Do You Have to be the Smartest Guy in the Room?

One of the key features of the coronavirus for many journalists has been the White House Briefings on the coronavirus. These briefings were supposed to be an opportunity for America’s federal government lead by its president to update the nation on the efforts against the coronavirus.

Unfortunately, the briefings have not been briefings. Instead, they were opportunities for comedians to gather more material. The most recent one was when the president openly suggested that a possible cure for the virus was to inject bleach into the body. That moment can be found at:

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

Every comedian pounced on this moment and the resulting outcry ensured that future briefings were put on hold. What happened?

The answer is simple. The man in charge had a need to show that he was doing something. This was a man who had come into power by telling the world that he had been given a very special brain. The public looked at the image he had presented of himself and agreed. He was then put into office.

Donald Trump is correct. He has a very special talent, which propelled him from being a successful reality TV star into the oval office. Mr. Trump has an instinctive genius for attracting attention and arousing passions. As one American customer at the Bistrot said, “There is no neutrality on the man.”

While he has a talent for drawing attention to himself, he’s not a medical expert and in a situation where medical expertise is of the most important variety, one has to question why he’s even suggesting any form of medication (and the bigger question being why people believe him). One suggestion is that he genuinely believes that he’s the smartest person in the room.

Unfortunately, being smart or the smartest person in the room isn’t the best thing to be. Some of the most successful people in the world, like Robert Kuok, the founder of the Shangri La Hotel chain, have said that one should always look for people smarter than yourself to do the job. Mr. Kuok, who survived the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia to build a fortune of US$12.8 billion (nearly four times that of Donald Trump) is clearly correct. Mr. Kuok, who started out as a sugar trader, has built a large and diverse empire beyond his core competence in commodity trading. How did he do it? The answer was allowing people who knew better than himself to do the job.

While the human brain is capable to thinking of many great things, it has certain limits. One of those key limits is that human beings tend to focus on certain things that they like and are good at and the saying “You can’t be good at everything,” rings true. This is especially true in leading large organisations and even nations, where the person at the top has to deal with a wide variety of issues and he or she simply cannot master every one of them. As such, one of the key skills of leadership is to know when you’re not the smartest person in the room and letting that person take the limelight with your encouragement.

This is seen most clearly in military situations. Mrs. Thatcher in the UK, knew she was not a military expert. So, when the Falklands War broke out, she set the objectives for what she wanted and then allowed the military to get on with the job. Likewise, George Bush Senior, did the same when booting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. In comparison, the attempts to rescue the hostages in Iran under Jimmy Carter was a total disaster.

The entire professional services industry is based on the principle of getting smart people to do the job. As my favourite liquidator often says, “We’re hired for our knowledge.” Yes, the client or the main businessperson has to make final decisions because only he or she knows the overall business objective, but you as a consultant must provide advice because what you’re selling is the fact that you’re smarter at that particular aspect of the job.

Humility beats intelligence in leadership. Here in Singapore, we are led by highly qualified people (all with excellent credentials). Unfortunately, during this virus, we got so busy celebrating being hailed by the international media as the “Gold Standard” in managing the virus that we forgot about are vast underbelly of migrant workers. Then, there was a scramble when the infections exploded in the dormitories

A wise person does not need to know everything. He or she needs to recognize the fact and then look for the best person to do that aspect of the job. Allowing someone to be the hero is sometimes the most heroic thing to do. Let’s go back to America’s numbers. You have a president who is not a medical doctor prescribing unproven medication from the presidential bully pulpit. According to him, he is doing a fabulous job. At the time of writing, America has 1,160,774 cases, which is more than next six nations combined and in five months the virus has killed roughly ten thousand more than the Vietnam War in 14-years.

How Do You Get the Rich to Pay More?

The most interesting read I had on Labor Day was an article by Warren Buffet for Business Insider. Mr. Buffet who is one of the world’s richest men with an estimated fortune estimated at around USD 73 billion argued that while the billionaire class was not conspiring the screw the world, it was time for taxes to be raised on the very wealthy and that they pay their fair share. The interview with Mr. Buffet can be found at:

 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/warren-buffett-wealth-gap-inequality-solutions-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR33IHdTvozw87jNJ3e7gZMNbUpcI5CTCYanWFUZ0cwriqwoBh_rCSYOnU8

What makes this interview significant is the fact that Mr. Buffet this is the second time that Mr. Buffet is calling for the extremely rich to pay their fair share and he’s challenging the notion that the rich require special protections because they are the ones who create wealth for the rest of us. Back in the Obama Administration (which was an administration that raised taxes), Mr. Buffet wrote a very public letter pointing out that while he paid more in absolute taxes than his secretary, she paid a higher percentage of her income. His made the point that people like him didn’t need the government to give him any special privileges.

What makes Mr. Buffet so unusual is the fact that he’s probably the only known billionaire to call for higher taxes on the rich. If you look at tax systems in advanced economies, you’ll note that most are progressive (the more you earn the higher the percentage) and you’ll note that advanced economies always have loopholes, which the well to do always use. There is the example of Hong Kong where billionaires like Li Ka Shing and Lee Shau Kee paid themselves yearly salaries of US$600 per year because that was taxed. On the other hand, dividends were not taxed and so they received most of their income in the shape of dividends (in the 90s, Lee Shau Kee of Henderson Land apparently earned US$400 million from dividends).

So, the question is what exactly constitutes a “fair” share and how can governments get the rich to pay more. There is a validity to the argument that high taxes scare away the people who get the economy going and punishing the rich policies don’t work and are counterproductive. The UK provided an example. In the 1970s, the Labour Governments raised taxes and the UK had a top income tax rate of 83 percent. The rich fled and the UK economy stagnated. It was only revived in the 1980s when Mrs. Thatcher slashed tax rates down to 60 and latter onto 40 percent.

This example has made governments around the world very weary of “punishing” the rich through higher taxes. In Singapore, our government gets very panicky whenever anyone drops a hint that we should raise direct income tax. The argument that is always used is that this will scare away foreign investors who create jobs and everyone will suffer as a result. One of Singapore’s favourite hobbies is bragging about the number of billionaires who have chosen to settle in Singapore. Think of Dr. BK Modi of Spice Group and Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook.

However, the idea that high taxes are detrimental to the economy is also not true. The Nordic Countries are a prominent example. All of them (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland) have tax rates that are around 50 percent of your income. Yet, despite all of that, the Nordic Countries with their small populations have very high levels of development, very low levels of corruption (According to Transparency International, theNordics rank in the top ten of least corrupt nations) and have strong and diversified economies driven by advanced technologies. A rough guide to the economies of the Nordic Region can be seen at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_Nordic_countries#Economy

While the Nordic Countries do have their flaws, one has to ask how they managed to get rich without low taxes or getting the rich to pay more.

The easiest point to make is that taxes, while high are not punitive and there are sufficient loopholes which allow the rich to offset the tax bill but at the same time to do so in a way that benefits the rest of society (start businesses that create jobs etc)

The more important point is that there is a high level of social cohesion in the Nordic countries and for an aspiring entrepreneur understands what he or she is paying for. Taxes are high, but so is the investment in social infrastructure like healthcare and education. The Nordics rank are amongst the best educated and healthiest people in the world. This in turn has helped them to become exceedingly productive. Taxes become not so much a cost but a social investment. My Nordic friends don’t think of their education as free but as paid for through their taxes. For a businessperson, its easier to stomach the idea of paying so much in tax if you know what you’re getting it back through a healthy and productive workforce that in turn is also a well to do customer base.

Social cohesion is the essential ingredient here. Nobody will pay half their income to a government that enriches its top ministers yet leaves its population sick and ignorant. The rich, particularly the industrious rich, did not get that way through stupidity. Rich people are particularly good at looking for value.

Hence, if you want the rich, particularly the type that benefits the rest of society through things like job creation and so on, you need to reexamine social contracts between the governed and the governing classes. The Nordic model has worked thus far because the people paying the taxes trust that the people receiving the taxes will use them in a way that benefits society at large. Nordic model will not work in a corrupt country where the only faith is that you’ll be enriching the man on top. If you want the rich to pay more – look at the social contracts.

What is the problem exactly?

The Singapore Government, which was praised as the gold standard in managing the coronavirus has been struggling to show that it has grip on things. The dramatic spike in cases of coronavirus has come from the one area that was simply ignored – in the areas that were housing Singapore’s vast number of foreign workers.

In fairness to the Singapore Government, it has scrambled to take care of this sudden nightmare, offering to house and feed the workers. Unfortunately, this has placed the government in the cross hairs of two conflicting groups. The first group is the group that thinks the government is doing too much for the foreign workers and pampering them. The other thinks that the government is making a royal hash of things. This conflict is best exemplified by the recent outcry over the provision of meals to the workers, which can be found at:

http://theindependent.sg/photos-of-govt-provided-meals-for-foreign-workers-thrown-in-trash-explained/

The outcry over meals provided to the foreign workers has gotten the Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Mr. Zaqy Mohammad (as a matter of full disclosure, I know Mr. Zaqy on a personal basis and once organized a training session for his grassroots leaders), trying to explain the logistical issues in providing food for over 200,000 workers. The story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/dorm-meals-are-getting-better-zaqy

Reading these stories makes me ask, “What exactly is the problem that we have when it comes to dealing with dark skinned people from poor countries?” Singapore is a wonderfully efficient and comfortable society in so many ways. I remember a young Englishman who is married to one of my favourite reporters from the BBC Asian Business report, telling me that his life is actually pretty good. He pointed out that Singapore, while small, is in the centre of so many things and unlike England, you actually start dealing with things at a national and international level as opposed to having to go through counties and so on.

Unfortunately, its very different when you it comes to dealing with the guys working at the bottom of the proverbial heap. This isn’t the first time when our society has had problems coping with the idea that people from third world countries doing menial jobs are entitled to the same things like food and rest like the rest of us.

Think of the time when the government had to step and mandate that domestic workers get one day a week off all the way back in 2012:

https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-domestic-worker/employers-guide/rest-days-and-well-being

Apparently, giving a maid a day off was a challenge for some people, who reasoned that if they allowed their maids to have a day off, they would end up in “bad company:”

http://twc2.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Madetowork-Dayoff-Report-2011.pdf

Now that the maids have a day off, the visible sight of maids and dare I say, construction workers “chilling out” in public places like parks offends the sensibilities of our local population:

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2155193/singapore-domestic-helpers-day-park-rankles-some-residents-who-complain

The most prominent example of how the sight of poor people having a good time offending our local population came from my favorite young pork guzzling on a Ramdan day Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who once exclaimed, “The workers are terrible, they have sex with maids.” I had to explain to him that workers and maids had urges too and just as nobody complained about his sex life, there was no reason why he should complain about the sex lives of workers and maids. I’m glad to report that a spell at university in Australia has helped him understand the human perspective and the fact that idea that workers in menial jobs are also humans is not a leftist conspiracy.

Seriously, why is it so difficult for us to understand that construction workers and maids are human beings too and worthy of basics like having a day out to chill and being fed a decent meal after a hard day of work? It’s that simple. I cannot stress enough times that nobody is asking for “special treatment.” Let’s note that with the exception of the 201s strike by bus drivers from China (which was a justified protest against race based pay), none of our foreign workers have actively protested and demanded higher wages (though they have protested not being paid for work done, which, contrary to what a few members of our local population may think – is not a strange thing to protest.)

If we can get around the idea that people from third world countries are as human as we are, we may solve a lot more issues. If for example, we understood that cramming a group of grown men into a small room, after working 12 to 15 hours a day in the hot sun paying $10 per person per day for the bed space was not an acceptable way of housing people, we wouldn’t to quarantine them and have the logistical issue of feeding them.

Again, nobody is asking to be pampered. Nobody is asking for extra comforts. They are just asking for some basic rest and nourishing meal after a hard day of work. Letting them have these simple things in our self-interest as it allows them to work more energetically and productively for us.

The Plights of Small Business from Big Government

One of the saddest things about Singapore is that the small business is often regarded as an irritant and an inconvenience to the grand scheme of things. If you read the official version of our fabulous success story, its always down to a benevolent and wise government that had the foresight to welcome multinationals to build up our nation from a third world swamp into a thriving global metropolis.

While I don’t dispute the official version out of hand, it paints an unrealistic picture of what actually happened. Yes, the government, especially in the early years, got the key things right. I don’t dispute that multinational investment is on the scale of things good in as much as your average Singaporean worker has to produce things and services according to “world standards” as opposed to “Singapore standards.”

However, this was true, it white washes the fact that many of the guys who made Singapore tick were small time traders who supplied essential services that kept the show running. A few made vast fortunes and most of them managed to earn a simple enough living without having to look for handouts (which in Singapore speak is a very good thing).

You’d imagine that these people would receive some credit, especially in a nation that makes so much noise about being a small nation that does big things. In America, which is famous for doing everything big, small business people are often regarded as heroes. This isn’t the case in Singapore, where our founding father even went as far as to say, “We didn’t have entrepreneurs, our people were mostly traders.” Why does our small nation have such a blind spot against small time businesses?

Having spent 15-years as a freelancer and five as a full-time corporate employee, it’s dawned on me why the government has a blind spot against small businesses. It’s not so much a question of money but a question of mindset.

Employees develop a “wife” or “vertical” approach to life. Your livelihood is dependent on a single employer who gets your loyalty in return for providing a steady pay cheque.

A small-time trader or entrepreneur develops a “prostitute” or “horizontal” mindset, where you look to many sources for your income and the wider your net the more you earn.

If you look at things through this scope, it becomes clear why the government treated and still treats the small-time trader as a nuisance. Employees know where they’re proverbial rice bowls belong.  Small traders don’t.

In recent years, the government has seemed to have shifted its mindset and started encouraging “entrepreneurs” and “entrepreneurship.” If you look carefully enough at the website of say, Enterprise Singapore, you’d find that the government is offering lots of money to people starting up businesses. Block 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent in Singapore’s West, houses an amazing number of start-ups with the next “killer” technology to take the world by storm.

Unfortunately, the government’s approach to creating entrepreneurs has been pretty much like how it attracted multinational investments – throw money and offer tax advantages.

While money, tax breaks and stability are important for cultivating entrepreneurship, there is missing element namely, minimal government interference. To get entrepreneurs running, you need to leave them alone and that’s something our “top-down” society seems unable to do.

The most recent example of this can be seen in an incident involving an actress called Ateeqah Mazlan. Ms. Mazlan caused an internet storm when she reported a home-based business to the Housing Development Board (HDB) and filmed herself doing so. More on the story can be found at:

https://www.asiaone.com/digital/actress-ateeqah-mazlan-causes-online-furore-accused-causing-home-based-business-ban

The government stepped in to tighten the proverbial noose on home-based businesses. More can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/home-based-businesses-circuit-breaker-covid-19-hdb-fine-12677562

If you read through the lines, you’ll note that the noose comes from not allowing home-based businesses to use third party delivery services to get around the rules on restriction of movement. Third party delivery services have been allowed to function in order to keep things running and established food and beverage outlets are allowed to use them, so one would have to ask, what exactly is the issue home-based businesses using them?

A petition was circulated online to allow home-based businesses to function within the rules of the circuit breaker, thus earning the wrath of the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and Minister for Muslim Affairs, Mr. Masagos Zulkifi. More on the report can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/irresponsible-incite-home-based-business-put-pressure-government-grant-exceptions-says and on Mr. Zulkifi’s Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/masagos/posts/1485878304906515

While the Minister has a point when he says that the rights of the entrepreneur should play a secondary role to the larger public health issue, one should note that the petition calling for the reinstatement of home-based businesses was very clear that this was to be “in compliance,” with the circuit breaker.

Let us be clear that what the home-based businesses were calling for was not an “American” style freedom of movement and disbandment of all stay-home orders. Singapore’s home-based businesses are clearly aware that the rules are there for a reason and were merely asking to operate within the rules. Many Singaporeans have made the same point as can be seen from:

https://www.99.co/blog/singapore/covid-19-home-based-businesses/

Question remains, why is there one set of rules for home-based businesses that help the poorer communities earn extra money and one for established businesses? Home-based businesses are not asking for the government to help or asking for the tax payer to subsidise their income and the point that cannot be stressed enough is that the home-based businesses are not asking for exemptions from the existing rules. They merely asking for the right to operate within the rules and not for any special exemptions.

The government for its part has shown that it is capable of flexibility. One example can be seen in the way that it has ring-fenced wet markets to prevent crowds from overwhelming them. Surely, if the government can find a workable solution for wet markets, it can do the same for home-based businesses.

Surely, a government that claims to value resilience and independence should not have a bone to pick with a segment trying to be resilient and asking to work within existing rules, unless I’m missing something here.  

The Fawning Follower.

One of the most prominent moments in Barak Obama’s Presidency was when he suggested that people who felt that people living on low wages didn’t have it that bad was “Try it.” I often think of this phrase whenever I read comments about workers dormitories and how foreign workers should be grateful for their lot in life because it's  apparently much worse elsewhere.

The most recent character who should try it is a character called “Michael Petraeus,” a Polish national who has reinvented himself as a blogger called “Critical Spectator.” Mr. Petraeus like all good foreigners at the “expat” end of the scale is a devoted fan of the Singapore Government and while he is a spectator, he is not critical of the situation in Singapore.

To be fair, Singapore stacks up pretty well in most aspects of life. We remain for the most part a 

rich, clean and green city. The government machinery for the most part remains pretty good. Our Prime Minister, for example, gets the world’s most generous political salary but unlike his previous counter part across the causeway, nobody has found a criminal and unaccountable sum of money in his bank account. In this era of Covid 19, we’ve also done a reasonable job. If you look at the statistics, we’ve not done as well as we could have when compared to say Taiwan or New Zealand but it's not the disaster of say, the USA, where there’s a national leader undermining safety measures.  

Mr. Petraeus is also a foreigner, who is getting a good deal from Singapore. It might be natural that he takes the view that he should “educate” the locals and show them that Singapore is not as bad as they think it is and as a “guest,” he might feel that its not his place to be critical.

Having said that, Singapore is not perfect. As PN Balji, former editor of the Today Newspaper used to say, “They’ve got about 75 to 80 percent right but you need to harp on the 20 to 25 percent that isn’t right because it’s the only way they’ll stay on their toes.”

Unfortunately, the one area that most glaring errors in the Singapore system is in the area of dealing with the poor and neglected. Our so called “Asian-Values” society that respects elders, for example,  sees nothing wrong with old folks going through the trash so that they can pick out drinks cans to sell for a few pennies because they need the money.

We are also a society that doesn’t seem to have a problem with “slave labour,” and “race-based” pay scales, particularly when it comes to dealing with people who happen to be darker than a shade of pink. Only the blind would argue otherwise.

Unfortunately, Mr. Petraeus is blind spot to the obvious and this causes him to be anything but a “Critical” spectator. His most recent post was to rush the defense of the workers dormitories after the outbreak of Covid-19 cases. His post can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2788391291268580?__tn__=K-R

Mr. Petraeus argues that far from being a failure that the NGO crowd have made them out to be, the dorms are a sign of success. His arguments can be summed up as follows:

 1. Singapore has built cheap and good infrastructure by using cheap labour from elsewhere;
       2. The foreign workers are not complaining because what they get here is better than what they get at home;
       3. Singapore is short of land and the dormitories are the most cost-effective way of housing them; and
       4. This is not exploitation because everyone benefits.

     Mr. Petraeus is correct. The dorms are a sign of success. If you are an owner of a dormitory for example, you are bound to be very successful

Take a look at the Centurion Corporation, which owns and runs the Westlite Toh Guan, the dormitory that has become one of the main covid-19 clusters. In the year ending 31 December 2019, Centurion Corporation had revenue of SG$ 133,353,000 and after-tax profits of SG$103,788,000. The joint non-executive chairmen of the board, Mr. Han Seng Juan and Mr. David Loh Kim Kang from Potong Pasir CCC are appreciated by their shareholders.

Mr. Petraeus is also right in as much as the workers generally don’t complain about their lot because they are earning more than what they could earn back home and from what I could see of Westlite Toh Guan from the outside, it does not look unpleasant.

As to how much we’ve benefited in terms of cheap and affordable infrastructure, it’s a question of debate. What is certain is that the trade in labourers has built a few fortunes. In addition to helping the construction companies earn good money from cheaper labour, there is an industry called labour supply. In July 2019, one of the largest labour suppliers in Singapore sold his company for 40 odd million Singapore dollars.

Mr. Petraeus also uses another defense of the system, which is – migrant labourers are always at the bottom of the social heap wherever you go.  

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2792915094149533?__tn__=K-R

However, what Mr. Petraeus seems to forget is that just because a situation exists everywhere in the world or the fact that people don’t complain about it doesn’t make it right.

Everyone knows that the foreign workers are where they are because they want to earn money to help families get out of poverty. They’re willing to work longer hours and for less money than the locals. Nothing wrong with that. However, the real beneficiaries of this business are not the workers themselves but a host of intermediaries like labour suppliers, agents and incidentally, in the case of Singapore, the government, which collects a levy on every foreign worker (which ranges from $600 to $900 per person per month).

While Mr. Petraeus’s point that Singapore benefits from cheap labour might be up for debate, the government definitely benefits from it in the form of the levy. If you take the low-end figure of $600 per person and the fact that there are 284,300 construction workers as at June 2019, that amounts to some S$170,580,000 a month in revenue from the workers levy alone.

While the intention of the levy is supposed to be to reduce the cost differential between the foreign labourer and a local Singaporean, the result is that its encouraged employers to look for further cost savings elsewhere, particularly from the workers.

Some locals have complained that the Singapore government is “wasting” resources on the labourers and that we’re doing more for them than their own governments. However, let’s look at the other side of the equation. The mere presence of the labourers is contributing to the government’s coffers in return for no benefit at all. Call what the government is doing for the labourers a form of investment to ensure the system can sustain itself rather than benevolence. Whatever benefits the government gets from contractors using cheap labour, the one that is clearly measurable is the returns from the levy.

Mr. Petraeus also forgets that the government has admitted that standards for worker accommodation are also not what they should be. Minister for Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo has said that standards need to be raised and it is clear that current conditions of accommodation are not healthy. While the recent outbreaks of covid-19 have attracted media attention because of their sheer number, this is not the first-time workers have died in Singapore because of an outbreak of disease in their accommodation.

It must be nice for Mr. Petraeus has so much faith in the Singapore government. However, blind faith is not healthy for any organization including the Singapore government. It’s the likes of Mr. Petraeus’s efforts to defend glaring flaws that leads to complacency, which leads to something like the case that we currently have

Perhaps the solution for Mr. Petraeus to celebrate the success that our dorm represent, would be for him to try living in one of them. Perhaps he really would be a “Critical Spectator” rather than a “Fawning Follower.”

The Backbone of Anything

Social media is a wonderful thing. One of the great pluses from social media was being able to reconnect with my school friends whom I’ve not seen for two decades and who live a few thousand miles away. Another great plus of social media has been to show me the very people that I shouldn’t socialize with. This has been particularly true of the current spike in Singapore’s COVID 19 cases, most of which were among Singapore’s foreign worker population, who mostly from the Indian Subcontinent.

This incident has brought out the best and the worst in my fellow citizens. It’s been heartening to see how some of volunteered time to help out and how some have raised money to help the workers, who are at the bottom of our social heap.

On the other hand, its exceedingly disheartening to see some comments in the opposite direction. What’s even more disturbing is that some of the comments are not made by the old folks who never went to school One of the gems that I picked up was from someone who was around my age, if not younger regarding a petition that someone else had sent on line about looking after foreign workers:

“Stupid petition! Do they want the government to waste resource ? It will only drain the national fund and could lead to national risk! My suggestion - two ways!

Non humane way : put them off in a deserted island and let them die -since they have so much to complain. Did they not know that their home countries could be worse?

2nd option(humane way): send them home and let their government take care of them . This way they shall know how much singapore government has done for them! Why are they still not appreciative and throw away the food singapore government gave them?

Bloody idiot disobedient unappreciative workers!

Ipetition against this stupid petition!”

It goes without saying that I believe that any “normal” human being should be offended by such remarks. Look at the choice of words, especially the word “disobedient.” It reveals the mentality of the writer, who seems to believe that poor people should be grateful for being allowed to clean the shit of the well to do.

We all know that the workers from the Indian Subcontinent have traveled the world to work in the “rough” jobs elsewhere because it’s better than what they get at home. For the most part, these guys are appreciative of the opportunities they’re getting. Nobody is saying that you should put these guys up in a five-star hotel or triple their salaries.

What we are saying is that these guys should not be treated unfairly. The same basic rights like getting your salary on time and living in a place that does not cause you to die of disease, should apply to them as it applies to anyone else. The same writer who feels that dark skinned labourers should be grateful for cleaning our shit, has the opposite view when it comes to dealing with people at the other end of the social scale.

He says, “ There aremany reasons that the whites are the top class race.  Gone were the days that Asians tried to color their hair with yellow orwear blue contact lens.  Now, they are trying to be “Twinkies” to make their behavior like thewhites.  Are they not racists to themselves?  They discarded their identities and languages to make themselves more likethe whites.  Actually, such behavior is very important for us to adopt because we areserving the world leader, the USA.  Otherwise, we can be outdated because the world is depending on USleadership.  Many countries are following the USA for politics, businesses, andentertainment.  US currency is used for international transaction; the movies and themusic in the USA are always the most popular in the world; American slangshave influenced the world; and the education in the USA is always at the top.  For that, we have no reason to discriminate the whites.”

Unfortunately, his misunderstanding of the USA is almost as large as it is of the Indian Subcontinent. He assumes that America is a “White” nation, which it does not claim to be. He forgets that American heroes of sport and music like Samuel L Jackson, Michael Jordan and Mohamad Ali are not white. While he has rightly pointed out that America is a world power and world leader, it is not because it is a “white nation,” but because it celebrates heroes or people who excel regardless of their pigmentation.

Perhaps he sees his points are based on his upbringing. In Singapore, most our manual labourers are from the Indian Subcontinent and generally dark skinned and many of our senior executives are white expatriates. So, pigmentation becomes tied with your income and if this is all that you see, then you assume this is natural. Like many people, he probably has no malice towards the downtrodden, he merely does not see them and when the downtrodden speak up about their lot, he gets upset that they have upset the natural order of things.

I think back to my national service days, when the Chief of Artillery organized a live firing demo of a 155-gun howitzer in the aftermath of the tragedy in New Zealand. The demo was run by the senior specialist of the artillery formation. All of them had served for at least 20-years a piece and all of them had volunteered because they believed it was necessary to get a batch that had seen their friends die from firing the 155mm to believing in the 155mm.

Their reward for this was to be sent on a mission to clear blinds (rounds that did not explode upon hitting the target). This is a dangerous job (what is blind can become unblind) and if you think of the climate and terrain in Kanchanaburi Province Thailand (you have to climb hills in hot weather – hot defined as in approaching 38 degrees centigrade).

Yet the powers that be did not order lunch for them. The packed lunch was supposed to be reserved for the evaluators, who are all commissioned officers, nearly all Chinese and their main job is to “observe” the unit in action from a land rover.

The demo team got their lunch but only after a struggle but the point remains, there was no thought for the guy on the ground, or the guys doing the tough and dangerous work. There was no malice intended but as far as the officialdom was concerned, the guys sitting in a land rover were more important than the guys who had cleared blinds. The best part was, it was the guys who had to clear blinds who had proven their loyalty to the organization through years of service.

Nobody was asking for anything special. The specialists were not saying they wanted to be fed caviar nor were not saying they wouldn’t do their jobs. They were simply asking for lunch before doing physically demanding work.  Likewise, when people are asking for better treatment for foreign workers in Singapore, what we’re asking for is not for foreign workers to get champagne brunches but for them to be put in housing that does not kill them of disease.

We’ve had a situation for too long where the guys at the bottom of the heap are merely not visible to the rest of us. I hope that Covid-19 changes this. Just as the Specialist core is the backbone of the army, we need to remember that the guys doing the work are the backbone of the economy and our prosperity.

Take Care of Your Men and They Will Fly for You

It’s generally accepted that in most democracies that “civilian control” of the military is a given. In the US, for example, the highest ranking general or admiral always reports to a “civilian secretary,” and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who is the highest-ranking soldier is merely an advisor to the civilian president. It is accepted that this state of affairs has allowed militaries to be kept professional and democratic societies safe from military take overs.

While most people accept that the military is always subordinate to civilian interest (including by those in the military), its sometimes hard for civilians to understand the bonds that the military feel amongst themselves. Early this month, the then Acting Secretary of Navy fired the Captain of the Theodore Roosevelt, after he wrote a letter asking for more help in evacuating his crew who had come down with Covid-19. The act made him Captain Brett Crozier an instant hero with his crew and when the civilian authority chose to fire him, his stature among him men increased. A video clip of his send off can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjx57T0lUc

To compound matters, the Acting Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Thomas Modly proceeded to go to the ship and ranted to the sailors about their beloved captain. Unfortunately for Mr. Modly, this controversy reached such a level that he ended up having to resign. The news of Mr. Modly’s resignation can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJX37J0mRM

I bring up this story because it underlines one of the key points about leadership, which is the fact that leadership is as much about looking after the people under you as it is about telling them what to do. Leaders that are perceived as only being in it for themselves lose respect quickly and leaders who are perceived to have the interest of their men at heart are revered.

You often see this most in the military where people are placed an exceedingly stressful situation and those that succeed in leading people are those who have been seen to take care of their people. While the military environment is where this is most obvious, this leadership principle applies to other aspects of life.

I remember my course commander telling us when we graduated from our artillery specialist course to, “Take care of your men and they will fly for you.” Never quite understood what he meant until the end of my national service career.

This was in the aftermath of the tragedy in New Zealand and the then Chief of Artillery organized a live firing demo as a confidence building exercise. This demo was staffed by the senior specialist of the formation and somehow, I ended up volunteering for this. The funny part was the senior specialist (Master Sargant and above, all with at least 20-years of service) were then sent to clear blinds. The administration of this exercise was such that lunch was only indented for the evaluators, who were all commissioned officers.

The commander of the demo team (First Warrant Officer) ended up quarrelling with the Chief of Evaluator (Head of Intelligence at HQ SA, a lieutenant colonel) and ended up taking the lunch for the demo team. The only provision was that I would not have lunch, as I would be returned to my unit. Upon seeing that I was without lunch, my course commander sacrificed his lunch for me. When I protested his sacrifice, his counter was, “You are my trainee and I will always care for my trainee.”

This is something I have always remembered. I was, in his words a “f** up trainee.” Operating the 155 was not exactly my strong point. However, he still regarded me as his trainee and someone he had a responsibility to care for.

Reading about the incident on the USS Theodore Roosevelt brought me back to this incident. I remember my course commander fondly because, despite yelling at me and calling me affectionate names like maggot and idiot for nearly two months of my life, he took care of me and showed me he looked after my welfare.

Now, if you apply my very personal lessons onto a national scale, it becomes clear about why some leaders are revered and some are despised. It becomes especially true in a crisis situation. When a leader shows he or she is clear headed and in it to care for the rest of us, we are more willing to take whatever crap might come our way. Think of Jacinda Arden in New Zealand and how she’s handled two crises in as many years (Christchurch Shooting and Covid-19). New Zealanders have followed her gladly because she’s shown that she’s on their side. It’s something that any aspiring leader should remember.

The Richest Man in the Cemetery

Steve Jobs, Apple’s legendary founder, is reported to have said on his death bed that he felt that his life had been an absolute waste even though he was judged to be an absolute success by every metric society used. His reasoning was simple, he had spent his time pursuing wealth and “success” which was at the cost of the time he could have spent with his loved ones. He said, “There’s no point being the richest man in the cemetery.”

I think of this at a time when earning a living has become exceedingly tough. If you’re like me, working on contract or part-time basis, its especially tough. The guys who used to give you lots of work can no longer do so in as much as they don’t have the business to give you the work.

My blue-collar existence vanished because restaurants are no longer allowed to have dine-in customers, hence there’s no need for service staff. My income from the white-collar existence is curtailed because nobody wants to meet, so I can’t “sell” the services. The media is also not interested in anything beyond the outbreak of infections in worker’s dormitories, hence there’s also not much prospect of drumming up publicity work. If I was to take a job as an “essential” worker in say, a hospital, the wife and kid would shoot me for putting them at risk.

In the meantime, bills need to be paid. While the banks are supposed to be more sympathetic, they still demand loan installment payments and so on. So, what can one do? In my case, it is a case of living very simply, staying in touch with the people who may be in the position to give you work so that they’ll remember to give you work once they can and also looking for other things that might earn you a few bucks. I’m blogging more than I used to. While what I earn of advertising revenue barely buys me a cup of cheap coffee, I keep the brain active and stop myself from rotting.

So, I am actually sympathetic to people who have been protesting against lockdowns and stay at home orders. I think of people who are demanding to go back to work. The desire to earn money isn’t just limited to “ruthless” billionaires who want more money. Worrying about money is a very common thing and I am living the frustrations of people who see their financial resources being depleted and the bills continuing to pile up.

However, I’m reminded of what Steve Jobs said. There’s a reason why businesses are not opening and why stay at home orders have been issued. With the exception of perhaps North Korea, countries around the world loosened up the restriction of movement of people because this brought prosperity and by extension more revenue for governments. So, when revenue hungry governments shutdown the movement of people and start dolling out cash, there has to be a good reason.

As Steven Jobs said, “There is no point being the richest man in the cemetery” and if you apply that to a state or national level, there’s no point having a roaring economy if you have a virus that cripples people.

Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni has described the current situation as being akin to being in a war, where you should be glad you focus only on the basics of survival. He’s right, the coronavirus has maimed and killed people and the only proven way that the virus has been kept in check has been through social isolation methods.

The statistics are very telling. In the USA, there are now 49,845 deaths as a result of the covid-19, that was in a matter three months. By comparison, the US lost 54,246 lives in the Korean War over a period of three years. Who is to say that the figures won’t rise further?

The best part of the coronavirus is that it’s a silent killer and you never know who might have it and who can give it to you. I remember discussing this topic with a Belgium fellow who felt that people were overreacting. My line to him was “How do you know I’m not infected and can’t pass it to you?” In such situations, a dose a paranoia is healthy survival.

Furthermore, its not just a case of “my body – my choice.” You might be healthy and fit but the fellow next to you may not be. If you get the virus, you may be able to survive but if you pass it onto other people, they may not be able to. Unwittingly, you became a case of death.

Then there are those who complain that Covid-19 kills less than the flue. Well, that may be true but then again death isn’t always the worst outcome. Studies have shown that those who have recovered end up getting infected again and being weakened – not exactly the best thing to keep the economy thriving.

Yes, stay at home orders are bad, especially when you have bills to pay. The alternative is worse. So, what do you do, except wait out the period and figure out how to tide things over? Losing patience could lead to losing more.

It’s Not What You Have but How You Use It

I’ve always been fascinated by Vietnam and the Vietnamese. I’ve always had this fascination long before I got married to a Vietnamese lady who brought a little girl who would change my perspective on life. I guess, it was the fact that the Vietnamese were the first guys who took on the world’s biggest military power and won. While my school friends at the International School of Hamburg saw Rambo as being cool, I identified with the little men in black pajamas.

Now that I am now married to a Vietnamese girl, I can see that I was not far off in those childhood images. The Vietnamese are a tough people, who have endured a lot. Vietnamese women in particular are tough cookies.

Age has allowed me to better understand my sympathies for the Vietnamese. These were small, poor guys who took on the world’s biggest powers and won. History has made it such that we can never forget the Americans flying off from their embassy in Saigon despite dropped numerous bombs on them. History is also littered with records of how the Chinese have invaded countless of times and always returned home with a bloody nose. The thrill in life is not being part of a big unit but being a small and puny thing that beats the world's big guys.

In the age of the Coronavirus, that image of Vietnam has become even more pronounced. In the early days of the virus, Singapore rushed to grab international headlines of what a great job it was doing. Yet, at the time of writing, Singapore is Southeast Asia’s hub for coronavirus infections with some 9,125 infections (which it is quick point out is mainly foreign workers) and 11 deaths. America, the world’s greatest nation has 824,698 cases and 40,297 deaths. Vietnam by contrast has 268 cases with no fatalities. The real model for pandemic measurement is Vietnam.

This achievement is even more impressive when you look at Vietnam’s relative handicaps. Unlike the USA and Singapore, Vietnam shares a border with China and regular border crossings are a part of Vietnam’s history. Unlike Singapore, Vietnam is a large country with developing communications infrastructure., which means that enforcement of the rules, particularly in remote areas is a challenge. More importantly, Vietnam has a weak healthcare system and unlike Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, Vietnam does not have the financial resources. So, how did Vietnam succeed where more advanced nations failed?

A detailed article on Vietnam’s success can be found in the following article from the Diplomat:

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-secret-to-vietnams-covid-19-response-success/

I believe that the further point that’s not mentioned is the fact that Vietnam understands its own strengths and weaknesses. While Vietnam has achieved impressive economic growth and been a beneficiary of the US-China trade dispute with manufacturers moving from China to Vietnam, the Vietnamese understood that they didn’t have the resources to cope with a full-scale pandemic. As such, Vietnam took the view that prevention was better than the cure and acted quickly and early on.

By way of an example, when I landed in Hanoi airport in early January of this year, Vietnam had installed thermo-cameras at the airport at the airport and all airport staff had to wear a mask. By comparison, Singapore, a global model of efficiency, was still debating on whether you should wear a mask if you were unwell. A week later, when I returned to Singapore, the Vietnam Airlines staff all wore mask on the flight. By contrast, the staff at Singapore Changi Airport did not have mask.

Something similar was visible during the Vietnam War. The Americans with their superior fire power and military tactics won all the pitched battles. The Vietnamese realized they couldn’t take the Americans on in a full scale pitched battle, so they merely made life difficult for American troops (including ensuring the GIs ended up with the diseased hookers) and ensured that when American fire power was used, it was always done for the world’s cameras, and the nation that was used to being the “good guys” did not look good. While Americans troops looked at the battle, their opponents looked at the war and its long-term objectives.

If Vietnam has anything to teach the world, its probably to understand what you have and don’t have. It’s a case of being clear about what you want and utilizing your strengths quickly so that your weaknesses don’t become a part of the equation. While other nations have grabbed headlines, Vietnam has focused on its objectives and been the real-world beater in dealing with this virus. Vietnam’s understanding of itself will make it the country to be in Southeast Asia.

  

Our Oooppps Moment

Singapore has just won something it doesn’t want to win. It has become the country in Southeast Asia with the greatest number of Covid-19 cases thanks to a record spike of 1,426 cases on 20 April 2020. Singapore had been lauded as a model of how to manage the pandemic. The government implemented contact tracing policies and somehow, our numbers remained relatively low without a full lockdown. Then things changed. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen our numbers jump. From two-digit daily increases, we started seeing daily increases of three digits on a daily basis.

What happened? How did Singapore’s thus far “Gold Standard” management suddenly collapse? For me, I don’t think it’s a case of the Singapore government’s lack of capability in crisis management. Rather, it’s a case of the neglected part of Singapore coming to bite us back.

If you look at the dramatic rise in the number of infected cases, you will note that its primarily from the foreign worker population who are concentrated in foreign worker dormitories. As mentioned in a previous posting, these workers are primarily from South Asia, working in labour intensive industries and for the most part live in a different, more brutal reality from the rest of us. A second cousin once removed said it best in an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/16/singapores-new-covid-19-cases-reveal-countrys-two-very-different-realities/

Whatever is said of how the government has managed the pandemic, I’m inclined to agree with Professor Donald Low of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who argued that the one area in which the government should be blamed in the area of foreign worker management. Professor Low’s analysis of the government’s handling of the pandemic can be found at:

http://www.academia.sg/academic-views/coronavirus-right-lessons/

Professor Low rightly distinguishes between “known Unknowns” and “Unknown Known.” Everything about the virus was based on “known unknowns,” in as much decisions were based on available information at the time and the decision makers had to do with what they had.

The issue of foreign worker dormitories is however, is a “unknown known.” This is an old issue and NGO’s such as TWC2 have raised this issue before in the public domain. This is not the first time that foreign workers have died from diseases due to unhygienic living conditions as a 2012 article from the Straits Times reveals:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/rat-borne-disease-suspected-in-foreign-workers-death

The system as they say, is stacked against the foreign worker and employers do have the right to view foreign workers as an exploitable asset. Getting medical leave, for example, can be perilous for the worker’s economic well being as the list from TWC2’s website points out:

http://twc2.org.sg/2019/09/15/survey-of-doctors-reveals-barriers-to-healthcare-for-migrant-workers/

There is no possible way that the government could not have been aware of this potential time bomb. One can only attribute the lack of serious action in this area to “self-interest.” These workers are the ones who keep strategic industries like ship building and construction running. Hence, the government has not been willing to “raise costs” for employers.

The more worrying trend, is that the population, particularly among the older Chinese are inclined to think of our dark-skinned workers (the proverbial “darkies”) as dispensable too. The Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao published a forum letter from a reader that blamed the migrant workers for the current situation:

https://mothership.sg/2020/04/migrant-workers-zaobao-letter/

While Singaporeans have come out, calling out this writer for obvious racist attitudes, the frightening thing is that plenty of people seemed to agree. The following article from Rice Media provides some valuable insight into what the letter reveals about society:

https://www.ricemedia.co/current-affairs-commentary-zabao-forum-letter-singapore-echo-chambers/

The Law Minister, Mr. K Shanmugam has gone public to decry the underlying racist attitudes, but as welcome as having a high-profile minister cone out to state the obvious, this sounds like rushing into the ICU for a problem that was diagnosed a decade ago.

Singapore’s mortality rate from the virus remains relatively low. While the government has done a relatively competent job, in as much as it has taken care of the population that votes. However, it has completely disregarded a segment of the population which does not have a voice.

A government that is renowned for having superb foresight has been caught by a glaring blind spot. This is an organization that holds a lot of power. It could have tried to listen to the voiceless. As a society we need to understand that treating people like humans is in our self-interest.

Too much energy is focused on international window dressing. In the early days of this pandemic, our ministers became prone to comparing our well-disciplined machinery to the “idiots” in Hong Kong, which up to that point was racked with street protests. Just as Singapore recorded its first four digit increase in cases; Hong Kong recorded its first day without a new case. As Professor Donald Low argued, humility and humanity should be the lessons we learn from this virus.

You Should Be Mocked

I’ve read a comment on TRemeritus on a piece of mine that they picked up. This particular commentator claimed that he could identify me by the number of digs, both subtle and overt at America and that I had a biased and myopic view based on my East Asian Heritage.

Well, he is partly right. I am ethnically Chinese, which means I have East Asian heritage. However, as my late grandmother lamented, my command of Cantonese and Mandarin is so poor that it would be hard for me to claim full rights to having “East Asian Heritage.”

I am not “Anti-American.” I have been blessed by America on a very personal level. My step-dad, Lee taught me that family was not necessarily about blood and when my Dad married my first stepmother, I got a bonus of what is best about America in the form of my step-grandma, Joan.

These families I got represented what makes America Great. They  were not just ethnically diverse but also welcomed members of different sexualities, religious views and even political points of view. Yet, despite the many differences, we came together as family. We loved and we laughed together and our bonds have remained as strong as they’ve been. My stepsister, Carol, in particular has done a wonderful job of keeping this group of differing personalities together. For the record, both American families that my parents married into are White and Lee’s side of the family cannot claim to be vastly wealthy.

Unfortunately, it has become imperative to stress these last two points to make the point that I have experienced ordinary white Americans (as opposed to the “wealthy liberal” elite far removed from the issues this administration claims to solve), who are distressed by the current administration’s antics. My distaste for Trump as I’ve often said on every public forum available to me has nothing to do with left or right political leanings but human decency and dare, I say competence. The White America that I know and call family are intrinsically decent and rhetoric of us versus them only offends them.

So, where I do take digs at America, is not so much America as a country but at the ideas generated by this administration. In my defense, I am probably only doing what countless American comedians do, though I think their digs are wittier than mine.

The need to ridicule this administration and its copycats around the world has never been greater. The incompetence level in the handling of the coronavirus is such that it is probably as much of a danger as the virus itself. The most recent bout of “competence” from this administration was for the President to tweet and publicise his support for protestors who were protesting against “stay at home” orders in states which incidentally had governors from the opposing party. The Trump chose to cast these protests as a case of “liberty against tyranny,” with his tweets to “Liberate Virginia” and so on. More can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SkAJAuM5Y4

In fairness to Trump, he’s not the only world leader to protest against “Stay at home” orders. In South America’s most prominent nation, the self-styled “Trump of the Tropics,” Mr. Jair Bolsonaro has been doing pretty much the same thing. Brazil’s President has downplayed the virus and urged Brazilians to ignore social distancing measures introduced by his own health ministry. More can be found at:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/10/brazil-bolsonaro-sabotages-anti-covid-19-efforts

Both the Original and Tropical versions are clearly doing something dreadful. I get it, “stay at home” orders are not good for the economy. Businesses like retailers, particularly your mom and pop shops are going to take a beating if nobody is going out and spending money. I also get it that being cooped up at home can be maddening. This blog post is being written while I’m at home.

Having said that, if it’s a choice between having less money and not catching a highly infectious virus that kills people, most people would choose the former. More importantly, most people would expect their leaders to protect lives. I think of the late Steve Jobs who once said, “There’s no point being the richest guy in the cemetery.”

Social distancing, stay at home orders and so on have been proven to be effective measures against this highly contagious virus. Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are next to China implemented such measures early on have 420 cases with 6 deaths and 1,026 cases and four deaths respectively. Vietnam, a poor communist country with a weak healthcare system implemented shut downs early on and at the time of writing has 268 cases with no fatalities.

Should anyone feel that I am being biased in my myopic East Asian view, there are also examples of “Caucasian” countries that have handled the virus intelligently by implementing the same measures. New Zealand is a shinning example with 1,105 cases and 12 deaths. If you need an example of a big country that has managed the virus well, there’s Germany which has an admittedly high number of cases at 145,184 but a relatively lower number of fatalities at 4,586.

Nobody has made digs at Germany or New Zealand in this situation because they’ve handled the situation responsibly. By comparison, one should be making digs at America, which stands out as a “World Leader” with 764,177 cases and 40,591 fatalities. To put that number into perspective, the USA has lost 2,216 in the ongoing war in Afghanistan and 4,576 in the 2003 Iraq War (figures including the occupation which ended in 2011). So, when you look at these numbers and then at the efforts of the “Commander in Chief” to undermine the very things that have kept the infection rates down, is at best a travesty (what becomes more ridiculous is the fact that a certain section of America would accuse you of being a “left wing conspiracy nut job who is naturally biased against this president”)

The same is true for Trump’s Brazilian counterpart, who only gets less publicity because Brazil doesn’t quite command the same global attention as the USA (except during the Soccer World Cup and whenever the Amazon Forrest burns). Brazil’s statistics at 38,645 cases and 2,462 fatalities are also less significant than the US figures, though as the US example showed, infection rates can and do sky rocket (it took around three months for the US to become a world beater in covid-19 cases and fatalities.)

I’ve always maintained that the US has been on the balance of things, a benevolent power. However, when you have a situation where you have a pandemic, making thousands of people deathly ill, your health care system is being overwhelmed and you have your “leader” undermining the measures that have been proven to keep infections under control, then, I’m sorry, you cannot expect people not to mock you. Nobody is going to take you seriously as a world leader worthy of respect if you make it a point to undermine the solution when the problem is so large and you convince people that questioning your actions is a “left wing conspiracy.”  

When You Celebrate Incompetence Over Achievement

There is an article in the New York Times, which was about how Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Chairman of the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation, had become a target of right-wing conspirators for the mere sin of disagreeing with the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s response to Covid 19. Mr. Gates, who built one of the largest fortunes in history and is now making an effort to put that fortune to some use, has since been attacked as an evil conspirator who created the virus so that he could profit from it. More can be read at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/technology/bill-gates-virus-conspiracy-theories.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR0JQBAE1CEN9RFFMTShGaxmtfANuGYqWOqTFBhOOQGGtvlVdPi1ebsAy2Q

While some of Mr. Gates’s business practices were predatory, Mr. Gates has been a hero in many aspects of the word. Mr. Gates had an idea, exploited it and made many fortunes in the process. While Microsoft has not produced the “sexy” and “revolutionary” products of its rival, Apple, it made what was once a complex tool into something the everyman could use. I’m old enough to remember the age when computer studies really required studies. These days, I write documents with Microsoft Word, track financial transactions with Microsoft Excel and create basic presentations with PowerPoint. I am far from IT savvy but I can function in a variety of roles thanks to Mr. Gates and Microsoft.

Mr. Gates built a tremendous fortune by making life easier for the rest of us and in addition to making a tremendous fortune for himself and his partners (Paul Allen and Steve Balmer), Mr. Gates made becoming rich an attainable goal. Seattle is filled with “Microsoft Millionaires,” ordinary folk who went to work for Microsoft, got paid a salary and received stock options that gave them wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Mr. Gates has since left his mission of creating wealth to trying to solve the world’s worst problems.

Mr. Gates does have his detractors. These used to be in the tech industry, where people complained that he abused his monopoly power. One of the most prominent examples was how he used Microsoft’s monopoly power the personal computing space to force users to chose Internet Explorer over Netscape. Mr. Gates had a talent of hoisting inferior products onto the rest of us (all tech guys will tell you that Microsoft’s products are no where near the class of Apple’s).

Having said all of that, Mr. Gates is by most definitions a great man, who has on the balance of things been good for the human race.

So, after having made America Great by doing so much for the human race, you’d expect that people would give Mr. Gates some credit for doing a lot of good. You would expect this particularly in a time of crisis, when people look for leadership and the main proponent of that leadership is an obvious incompetent, who has obviously made the situation worse.

Mr. Gates had stated as far back as 2015 that America was not prepared for a pandemic. Business Insider even records Melinda Gates talking about how they were stocking up on food in their basement in anticipation of a pandemic. Story can be found at:

https://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-gates-was-storing-food-for-years-anticipating-a-pandemic-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

As a private citizen (even if his wealth does give him a certain influence that private citizens don’t enjoy), Mr. Gates, through his foundation donated some $250 million to make medical supplies available and to help scientist.

By comparison, the other billionaire, who currently controls the resources of the most powerful government machinery on the planet has prepared for the pandemic by denying it existed, then claimed it would go away like a miracle and then claimed it was a hoax. In his latest tirade against facts, the Occupant has been leading the charge to “Liberate” states from social distancing and isolation methods. While social isolation methods have not been good for the economy, they have helped control of the virus. However, according to the Donald, they are too tough and its perfectly acceptable to go to war against the one organization that has the global capacity to fight a global pandemic.

More on the Trump’s efforts to keep Covid-19 under control can be found at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493445-trump-defends-demonstrators-protesting-social-distancing-restrictions

By calling out the Trump, Mr. Gates has placed himself in the cross hairs of his supporters. This is tragic. How did a nation which has produced so much of our advances produce people who take the side of incompetence over intelligence?

Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer described America as having a strain of “Anti-Intellectualism,” which equated ignorance as having the same value as expertise. I’m from Singapore, which has the opposite problem – an official love affair with scholars, so I can sympathise with people who argue that professors don’t always make the best decision makers. I celebrate when the half-educated man on the street outsmarts the PhD.

However, there is a difference between celebrating the triumph of the ordinary man over the supremely well-schooled and celebrating irresponsible behavior that endangers life and hinders attempts to solve serious problems. There is a difference between celebrating the lay man’s common sense over the experts’ pie charts and celebrating the right of the ignorant to prescribe unproven lifesaving treatments to the vulnerable.  

At the time of writing, the US has more cases of Covid 19 than the next five countries combined. This is not the time to dismiss facts as left wing or right wing. This is not the time to stop measures that have been shown to save lives. This is not the time to demonise people who have the means to help.

America was a byword for human progress. Under this administration’s incompetence, it is becoming like what their president called a “Shithole.”

The Problem with Elephants that Dance Badly

If you look at geopolitics through the lens of Covid-19, one thing should be very clear. Neither the world’s big economies have distinguished themselves. Both China and the US have behaved in such a way that leaves much to be desired.

China is the obvious bogyman. The virus started here. While China has gained applause for locking down Wuhan, one cannot accept everything from China’s government at face value.  The Chinese government did try to cover it up. The doctor who tried to warn the world died and there have been enough reports floating around the net to suggests that all is not as well as the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) would have you believe. China’s sudden generosity should remind one of sayings like – “Beware the naked man offering you his shirt.” There has to be a catch somewhere.

If China is untrustworthy, the US is arrogant and stupid. The nicest thing that one can say about the Trump Administration’s handling of the pandemic is that it has given comedians material for the next decade. Comedy aside, watching the pandemic unfold in the US is tragic. The nation that gave us human progress has now become a bad zombie apocalypse movie in denial.

Unfortunately, the rest of us seem rather beholden to the elephants of the global economic system. America in particular is listened to because it underpins most of the global security architecture that supports our entire global system. While I have said that America is the world’s most benevolent superpower in history, the problem is that American foreign policy has always rested on the principle of “Us versus them.” During the Cold War, this was easy. The USSR was strong enough to be a challenge and the system of Communism was obviously “bad.” With the fall of the USSR, the US had a tough time trying to find a polar opposite. It tried with Saddam Hussain but even then, nobody thought Saddam was a serious threat to the rest of the world. When America goes into “With US or Against US” mode, the rest of the world gets stuck as it means losing potential business to keep Americans happy.

It seems that the rest of us are stuck between an untrustworthy and a stupid elephant. It sounds like a case of choose one and the other squashes you. Navigating between them becomes something of a thankless art form. There is, however, a third way – namely for smaller countries to find ways of cooperating.

In this respect, the Europeans got it right. After the second World War, the Europeans realized that the two world wars started between competition between France and Germany. The trick was to tie French and German interest so closely together that they’d realise there was more to gain together than to go to war.

The European Union is by no means perfect. Covid-19 has shown how little unity there is behind the talk of a United Europe as countries shit themselves down. There is also more bureaucracy than one might consider healthy. At times it seems that the great beneficiaries of the European project are the armies of bureaucrats in Brussels.   

Having said that, the EU has succeeded brilliantly in its original aim, which was to ensure peace through prosperity. Nobody from the Baby Boomers onwards imagines that its possible for war to break out on the European continent. The generation before never imagined peace would last in Europe.

While the individual economies of the Europe are smaller than the two elephants, the EU as a collective with a single customs union is bigger than either China or the US.

Where the EU fall short is on the issue of defense. As of the time of writing, the Europeans have not been able to create a unified military structure in the same way it has created an economic structure. There was a tacit admission from Angela Merkel that Europe had been too dependent on American military support after Donald Trump scolded European leaders for not spending enough money of defense. A more aggressive Russia and an unreliable America should give the Europeans an incentive to change this.

The rest of the world should take note of the EU as a project. There have been mistakes made. There is, for example, a sense that Europe is a fortress against the rest of the world. However, the idea of small nations getting together, pooling resources and trading with each other, is healthy. Poland, for example, has prospered by being in the EU. It trades with America and China but it is not dependent on either because it has trade with its neighbours.

There is a downside to regional groupings. In many cases it becomes replacing dependence on the global elephant with a regional one. Europe is lucky because the regional power is Germany, which has been relatively benign and stayed dug into the European project. There are less benign examples.

The answer may be to form unions that are close enough to encourage trade with neighbours but at the same time allowing individual member enough space to be their own nation.

Encouraging greater cooperation is not going to be easy but as Covid 19 has shown, depending on elephants for your needs is not an option, especially when the elephants in question have obvious flaws. Elephants are still necessary but smaller players need to know how to band together in order to secure their own destinies.