake agreements but also a comfort layer of equity and / or debt to projects which fit into their corporate energy procurement plan.

For Woolworths Group this was not a lot of money and did not impact on their credit rating.

I would expect a lot of corporate treasurers and boards are asking themselves can  use this market to raise our environmental profile and reduce our energy costs?

Paul Raftery

Cough-Cough-Splutter-Splutter – Who Cares as long as We’re All Rich?

It’s that time of the year again when those of us in South-East Asia get to cough our lungs out and see things through teary vision. I am of course, talking about the annual haze season where much of peninsular South-East Asia gets covered in a haze, which is caused by the burning of forest fires in Indonesia and spreads through out the region. The haze, which starts in Indonesia, ends up covering all of Singapore and much of Malaysia and in the last 24-hours, the air quality in this part of the world becomes particularly bad. The air quality in Singapore alone in the last 24-hours has been particularly bad as this report from our local TV station reports:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/haze-psi-singapore-air-quality-unhealthy-sumatra-fires-11907522

Simply put, the most dangerous act of the day was to leave the house to get to a cybercafe to type this blog entry. It’s like living in a camp fire gone wrong. I’m living in urban Singapore and getting a constant smell of burning.

The best part about the haze, is the fact that it isn’t new. I first lived through the haze in 1994, when I first returned to Singapore to join the army and the haze is still here in the final quarter of 2019. The entire region knows what is the cause of the haze and probably knows the steps that have to be taken. Yet the haze still occurs on a yearly basis. It is the only issue in ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) where the principle of “non-interference” does not apply in as much as the Prime Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore grumble to the President of Indonesia. After the grumbling, nothing actually gets done.

The reason is simple – the palm oil industry is a big player in the economy of the region. It keeps small holder farms a major source of income and as a journalist who covered the haze said, “It’s not going to get solved as long as its cheaper to pour kerosene on land than it is to clear it physically.” Indonesia will not clamp down on the industry because it is a major contributor to the economy. The consumers in Malaysia and Singapore won’t give up products of palm oil. The argument that looking after the economy and getting people fed always takes precedence over hugging trees and animals still beats in the heart of the region.

If lived far away in England as I did in my student days, I guess I could accept this argument. In the West, environmentalism is sometimes seen as a “hippy” issue that university students adapt in their idealistic phase in life.

However, I don’t live far away from the problem. I’ve live in the problem and despite living in a region that pundits call a “future engine of growth,” I and the rest of the region has to spend at least a month of every year breathing air that is at best unpleasant and at worst dangerous. I’m forced to wonder if “bad air” is the price for the economic wonder that I enjoy
.

The answer is that it should not be. I take the view that at one stage, you could argue that an obsessive focus on bringing in the money was a necessity. ASEAN, lead by Singapore and followed by the rest of the region, happily took the heavy industries from the West because it was a necessity to the cause of development.

However, technology and human development is now such that I can’t see a reason for why we can’t have “economic development” and “environmental preservation” at the same time.

I look at Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan Kingdom that is sandwiched between China and India as an example of a country trying to create a “developed” economy along with a clean environment. Bhutan famously talks about having “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) rather than “Gross Domestic Product,” (GDP). The simplistic argument being – you may be rich but you may not be happy.

Actually, the concept of GNH is a lot deeper than that. It looks at a variety of factors that make up your happiness. Economics is an important factor in happiness but it only one of various factors. The Bhutanese are realistic to importance of having money and ensuring the people get fed and have access to facilities. The King of Bhutan makes it a point to travel round the country to understand the very human problems of the people – namely do they have enough food to eat or can they make a living.

However, economics is only one factor that is looked at. Another factor is the environment. In the South-East-Asian context, that would mean having clean air to breath. In this respect Bhutan, is obsessive. By law 60 percent of the country must be forest (it’s currently at 70 percent) and there Bhutanese citizens are legally obliged to plant trees. While Bhutan does have issues (firewood being a source of energy for many families), the average Bhutanese enjoys clean air, 365 days a year and that’s in a country sandwiched between the world’s worst polluter (China) and the third worst (India).

Here’s the analogy – at my very worst, I probably bring home as much as an average Bhutanese citizen. However, every year, I have to breath air that is dangerous for me. The Bhutanese does not. I may have more money but breathing dirty and dangerous air puts my health at risk and therefore my personal happiness.

Bhutan’s government spends extra money to ensure the welfare of animals is protected. They give away free electricity (generated from hydropower or solar) to rural areas to stop people from needing to burn fossil fuels (wood) and the largest source of revenue into the economy comes selling clean hydropower to India, thus reducing the need for the Indians to use carbon based fuels (admittedly dams come with their own issues, though on the balance of things, the alternatives are worse). Bhutan is famously carbon negative and the entire country is effectively a carbon sink for its two larger and more polluting neighbours.

I understand that not every country can be Bhutan. Yet, if Bhutan can feed its people without choking them on a yearly basis, why can’t we do the same in South East Asia, where we have easier access to the global financial markets and technologies. Indonesia may be the place where the haze causing fires start but Malaysia and Singapore are not powerless to stopping it. Farmers in Indonesia need access to cleaner and affordable ways to clear land, which I’m sure Malaysian and Singaporean investors can find a way of helping to provide. Malaysian and Singaporean consumers need to hold the palm oil industry to account. Alternatives to palm oil can be found, which should be enough of an incentive for the industry to look into clearing up its act.

In an era where we’re talking about cars that drive themselves, there is no reason why people have to be choked by man-made forest fires every year.

Back the Gig Economy

It’s been nearly two weeks since I officially left permanent employment in the corporate sector and I managed to get my first small gig. Client in question is a large firm and they needed me to help do some packing for a day. Pay wasn’t great but it was a start to doing something in my post corporate existence and a few pennies coming in is better than no money coming in at all.

I guess you could say that it was my official return to what is being hailed as the ‘gig economy’ or the economy where everyone is an odd job laborer. Many have lambasted the gig economy was being a destroyer of permanent jobs and the natural social fabric but to me, the gig economy is something worth celebrating. The gig economy is what you’d call the natural state of affairs for free-spirits like me, who aren’t great with money or natural business people but at the same time we resent the trade off that full-time employment expects of you in return for that steady pay cheque.

There has to be something in between being a full-time employee and a businessman. It’s become ever truer since technology has made it such that things like “outsourcing” having become viable options for big businesses and the lifecycle of companies and industries have become comparatively shorter. The days of spending decades with a single employer are dying and rather than lament this, one needs to adapt to the changing times.

There are two aspects to the Gig Economy that need to be looked at. The first is the area that has allowed ordinary folk to enter industries that previously required higher costs. The best example is Uber that allowed anyone with a car to become a taxi driver. Established taxi drivers around the world have taken a hit but the Uber platform (including its many rivals) has allowed many people around the world to earn more money ferrying people around. The Uber platform has not only disrupted the taxi business, it has also made transport systems more accessible.

Another example is Airbnb, which has allowed anyone with a spare room to become an innkeeper. This is currently illegal in Singapore. The arguments being that allowing short term stays compromises the security of a community by bringing in strangers. There is no evidence to support this and proponents of this arguments are probably people who are unable to answer a vital question – what do you expect someone who has a mortgage and been recently retrenched in an age where jobs becoming scarcer to do?

Governments need to ask the vital question of why we should not allow car and house owners to utilize their assets (cars and houses) to create an income independent of day jobs. No doubt some regulation will be needed but by and large, it is easier and better society to have people utilizing their assets to have an income outside their day jobs so that in an emergency (ie retrenchment), they have an income and do not look to the government for a handout. Uber and its competitors have shown that they’re more “tax-honest” than conventional taxi drivers. An economy of “Uber Drivers” is better than an economy of “Welfare Recipients.”

The second aspect of the gig economy involves the workers. In a way, someone like me can survive in the gig economy. I started late in the corporate rate race and was unlikely to build a conventional career. As such, I am able to accept that I will probably never have a steady corporate job until the day I retire. However, I have done enough to show I have some useful skills and I’ve been around enough for people to throw me a bone. My focus in the last two weeks was just getting back into circulation rather than focusing on job hunting and low and behold someone gave me a gig.

I’ve also been employed long enough to build up my provident fund savings to a level where I can sustain my biggest bills – the mortgage and my kid is getting independent. I’m also lucky enough to have kept the restaurant gig going so that I have a regular income which comes with provident fund payments (the restaurant owner needs to pay me provident fund payments because he needs to show he’s employing Singaporeans). My severance pay has helped keep the creditors quiet and I can afford to wait for bigger gigs and dare I say, I am not in a wild rush to get another corporate job.

So, the gig economy can work for someone like me. It is not something I would recommend to someone fresh out of school for the simple reason that you don’t have a proven track record of having any particular skill. For me, I have proven that I can get people covered by the press. I have proven that I can deal with angry creditors and I can collect debts (essential skills in liquidation). I am also flexible enough to wait tables and clean floors, should I need something to tide me over until the better things come along. Along as the people who know I can do certain things are around, I am likely to get a gig or two.

Someone who does not have a recognized skill has to “sell” the fact that they have a skill and they have to get through the usual corporate doors. I’ve also had the fortune of working with bosses that had recognizable brand names like Jeffrey Tsang (Founder of Asher Communications) and most prominently PN Balji. Getting my other gigs would have been tougher without them.

You got to know people in the gig economy. My Dad always said that while he never invested in “assets” like houses or shares, he invested in people. He cultivated people like Edmund Koh, President of UBS Asia Pacific and former Managing Director of DBS Bank Consumer Banking. As such, Dad was able to get jobs from DBS even when his business slowed.

For me, I remember 2012 as a year where I not only had a former boss (PN Balji) throwing me a few bones (Litigation support job of “Guy Neal vs Ku De Ta), I had my junior from my agency days, Glenn Lim, who is now head of Corporate Communications at Tower Transit, giving me work (Singapore International Photography Festival). I could survive because people the people I had worked with were willing to feed me. It’s a different story when you’ve never worked and you don’t have contacts who will feed you.

There’s no stopping the gig economy. It will grow as companies find cheaper labour solutions. However, young people still need to find a place where they can learn skills, network and grow before they contemplate surviving in the gig economy.

Let’s Fiddle While the World Burns.

We’re currently facing a major ecological crisis. Vast swaths of the Amazon (the world’s biggest rainforest) have been burnt and the daily fires have wreaked havoc. Given that we are living in an age of melting ice caps and rising sea levels due to climate change, the last we need is the proverbial lungs of the world being vandalized.

Unfortunately, the man in the best position to stop the devastation, Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, has decided to use this occasion to brandish his credentials as “Trump of the Tropics.” While he has made some gestures about doing more to stop the fires, he’s decided to pick fights with the outside world, accusing the West of treating the Amazon fires as a Western attempt to stop Brazil from getting rich and developing.

I live in Southeast Asia and unfortunately, Mr. Bolonaro’s arguments are nothing new to me. The general argument that we in the developing world have used is the fact that we have millions of poor and hungry people and we need to feed those people first. Things like concern for the environment or worrying about trees and animals comes second to looking after the people. I’ve often argued that Singapore is what a city should be – clean, green and rich. However, this underlines a point about the neighbourhood we’re in – Singapore is clean and green because it is rich. We can afford to worry about trees and animals because our people are well fed. The story is quite different across the Riau Islands, where there are lots of hungry people who need be fed.

While economic growth in Southeast Asia has been pretty spectacular, the environmental costs have been brutal. Little Singapore is clean and green but like the rest of the region, we get engulfed in the annual “haze” when the farmers in Indonesia need to clear land and pour kerosene on tracks of rainforest and burn it. The rest of ASEAN’s governments complain at the usual talk shops but that’s about it. As one journalist said, “The problem will remain as long as it remains cheaper for a farmer to burn forest with kerosene than it is for them to rent a bulldozer to clear land.” The palm oil industry is also a very big employer in this part of the world and governments and environmental groups loath of take on a major employer. So, the situation persists – the people of the region tolerate the year inability to breath as long as economic growth continues on the right trajectory.

I sympathise. We, in the developing world, have had so little for so long and when Western governments and NGO’s or the people with full pockets and bellies start telling us this and that, it gets very annoying.

Yet, having said that, I don’t believe that economic growth and concern for the environment should be exclusive. Why is it such that we’ve practiced a system where the two are separate? Perhaps it was the way to go in the late 70s but in an age where we’re talking about communications at the speed of light and artificial intelligence, there is no reason for economic growth and environmental preservation being exclusive from each other.

One country that is trying its best to have economic growth and environmentalism is Bhutan, a land locked tiny little Himalayan Kingdom, sandwiched between Asia’s giants, China and India. Bhutan is famous for promoting the development concept of “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) as opposed to the standard measure of “Gross Domestic Products” (GDP). The Kingdom argues that the key in development is “happiness” as a holistic measure rather mere industrial output.

The cynics would argue that while the concept of GNH sounds wonderful in theory, “happiness” is something that you cannot measure and Bhutan can only do what it does because its fairly isolated. Nobody cares about Bhutan in the same way that everyone cares about India and China. Bhutan, is after all a country that looks to India for development assistance.

While Bhutan is fairly isolated on the international scale, the world should not dismiss the concept of GNH and should in fact study it and make it applicable to their local surroundings. This is particularly true in the area of the environment.

One of the key features of the Bhutanese constitution is the fact that 60 percent of Bhutan’s area has to be forest. At the moment, 70 percent of the country is forest. This makes sense when you consider the fact that Bhutan is primarily mountainous and, in a neighborhood, where things like landslides are common. While Bhutan does have landslides, the number of landslides is relatively low when compared to neighbouring India and Nepal.

The reason for this is simple – Bhutan has trees or enough trees to keep the grounds held together during the rainy season. Large parts of northern India and Nepal have not preserved their trees and allowed vast forest lands become desert. Being tree friendly is national survival in Bhutan and the economic costs of keeping trees is far less than human and economic costs of cleaning up an environmental disaster.

The second point about Bhutan is the fact that it has delivered the basic services like electricity to the majority of people. While Bhutan is by no means a rich country, there are no homeless and starving. Education and healthcare are free and even if you have no money in your pocket, you will have a plot of land to grow your own food.

How has the government done this? It has done so by using modern technology. In the Phobjikha Valley of Bhutan, the government had a dilemma. It needed to deliver electricity but it was also in an area where there were cranes. What did it do? Electricity cables were built underground and the people got electricity. The cranes kept their national habitat. The cost of laying cables underground is significantly higher than doing it overland but the investment has paid off in the form of tourist who come to view the cranes. Where the government is unable to build electrical cables, households are provided with solar panels. Bhutan is famously carbon negative.

In a funny way, Bhutan’s concern for the environment is its greatest economic asset. Tiny Bhutan, with less than a million people cannot compete with India and China with their respective billions of people. Anything that Bhutan can make or service will inevitably be done cheaper and better in India and China. Yet, Bhutan has one advantage that the Asian giants do not have – a pristine environment with lots of good mountain water and fresh air. Bhutan’s GDP is primarily powered by hydroelectricity, which it sells to India. It’s second industry is tourism, which is dominated by Indians and Chinese. While Bhutan’s capital, Thimpu may not have the “nightlife” of Delhi or Beijing, it has something that these cities do not have – fresh, breathable air. Nature is a tourist attraction.

Many aspects of the Bhutanese model are unique to Bhutan. However, the Bhutanese have shown that economic growth and environmental protection are not exclusive and in many cases,  it makes good economic sense to care for the environment. It is a model worth studying and implementing for much of the world.

What Defines Success?

I’ve recently been in a position where I’ve had to contemplate what I define as success. At the age of 45, I’ve walked away from the “corporate-existence” that had fed me for the better part of five-years because it boiled down to a choice of being on the job or spending time on creating memories that money can’t buy. I tried to convince myself that I had responsibilities to my employer but in the end my sister came up with the most important argument of all – “You’re 45 – do you want to spend the rest of your life behind a desk,” and with that, I walked away from my corporate existence.

I know that a few people would argue that I took a dangerous path. I’m a late starter in the corporate rat race. While I had a few corporate gigs, most of my time was spent freelancing or waiting tables. Then, at the age of 39, I got myself employed in an accounting firm that specializes in liquidations. Though lacking in the necessary paper qualifications, I survived in the job, learnt a great deal, earned a few rounds of an annual wage supplement and had a few bonus payments and the boss deemed me worthy enough to discuss promotion. You could say that on paper, I had found security, stability and success and all I needed to do was to carry on the same path.

Yet, while I knew I was secure, I didn’t feel successful. While grateful that I had a salary and regular contributions to my pension fund for five-years, I didn’t feel that I had a particularly good life. It took going away for a week and cutting off ties with the rest of the world for me to realise that I was on the wrong path in life and although I’m back in a position where I don’t really know what will happen with my life, I have a strange sense of clarity of what life has to offer. While technically in a more precarious position, I feel more successful than I did a few weeks ago.

I talk about my personal situation here because it brings into the question of what defines success. What makes one person successful and another not. Most people would argue that success involves the material. A man with a particular car and house is defined as successful while a man without is often defined as not. We look at signs of success in terms of status and situations.

What is true of individuals is also true of nation states. I’ve lived in Singapore, which is the definition of a “successful” nation. As a child, I thought Singapore had it all and when I moved to the West, I found it very hard to accept that Singapore was part of the “developing” world for the simple fact that all the physical stuff (buildings etc) that I saw in the West, were not better in any shape or way than what I saw in Singapore.

When I returned to set up my life in Singapore and got into the national sport of complaining about the place, I often found myself being ticked off by people from the Western World for not appreciating the good things around me. Singapore is safe (no worries when my teenage girl takes a late bus home), rich (a Singapore dollar exchanged at one point something against global currencies like the Greenback, Euro and Pound and many times more in third world currencies) and clean (there is no reason to buy bottled water in Singapore – it’s the only drinkable water in some Western cities). So, what’s there not to like?

We are the very definition of success and yet, we, the people seem downright miserable. I feel it whenever I travel to a third-world backwater. Returning from places like Vietnam, Thailand and Bhutan makes me feel that I’m returning to a place that lacks something important. Why do people who have so much less than what I have, seem to much more ease with the world. In their eyes, I must have everything. Yet, I’m envious of them.

I’m well aware that life in rural Asia is tough. Outside of Singapore and Hong Kong, the facilities are awful. I remember my favorite Bhutanese tour guide telling his tour groups to “use bottled water to brush your teeth.” I am aware that farming by hand is brutal work. At the age of 22, I understood why the Thai girls in Geylang (Singapore’s red-light district) were selling their bodies – Kanchanaburi Province in Thailand was dirt poor. Yet, and yet I couldn’t help but feel that had something very important that I didn’t have.

I guess you could call it hope. People there face hunger and so they work hard to get over it. Yet they remain human and I can’t help but feel that this is the factor that makes them more at ease with the world. For us, it’s a case of joining a machine and being part of the machine. The system apparently looks after you and gives you “success” but after you achieve it – what do you have? 

Hanoi - The City of Dreams

By - Ms.  Vee



Hanoi ”, the sound sounded clear and touched the heart of Vietnamese people. Through many ups and downs of history, Hanoi still stands there, magnificent.

Talking about Hanoi, people can't help but think of a bustling city, skyscrapers, entertainment centers, and large trade centers.

But you know, besides modern beauty, Hanoi still retains a very unique and very Hanoi-like feature that is nowhere to be found.

I have been to Hanoi with my sister, having to see and see in Hanoi to see how beautiful it is, the food is very delicious and rich .. until now I still cannot forget the time The time is in Hanoi.

I hope that I will be able to return to this place soon because it gives me many unforgettable memories

Onward Singapore

It’s National Day tomorrow and I thought I would try and find a “patriotic” spirit to discuss what being a Singaporean means to me. Although I didn’t “grow-up” in Singapore (my formative years being spent in the UK), Singapore has been home for nearly two-decades. It remains the only country that I have a legal obligation to die for (OK, they did send me a letter discharging me from reservist duty a few years back, which came with a yearly $1,500 tax break for life) and it’s the only the country where I’ve started my family (Huong is determined that we’ll stay implanted in PAP lead Singapore forever).

I will never get tired of repeating the mantra that in so many ways, I’m lucky to call Singapore home. It’s become even more true in the age of the global populist, where you get the likes of Trump and Johnson stirring up “us – versus-them” sentiments in their respective countries. While there are people who are unhappy with the influx of foreigners, Singapore’s government keeps the place open to doing trade with the rest of the world. Although I’ve taken issue with the inherent racism in many aspects of life in Singapore, we are, for the most part a decent enough place where people can mix together regardless of race or religion.

As a father of a teenage girl, I am grateful that the place is pretty free of violent crime. Every area of Singapore is accessible to me. I can walk into Little India and feel right at home. I wouldn’t be able to do that in Harlem (I think of the movie “Live and Let Die,” when Bond’s entry into Harlem is described as “like following a cue ball.”) When Kiddo sends me, a late-night text saying she just left work, I don’t panic and worry she makes it home.

Then, there’s the topic of government. While the Singapore government has taken a beating in the online space, one’s daily interactions are pretty civil. Cops don’t take it a point to shake you down for bribes and most government agencies (including the tax department) make a show of being “customer-centric.”

Let’s not kid ourselves but material comforts matter and when you’re comfortable, you tend to forgive many things. I’ll never stop saying it but Singapore has excellent infrastructure and that makes it a great place to live. I’m not so much “proud” of being a Singaporean but I’m grateful for the things that the place provides me and the people that I’ve brought into my life.

Where Singapore falls grossly short is in its moral compass. I am aware that one should use the word “moral” sparingly when discussing a “geopolitical” situation in as much as things work on a “greater-good” principle – ie, if you have to kill one to save thousands, you got to do it. However, there are things about Singapore that enrage me because they go against what I believe a normal person would consider immoral.

My biggest bugbear about Singapore is the treatment of dark-skinned workers from poorer parts of the world. OK, I admit that people from what the Trump calls “Shit Hole” countries get a raw deal. However, in Singapore it seems like treating people from “Shithole” countries is an acceptable practice.

I think of an Englishman I once knew who asked me about what I missed about the UK. When I said, “The intrinsic decency of people,” my reply was “That’s because you’re white, try being a dark-skinned laborer.” True enough, we met up six -years later and he couldn’t stop talking about how Singapore was living off “slave labor” and told me about how a Bangladeshi worker in the shipyard he works at was only paid $2,000 a month (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the man was lucky to be earning $2,000 a month).

Talk to enough of “my-people” about the plight of the “dark-skinned” from poorer parts of Asia and the answer is inevitably “they’re earning a lot of money compared to where they come from.” OK, a few Singapore dollars is equivalent to a handful of Rupees or Pesos but we have to remember the guy is not living in his home country, he’s here.

Actually, it’s OK, when there’s work. The unspoken contract being that these guys are earning more than what they could back home and the local economy gets people willing to do the dirty but necessary jobs that need to get done. So, even if the guy is paid less than a local to do more, its not a great moral issue.

What I do have an issue is when things go wrong such as in incidents where employers don’t pay or when the Company goes belly up. The hoops that these poor guys must go through to get what is due to them is ridiculous. The system seems to treat their request for what is rightfully theirs as an irritant. This being the same system that rushes to see high flying politicians, bankers and lawyers get more than their fair share, I think the phrase is “talent retention.”

I take the 2013 riots in Little India as an example. This was Singapore’s first riot since the 1960s and the only thing that officialdom could come up with was to ban alcohol (because dark people can’t hold their booze) and some comments from a high ranking official about “Migrant Resentment.” Nobody talked about how a migrant worker (who was admittedly pissed as a newt) got run over and the police was more concerned about protecting the guy who ran over the worker from the angry darkies than in enforcing justice. The bus driver who ran the guy over didn’t even get a slap on the wrist – apparently, he’s a victim. Talk to enough Singaporeans, particularly the Chinese variety, and there’s indignation that the darkies had the gall to riot. I’m with my favourtie Englishman who said, “In that situation, I’d bloody riot too.”

We are a rich nation but we need to remember that we also need to be a “respected” nation. We are respected in as much as for the most part there is “fairness” in the system. I am not sure how one can be proud of situations like this and having people shrug off those incidents as being due to the poor not being grateful for their lot?

We have many beautiful things but we need to remember they were built by the sweet of the labor. We need to remember that labor can only be good for the country if the country shows it respect. Nobody is asking for Bangladeshi, Indian and Pilipino workers to be paid on par with bank executives. What we should ask for is that their gradiences are treated with sincerity and respect.

I also concur with my Dad’s former neighbor, Professor Tommy Koh, who has come out to state that we need to develop a culture that respects different views.

This is unfortunately very true in our local politics, where people who differ from the main stream get jumped on. I take the example of a former Presidential candidate, Dr. Tan Cheng Bock, who set up a new political party recently.

Before you know it, you had the former Prime Minister launching an attack on the man. While Mr. Goh Chok Tong was perhaps not as vicious as it could have been (Mr. Goh’s predecessor was famous for using every trick in the book to crush his opponents) but it still reflected the inability of the powers that be to understand that ideas are not a monopoly but a market place. If only one played the video of the late Senator John McCain describing his former senatorial colleague and rival for the presidency as “A decent man whom I happen to have disagreements with.”

On National Day, I will sing Majullah Singapura in its only acceptable language (Malay) with pride. I will thank the divine for all the good things that this little red dot has brought to me and my family. At the same time, I will look for every way I can to combat the things about this country that I find so abhorrent. I am a Singaporean and I have an obligation to make my country a better place.

What Are We Asking For?

One of the things about being a blogger is that you sometimes attract the most interesting of followers. If you take my last piece on the topic of “racism,” I actually got a comment from an anonymous (the standard name of commentators) asking me to describe “real meritocracy” from my “non-Chinese” perspective.

I have answered the said reader of the comment and I think he or she didn’t quite do his or her research on Singapore’s history. I suspect the commenter had taken offence with the fact that I had taken offence with the fact that an IPS survey had found that half of Singapore’s Malay and Indian population felt they were discriminated against when applying for jobs.

Unfortunately, I understand where the comment is coming from. It comes from a cultural prejudice of our local Chinese community that views the indigenous Bumis, Pinoys, Thais etc as being less hardworking and clever than the Chinese – therefore, in a “meritocracy” where you look at things like qualifications and work experience (who did you work for before me and what did you do) rather than ethnic group, it goes without saying that the Chinese with their superior school results get the job. Hence, the argument goes – if the Malays don’t want to feel discriminated against, they should learn to work as hard as the Chinese if they want to survive in a meritocracy.

Unfortunately, the statistics seem to support this prejudice. If you take a broad-brush sweep of Southeast Asia, you’ll find that the top scholars tend to be Chinese as are the top working professionals. The economies of Southeast Asia are dominated by ethnic Chinese – just trace the shareholders of the top conglomerates in the region and you’ll find that they are inevitably Chinese. The Malaysia’s “Bumiputra” policy, which favors ethnic Malays in business and the awarding of government contracts, was put in place because the Chinese control of the economy was so dominant that it didn’t leave much for the natives.

So, in the Southeast Asian context, it is not wrong to argue that if you want “meritocracy” at its purest, you’re going to have to accept that the “Yellow” faces are going to be the dominant force in business and the jobs will inevitably go to those with the best qualifications, who happen to be Chinese. Singapore’s ethnic Chinese majority allows Singapore to trumpet meritocracy as the way to go. Governments in the rest of the region, where the Chinese are the minority, don’t use the word “meritocracy” and instead, talk about “native rights.”

Having said that, it still remains morally wrong to discriminate against someone based on their skin colour or religion and when you look at things from a social perspective, it is short sighted to allow a situation where one ethnic group dominates everything.

I’ve argued that Singapore’s initial ethos of “meritocracy” is correct. How can you argue against having the most capable person for the job? As former President Obama argued in the 2016 election – “It is NOT COOL to NOT KNOW what you’re doing – if you’re lying on an operating table, you want your surgeon to be the best.”

However, there is a draw back to this. Yes, you should let the smart people get ahead regardless of race or religion but you need to look after the “losers” of the system too for the very purpose of keeping “meritocracy” pure.

In Singapore, we focused on meritocracy, which was correct. However, human beings don’t always work on pure ideology and sooner or later, the ideals of meritocracy get diluted. In Singapore, we have the scholarship system, which was supposed to allow the less well off to climb up the social ladder and get the smart guys working to make life better. However, parents soon realized that the key to success was ensuring academic success and before you knew it, scholars started coming from the same type of background, going to the same institutions, where they ended up helping their buddies. 

Take SMRT as an example. You had one Chief of Defense Force (CDF) becoming CEO and when things didn’t go well, they hired his successor as CDF. While the new guy did make the right noises, the results have not been impressive. 

The same thing has happened in European Soccer. The Manchester United’s of the continent, win everything, get the most sponsorship and have the most money to buy the best players. The Champion’s League (Man U, Bayern Munich, Paris St Germaine etc) is just that – a league of its own. It makes players rich, keeps the TV cameras rolling but doesn’t go much to help soccer develop. 

As I have often said, life is unfair and people can accept that. Fact remains – there are winners and losers. However, as any fan of athletics will tell you – they all start at the same point. 

To get “real” meritocracy, you need a situation where the people on top are being challenged. You need a situation where the people at the bottom can choose the race, they want to enter without feeling they are screwed. 

I can accept that Chinese and Malay cultures are different. When it comes to economics, they look at things differently. Malaysia’s perpetual Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mahathir observed in his book the “Malay Dilemma” that when the price of rubber doubled, the Chinese worked twice as hard (more money), while the Malays worked half as hard (same money for half the work). These are two different approaches to life. Neither should have a “legal” right of being “THE” way of life for everyone. Furthermore, a lifestyle should not be restricted to a particular ethnic group. My father once told me, “I’ll be happy if you marry a Malay girl. You won’t have much money but you’ll be happy.” 

I’m intellectually against government intervention in how people live their lives. However, it bothers me when a significant portion of the population feels screwed whenever they do something like apply for a job. It should be a telling point that what we’re getting is not meritocracy but an oligopoly. 

So, what do we do? I don’t believe in ethnic discrimination for the sake of it. In neighboring Malaysia, Bumiputra laws were supposed to even the playing field. The reality was, Chinese businessmen tied up with well connected Malay politicians and the only Malays that got rich were the well connected. The result was that a minority ended up taking up so much of the pie that the people at the bottom got fed up. As an ethnic Malay lawyer said, “The beauty of the 2018 election was that race stopped being an issue – people voted as Malaysians to get rid of a corrupt bunch.”

Social planners should take note – we, the people accept that there are rich and poor. I, for example, can accept that there are people with more than me just as I accept that there are people who have less. What I cannot accept is the other guy getting so much of the pie that I have nothing, whatever I do. So, let’s understand this – our Malay and Indian brethren are not asking for more of the pie. They are merely asking to be judged on their abilities and talents. The day any ethnic group believes that its not getting anything is the day we are in trouble.