Depreciated Chair

I didn't expect looking under my chair could be so interesting. After so many years I can't remember where it came from except that it was quite pricey back then and I didn't pay for it. Got it free from the office.

It must be the hidden thought that it wouldn't last much longer that caused me to find out more. The kids used to sit on its arm rests when they were small. Quite an old chair.

Most SMEs didn't move out

From ST yesterday.

Quite a few SMEs threatened to relocate out of SG when the government decided they had to tighten the inflow of foreigners. Guess what? They have decided to work on improving productivity instead. Something they felt could not be done.

So many things that we were told cannot be done is now being done. We must always look at the power balance. There is no fair play. The more powerful party often takes advantage of the more powerful one as long as he is perceived not to exercise his power: our votes. If we want to keep this place special, people should never have over leveraged (not abuse) their power. It is very trust destroying and the slippery slope to becoming like anywhere else. For many years I was curious how the toxic industrial relations in SIA did not affect their performance. It was only a matter of time. Gallup surveys of how disengaged our workers are is a flashing red light of a serious underlying chronic problem.

Egypt: Obviously not ready for Democracy

LKY was right about democracy outside of Israel in the Middle East but please don't read it as the words of profound wisdom. Every half intelligent person on the streets of Cairo also knows.

Of course they needed to quote a professor. Just good journalism.

President Mursi botched it. Egypt had a chance to do it differently but now they are learning the hard way that only a tiny minority deserve democracy,  not enough to make a difference. So back to the bad and unsustainable old ways. This time the best and brightest of Egypt will leave.

Actually to be fair to Mursi, his hands are tied. Had he tried to be otherwise he would probably have lost the backing of his Muslim Brotherhood. So what Egypt needs is a LKY and the Old Guard but there is only one such team and we had them. Just plain bad luck, which is the luck of most third world countries.

Ourselves we have out grown LKY into risk and uncertainty. We have a good government but I have checked many times and we need minimum a great government.

Under a beautiful tree

Had that autumn feeling when I parked the car under this tree yesterday. I just had to take a photo. Unfortunately the S3 camera wasn't able to do a better job. With a gentle breeze in your face, looking up at this was just a magically beautiful moment.

GCT: Singapore's mid-life crisis

Jialat the ESM, the PM and all ministers. Mati you talk like that.

This is not the 90s, 80s or before. Don't come to us and talk about mid-life crisis. There is too much knowledge on all sorts of matters floating around absorbed by so many people. Mid-life crisis exist because you know more or less when you are going to die. You wonder in the middle of your life have you achieved what you had wanted. Half your life is gone, will you succeed or fail with your life. In short, nations do not have mid-life crisis, only crises.

I tried very hard to be generous in my last post on the OSC. Trying to give them a huge dollop of benefit of the doubt. Looks like it lasted only a day.

What does the government want from us? I read his speech, it is more or less of the same as in the past and yet talking about how things must be different? That's an oxymoron.The link to the ESM's speech in full.

If the government hadn't fallen into a hole over immigration, public transport, housing, cost of living, medical costs practically all the basic stuff the PWP would have sailed through. But no, we cannot accept the PWP because we have been short changed by them. About the only thing he had gotten right is the loss of trust. And the only thing I want to hear from the PM in a few days time is how he intends to rebuild trust. That is the foundation every initiative must rest on.

The way this government rule is quite simple: get us to do as much, pay as much as possible. If the leaders of other nations envy their success, they are focusing on the wrong party. It's not the government but our willingness to accept tough measures for our long term good. That had worked for as long until they lost their way and the promised results never materialized. Then we discovered that they no longer cared as they used to, that they had become even more Darwinian. They extended the process of Natural Selection from within our gene pool to beyond.

What the government is doing today is best described as palliative. Their basic thinking hasn't changed but they are aware if they persist in their old ways, they are working themselves out of office. Mid way the OSC becomes a careful and calibrated strategy to target pain relief in order to retain voters' support. Since many of us are pragmatic about results, we do not bother about the whys. We are still shallow and struggling to sink roots but a small and growing number have achieved that especially among civic society and the gay community. When we have more depth, the whys would matter as much as the whats. For now most families a better living trumps over any other why. This leads to the narrowest definition of success which only a few can win. To the government broadening the definition of success is a political necessity for their survival. To us it must be more existential - the purpose and meaning of living. Government will discover they cannot mandate alternative models of success as this must come organically. We will be chasing after the same trophies until enough people learn the hard way that life is more than so many Cs. We cannot sustain ourselves with mostly negative energy, we have to nurture the much harder to grasp positive energy but the transition is risky.

Meanwhile the government is trying to regain trust by earning again credibility with superior results from housing, transport, cost of living....it should work at least in the short term but I wonder how all these would be funded in the longer term.

Indeed we have a crisis but it isn't a mid-life one. I hope it does not turn out to be terminal. Some days I think we are in the high dependency ward, at least it isn't everyday.

Update: August 13, 9:30am

Coincidentally this topic was on 93.8Live this morning. Unlike most times many callers spoke good sense and I am very happy about this. One caller explained what is being realistic or unrealistic. He said expecting to go to the casino and make money consistently is unrealistic. Asking for high pay is unrealistic but better pay isn't. Some spoke about can-do and my thoughts (I never call into radio progams) silently were, we are mostly a group of can-do people. The younger generation have it even more when you see how much harder they worked. What we cannot accept from the government is to take our can-do attitude to be a can-screw one.

I have blogged about this many times already. We have a good government but unfortunately the Little Red Dot needs a great government. When government isn't great the people suffer. As the government confused good with great, they complained we aren't realistic. But look at what they are telling us to do. Just give a perennial example: have more babies but also put in the longest time at work. Except for the few with luck, this is not possible for most of us. In fact as the competition at PSLE intensifies, the most thoughtful couples are even more discouraged about having babies. Anyway I am just relieved my children cleared the PSLE a few years ago. Looking at how those assessment books have become harder makes me sad for the kids.

Update: 8:55pm

The government is generally competent and good with some pockets of great work. An example has been recently chronicled in a CNA program, "Nature of a City". Another great piece of work is the NLB. These two are contrasted by the poor performance of LTA and the many glaring mistakes we all know very well from the Cabinet.

Small Bookstores Surprise

You would easily have thought that small bookstores will one by one bite the dust under the relentless onslaught of Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But this is not happening for a growing number of them. They are leveraging their emotional bonds with their customers to financially support the stores or even expand them.

When the environment changes what is invisible become visible.

See NYT story.

Mothers: Opted out and returning?

See NYT Magazine article.

Reminds me of the high powered mothers I met years ago when my kids were still in primary school. We mostly lost touch with each other but I occasionally see their postings on Facebook. They are fortunate to be in Singapore. The Americans have is much harder.

Not everyone of them has the luxury to be a tai tai. Quite a few would have to return to work. Also as their kids grow up and eventually as become empty nesters what are they going to do with their time? In fact, I have even heard such moms talking about their dilemma on FM 93.8 in our morning drive to work.

The Americans can afford a lot of waste but I wonder how is our economy putting our highly educated moms back to meaningful work. I think being tight we admitting FTs surely help these moms find good jobs when the time comes.