Monday, March 30, 2020

Enshrining Stupidity


I’ve often said that one the best things about Singapore is the fact that we have a government that prides itself in being exceedingly rational and is willing to take a position contrary to popular opinion if it has the facts on its side. This wonderfully matter of fact approach to “tricky” and “difficult” matters has been on display in its handling of the Coronavirus. The government has been careful to follow the facts as they come out, they’ve restricted movements and been generous on the economic front. The government has avoided “Trump-like” messaging and avoided confusion and panic in the market place.

Yet, there remains one topic in which this rational and pragmatic approach gets rolled into the proverbial shit-pot and flushed down the toilet. That is the issue of 377A, or the law which criminalises consensual sex between two adult men. I’ve blogged about this topic on countless occasions and I seem to be making the same point – there is no rational, logical or helpful reason as to why the State should intervene and criminalise private and consensual behavior. I’m not the only one to make that point. We’ve had a former senior diplomat (Professor Tommy Koh), a former Chief Justice (Justice Chan Sek Keong) and two former Attorney-Generals (Professor Walter Woon and Justice VK Rajah) come out and make exactly those points. None of these men can be accused of being stooges of “Western Liberalism.” All of them are highly respected members of society and all of them are regarded as being amongst the most brilliant minds that our society has produced.

Yet, despite all these brilliant and respected men coming out to make the obvious points, our system remains entrenched in an almost childlike thinking when it comes to the topic of 377A. Today (30 March 2020), the High Court released its verdict on three constitutional challenges presented by three men. The news report can be read at:


The only thing that seemed to make some logical sense was the statement - “The court is not the appropriate forum to seek a resolution of a scientific issue that remains controversial. This is in any event an extra-legal argument that does not come under the proper purview of the courts.” This statement by Justice See Kee Oon makes sense in the same way that a janitor in a hospital telling you that he’s not the appropriate person to talk to if you ask a question about a complex medical issue
However, the rest of the verdict seemed to lack a logical and reasonable thought in its delivery. The most embarrassing moment came from the way in which the court had to defend the fact that while the law is set to remain on the statute books, the government has “promised” not to enforce it. Poor Justice See had to deliver these lines:

“Statutory provisions serve an important role in reflecting public sentiment and beliefs. Section 377A, in particular, serves the purpose of safeguarding public morality by showing societal moral disapproval of male homosexual acts.”

Unfortunately, the public morality argument has been long blown away. The public, for example, does not approve of prostitution or gambling. Yet, these vices are perfectly legal and until Covid-19 forced the government to shut down “entertainment,” were thriving industries. Both gambling and prostitution have been proven to cause social problems (there is such a medical condition called “gambling addiction,” and sleeping with prostitute’s does leave you open to venereal diseases – a warning that is well publicized in Singapore’s brothels). Yet, nobody seems too bothered by the presence of gambling and prostitution (a cynic might argue that there are more gamblers and customers of prostitutes among the well to do than there are homosexuals).

Furthermore, the public disapproval argument does not stand when you consider that genuinely conservative societies like India (I repeat the place that gave you the caste system) and Taiwan (the China we don’t recognize) have done away with laws banning consensual sex between consenting adult men.

A certain section of the “conservative” movement might argue that this argument holds because it enforces “approval” onto a disapproving majority. This is an ingenious argument. It seems to argue that if something is legal, it means that one has to accept it. It forgets that a certain portion of society had nothing more than the government’s promise that they would not be sent to jail for behaving like everyone else with the exception of their choice of consenting sexual partner.

Since logic is unfashionable, I’ve always wondered if 377A proponents who made this argument were not repressed homosexuals themselves. I’m speaking as a heterosexual man with a normal sexual appetite. I like to have sex with women and as long as I have sex with a consenting woman, nobody is going to disturb me and nobody is going to care who I have sex with. So, if you look at this basic fact and apply it to a homosexual couple, why should anyone really care what they do in the bedroom as long as its in the bedroom. Homosexual sex (like any other form of sex) should only be a problem if its done onto someone who does not consent to it.

The bout of cases of voyeurism in our universities is far more damaging to society than what the homosexual community does in its bedroom. Are we really easier with boys setting up spy cameras in the girls public showers than we are with two gay guys doing it in the privacy of the bedroom.
In one of the challenges, experts (as in people with scientific knowledge) were brought in and just about everyone concluded that gay people are well…..gay. It’s not a lifestyle choice of something people do because its fashionable. If the science did not favour homosexuality as a genetic fact, “gay conversion” therapies would not be banned in most places.

We are lauded around the world for being intelligent and rational. So, surely, it is time we showed some rationality and intelligence when it comes to this topic. Though having said that, I was once told that there is intelligence in this refusal to listen to rationality on the topic of 377A. I was once told at a party that the “LGBT” community contains the highest portion of opposition voters. Let’s be cynical here.  

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Well Played – Bolleh State

One of the most interesting relationships in international diplomacy is relationship between Malaysia and Singapore. As one commentator said in the 1997, Malaysia and Singapore are like two kids in sandpit who love nothing better to do except hit each other over the head with their plastic spades. The strength and weaknesses of both countries mirror the other and if they found a way of working together, they’d be a world beater.

The world holds Singapore’s government up as a model of efficiency and effectiveness. Outsiders are prone to reminding the locals that Singapore works better than just about everywhere else. However, Singapore is a tiny place and we have, as the government has often reminded us, no resources. Malaysia, by contrast, has a government that is a byword for inefficiency and corruption (think 1MDB) but it has plenty of resources. Lee Kuan Yew’s (Singapore’s founding father is reported to have once described the concept of an independent Singapore as a ridiculous notion) original dream was for Singapore to be a dynamo for a proud and strong Malaysia, providing the know-how in utilizing the resources. 

Unfortunately, human nature and the personalities involved in Malaysian and Singapore politics did not allow this to happen. Singapore, as we’re often reminded, was kicked out of the Malaysian Federation on 9 August 1965 and had to survive despite lacking just about every necessary resource. The rest, as they say is history.

We are, as one Indian expat said, “Frenemies.” In the game of one-upmanship, Singapore has enjoyed a far more successful win-lose record against Malaysia. Our Ministers have great fun pointing across the Causeway whenever anyone from the International Business Community wants to talk about things like government transparency and efficiency. The government loves being able to remind the population that whatever their grumbles, things are inevitably worse in Malaysia. It’s even more fun for us when Western businessmen complain about bring shaken down for bribes on the Malaysian side of the Causeway. My most educational experience in the regional politics was when I first moved back nearly two decades ago and made a day trip to Malaysia with a friend’s driver. The man’s greatest happiness was bribing Malaysian officials – this is a sport for Singaporeans, it reminds us that we’re doing much better than the Malaysians (firstly the bribe is relatively cheap – 50RM is SG20, then it’s also something we can’t do in Singapore, so we come to Malaysia to do it.) If Singaporeans are accused of being a tad smug, its because we’re the tiny nation that’s doing much better than the big brother across the Causeway.

Having said all of that, Malaysia has just managed to pull one up on Singapore. On Tuesday 24 March 2020, the Malaysian Government allowed its citizens to apply to withdraw RM500 a month for over a year in order to help people deal with the effects of the coronavirus. More can be read on Malaysia’s move at:

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/24/apply-to-withdraw-from-epf

At the time of writing, Singaporeans are wondering if our government would allow us to follow suite and withdraw a certain sum from our CPF accounts. I’ve read somewhere on my social media feed that our leader in waiting, Mr. Heng Swee Kiat, may allow us to make a one-off withdrawal of SG$2,000 but I can’t confirm the source.

Malaysia for all its faults, is at the very least admitting that the global economy is going to tank and livelihoods will be affected. People all over the world are avoiding going out. Businesses are bound to shut and as countries go into lockdown, trade and tourism will be affected. At the time of writing, even big names like SIA are asking people to take pay cuts and go on unpaid leave.

The Malaysian solution recognizes that people are going to suffer and they need to find a solution. So, what better way to help people but than to let people use their savings. The RM500 is not going to make a major difference but it will help people.

Singapore’s problem is that it has grown so used to success that it cannot envision the possibility of things going south for an extended period. Malaysia has had an element of “unemployment insurance” for decades. It’s a small component of its social security system but it exists and Malaysians who become unemployed have something to help them out when things turn to the shit. Malaysians are being allowed to use money financed by themselves.

Prior to spread of the coronavirus, Singapore’s Minister for Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo, actually stood up in parliament and argued against introducing any form of “unemployment insurance.” I’ve blogged about this in my entry “We’re not asking for the lottery” on 28 February 2020. I don’t want to run down the government’s handling of the situation, which has been generally good as can be expected, but surely the signs were there that things would go south and that the ordinary citizen would get affected. 

It’s this simple, Singapore got so used to success, particularly the economic variety, that it cannot envision a situation where bad times would have a long-lasting effect on the population. Hopefully the virus will help to change that. 

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Whose Fault Is It?

The grand story of the day comes from Arizona, where a man has just died after taking chloroquine for the coronavirus. What makes this story so spectacular is the fact this is a drug that the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had named as a potential cure for Covid-19 or the Cornona Virus. The story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/world/arizona-man-dies-after-taking-chloroquine-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR1botqvAE9LQrEcW1_N9qnaK5JFv1xsb9mihM-eeIWEI5lUMT5AZYv1xs8

What can one say about this situation? The obvious is that this is a very sad situation that a man had to die. The other obvious point is that the Trump administration with its obvious disregard for experts and expertise has clearly screwed up the management of the crisis. The Trump leads with his mouth and twitter fingers rather than his brains. Either he is blissfully unaware of how his words are being received or he simply doesn’t care. Neither are virtues that you’d want in the most powerful person on the planet and it would be nice if the Trump actually pretended to be contrite.

However, this is one of those unfortunate circumstances where we have to look at the role of the victim’s actions in his own demise. While the President had named the drug in question as a potential cure, the nations top expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci played down the President’s hype and stated very clearly that the therapy needed to be tested to ensure it was safe for consumption.

I have to hand it to Donald Trump for being able to inspire an almost cult like devotion from his supporters. The so called Trumpers have shown an amazing ability to stick with their guy no matter what you say and prove about their hero. Most things are described as a “hoax” by one of the groups that the Occupant has chosen to demonise. As his spokesperson so aptly said – there are “Alternative Facts.”

However, there are certain situations when one needs to be able to discern reality. Being sick should be one of them. Does it really matter if the crowd at Trumps rallies are bigger and better than anyone else’s? Well, no, even if the debate does make for good comedy.

However, it’s a different story when you’ve been struck down by an unknown virus of sorts and you’re looking for a cure. In this situation, who would you listen to? You have a qualified professional with a proven track record saying one thing and you have someone who has never looked at any book (other than the one he paid someone else to write) let alone a medical book.

Surely, this is one of those moments where you should listen to someone whose been trained in the field related to your particular problem.

I don’t blame people for being desperate and I do believe that miracles can happen. However, I’m incline to remember a Malay taxi driver who complained that his community did approve of planning for the future. He said,” Ya, they complain that I don’t believe in God and it’s a sin. However, I always reply – didn’t God give you a brain?” The Saudis shut down Umrah pilgrimages, even if it’s a source of revenue for them. The Catholic Church in Singapore banned Sunday mass. This was using the God given brains instead of expecting the Almighty to provide a rescue when the obvious is ignored.

Trump, like most cult leaders, should hold responsibility for his actions. However, you also need to expect the recipients of the messages these guys give out to use their brains and to process facts. When a doctor says something is medically unsound and unproven, its not because he has a political bias but because he knowns what he’s talking about. You are free to ignore the doctor’s advice but if you get screwed for not following advice, whose fault is it?

Monday, March 23, 2020

The Chinese Virus

The poor Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been accused of being a racist because he’s decided that Covid-19 or the Coronavirus should be better known as the “Chinese Virus.”

OK, let’s be fair to the Occupant (though if there’s anybody that you shouldn’t be fair to, it would be the Occupant), he has a point. The virus started out in Wuhan, which is geographically located in China. So, in this sense, he’s right, the virus is a Chinese virus.

Having said that, is it wise to focus on the origins of the virus when it’s already spreading havoc in your backyard. At the time of writing, New York State accounts for some five percent of global cases and the US has 15,219 cases, which places America, the world’s most advanced nation in fourth place in terms of number of cases. By comparison Malaysia, a third world country which locked itself down on 18 March 2020 has 1,183 cases. The figures can be seen at:

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd  

The problem, as an American friend of mine, who is currently living in Texas, says, “The Virus is serious” and the Trump’s medical experts have sounded the alarm saying that the problem will probably get worse before it gets better.

Everyone who isn’t brain damaged or a Trump supporter understands that America is going to have problems getting to grips with this virus. Thankfully, America’s President doesn’t have total control of the country. Most American politics is local and for the average American, it’s the mayors and state governors who make the majority of decisions that affect the majority. Thankfully, State-Level politicians have shown more competence and courage in dealing with the virus than the Occupant.

Nobody blames the average man in the street for being angry with the Communist Party in China for being the source of this virus. Here in Southeast Asia (South East of China for reading Americans), we have a long history of noisy and rude tourist from China messing up our environment. There are people in our region who think that this virus has finally gotten governments to do what we’ve wanted them to do for ages – keeping out the Chinese.

Yet, for whatever resentments our local people might feel towards the Chinese from China, our political leaders figured out that it was better to focus on trying to fix the problem in our backyard than looking for someone to blame. Thus far, if you believe the figures coming out of the region, we’ve done a better job at keeping things in check than the Western world, especially the US of A.

The second point that the Trump does not realise or wish to realise is that by calling it a “Chinese Virus,” he is setting up American born Chinese for a good lynching from hysterical lay abouts who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Chinese person from China, Southeast Asia or dare I say America.

This is a shame. American born Chinese are considered a “model-minority,” who do things like go to work and send their kids to school. Look at any American University and the top achievers are inevitably from this “Model-Minority,” – So much so that the Old Rogue used to tell people, “If American Universities were really about merit, there wouldn’t be a single round eye.” (Affirmative Action being about keeping Asian-Americans out of university as it has been about helping Black and Hispanic students get in.)

The virus may have started in China but that’s as Chinese as it gets. The virus has shown itself to be wonderfully open in who it affects. The virus like many others before it, is an equal opportunity killer, which affects people regardless of gender, ethnicity and religion.
So, rather than focusing of where the virus came from, perhaps its time the Occupant worked on trying to solve the problem in his own backyard.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

How Disgusting Can We Get?

Amidst all the stories on the Cornoavirus, humanity still has the capability to behave in the worst possible manner. A 40-year old woman pleaded guilty to making her maid hit herself in the teeth with a meat pounder and this was just part of the stuff the maid had to go through. The story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/woman-pleads-guilty-forcing-maid-hit-her-own-teeth-meat-pounder

I’ve lived in Asia for the past two decades and I still get worked up by such stories of abuse against manual workers from other parts of Asia. There has to be, a they say, some standard of decency and the law should actually do something to enforce standards of human behavior.

Singapore is in so many ways, an incredibly developed society. Our physical infrastructure is as good, if not better than most places in the “advanced world.” Whatever one says of our political leadership, its proven more competent in its basic management than many places in the West, as shown by “Covid-19.” Many of us have been educated in the best places the world has to offer and we are aware of things like basic human decency.

Yet, and yet, we seem so unable to behave decently to the less fortunate. I take the comparison of our treatment of the laws governing “anal sex” between grown men. Whenever the topic of “377A” comes up, you’ll get the great and good of society talking about how laws are used to express “social approval,” and the dangers of “forcing” approval onto the majority should you legalise private and consensual behavior. However, whenever you have a case of maid or worker abuse, you’ll get lots of hands being wrung in public about the disturbed individuals but nobody will ever talk about what society approves of. Let’s be real here, the maid in question did not threaten anyone or do any harm. She merely did not clean the house as efficiently as her employer expected of her. In return, she was punched in the mouth ten times and forced to knock her own teeth out. Erm, that is clear cut case of physical abuse. The employer in question needs to be jailed or locked in a mental institution.

Or, what about the cane? If there was a case of flogging anyone, this woman is it. We make a big deal about how we do not tolerate vandalism to property, but what about vandalism to another person’s body?

Seriously, there is something seriously wrong here. Like it or not, we need the so-called Darkies from the rest of Asia to do the dirty jobs that we won’t do for love or money. Nobody is asking for us to give them special treatment but we do need to respect the fact that they are human and here to do a job.

Ten years ago, I met an Englishman, who asked me what I missed about the UK. My answer was, “The Intrinsic Decency of People.” His reply was, “Oh, there’s a lot more of that in Singapore.” I replied, “That’s because you’re white – try being a dark-skinned laborer.”

We met again after a decade and the first thing he said to me was, “My God, your entire economy is run on slave labor.” He then described how the most important person in the shipyard he worked at was a Bangladeshi who did everything for a mere SG$2,000 a month. I was never more embarrassed to be proven right. He proved my point right about the British being intrinsically decent – he was stunned and upset that the Bangladeshi was being paid SG$2,000 a month for the work he did (local response would have been – it’s a lot of money where he comes from) and he was stunned by our oblivious social reaction to how the proverbial darkies of Asia were being treated for a few pennies.

Human decency isn’t an airy concept that exist in Western University Campuses. As they say, what goes around, usually comes around. It’s something that our middle class might do well to remember whenever we worry about being displaced by “cheaper” Asian professionals.

Monday, March 16, 2020

The House Always Win


One of the joys of social media is reading the comments that people make about you and the stuff you write. One of the most amusing ones came from a piece I wrote about the Donald’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. My critic accused me of spreading “Democratic Propaganda and getting my information from ‘Fake News.’” I was also accused of not appreciating the fact that Donald Trump had done a marvelous job in managing the situation based on his “gut.”

I believe in intuition. I’ve been around enough successful people to see how they’ve developed a certain “sixth sense” which cannot be described in a purely logical and scientific manner. I’ve seen successful people act on a “hunch” about things and be proven right. So, in this respect, I should be the last person to dismiss someone who claims to act on a “gut feeling.” One would say that the “successful” businessman that is the Donald would have a pretty good gut feeling for most things.

Unfortunately, people forget that “gut” feelings take a while to hone and more importantly, the successful people who have “made it,” by trusting their “gut-feel” also respect facts on the ground and are open to information. While the “Billionaire” Occupant of the White House, takes great pride in not reading books (other than the one he paid someone else to write for him), the majority of billionaires are veracious readers. Bill Gates, whose fortune is more than ten times the Donald’s, reads widely, as does Warren Buffet and dare I say, Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg. Here in Asia, Li Ka Shing, the “Superman” on Hong Kong, advised one to set a portion of one’s income to be spent on books.

Every piece of advice on how to develop a “rich” mindset tells you to read more and be spend time going through books. There’s a good reason for this. Books or the printed medium (these days, reading of a website also counts as part of the printed medium).

The second habit that the majority of “self-made” people have is that they respect expertise. Robert Kwok, one of the richest men in Southeast Asia (the man who brought you the Shangri-La hotel), once told Forbes Magazine that he made the point of spending time with people who were “smarter” than him. David Ogilvy, the man who founded Ogilvy & Mather explained it best when he said, “When we hire people bigger than ourselves, we will become a company of giants but if we hire people smaller than ourselves, we will become a company of dwarfs.” The world’s rich and successful understand to some level that they need to be challenged and that being comfortable is very bad for them.

Business people do work on a gut feel and they do take a certain amount of risk. Successful entrepreneurs often make the point that the ability to come back from failure is usually the difference between success and failure. However, the really successful business people as a rule of thumb do not disdain facts and all have a thirst for knowledge in whatever they’re chosen profession. The investment guru, Jim Rodgers, once said that getting rich was easy – you just needed to find something you loved and know everything you could know and act on it.

Knowing things and being around people who know things allows you to make better decisions. Having knowledge allows you to make certain “bets” with confidence of success. Successful investors like Warren Buffet and George Soros make it a point to “know” what they’re doing – hence they are investors (though Soros is probably more of a speculator). Look at the gaming industry – casinos as a rule of thumb make it a point of knowing the odds on every game. The “punters,” as a rule don’t usually know what they’re doing. Who is smarter and more successful? Well, the rule of thumb in the gambling industry is “The House Always Wins.”

Perhaps Donald Trump really is a genius. He seems to have a genius for writing instant material for comedians.  Yet, the pride he takes in not reading and his disdain for anyone who “challenges” him (look at his press conferences as an example), is merely setting up the nation for eventual failure.

One of America’s greatest strengths has been its centres of knowledge, places where ideas are thrown around and challenged. People who thirst for the newest and latest knowledge have looked to American universities as the place to be. Silicon Valley, that generator of great wealth and innovation, for example, grew up around Stanford University.  

Unfortunately, the current Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue thinks that everything centres around his gut, which he fuels with junk. If the culture of anti-thinking and disdain for knowledge continues, it will only be a matter of time before American decline becomes irreversible. The rest of the world should take note.

Friday, March 13, 2020

Now, It’s A Problem.


Since my last blog entry, I’m delighted to announce that there has been a major development in the fight against the coronavirus. An advisor to the Brazilian President, who met with and took photos with the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has tested positive with the virus.
The Occupant who had written off the “hysteria” surrounding the virus as a “Hoax” created by the Democratic Party to hurt his election process is now “concerned” and worried about coming into contact with people who had the virus. The story on the Occupant’s concerns can be found at:


What’s happened? The reason is simple, until today, the virus didn’t affect the Occupant on a personal basis. As far as he was concerned, the virus was something that happened to other people and the fact that it had the potential to keep his supporters away from his rallies, meant that it was something that annoyed him enough to blame it on other people.

Well, it seems to be a different story now that it might affect him. Hopefully the fear of getting the virus might propel him to take the advice of experts a little more seriously and hopefully the “Most Powerful Man” on the planet might actually be compelled to put the tremendous resources of the most powerful government on the planet into the fight against this very nasty bug.

In fairness to the Occupant, he’s not the fist and only person to be propelled into action only when the problem has hit home. The other point that one needs to look through is the fact that actions only really take place when the people who count are affected by the problem. Pakistan’s former military dictator, Pervez Musharraf once made the point that the earthquake that hit Pakistan was far worse than the tsunami that hit all Southeast Asia in 2004 because the tsunami killed white people while the earthquake killed brown people, whom nobody cared too much about. At the risk of sounding cynical, he had a point – think of the big issues of the day that only big issues because the problem only affected the right people. Terrorism, for example, only became a problem when the USA got hit on 11 September 2011, even though the problem had been going on for ages (I grew up in the UK in the 90s when the threat of IRA terrorism was very real and the main sticking point in Anglo-American relations came from the fact that the American Irish Community funded the IRA and Gerry Adams was happily given a visa into the US while the British wouldn’t even allow his voice to be heard on TV).

Michael Moore once wrote that you should pray that bad things happen to be people in power because they then start thinking like human beings. He gave the example of how the Bush II Administration did not come out with “Anti-Gay” legislation despite being in the grips of the religious extreme. He made the point that Vice-President Dick Cheney’s daughter is gay and the Vice-President approached “Anti-Gay” legislation as a father rather than as an ideologue.

While we can see how we only make things a problem only when it comes ours, shouldn’t we give our leaders a bit more slack? They are, after all human?

Actually, the answer is no. People are put into leadership positions for a certain reason. We expect them to stop the problem before it reaches us and if that fails, we look to leaders for a plan to get us out of the problem. We don’t expect leaders to behave like us, otherwise, well we might as well work on the problem ourselves.


Wednesday, March 11, 2020

The Virus and Me


Donald Trump is undoubtedly the best thing to happen to anyone in the content generating business. Whenever I am looking for a topic to write about, I merely have to Google something about the Donald and before you know it, I have a ready-made topic. I suspect that the Donald will be reelected based because America’s comedians will make it so – because who else will have the ability to generate material for them in the way that he has.

Donald Trump’s latest bout of material generating comes from his handling of the coronavirus. While leaders around the world are busy trying to figure out how to ban people from traveling around for fear of spreading the disease in such a way that doesn’t send their economy into a tailspin, the Donald has decided that he’s smarter than the doctors and declared the virus to be a hoax and the hysteria is being created by the media to screw him in his reelection. You can read the story at:


In fairness to Donald Trump, the coronavirus has not been as lethal as it could have been. According to John Hopkins, the coronavirus has killed around 4,087 around the world (including 27 in the USA) as of 10 March 2020 while the common flu by comparison has killed 291,000 to 646,000 people around the world including 12-61 thousand yearly in the USA. The comparison between the viruses can be found at:


I, for example am continuing to live life pretty much as I’ve been doing for the last few years. The only thing I notice is that I remember as being very crowded are less so and whenever I enter a building, I need to get my temperature checked and I have to fill out a health declaration to state that I’ve not been to the worst hit places (China, South Korea and now Italy).

Having said what I’ve just said, the Donald’s behavior is not what you’d expect of a shopping mall security guard, let alone President of the Most Powerful Nation on the Planet. While the coronavirus may not have killed as many people as the flu, one can argue that the reason for this is simple – the coronavirus has only been around for a shorter period than the flu and governments around the world rushed to contain the virus.

To put it simply, we know more about the flu than we do about the coronavirus. There are vaccines that have saved people from the worst strains of the flu. Antiviral medications exist that can address the symptoms of the flu and even shorten the illness. At the time of writing, there are no vaccines for the coronavirus and the antiviral medications are merely in the testing stage as far as the coronavirus is concerned.

The flu may have killed more but we know how to deal with it. We know how to deal with the flu. By comparison, much a not known about the coronavirus, other than the fact that it spreads exceedingly quickly. The key here is the fact that this is an “unknown” killer that spreads quickly.

World Leaders, including, dare I say President Xi Jin Peng of China are acting to assure nervous populations. The most impressive action came from Macau, which shut down its casinos (which are pretty much the source of economic activity) to contain the virus. These types of action give people confidence in the leadership looking after the citizens.

The Trump, by contrast is not providing leadership. Rather than focus on the country, the communication from the White House has been focused on the presidency and how the virus affects the country and it has shown a disregard for the facts. How much reassurance does that provide? The only positive comments on the Trump Administration’s handling of the virus has been to praise the Trump Administration from its crackdown on “illegals” who happen to be “unvaccinated.” Evoking these sentiments at a time of crisis is not leadership but a form of political opportunism. It’s too bad that there are those who don’t recognize the difference between leadership and opportunism.
   

Monday, March 09, 2020

Ranging Gun


It’s the 9th of March and it has officially been 23 years since the tragedy of Exercise Swift Lion, which took the lives of Ronnie Tan Han Chong and Low Yin Tit. This was an incident which scared the youth of my national service batch. We were, as they say, supposed to be a privileged batch, - the first artillery batch to go to New Zealand (usual spots being Taiwan and Thailand) and the as was often mentioned, the first to conduct a full live firing exercise of the world’s only 52 caliber 155mm Gun Howitzer. Who would have known that our “blaze of glory” would turn out to be a tragedy?

Twenty-Three years have passed since that accident. For most of us, life moved on. We went onto build careers and start families, things which the two guys never got the chance to experience. I like to think that this is what the two guys who lost their lives would want from us. Every year, without fail, there is a moment of remembrance across social media.

Yet, as the intensity of emotion fades and we move on with our lives, I believe it becomes all the more important to remember the incident and the two that died. At the very least, we should do what we can to ensure that we don’t have a repeat. No more boys should be cut down for the sake of it.

Unlike the late Aloysius Pang, who was killed in an accident in New Zealand last year (2019), Ronnie and Yin Tit did not have the privilege of being famous. They were ordinary guys who were cut down for doing their jobs. My memory of who Ronnie was, is very clear – he was the guy who followed every instruction to the letter. He was the guy who gladly burnt his weekends to come back to ensure that work was well done (his boss had to threaten to charge him if he didn’t take a break). This wasn’t a guy who should have been killed like that.

I also need to stress that this was not a war situation. Had it been, we’d accept the deaths that took place. People die in war and I guess, you just do what you need to do to get the job done.
Even after 23-years, nothing will erase the fact that Ronnie and Yin Tit died needlessly and the reasons for that was down to faulty fuse as was discovered by the Committee of Inquiry that was convened a few weeks later. The results of the inquiry can be found in the following press release issued by the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF)


In a curious way, this tragedy hits on one of our current day’s biggest issues – outsourcing. The summary of the findings can be summed up as follows:

1.      Chartered Ammunition Industries (“CAI”) supplied MINDEF with the fuses;
2.      CAI bought the fuses from Island Ordinance Systems (“IOS”), which did issue a certificate of compliance and a certificate of conformance to show that the fuses were up to par and CAI did do sample testing;

3.      CAI found out that IOS bought their fuses from Xian Dong Fang Machinery Factory in October 1994 but never notified MINDEF;

4.      It was found that around one-point three percent of fuses were defective (to put that in perspective – we fire around 100 rounds in a live firing exercise, so around one person becomes the victim of a faulty fuse).
5.     
MINDEF no longer buys fuses from IOS of Xian Dong Fang Machinery (“XDFM”)

You could say I’m making a mountain out of a molehill in as much as we haven’t had a similar accident in 23-years. You could say, what is it exactly do I expect to happen when MINDEF has argued that it has done everything possible to ensure the safety of our servicemen (let me reiterate the point that Singapore has a conscript army – our boys don’t choose to wear that uniform and the risk that it entails)

The answer is that I want some answers as to why my friend had to die? From reading the press release, the only thing I’m reading is that we got screwed by greedy American corporate interest that outsourced its manufacturing to China because it was cheaper. Shoddy workmanship is China’s fault. Greed is America’s fault. I wonder if the powers that be are asking us to accept that we got screwed by the two elephants of the global economic order?

Look, I don’t have an issue with outsourcing. Business is about making profit and if someone else, somewhere else can do the job at the fraction of the price, you should take advantage of it. You get to keep more money and you may even create a consumer. So, I’m not against outsourcing of doing a job. For example, if I want to take on freelance work but can’t do it per se, I find someone else with the bandwidth and share the takings.

While I’m OK with the outsourcing of doing the job, I do not get the outsourcing of responsibility. The initial contracting party is the one that gets the first bit of the customers money and as the party facing the customer and if they get the lion’s share of the money, they should likewise take the lion’s share of the responsibility for the customer’s wellbeing. I remember the time when plastic toys were found to have high levels of lead and other toxins. The American manufacturers (specifically Mattel) were quick to blame their Chinese OEMs, who promptly replied that they were merely doing what their principles had instructed them to do.

Likewise, the same was clear in this instance. IOS may be greedy American corporate entity and XDFM may be a cheap and shoddy Chinese manufacturer, but the entities facing the end user are CAI (which is incidentally government owned) and MINDEF. CAI was aware that IOS had outsourced the manufacturing of fuses to XDFM in October 1994. The incident took place in March 1997. CAI had nearly three-years advance warning to step up the checks on the fuses it was buying.

Perhaps I’m just biased here because this incident was and is personal. However, of all the instances and “accidental” deaths in the SAF, this was one where there was clearly no fault on the part of the operators. Ronnie as a commander stuck to the letter of the rules. He didn’t mess around or do anything silly (as most 21-year old boys are bound to do). He took his job seriously. From what I know, the commanders on the ground did their part.

My friend had to die before he could bloom because organizations needed money and didn’t want to take responsibility.  Yes, there was “Compensation.” It will never be enough for the lives that were lost. Yet, to date, we never heard of anyone paying for lacking responsibility for their jobs.

When a serviceman was drowned, the Chief Commando Officer was removed, the CO of School of Commandos was demoted and the officers responsible were court martialed. Yet, by comparison there hasn’t been a sound of a law suite filed against IOS of XDFM.

I don’t get it. When it comes to the guys on the ground, we talk about honor and responsibility. We rightly hold the chain of command responsible. Yet, when it comes to the guys selling us the equipment and making the money, we conveniently forget that such things like responsibility and accountability exists too.

CAI has gone onto become part of the ST Kenetics Group. It continues to thrive on our ever-increasing defense budget. IOS and XDFM continue as they’ve always been, doing well in a world that is increasingly nationalistic and bellicose. Somehow, the well being of these organizations is more important than the fact that two young guys were cut down because someone in these organizations could not take responsibility.

I don’t get that.

Tuesday, March 03, 2020

The Neutron Dissipates


Neutron Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric (“GE”) died at the age of 84 today. Mr. Welch was the “Management Guru” for my era, the era of Gen X. At the time of his retirement, Mr. Welch was hailed as the role model of what a CEO should be. When he took over the reigns of GE in 1981, the market capitalization was around US$12 billion. By the time he retired in 2001, the market value of GE stood at an eye popping US$410 billion (by way of a reference point, the economy of Ireland in 2019 was US$405 billion).

By way of a full and frank disclosure, I was a vendor to the Southeast Asian branch of GE Commercial Finance back in 2008. It was a very special time for the GE brand. Mr. Welch was still a legend and GE took pride in how it understood business and how to manage business. The key selling point for GE Commercial Finance was not their ability to provide financing but to provide management knowledge. The concept was known as “At the customer for the customer.” The people at GE were dynamic and full of life.

Unfortunately, I never got the chance to build the relationship with GE the way I wanted to. This was 2008 and the finance industry was heading for a nasty patch. The much-heralded finance arm that Mr. Welch had built in the 90s was about to turn sour. All activities with GE froze after Mr. Welch’s successor had said the quarterly results were “in the bag,” and when they were not, the stock price went to the shit. GE went quiet and that was pretty much it. The commercial finance arm was then sold to Standard Chartered bank and the people I knew there, including the CEO, Mr. Ed Ng, moved onto better things (incidentally, Mr. Ng’s immediate boss at the time was John Flannery, who would go onto be CEO but would only last 14 months in the job).

Much has been said about how Mr. Welch was the last of an era of the “Cult of the CEO, and many of the things that Mr. Welsh did are now being blamed for the troubles that GE is currently facing. The most prominent of those was the reliance of the finance arm for growth. Mr. Welch had famously promoted finance as the growth industry that didn’t require overheads (just lend the stuff in your bank account). However, like the banks it was competing with GE’s finance arm had cash flow issues and Mr. Immelt, Mr. Welch’s chosen successor had to famously look to Mr. Buffet for an investment.

Mr. Welch made his mistakes and while he did back the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016, Mr. Welsh was undoubtedly right on many of the big issues, which run contrary to Trumpian Protectionism.

The issue that first made Mr. Welch famous was his ability to fire people. Mr. Welch had a certain ruthlessness to him. Mr. Welch earned the nickname of “Neutron Jack” in his early years when he fired some 170,000 people (By comparison Melbourne Cricket Ground can hosts a mere 100,000). Mr. Welch famously made it a policy to cull the bottom ten percent of GE staff.

In this day and age of needing jobs, Mr. Welch’s philosophy sounds like it belongs to an era of dinosaurs, where the T-Rex munches on everything else. One of the reasons why Mr. Trump won the election was because people believed that he could make the jobs come back. I also think of bosses who take pride in the fact that they’ve never fired anyone and have fought tooth and nail to “save jobs.”

Having had jobs that, I couldn’t leave and having being fired from steady employment, I’m with the guys who do fire employees who don’t perform. I get the fact that many of my contemporaries and the generation before me grew up in an era where the employer was supposed to look after you by guaranteeing you a job.

However, as Mr. Welch rightfully argued, businesses are not there to guarantee jobs nor are they there to “look after you.” Businesses are there to guarantee their customers and their profits. The “paternalistic” view of business and employment is certainly comfortable but is it really good for anyone? Think of companies like Nokia, which was effectively the by word for mobile phones. They made excellent phones but couldn’t see that people would want to use their phones as mini-computers rather than just phones. It was only a matter of years in which Nokia, a by word for mobile phone and Finland became irrelevant and ended up selling its mobile business at fraction of what it was once worth.

What is true of businesses is also the same of individuals. The problem with knowing your pay cheque is guaranteed is the fact that you have utterly no incentive to perform. People become comfortable. Employees get into the mode about bitching about their jobs but never leave because, well, why should they, the cheque is going to be there at the end of the month. Employees with no motivation to improve do not as a rule make businesses more profitable.

I’m with Mr. Welsh when he states that you’re probably not performing because you’re not happy where you are, so you have the chance to find a place where you can be happy. I think of my luckiest moment in my PR career being when I left BANG PR. It ended my PR career (PN Balji advising me that I shouldn’t bother looking for a job because I’d never be able to explain why I never stayed anywhere longer than a year) but it gave me all three of my greatest moments, namely the Saudi Crown Prince visit and the IIM and IIT alumni events. These were events that put me, as an individual (without being told what to do by London or New York) on the level on dealing with cabinet ministers. It was something I could never have done had I ended up in the confines on a conventional agency. I don’t think my story is particularly unique.

The other issue that I believe Mr. Welch got right was on China, or the “strategic competitor.” Donald Trump and his ilk talked about the USA being “raped” by China through unfair competition. Something similar was said of Japan in the 80s. While, I do agree that China and Japan had engaged in “unfair” practices.

However, Mr. Welch did argue that that while China was a land of a billion competitors, it was also a land of a billion customers and offered opportunities for American businesses. Mr. Welch was actually respectful of the “threat” of competition from poor third world nations. “Who says we deserve what we’ve got?” he would say. “These people are after our lives. We’ve got to work like dogs.”

I will miss Mr. Welch. While he had a ruthless streak and made his mistakes, he did represent a sense of optimism and an era where some form of competence was held in high esteem. Mr. Welch thrived on challenges and if we should learn anything from him, it would be to embrace challenges rather than to seek protectionism and think of cowardice as a form of heroism.

Monday, March 02, 2020

What is Marriage?


The other half had a fit with me on Sunday. She saw a few messages between myself and a few ladies and wanted to know what I was doing messaging other ladies. While I protested my innocence, she made the point that I am a married man and marriage is about being committed to a single partner.

Coincidentally, the news has come out that Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend Indiana, just withdrew from the race to be the Democrat’s choice for President in this November’s Presidential Election. Just as I read the news on the wire services, I got a text from one of the cuter and moretalented people I know saying that the young mayor, “reminds me of better times, back with America had decency and respectability.”

I think of this statement because Mayor Pete is probably as close as it gets to being a picture-perfect candidate. He looks good on TV; he communicates clearly and is capable of doing so in more than one language. He’s served in a combat role in the military (Afghanistan) and is a devout person. He’s been faithfully married to the same partner for a few years. As Trevor Noah of the Daily Show remarked, “Even his skeletons have nice things to say about him.” You’d think that and America that claims to believe in things like family values would vote him in a flash.

There is however, one particular issue with Mayor Pete as he’s popularly known. He’s what most women would call, the man who is too good to be true. He checks all the boxes that women look for in a man except one – he’s openly gay and the person he’s been faithfully married to happens to be another man. As much as find Rush Limbaugh repulsive, I do believe he has a point when he claims that America may not be ready to elect a “gay” president (America has yet to elect a woman, unlike several majority Muslim countries and it took them 200-years to elect someone who is shade darker than pink)

While America may not be ready for an openly gay President (unlike conservative catholic Ireland, which has an openly gay Prime Minister of Indian decent), we should be grateful to Mayor Pete for highlighting one great issue – the definition of marriage.

One of the greatest achievements of the Trump Administration has been the way it has gotten conservative evangelical Christians to support it for the mere fact that the Trump is as close to the opposite of Christian as it gets. Leaving aside his race-baiting rhetoric, and description of the lowest forms of humanity as “fine people,” Mr. Trump’s personal life is a mess. He’s been married three times. His current wife is so much younger that most right-thinking minds would make the motivations behind the marriage for both parties cannot be based on pure love.

In addition to his three marriages, Mr. Trump has had numerous mistresses and once remarked that if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter, he’d probably be dating her – as a dad to a good looking 20-year old, my only reaction is – eww. The biggest surprise in Mr. Trump’s personal life is the fact that his children are surprisingly normal or as normal as it gets given the circumstances.

Yet, despite all of that, the “conservative” element accepts Mr. Trump has being a man from God because despite his various marriages, mistresses and paid off porn stars, Mr. Trump’s relationships meet the “one-man and one-woman criteria, even if some of his relationships involved a certain amount of coercion.

Mayor Pete’s relationship by contrast has been spectacularly monogamous and yet it fails to meet the one-man, one-woman criteria and so its panned as “immoral.” Singapore’s conservatives would even say that accepting that a marriage like Mayor Pete’s is wrong because you’re accepting the “gay lifestyle,” which apparently the majority of people don’t accept.

Yet, the question remains, shouldn’t our concept of marriage be more like Mayor Pete’s than the Trump’s various marriages? After all, shouldn’t marriage be a case of two parties wanting to be in committed relationship rather than a case of one party getting everything out of the other without giving anything in return?

The question of “Gay Marriage,” has focused too much on the “Gay” part. Too many of us are obsessed with whether its between “one-man and one-woman,” rather than what actually goes on in the marriage. Mayor Pete may not be in a “one-man, one-woman” relationship but as he rightfully said, his marriage didn’t involve paying off porn stars.

I go back to the fact that I’m a dad of a young girl. Yes, ideally, I’d be more than happy if my little girl found a decent guy to spend the rest of her life with. However, if her preference was for another woman, so be it. Better to have a same sex marriage of equals rather than a series of abusive “normal” relationships.  

© BeautifullyIncoherent
Maira Gall