Saturday, August 16, 2014

Govt respond to Tan Kong Yam


I hadn't expected the government to try to rebut Tan Kong Yam. I didn't think they were so insecure. After all Prof Tan left them so long ago. On the other hand beyond explaining his case to friends and colleagues I don't expect the good prof to do much more. We will not see a response from him in the ST.

It is always a risk to use numbers especially when they are not primary data. Clayton Christensen had a very simple and accessible way to explain how this is so at TED.

Without going into the details, the government track record here for self serving data analysis is no good. I am not going to bother. Many things unless it affect our livelihoods and pockets directly I take with a pinch of salt any explanation from the G. Basically we are trusting the government less and less. But some NGOs are often willing to press their point without let up and then the government eventually has to concede. Taken together the people's trust in government is gradually eroded.

Just bear in mind this. Behind the veil, Dr. Goh and Raja brought balance to the excess of LKY. Dr Goh thought engineering recessions was a necessary idea for our long term resilience but the vote getting politician in LKY would never agree. We read all about it during his short speech at Tanjong Pagar national day dinner. Although I don't agree a lot with Nassim Taleb, but his points on fragility is completely relevant to Singapore and one which LKY and the government simply did not understand. On the other hand the Animal Planet watching Dr. Goh learning from nature understood it only too well.


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