It’s Clear Rubbing Toxic Waste on Your D** Won’t Make It Bigger. So, Stop Rubbing it and Use Actual Viagra

 

Since the Prime Minister has said that Singapore needs to get ready for a recession, I’ve had to reflect on one of the most prominent changes in my life. I spent my late twenties and thirties as a freelance agent in an industry that is constantly on the look out for the “sexiest” thing around. Then in the last year of my thirties and now my forties, I’ve had something of an “unbreakable” rice bowl in and industry that likes old fashioned things (liquidators are paid from the assets of the liquidated company and so, we like the old-fashioned stuff like construction and shipping because these industries are inevitably asset-heavy).

I make no secret of the fact that I loathe the bureaucracy (office time) in the insolvency trade but it’s been an educational experience and it’s been educational. Just as speaking to office inhabitants depresses me, being around the second-hand good traders and workers that I’ve fired enlivens me to the workings of the world. I face these two contrasting situations on a daily basis and I’m grateful for it because somehow, I’ve managed to see a “main truth” through the various realities that my stakeholders face.

The main truth that I’ve started to see is the fact that our entire economic situation is the thing Einstein called the “definition of insanity.” While Singapore is not the only place defining insanity, we’re a small place and so our examples become even more intense.

In a way, its hard to “complain” about Singapore. Everything looks good and as I’ve so often said, whenever the locals complain, even people from the West, look at you and ask “What are you complaining about?” Since we are a “clean, green, rich and safe” place, it’s a legitimate question on the surface. However, if you dig a little, the retort is “is it a clean, green, rich and safe” space for everyone or just select few.

The answer lies somewhere in between two extremes. Singapore is for now, a pretty OK place to live in but if things continue as they are, the clean, green, rich and safe label is going to apply for a degreasing number of people.

The reasons for this came from a Youtube interview I watched between Patrick Bet-David and Dan Price, the CEO of Gavity Payment. In this interview, Mr. Price stated that what we call capitalism is not actually capitalism. People are not making money by providing clever ways to make life better for customers. Instead, a select group have come together to monopolise resources and screw the consumer. The interview can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7XZlFnqnBU

 

 There are many aspects of Singapore that prove him right. Although Singapore has been trying to build up a “start-up” eco-system (As a matter of disclosure, I have helped promote this) and had some success, the vast chunk of the economy remains reliant of good old-fashioned things like property and construction.

 These are industries that for the large part have stayed pretty much the same for the last fifty years and they function on monopolising things and an exploitative economic logic. When cases of Covid 19 exploded in the dormitories two years ago, it was clear to everyone except people in ivory towers that the cause of this was obvious – conditions in the dormitories were ripe for virus breeding. Sure, the tax payer had to bail out the dormitory owners for getting us into this mess but things remained the same – the government simply confined the workers to the same unsanitary conditions that had caused the outbreak in the first place and despite making lots of nice noises, the Minister of Manpower, Mr. Tan See Leng would only visit the “renovated” dormitories in a hazmat suite.

Yet, the logic for doing this is that its necessary to ensure Singapore remains prosperous in the capitalistic world. We have drilled it into people that the rich have to get richer and at the expense of the poor because its good for everyone including the poor. For example, we need the world’s best paid ministers and an army of expats to tell the grunts what to do because its good for everyone. We cannot have a minimum wage because it will scare away investors and everyone will be poorer for it. Singaporeans must learn to face competition but our large local companies are shielded from competition because its somehow beneficial to the people if monopolies set prices for inferior products.

Nobody questions this and peripheral social problems like the lack of babies are tackled according to this economic logic. Just throw a few grand at people to have a baby. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked and instead of questioning why it hasn’t worked, we’re trying to do more of the same.

This is where Mr. Dan Price comes in. Mr. Price is the founder of Gavity Payments, a credit card processing company that he set to give small businesses a cheaper alternative to Visa and Mastercard. Mr. Price came to fame in 2015 when he slashed his own salary from US$1 million a year to US$70,000 so that he could raise the wages of all his employees to a minimum of US$70,000.

This move earned Mr. Price, the ire of the late Rush Limbaugh, a radio talk show host, who spent a lifetime telling white American men that they should rub their testicles in the radioactive slims he was spewing and it was somehow the fault of the Mexicans when the subsequent cases of impotence exploded.

https://www.wtkr.com/2015/08/04/rush-limbaugh-calls-ceo-a-socialist-and-communist-for-plan-to-pay-employees-70000-minimum/

 

 A Man telling you that rubbing radioactive slime on your nuts will make your d**bigger will get upset with someone offering you actual Viagra of a respectable wage.

Well, nearly seven years after this “socialist” experiment, Mr. Price is very much alive and nowhere near the bankruptcy courts. Employees who have seen an improvement in their lives thanks to the wage increase have actually become engaged employees. Mr. Price has apparently made his top line go up three times and when the company took a battering thanks to Covid, employees were willing to take pay cuts. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/dan-price-ceo-gravity-payments-billionaire-70k-minimum-wage-b1839851.html

 

 Let’s be clear. Mr. Price is not a leftist academic. He’s a businessman who wants pretty much what any businessman wants – a thriving business. By daring to break away from exploitative logic, he’s actually engaged him employees and made them willing to do what they need to do to see that his business thrives.

The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is not “Viagra.” Its toxic slime that’s going to ruin people and societies in the long run.

The government needs to look at its approach and be bold enough to break away from this orthodoxy. It should throw out any orthodoxy produced by the likes of Mr. Limbaugh and focus on the actions of Mr. Price. Governments around the world, including Singapore’s, need to understand that while Mr. Limbaugh made a lot of money, his only contribution was to create generations of impotent wimps while Mr. Price is showing that you can make money and help create a better society.

Taking on the Pi**from the P***ed off

 

It’s been one of those days. Somewhere towards the end of the work day, I got a call from a director in one of the companies that my employer is liquidating. While I am generally OK with the guy (he’s ex-British army, which is something I respect), he suffers from an illness that White Men, particularly those who have made it good, suffer from – the innate belief that the system bends to their will because they say so.

This fellow suffers from this syndrome in major way and in his particular case, the syndrome has been compounded by an innate sense of being made impotent. It was very clear when I tried to explain the adjudication process and he yelled, “Oh, no you don’t talk – I’m going to take control of this conversation – you’re a bunch of CB, lying c**ts (which are actually the same thing but in different languages) and I hope you’re recording this because I want you to tell your boss in those words and I want him to sue me and I’m done dealing with you b***s.” He also promised to “do a Putin on Ukraine” to my current employer.  

In a way, I symathise. This guy was living the good life. He built a successful business that lasted for a long time and then one day he got into a legal dispute and instead of getting the court system in Australia and Singapore to work for him, he proceeded to spend an innate amount of time complaining about how he was brought down by fraudulent lawyers and kept insisting that we had to stop the liquidation, even though there was a court order stating very clearly that we, as liquidators had to go in and liquidate the company.

So, yes, he has my sympathies but then again, what can you do for someone who refuses to see that their situation has changed and their refusal to understand that the situation has changed has played a key role in their downfall?

It took a while to bring the temperature down but I managed to do it. It’s not the first time that I’ve been in rough situations on the job. Also had to manage a bankrupt who thought nothing of having her “man” speak loudly to me while she sat in a corner saying “Don’t worry, he won’t beat you – we know that we can’t beat people in Singapore.”

Such situations are thankfully rare and while one could argue that I’ve acquired that most precious of skills – dealing with awkward people, in awful situations, it’s a skill I don’t really want to use more than I have to. Its emotionally draining but you got to do it because its something that needs to get done.

When you deal with awkward people and awkward situations, you start to understand that diplomats actually do serious work. If you were to ask what a diplomat’s job is, I would say, it is to ensure that people who might be otherwise hostile to your country end up being friendly enough to help.

Now, the challenges of this job depend on who you are. If you are the USA or China or even India, you’ll find that everyone will want to be your friend. Reason is simple – everyone wants to do business with you and in the case of the USA, you also have the military might to protect other people.

However, it becomes more challenging when you are someone smaller with significantly less to honour. The smaller you are or the worse the neighbourhood you’re in, the more challenging your job. European diplomats have an easier time than say diplomats from their Caribbean or Pacific counterparts. Everyone wants to be in Europe but nobody really wants to be in the Caribbean or Pacific for anything longer than the time it takes to get their suntan.

OK, as a matter of disclosure, I was invited to the Jordanian Embassy’s National Function earlier this week. While the Ambassador was talking about what Jordan had to offer potential tourist, it occurred to me that Jordan had a very special resource – diplomatic talent.

Let’s face it, this is a country, with little to no natural resources. As one YouTube video stated – Jordan is disadvantaged by geography – nearly 70 percent of the land is desert and the Jordanian population is relatively small. In terms of geopolitics, Jordan is in a rough nighbourhood. Neighbours include Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian territories as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Whenever it comes to refuges, Jordan has become the sponge in a region that leaks refuges. Yet, despite all of this, Jordan has been politically stable beyond expectation.

How did it happen? Somehow, Jordan found a way of making friends across the political divide. Jordan’s late King Hussein was a master of diplomacy. He managed to stay on the right side of regional powers, like Gamal Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq who were promoting confrontation with the West, without going against the West. He saw to it that Jordan would become the second sovereign Arab nation to make peace with Israel, but unlike Egypt in the 70s, no one else in the Arab League isolated Jordan.

 

 The Judo Master of the Asylum. He saw to it that his kingdom would survive because everyone else would value it – Copyright King Hussein Foundation.

His skillfulness as diplomat was seen at his funeral in 1999. Four US Presidents came down to pay their respect and political rivals like Iran and Saudi Arabia and India and Pakistan put aside their differences for a day to pay respects to the man. A list of the attendees can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_King_Hussein

The late king wasn’t just a one off. His son and successor, King Abdullah II has managed to keep the legacy of his father going. Jordan is miraculously stable and we need to ask ourselves how they’ve managed to become so deft despite having not all that much to offer.

This could be the Jordan’s secret sauce to further prosperity. Jordan could start a school of diplomacy, where smaller nations who have to deal with larger and sometimes more unstable neighbours can be trained up. Whatever Jordan lacks in resources like oil, it more than makes up in talent. This is something that the world should look to.  

The Murderer Who Serves Other People

 One of the more amusing things about writing on a public forum is the fact you will attract attention. Sometimes you get “good” attention. It’s a good ego boost whenever you have people clap for you. However, its inevitably more interesting whenever you p*** people off and they write all sorts of things about you. It’s ultimately the people who you p*** off that give you the most food for thought.

The usual group of fans believe that I am a secret member of the ruling party’s internet brigade subtly trying to influence people to be slaves of the powers that be. Apparently, I am being paid millions. I guess you could say its flattering that people think I have that much influence and power, though I wouldn’t mind a percentage of what they believe I am being paid. I’ve had someone threaten to slap me around with her knockers for being a horrible little man. Unfortunately, she never showed me the said knockers that were going to destroy me.

One of the most interesting comments came as a reaction to my last piece “IT’S EASY TO BE ASAINT IN PARADISE – CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO, COMMANDER DEEP SPACE NINE STAR TREK,” which was picked up by TRemeritus. The topic was abortion and I made it a point to talk about my personal experience with abortion and how I ended up married for the first time because my ex went for the abortion. The accusation is as follows:

 

 Now, I am going to leave the debate on the morality of abortion to more intelligent and wiser people. I will accept that perhaps I am a murderer.

However, what I will question is the why having to work as a waiter was a punishment. What’s particularly interesting is that the punishment comes from “having to serve other people?” I can accept from a purely personal perspective that my punishment for my role in ending the pregnancy was the fact that the two years of marriage were awful. I can see why some people might argue that the fact that I’ve loved other people’s children and looked after them instead of having my own flesh and blood as a form of divine punishment – but serving other people. How is that a punishment?

Let’s start with some basics. I took a job as a waiter in my late thirties because I didn’t have a steady income and more importantly, my CPF savings consisted of less than $4,000 in all accounts. At that point, I was in danger of dying broke in every sense of the word. However, when I got the job and started “serving” other people, I started building up my CPF reserves, which helped pay for the eventual property I was to own and while I probably die broke, I may actually be able to buy an ice cream. So, in the material sense God was punishing me by helping me stabilise my finances.

Working as a waiter did lead to other things. My last big job in media relations came through working at the restaurant where I met members of the Indian Institutes of Management Alumni (IIM) association and I got hired. Then, when I started working in the insolvency business, I ended up meeting lawyers, whom I linked my day job boss to. Again, that was a funny way to punish me by giving me good things.

However, more interestingly, I got to meet the Pinoy and Indian chaps who would become friends. This experience gave me a better understanding of what these guys went through on a daily basis just to make sure that “my people” would have a somewhat comfortable life. Again, if this was a punishment from God, I am incredibly grateful for experience because it helped me to see that “immigrant bashing” populists are in fact the most ungodly people one could get involved with. Sure, my life isn’t great and I’m not racking it in but it’s definitely not the fault of the Indian chaps working in the kitchen.

If you look at just about every book on “success” you’ll find that having a mentality that you need to “serve other people” is one of the key elements. Say what you like about “Big Tech” but it’s been built on “serving.” Google for example, made life that much easier by serving us in our efforts to get information on the net. Every business is about “serving” other people in order to make a profit. If your business doesn’t serve anyone, who is going to pay for it.

Then, it occurred to me that since I’ve been dubbed a murder who had to serve other people as a punishment, shouldn’t that be the basis of criminal justice. Right now, its all about hanging and jailing. Now, I do agree that there are some elements of society that are unreformable and when you’re nice to them they’ll only take it as a weakness. However, for the most part, isn’t it better to reform people than to destroy them – especially in a society that is rapidly aging and claims that in needs to maximise what little manpower resources it has?

I think of the movie Gandhi when a murder tells Gandhi he going to hell because he bashed the skull of a Muslim boy in retaliation for Muslims killing his family. Gandhi says, the way out of hell is to find an orphan and raise him as his own – but he must raise him as a Muslim. If you think about it, that’s surprisingly practical advice.

So, as a murderer who is being punished by being made to serve other people, I will announce that I’m very happy that the divine has given me such a punishment. Thank God for being made to serve other people.

It’s Easy to be a Saint in Paradise – Captain Benjamin Sisko, Commander Deep Space Nine Star Trek

 

One of the biggest news stories to come out of the USA in the last month was the leaked memo that stated that the Supreme Court was planning of reversing “Roe vs Wade” the landmark legislation that guaranteed the right to an abortion. In the aftermath of this piece of news, a host of states started to pass anti-abortion legislation.

 

 As with much what comes out of America, the reactions were instantaneous and predictable. Conservatives and evangelical proclaimed victory while liberals decried the rolling back of basic rights. As this America, the world’s only hyperpower, the rest of us can only watch what happens and decide how we go from there.

My experience with abortion is personal. I had to send my then girlfriend for an abortion because she got pregnant and it was clear that despite her efforts to tell my parents that we’d get married and raise the child, that we were in no position to raise a child. Having seen her through the abortion period, I am aware that abortion is not a pleasant experience no matter how you slice and dice it. However, it was a blessing for us to terminate the pregnancy. We wanted different things and she turned violent during the marriage. There was no way for us to last as a couple and when we left each other, we did so cleanly – it was just us separating. There was no kid in between and we could walk away from each other.

Sure, one could say that I’m being punished for that since at the age of 47, it looks unlikely that I’ll never father my own flesh and blood. However, I prefer to think that I was opened up to the blessing of adopting the evil young woman and having Yooga (Joyce’s son) in my life.

My views on abortion are in line with Lee Kuan Yew’s on prostitution. It’s an unpleasant thing but better for it to be legal, in the open and under proper medical care. My old English teacher (a woman) said that although she didn’t believe in abortion, the alternatives were inevitably worse and we’d probably have less healthy young women around as quite a few would have died or damaged their ability to reproduce from illegal abortions.

The problem with the issue of abortion is like the problem of the real estate dispute in the Levant – namely the fact that too many people have assigned themselves as agents of God and too many of those people have decided that God has given them the exclusive to police what other people do in the bedroom. It should be telling that an NBC poll found that the majority of people who believed that abortion should be illegal are evangelical Christian.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-news-poll-shows-nation-s-demographic-divides-abortion-n1278210

This is the same community that believes that teaching school children of the existence of contraception is to encourage them to have pre-marital sex. It is clear that this community lives in a world where people are saints and have the ability to behave according to the rules imposed on them by the rest of society. It would seem that the evangelical community is living in paradise where no poverty, war and pestilence exist.

However, as was said by Benjamin Sisko, the head of Deep Space Nine, a run-down space station in the Star Trek franchise – “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise,” and the reality is that most of us do not live in paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGO1qjIr5E

 

Let’s start with the fact that many of us who don’t live in paradise have normal sexual urges and despite the advances in birth control and knowledge, this can go out of the window when the happy hormones of a sexual encounter get into play. I should know.

Whenever the topic of my first marriage comes out, my mother will inevitably ask “Why wasn’t birth control in your hands?” Well, as it stupid as it sounds, I didn’t believe it would ever happen to me. This was not a “Geylang Girl,” but someone who had been a virgin at the age of 28, which was a fact that she’d remind me of whenever I tried to suggest that her going for an abortion was not my sole responsibility.

Accidents do happen. Unplanned an unwanted pregnancy happen. So, what can be done? Angelina Jolie has shown us that adoption does allow children that are not wanted to find a wanted home. However, not everyone is prepared to give up their kids to a stranger and let’s not forget that a woman will have to carry the child for nine months before then, something which can be traumatic if the mother in question has a psychological precondition against seeing the pregnancy through as in the case of incest and rape (things that apparently don’t happen in evangelical paradise)

Then there’s the link between unwanted pregnancy and poverty. It was found that in 2014 some 49 percent of abortion patients lived below the federal poverty line:

https://www.guttmacher.org/report/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014

Why would women living in poverty seek to have an abortion? Since this is not evangelical paradise, the logical answer would be that they are simply not in the position to support another mouth. If one were to dig into the poverty figures even further, one might find that these were women whose partners bailed on them the moment the foetus started to take shape. How do children usually turn out. Well, according to a World Bank report, “

https://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01241/WEB/IMAGES/WHATCAUS.PDF

Abortion is not something nice. It should never be a substitute for proper contraception. A condom and contraception pills can ensure that unwanted pregnancies don’t happen. It is better to pay $10 for a packet of condoms than $4,000 for an abortion.

Having said all of that, mistakes will happen and it is better to have an unpleasant procedure done in a hospital with proper hygiene than to have women dying in back allies or unwanted children growing in environments where criminalities are normal. Just because something is not nice doesn’t mean that it should be illegal.   

“Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people, greatness is being accepted by the people” – Mike Tyson former Heavyweight Champion of the World

 

The big news this week was the fact that Mr. Samuel Seow, a prominent lawyer in the entertainment scene was struck off the roll of advocates and solicitors for verbally and physically abusing three women who worked for him. The story can be found at:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/lawyer-samuel-seow-struck-off-assault-staff-105754608.html

 

This incident is horrifying and while it is good that Mr. Seow has been struck of the rolls, the punishment does not seem significant in a nation that makes a song and dance about having harsh penalties to deter crimes. What Mr. Seow did was not just abuse but criminal intimidation (What else can you call holding a knife at someone and threatening to kill them?). If we really are a nation that believes in justice and equality, Mr. Seow must face our famously harsh penalties so that future abusers are “deterred” from doing such things.

What makes these crimes particularly awful is the setting of the crime. This did not happen in a seedy bar in the red-light district or in a dark ally way in the migrant worker area. This happened in a lawyer’s office located on Singapore’s main shopping district. The three young ladies that he assaulted were not “looking for trouble” by going to “dodgy” areas and behaving inappropriately at a time when they should have been at home. They merely went to work like normal and get got assaulted.

Then, there is the issue of who the assailant is. He is not a migrant worker who lost his money in a scam and decided to rob someone out of desperation. He is not someone with a low IQ nor is he some kid who ended up in “Bad Company” and spent his days committing armed robbery instead of going to school. If anything, Mr. Seow is the picture-perfect Singaporean. He is a lawyer (which means he’s not only been through school but also had to go on a number of professional courses) and he’s a lawyer with 20 over years of experience – hence you can’t say he’s an immature kid acting on impulse. Furthermore, he’s not just any lawyer. He is known as the “Entertainment” lawyer or the man that people in the publicity industry turn to.

It’s one of those cases where the more you look at Mr. Seow’s status and all the good things he’s achieved, the more inexcusable his crimes become. There was no way Mr. Seow could not have known that he was doing was criminal and there is no evidence to suggests that Mr. Seow was suffering from mental incapacity. Yet, despite this, he chose to engage in criminal activity.

So, what makes a man in Mr. Seow’s position behave like this? This question needs to be asked because, while Mr. Seow is a very visible example of a boss behaving badly, he is very likely not the only one to be behaving in this manner. As I’ve argued previous postings, Singapore has peculiarity from the rest of the world. In other places, crime like taking upskirt videos, mistreatment of workers and so on, are usually crimes associated with the lower strata – the poor, unwashed and uneducated. However, in Singapore, these are crimes that are committed by the educated and well to do (University students and working professionals).

I think of the first time I ever had to hand my identity card over the police. It was an exquisite spa, when the woman I was hanging out with at the time decided to throw a tantrum because the spa wouldn’t let me sit in on her massage. When I told Flesh Ball, her reaction was “Oi – how many years you hang out with me in Geylang [Singapore’s Red-Light District] and how many time the police ask you for your IC? After three dates in attas place you have to hand over your IC to the police.”

So, why is it such that Singapore’s “Educated” class in behaving in a way that you only associate with the rubbish in other parts of the world? A part of me suspects that while things may look good on the surface, we are in fact a very repressed society and this situation is in part due to one of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s biggest failures – an obsession with using fear. He himself said that if given a choice between being “feared” and “loved” he would prefer to be feared.

I don’t doubt that fear can be a useful tool for people with power. I don’t doubt that fear if used correctly can have a positive effect. Sad to say, there is an element of society that needs to fear something (jail time etc) in order for the rest of society to be able to function. However, this can be taken to an extreme, where fear is used to the extent that the people creating the fear have no fear of the consequences of their actions.

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew got away with it because he was a man of strong character and although he did get used to enjoying power, he was also wise enough to know that there had to be limits. He knew that trade-offs had to be made. People would fear the government but government need to use it to get things done and ensure a better way of life. Like him or loath him, Mr. Lee saw to it that government performed at a certain standard.

Unfortunately, not everyone who comes into power has Mr. Lee’s character. As Mr. Seow has shown, weaklings do come into positions of power and after awhile they develop what can only be politely described as a “God-Complex,” believing that they can do anything to the people beneath them because nothing will happen to them. You will notice that weaklings in power enjoy reminding the people beneath them that they are somehow dependent on them so its best not to change things.

This is not healthy because it effectively corrupts things and corrupt systems do not produce anything of value. The rot that starts at the top because the top does not believe it will be held to account. Then the rot moves down. Most people from the African continent will, for example, be able to testify to the fact that corruption at the top creates systems where you cannot survive by being honest.

If you want to see the ill effects of our over reliance on fear, one only needs to take a trip to the Malaysian state of Johor. You will find litter bugs are inevitably Singaporeans. If you were to ask them why they litter in Johor but not in Singapore, the answer is simple – because they can. The thing keeping Singapore clean is not the fact that the people are clean but the fact that they fear the fine imposed on them if they get caught and once you remove that fear, the people behave in a way that suggests they are not as clean as the city they come from.

Ironically, Mike Tyson said it best when he said, “Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people, greatness is being accepted by the people,” when he was rebuking Floyd Mayweather for claiming to be the greatest boxer ever. When you use fear as a tool of power, you become fearful too and then you set yourself apart from the people. Think of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, where people lived in constant fear of Saddam. Funnily enough, Saddam was also living in constant fear.

Fear can be used initially to get things done. However, you need to produce results that make life better for everyone. Tech legends Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were known to terrify employees. However, they created revolutionary products (hence the feeling of being part of something) and they also made ordinary people very rich. Seattle is filled with “Microsoft Millionaires,” who may have disliked Bill Gates for terrifying them at work but in the end, he saw to it that got a better life by merely working hard. Fear turned to respect. Same is true for Lee Kuan Yew.

This is something many of the word’s strutting peacocks forget. People will only put up with being afraid of you if its going to lead to something for them. If they have to feel frightened on a daily basis because you are uncertain if certain parts of your anatomy exist, they will either leave or do whatever it takes to ensure you will never have the ability to terrify.  

In order to ensure that Singapore does not suffer from the corrupting influence of fear-based leadership, the justice system needs to see to it that Mr. Seow pays for his crimes so as to set a message that people in power are accountable. Making Mr. Seow would remind Singaporeans that Singapore is the “Lion City” and not the “Ameba City” and we should expect people in leadership positions to be lions and not ameba.  

“Stop Checking Boxes and Ask if this is Right for Where You Need to Be”

 

After 38-years as being one of the key stocks that make up the Straits Times Industrial Index (STI), Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) was delisted four days ago. The once dominant player in the media market is now a subsidiary of Cuscaden Peak, an investment vehicle led by the property tycoon, Mr. Ong Beng Seng and two companies linked to the state investment firm – Temasek Holdings. The CEO of SPH, Mr. Ng Yat Chung has been replaced by Mr. Gerald Yong. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-press-holdings-officially-delisted-gerald-yong-to-take-over-as-ceo

 

 

SPH was a symbol of economic might (Singapore’s stock index being named after SPH’s flagship product). The flagship product, The Straits Times, was something that most of us over 40 grew up with. For me, it was especially personal. As mentioned in previous postings, my mother was an editor and many of the former journalist were part of my childhood. Seeing SPH shrivel into a non-profit and a property company was like watching someone you knew from childhood vanish.

However, this was something to be expected. In fairness to the former CEO, Mr. Ng Yat Chung, readership of newspapers and the accompanying advertising dollars had been on the decline before he became CEO and the management before his had tried to keep things afloat by investing in other businesses like property and old folk’s homes. One might be inclined to argue that Mr. Ng should be hailed as a hero for breaking up SPH in the same way that Jack Welch, former CEO General Electric (GE) was.

While it is tempting to try and make this argument, there’s a crucial difference. Mr. Welch sold units of GE and made the core company stronger. He units that he sold went to other commercial enterprises and they managed to do better once they left the GE umbrella. Shareholder value soared along with Mr. Welch’s hero status.

Mr. Ng by contrast had to hive off the core business of SPH, which was the media business into a non-profit dependent on government handouts and while shareholders did receive more per share than previous market price, the offer of S$2.35 per share offered by Cuscaden Peak was still lower what it was when Mr. Ng took over as CEO in September 2017 (S$2.72 per share):

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/T39.SI/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADLfB0mzq4ZYMnDlEJWghdHZrTfkEJ4ma_VA1gpucnt7QyDki3ZYXThZLCz3BYp83mp6C7_7vZj7P-eYonee6UZ8XozwmpGjQYztFGW4c38g6I9GwyH7HXbL-BwjereA5YBQlJoM0hwAzSudm29U1fI80rR4DGmxlw4ixW-K3drY

 

Taken from Yahoo Finance

If the criteria for leadership is leaving the organisation in a better place than when you took over, then Mr. Ng failed. Let’s remember that when Mr. Ng took over SPH it was effectively two businesses and whilst he did sell the property business for a sum of money, one has to remember that he didn’t exactly sell the media business. If anything, shareholders actually paid for him to “hive off” the media business. At the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) held on 10 September 2021, the shareholders received a nominal sum of $1 (one) and the entity that was taking over the media business would receive assistance from SPH to the sum of $80 million in cash and $30 million in shares. So, if you discount the share portion, the disposal of SPH’s media business costs the shareholders of SPH $79,999,999, a sum which should be factored in when one calculates how much Mr. Ng made for the shareholders when he sold the property business. More can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sph-shareholders-vote-in-favour-of-hiving-off-media-business

So, even if Mr. Ng was unable to turn the media business around, one might imagine that as a CEO of a listed company, he had an obligation to ensure that the shareholders received the best possible deal from the disposal. Given that the government has championed itself as a defender of free market liberalism, one might have imagined that Mr. Ng would have looked for someone from elsewhere who could run it better and give better value to the shareholders.

This was something which he had done in his previous job as CEO of Neptune Orient Line (NOL). He couldn’t make it profitable, so he sold it to CMA, who were able to announce a profit in Q1 of 2017. In this instance, one can say that at least Mr. Ng sold the business rather than paid to give it away.

In fairness to Mr. Ng, he’s not the first general who has stumbled in running a near monopoly business. His successor as Chief of Defence Force, Mr. Desmond Kuek, famously became a champion of maximising shareholder value at the SMRT Corporation by selling the company to the shareholders.

Here’s the thing. Singapore promotes itself as a financial centre. We are supposed to be safe haven for international investors and we claim to be a meritocracy where the best and brightest get promoted regardless of race or religion. This is what we sell to the community of international investors.

Yet, the reality is that we have a strange tolerance for leaders who don’t live up their hype. If you look at the qualifications of Mr. Kuek and Mr. Ng, you would conclude that they’re highly intelligent and qualified people. However, they were clearly wrong for the organisations that they were supposed to lead. What’s worse in Mr. Ng’s case is that after a mediocre performance in one organisation, they saw fit to put him in another.

Interestingly enough, the answer came from an interview that Rick Wilson, the former Republican Strategist, to Trevor Noah. In this interview, Mr. Wilson explained why the Republicans had been more effective as a political party.

His explanation was simple, the Democrats were picking candidates who were right from an ideological perspective. However, the party that Mr. Wilson advised was picking candidates that were right for the voters in the area they were contesting in. That interview can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdiw7IkWRJ4     

 

 

There’s a parallel here. People like Mr. Kuek and Mr. Ng are right candidates to run things based on a check list designed by a central committee. Both are highly educated. Both worked as civil servants. Both owe their success to the system.

However, nobody asked if they were the right people to run a subway or a shipping company or newspapers. Sure, there’s an Oxbridge Degree and an MBA somewhere there. However, was there anything to suggests that they were the right people for the organisations they were tasked to lead.

This is not to say that being military men should be used against them. Military experience is supposed to teach leadership and discipline, which if applied can lead to success in the commercial field. Bob McDonald, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble for example, was in the military before he joined the commercial sector.

However, to use a military term, Mr. McDonald succeeded because he understood his battlefield was changed and he went down on the ground and learnt what he needed to know in order to succeed in the commercial field.

This was clearly not the case with either Mr. Ng or Mr. Kuek (though to be fair, Mr. Kuek’s successor as Chief of Defence Force and CEO of SMRT, Mr. Neo Kian Hong did try to at least show he was trying to learn the ropes – saw to it that he was photographed ridding in an MRT). Mr. Ng even went as far as to show how little he understood of what journalist do for a living when he proceeded to turn the term “Umbrage” into a meme when asked a question at a press conference by a journalist.

There’s no doubt that both Mr. Ng and Mr. Kuek have place that’s right for them. However, both need to find that out for themselves and not rely on a system where they’re deemed perfect for every organisation around just because they check a few boxes.

If Singapore needs anything, it is a need for the system to stop relying on box checking. Institutions need to be given the ability to hire people who are right for them rather than what boxes suggests. Any HR practitioner will tell you that the process of finding the right candidate for an organisation is a challenge. The job of HR should not be made more challenging when it has to answer to a boss that is imposed on it merely because the boss checks some boxes and we should not go out of our way to glorify top CEOs when they screw up – they’re paid well enough to take responsibility for their actions and shareholders shouldn’t be made to pay for bosses who diminish value.

Who is Your Daddy?

 

We Should Bring Back Combat Sports to School.

My Dad who devoted his life to making sure that Max and I would never have to experience life on the streets is probably going to shoot me for this post but in the last two decades of my life, the people who I have come to respect have inevitably come from the streets. If I look at the people who have come up with the streaks of genius that have made a difference to my life – it’s always been the people from the streets.

The reason is simple. People like me – namely anyone with a qualification and working in a profession. Say what you like but as long as you’re relatively educated and are reasonably committed to something, you should be able to build a career and earn enough to feed the family without having to leave an airconditioned environment. Even a PMET like myself, who has somehow fallen through the cracks and never really got started on a career, has options. When I part-time in a restaurant, I do it from a position of earning a bit of pocket money and getting to know people. I can interact with customers in a different way from the rest of my colleagues because I’m not dependent on the job. I can afford to write this blog and write off what I don’t earn to brand building.

If you have a degree in Singapore, chances are you are from a decent enough family that found the means to pay for it and invested their time to ensure you could study. The very fact that you’re educated means that when you have to approach strangers, they’re willing to give you the time of the day. When it comes to job hunting, there’s a chance that you will either have a family connection or a school connection. For me, Dad played golf with a Citi vice-president. So, when I wanted to get an internship in a bank, I spoke to Dad (Incidentally, when I was asked how I got the job, I was told not to be embarrassed by the fact that I got in via a contact because that’s how everyone got their job.)

Later on, when I ended up having to do freelance PR work, I had the good fortune of Mum’s connections. I had no real experience in as much as my work record was such that I had never stayed in an agency for more than a few months. However, the mere fact that was my mother’s son and had been around her friends, meant that I had something more valuable – I could pick up the phone and get hold of many of the editors of magazines. I got enough successful jobs under my belt to develop a track record as a guy who could get things done despite the lack of formal experience.

Whether we like it or not, people who have education do start life with certain advantages. Things as who you went to school with help. Much as we may not like it, who parents are does give us certain advantages.

While all that is true for those of us who were blessed with the ability to get an education. It’s a very different story for the people who had to grow up on the proverbial streets. You’re talking about the people who could never make it through the education system or had to battle difficult backgrounds. You’re talking about people whose options in life are limited to certain career paths. I take the favourite boxer of my generation – Mike Tyson. If you read his biography “Undisputed Truth,” he talks about growing up in an environment where he saw his mother and her various men in violent situations. Should it be any surprise that the guy was lucky enough to end up in boxing. The options for a guy like him are boxing or a street gang.

One of the biggest truths for people from the streets is the fact that the paths that are available to them are often self-reliant. This was brought home to me by a story of how the son of Evan Holyfield, the son of former heavyweight champion, Evander Holyfield (who beat Mike Tyson twice) got knocked out by a guy who needed to work as an electrician to supplement whatever he was making from boxing. More on the story can be found at:

https://www.givemesport.com/88008288-evander-holyfields-son-evan-gets-brutally-knocked-out-in-massive-upset

 

 Evander Holyfield was for my generation the heroic fighter in the same way that Mike Tyson was the beast. The elder Mr. Holyfield didn’t terrify opponents the way Mr. Tyson did but we loved him because he had heart.

However, that didn’t mean anything in the ring for the younger Mr. Holyfield. His opponent was simply hungrier and wasn’t about to be intimidated by who the younger Holyfield’s father happened to be.

Mr. Evan Holyfield isn’t the first aspiring boxer with a famous father. In my generation, there was Marvis Frazier, son of “Smokin Joe Frazier,” who actually took the heavyweight crown from Mohammad Ali. Unfortunately for the younger Mr. Frazier, he ran into the youthful and very energetic Mr. Tyson who had no respect for who the younger Frazier happened to be related to and he promptly ended the younger Mr. Frazier’s boxing career.

https://alchetron.com/Mike-Tyson-vs.-Marvis-Frazier   

 

 Say what you like about boxing but in the ring, its very clear that legacy or who a person happens to be related to have utterly no bearing. The only thing that matters in the ring is whoever wants to win it more.

In a way, this is something that people like me often forget. For people like me, having to “fight” means using your mouth and telling people that you are fighter. For people on the streets (where most boxers come from), it literally means beating someone or having the stuffing beaten out of you.

In the piece “IFONLY POLITICIANS COULD LIVE AS PROSTITUTES BEFORE ASSUMING OFFICE,” I did argue that it would be an idea for politicians to live as prostitutes because it would make them more sympathetic to people. However, shoving politicians to work in a brothel is a fantasy.

However, getting people from elite schools to learn boxing or any full contact sport isn’t. Such sports should become part of the curriculum and it should be given serious weightage alongside academic success. If you don’t learn to survive in boxing ring, you shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. Furthermore, regular boxing matches should not be held just between elite schools. You need to have the elite school students paired up with the, how would you say – less fortunate schools.

Combat sports would help make our leaders much better. Consider the following:

Firstly, anyone who has been in an actual fight realises that you can get hurt as much as you inflict pain. Unfortunately, this is something that too many people don’t understand. Take the example of the recent infestation of far-right politicians who like to talk about being fighters how they want to take on everyone from the safety of highly guarded facilities. Now, imagine if you had a system where these guys could only graduate from school if they had fighting experience. They would either be denied to get into positions of power or they develop the ability to think twice before provoking unnecessary fights.

Secondly, if you get kids from elite schools to compete against schools stuffed with the kids who would love nothing better than to whack the “upper crust,” you will get an “upper crust” that will understand that it’s in their interest not to brand themselves as “uncaring elite” because they’ll be very aware of what everyone else might want to do to them.

Thirdly, as mentioned, who you happen to be related to or how rich you are, has no bearing to surviving in the boxing ring. Having to survive in a boxing ring would help breed a more self-reliant population that gets the idea that survival is about being able to get up once they’ve been knocked down.

The case for making combat sports an important part of the global education is getting stronger by the day. Its time our policy makers seriously thought about it.

What Can Small Beast Teach Us?

 

The last two weeks have been good for one of the most covid-affected parts of business – networking. My current employer, who is a sponsor and honorary auditor of the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, sent me for two functions in the last two weeks.

It was great fun to be able to “press the flesh” and meet new friends. As with all functions, it was good to be able to eat, drink and be merry.

 

 Taken from the Irish Chamber of Commerce Linkedin Page

On the personal front, it was good to be able to attend functions. However, what really struck me about these events was the fact that gave me a hope that there is an emerging global trend – namely the coming together of smaller nations to work together for common prosperity.

The first event I attended was a cooperation between the Belgium-Luxemburg Chamber of Commerce, the Irish Chamber of Commerce and the Finish Business Council. The second event was a collaboration between the New Zealand and Irish Chambers. The one feature that every country mentioned here cannot be described in any shape or form as a “power” but have somehow managed to become prosperous and pleasant places.

I mention this because at the time of writing, there’s been plenty talk about the revival of superpower rivalries. We have the example of the Russian conflict in Ukraine, which has the revival of the “West” lead by the USA moving to contain Russia, which from a European perspective was “East.” In the economic sphere, it’s West, represented by the USA and Australia against China, which is as “East” as it gets.

If you were to look at the geopolitical world as a jungle, you could say that you had elephants in the shape of the USA and China and to an extent India.

Then we have the hippos, which are the larger regional economies like Germany, France and the UK on the European continent and Japan and South Korea in Asia and Australia. Russia is seen as the bear, which goes to try to show that its cute but is in fact quite vicious.

As can be seen in nature documentaries, everyone gets out of the way when the larger animals fight because the damage in between can be extensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JF5tuBEIE

 

 When these two giants charge against each other – everything between gets crushed

However, in the geopolitical jungle, its never a case of two giants colliding. The elephants of the geopolitical jungle have a way of bringing their other allies into the conflict. If you look at the current conflict in Ukraine as an example, you have the American Elephant with a few European hippos trying taking on the Russian bear along with its Belarussian mini-me.

So, what do the smaller beast do when the elephants and hippos charge at each other? One of the answers may be to adapt the “insect strategy” and learn to work with partners of a similar size.

The Republic of Ireland is an example. When I was growing up in the UK in the late 80s and 90s, the Irish existed to be the butt of jokes like what’s 50 metres long and has an IQ of 50 – the answer being 50 Irishmen lining up for the bus.

However, when I returned to the UK in 1997 for university, the joke was on the British. Ireland joined the EU and became the “Celtic Tiger,” attracting high tech investment. People who had fled Dublin for London suddenly ran back to Dublin because there was simple more action there. While the Irish economy went into recession and has lost some sparkle, the Republic of Ireland is a developed country enjoying high standards of living by many measures. When Ireland first proclaimed Independence in April 1916, its largest export was effectively starving masses and the only noteworthy product was Guineas. Today, the largest export is computer services and Ireland is home to many pharmaceutical companies.

https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/top-stories/2021/12-december/computer-services-remain-irelands-largest-export

Change hasn’t been confined to economics. Ireland is famously Catholic and conservative. It is ethnically homogenous with 92 percent of the population classified as White. Yet, in 2017, the Irish elected an openly gay man of Indian origin to be Prime Minister and that was prior to having two ladies as President. Neither the US or UK have elected a gay person to the top job and in Singapore, which is only 74 percent plus Chinese, we still argue that we’re not ready to have a prime minister from outside the ethnic majority, even if we claim that we succeed because we are “regardless of race or religion.”

What happened? Well, unlike their British cousins across the Irish Sea, the Irish didn’t make too much of trying to have a say in EU politics. Instead, they focused on trade within the union. They kept taxes attractive low enough to attract investment from Europe and the USA and Ireland opened itself to the world. Sure, the UK remains Ireland’s largest trading partner but Ireland is no longer the sore thumb of the UK. It small and friendly but at the same time works within the EU. The logic is simple – invest in Ireland and you have access to a much larger market.

Another small nation worth studying is New Zealand, which is effectively a boot on the corner of the globe. Unlike Australia, nobody thinks of New Zealand unless it comes to rugby (All Blacks) and Lord of the Rings scenery. However, New Zealand is a prosperous place (52^nd largest economy in the world or 32^nd if you look at the per capita figures).

What’s more interesting is the fact that unlike Ireland and the Asian Tigers, New Zealand is not a “sexy high-tech” economy. The largest export of New Zealand is milk. So, how does a country of only five million plus tucked away in the corner of the world build prosperity (In the words of the General Manager of Fonterra’s South and East Asian operation “New Zealand is not advantaged in terms of geography when it comes to world trade)?

If Ireland is an example of why one should open up to the world, New Zealand is many ways the living example of – it’s not what you have but what you do with it that counts. New Zealand does not need to be the master of everything but in the area where it is dominant, it is in a league of its own.

Take the All Blacks, New Zealand’s dominating rugby team. The statistics speak for themselves. The All Blacks have a 75 percent winning record against all their major competitors, making them the most successful sports team in any sport. If you study the All Blacks, you’ll notice how New Zealand makes the most of what it has.

Likewise, there’s the export of milk, where New Zealand is to milk what Kuwait is to oil. One of its most interesting enterprises is Fonterra. Like the New Zealand RugbyFootball Union, Fonterra is an example of how New Zealand’s limited resources are brought together in the most effective manner. What is particularly interesting is the fact that Fonterra is not a corporation but a farmer’s cooperative, which brings together New Zealand’s multitude of dairy farmers to work together.

The big beast of the geopolitical jungle will always dominate in the sense that they have the size and economies of scale. However, small nations need not be caught up in the struggles between the larger nations and maintain a sense of independence. The insect strategy of working together and using what you have to maximum effect is one that many small nations need to look at.

“CB – Rate me SO low. Think you very handsome ah” – Flesh Ball from the streets of Geylang

 

I’ve just come back from my nightly work out and I was reminded of the time two of my more interesting friends had a dialogue about each other. These two friends were commenting on a lady that I was spending most of a lot of time during that part of my life. One of my guy friends mentioned that the lady in question would be a minus ten on a scale on minus ten to ten. I remember mentioning this to Flesh Ball, who had taken an instant dislike to this lady friend of mine. She then asked – “How did he rate me?” When I told her that she was rated at three, her instant reply was “CB, rate me so low. Think you very handsome ah.”

I bring up this point because it underlines one what I believe is the greatest problem in our current economic system – namely the fact that we produce too many people who believe that business is all about them and their brilliance and everyone around them is supposed to be blown away by their said brilliance. You can always spot these guys (they’re usually are) a mile away. Go to a meeting with them and they’ll insist on taking up all the oxygen talking about all their great things they’ve done without considering whether its relevant to the objective of the meeting.

If you use a dating analogy, you’re talking about one of the biggest turn-offs that woman have listed in survey after survey – a date where the guy spends the entire evening talking about himself and how great he is – hint-hint, you’re lucky to be in my presence. It usually never occurs to these guys that the girl might not exactly agree with them.

One of the biggest faults of this group is the fact that they have a pronounced male fault – namely the fault of expecting every woman around them to look like a Victoria Secret model and to fall instantly in lust with them, without considering if they have anything attractive to offer in return. These are the guys who will start bad mouthing a woman the moment they get rejected. Believe it or not, its not sour grapes in many instances but a genuine shock that they’d get rejected:

 

 You find her attractive. You want to approach her. But remember – copyright Alibaba:

 

 There’s no reason for her to find you attractive if you look like this – copyright Daily Mirror.

Since I don’t have a paper qualification, I don’t know the exact medical term for this but I do know that I’m pointing to something quite common. I guess it’s called the “Me Syndrome” where everything is about me, the talker.

These guys usually have an issue getting laid, even if they’re decent looking and reasonably successful. It never occurs to these guys that they’re turning off the other party when they start rattling on about themselves.

By contrast, one of the most successful “players” that I’ve known (an Algerian guy called Sam that I knew from my student days in London), didn’t have a lot of money, education or great brains. However, he made it a point to listen. His main line was – listen then talk – “She like jock, you also like jock – she hates jocks, you also hate jocks.” Women, as they say, like to feel listened to. On the other side of the equation, I remember a colleague talking about how she felt drawn to a friend of mine. Her underlying point was not so much his “looks” but the fact that she could talk to him. His seduction technique was simple – he listened to her when she talked. The key in this game was he made her feel special.

While none of the players that I know are what you’d call movie star handsome, they all take care of their appearance. Grooming is top class and while they’re not what you’d call gym-rats, none of them are what you’d call the slob in the basement. Players also ensure they have decent enough general knowledge so that they can converse reasonably on a wide range of topics.

What is true in the dating game is also true in the business world. There’s nothing as off putting as a guy who spends the entire meeting sucking up the oxygen talking about his or her skills and how great he or she is. On the other hand, you’re bound to be interested to work with the guy who ask you what your pain points are and how you can solve them.

Making people feel special in a relationship is often the key to success. If you look at successful small businesses in the service sector, you’ll find that one of the keys to success is making the client feel more important than if the client went to a larger competitor. In my personal experience, I made it point to learn how to drop phrases of Hindi into the conversation. My reasoning was simple, most of the guys feeding me were Indian nationals, who had the money to go to a big multinational but went with me (yes, I was cheaper too I considered what I was being paid decent and I had to make them feel special when dealing with me.)

Hans Hofer, founder of Apa Guides, once said that “Business is all about organizing relationships.” Many of us would find it a lot easier if we remembered that relationships involve more than one party.