Toughest week of the exams

This is the toughest week of  her exams. She gets extra time as a special needs student. Can't wait for it to be over!

Foreign leaders envy our Government.

You can find this reported by the ST in page A6 today. He was at the CHOGM in Perth.

I don't expect him to tell these foreign leaders that the biggest reason why they can't copy us is very simple. If we transplant our government to their countries, will it work? No. It is the people who support this government that make this place tick, and a growing number of us is telling this government that they are getting their policy mix wrong and some sacred cows have to go too. Since they are so hard of hearing, we have offered them a few more opposition members to help them along.

Dear foreign leaders, if you are inept and corrupt, you are hurting your country. If you are honest and passionate about making a difference to your country and you can't it is your people and any number of self defeating structures which they are tolerating that make it impossible to reproduce our success in your country.

The Euro bailout explained

This is cute and it sums up the issue with Europe very simply. It is here as I feel this will be ranked one day as a historic moment in European ignominious financial history

The Europeans are great for theater. They can't execute except by piling on more debt, which they can't any more. An old continent indeed and showing its age. A very uncertain even scary world looms beyond the horizon.

What's Luck Got to do with Success?

Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058DTIC0/ref=...

The new question Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great , Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorou...

Just as well I hadn't bought this book. I had just read an article by its authors published in the NYT. Of course, such essays are supposed to whet your appetite for more, i.e, buy the book.

I just wrote to a friend the following comment about the article:



I had thought of buying this book but decided to postpone it because there are many other things to get to and books to read. After reading this article, I have decided not to buy the book.

 This book is right on the money for those who believe that in their hands they could determine their fate. The caveats for success is so elegantly woven into the thesis that people who have not spent a lot of time observing, thinking and trying to understand this issue would miss.

 I do not want to go into the details of argument. Instead just ask yourself one simple question: Would businesses everywhere become more effective and successful because they now have the wisdom of Jim Collins to use? I don't think so. None of his earlier books had lifted businesses across the economy to the next level which simple innovations like double entry accounting, long with us had. Even the invention of the joint-stock company, the stock exchange to business and commercial life far exceed the concepts Collins have brought to the market.

 I am almost telling you that this article is not a useful read, so why did I bother to share it with you? Because many people will believe his thesis and most fans and converts would eventually be disappointed. However his framework also help us understand the recent failures of public policy and execution in Singapore.

This is just another of the endless business self-help tomes that has come along. They have a more respectable name for them: Management Science. Don't be deceived.

Fabrications about the PAP: Patrick Tan's NS deferment

They have put up a note putting together the public discourse on Patrick Tan's NS deferment. It would have been better to have gotten all these facts out before the Presidential Elections.

I still have some questions.

1. Given that offering to study medicine in the US isn't a through train program, it was really remarkable that deferment was granted assuming the student will do well enough to enter med school. The term 'pre-med' would undoubtedly have caused many local readers to impute a through train program because of our local experience.

2. Fewer than a handful of people were granted such exemptions. Perhaps not, but it can also be viewed as these very few young men had all received preferred treatment.

This had been so unwise. That was why the Lee family had always conduct themselves to the point where it would even look absurd to question their integrity on such matters. Why open yourself to questions, suggestions and innuendos. What for? Well I could almost hear them say if it is so restrictive, nobody would want to come into politics.....in the end a society get the leaders they deserve. You cannot consistently try to give them better. I think we would only be set up to fail more surely and may be catastrophically.

Having fun with NLB eLibrary

Having a bit of fun on a Sunday morning with the eLibrary. As I checked out these four titles, I discovered that they have increased our loan privilege to six books. I am going back in. There are two more on my wish list to capture.

How and where to get good business ideas

The Halloween Industry's Evolution
To A $6 Billion Business

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/28...

By Alice Hines, AOL Daily Finance Looking for a last-minute costume isn't too tough these days.

I don't care about Halloween. In fact, I truly dislike it. I am making this post for my kids in case their independent streak lead them to do their own business instead of working for others. The first few paragraphs are instructive. It is so typical of many unlikely but wildly successful business ideas. In fact, the more people hate them the better.

So kids, read the article and keep your ears and eyes open. Imagine possibilities. Don't forget to be adventurous and experiment. Also if possible don't repeat others mistakes unless they didn't make their mistakes well. Life is too short to always learn from experience.