Real development

It's the median trajectory for the development of societies: struggle, success, complacency ....

The potentially lethal third stage can be avoided if success brings with it a sense of belonging and an interest in intellectual pursuits like music, mathematics, poetry, sculpture ... These in turn stimulate innovations in design, marketing and distribution, finance, architecture and urban development, education and training, maybe even national defence and internal security - a virtuous circle of inspiration, innovation, organisation and more success.

Has this happened here? Personally, I saw lots of it during our early success but progress was blocked by "globalisation" which is neo-colonialism in financial disguise. We now have expat CEOs for home grown enterprises and buildings designed by foreign architects. These CEOs are respectfully listened to by Cabinet Ministers when they justify themselves by describing and explaining our deficiencies! Ministers not included. And the buildings look strangely similar to those designed by the same architect in another city; so maybe we actually asked for these!

I think our condition is not terminal but can be reversed by:

1. Immigration, as suggested by Adam Khoo.
2. Using experts not expats. Techies like banking treasury operations, biomedical engineer, resort entertainment director, international tax lawyer ... But no CEOs whose skill sets are at least 80% generic admin and leadership.
3. Existing CEOs given three years to find a suitable S'pore successor. The first year for executive search, the second for on-the-job training and the third, if it's for a MNC, at HQ for bonding.
4. All government-funded buildings to be designed by S'[poreans. For private developments, faster approvals and discounted development charges for S'pore designs.
5. Schools to teach broad curriculum for International Baccaleurate, requiring at least four arts and four science subjects for examination.. Scholars to be selected from those who have balanced scores for the arts and sciences.
6. Moratorium on engineering scholarships as there are too many Perm Secs and Ministers with engineering major.

Lim Swee Say claimed another world best for Singapore: it's public servants. This includes, presumably, the police force.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1103473/1/.html

So, how did the best civil service in the world fail to get it's police force to respond to an arrest warrant for Nurdin Cuaca wanted by Interpol on a "Red Notice"?

http://www.interpol.int/public/wanted/default.asp

What is the price if human life?

.... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diyya

In Saudi Arabia, when a person has been killed or caused to die by another, the prescribed blood money rates are as follows:

100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
50,000 riyals if a Christian man
25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman.

Smokin' ...?

I'm not encouraging you to smoke, but scary headlines like “Smokers seven times more likely to get lung cancer” on a report by Salma Khalik of the Straits Times needs to be decoded:

Extracting the data:
population was ethnic Chinese
studt lasted 25 years from 1993 to 2007
45900 were tracked over this period
33292 did not smoke
over 25 years, 463 people were diagnosed with lung cancer
25.5% of these were non-smokers, or 116 by my calculation

Let's do some primary school arithmetic, shall we?
smoker population was 12698 (45900 – 33292 = 12698)
smokers getting lung cancer – 347 (463 -116 = 347)

Now we can decode the scary headline: Over 25 years, and not for one year:
1.12352 of the 12698 smokers did NOT get lung caneer, or 97.3%
2.33176 of the 33292 smokers also didn't get cancer, or 99.4%

Just to be clear about these numbers, smoking for 25 years increases your risk of geting lung cancer by 2.1% (99.4% - 97.3% = 2.1%). If you are a smoker, and I'm not, you figure if this is an acceptable risk. Just don't let relative “prevalence rates” scare you. You are not “seven times more likely to get lung cancer”.

If smokers are thinking about quitting, they should, of course, consider the effects of smoking on blood pressure, general fitness ... I'm not a registered medical practitioner and cannot give medical advice, just someone, moderately numerate, with a sensitive B.S. Meter.

Dubya, dubya ... !

Dubya, by trying to explain the subtleties of terrorism and torture, continues to maintain his title as "The stupidest President of the USA." Before we go into the wrongs and rights of it, shouldn't we find out if it works? I mean: torture ....

Staritng with the commonsensical idea that people will say anything to make the pain stop, to be able to sleep, not to freeze or die of thirst ... you get the idea.

So, how do we know what they tell us is true? What if they are clever or well-trained to mix some true stuff with the lies? The kindergarten answer is: we check against what we already know to be true. Essentially, then, torture is research, however distasteful its methods!

Back to the original question of whether it works. If you already have some baseline info or data against which to check, then yes, it does yield more usable info. Now we can tackle the ethical question, should we use it? Well, if time is short and alternative methods absent or costly, then the pragmatic answer, however repulsive, is yes.

What if we lack any prior situational knowledge? Then, torture is just a dumb, time and resource wasting option because checking is either complicated or tedious. Okay, now the $64 million question about torturing terrorists and dear Dubya's signed approvals. Tactical or operational torture, where there are already boots on the ground or a Predator, satellite or radio-scanning, does provide battle field info.

But for the really useful intel on which committee handles what and who attends and who writes the minutes and whom are vulnerable to influence and of what kind, torture is clearly useless. When we need to know a woman or man's life story, being a friend works better; but that's too subtle for Dubya ...?

Why the French don't take supplements.

Most French believe that their diet contains all the nutrients for healthy living. While they also submit some of their chickens to the hell of battery living and perpertrate other abominations of industrial farming, they do eat a variety of seasonal vegetables and fruit which are mostly of excellent quality. I have yet to eat a French-grown fruit or veg which is tasteless; here they are either tasty or tastier.

And, they wisely eat duck, lamb, mutton: the meats of animals too clever or stubborn to submit to incarceration and hormonal adjustments. Fish is fresh from the morning's catch or, further inland, the day after; not fresh from Jurong Port meaning anything from ten to twelve days at sea under ice chips.

Wines, carefully monitored by the "appellation controlee" and free from harmful preservatives, are matched to the menu. Rushing through meals is thought uncivilized.

So, they have expended great effort to preserve their ancestral, pre-supplement, diet. They seem to live long and active lives with oldies still promenading down the boulevard arm in arm on sunny days. On balance, their claim of a healthful diet needless of supplementation seems plausible and epidemiologically valid.

Speak Mandarin?

The following poster is circulating among students from Shanghai, both inside and outside of China:

For a complete translation, go to the next page.

Let Us Take Action!

1. In certain public settings, for example on the street, if you start by using Shanghainese,
should the other party understand what you're saying, then continue using Shanghainese.
should the other party fail to understand what you're saying, then switch to Mandarin (Putonghua).

2. When others speak to us,
should the opposite party use Shanghainese, then we may answer in Shanghainese.
should the opposite party use Mandarin, we can smile and say, "Do you understand Shanghainese?" If the other person doesn't understand Shanghainese, then switch to Mandarin.

3. If Shanghainese speak Mandarin to us, we shall ask them to switch to Shanghainese. People in various localities all over the world should be able to boldly and confidently speak the local language with the local people. As Shanghainese, it is our basic right to speak Shanghainese in Shanghai.

4. For the continuation of Shanghainese culture, we should persist in speaking Shanghainese to our children. We should encourage and exhort parents around us to do likewise. This will be beneficial for the intellectual development of our children and for the subsequent learning of foreign languages. We should express our steadfast opposition to rules prohibiting the use of topolects.

Shanghainese language is the foundation of Shanghainese culture. It is a mighty tree with its roots tightly anchored in the local soil. We ought not abandon this mighty tree in favor of a rootless telephone pole. Friends, for the future of Shanghai, for the flourishing of the diversity of our great homeland, let us take action!

I Love Shanghai. I Love China.

By speaking Shanghainese language and carrying on Shanghainese culture, we are being truly cultured Shanghainese people.

(A tip of the hat to Wicky Tse for calling this very interesting poster to my attention.)

April 19, 2009 @ 12:40 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and culture

I am a liberal ...

according to Don Bordreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

"I love and care for my family and friends more than I care for mere acquaintances, and I care about most mere acquaintances more than I care about total strangers.  But the nationalities or physical locations of these people's residences are irrelevant to me.  I care no more for a stranger in my town of Burke, Virginia, than I care for a stranger in Beijing, Beirut, or Berlin."

Still, it's harder than I thought.

"But liberalism rejects the notion that there is anything much special or compelling about political relationships.  It is tribalistic, atavistic, to regard those who look more like you to be more worthy of your regard than are those who look less like you.  It is tribalistic, atavistic, to regard those who speak your native tongue to be more worthy of your affection and concern than are those whose native tongues differ from yours."

Read http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/trade/

How Would You Fix the Economy?

US buddy sent me this.  What's your take on it?

"How Would You Fix the Economy?"
This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday.  The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?"  This article was one of the ideas submitted...

Dear Mr. President,

Patriotic retirement:
There's about 40 million people over 50 in the work force - pay them $1 million apiece severance with the following stipulations:

1.  They leave their jobs.  Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2.  They buy NEW American cars.  Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.
3.  They either buy a house/pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

Can't get any easier than that!

Jim Wright
Phoenix USA, Inc.

Who sez Ozzies are dumb?

Not outgoing Temasek CEO Ho Jinx.  She just didn't know how smart Eddy Groves, founder of ABC Learning truly was.  This Brisbane Times article is worth reading; not just for Ho Ching-ing but also for its business savvy and insights, not always obvious, at least not to me.

Do corporate eggheads always get fried by the flaming energy of the street-smarts?  Why?

Of course, $400 million is, with apologies to the former patron of NKF, "peanuts" compared with the tens of billions pocketed by short-sellers of UBS, Citigroup .. ad nauseam; but that is another story to be spun by the "masters" of strategic investment.  One has to wonder what was the strategic advantage of investing in child care?  Oops forgot, a balanced portfolio contains both medium-term targets of opportunity as well as long-term strategic investments?  Indeed, it was an opportunity; but for whom?  Stupidity, by any other name, MBA-speak or not, would stink as much,

Pensions of the great and the good

... whose identities are best unmentioned. They are those that receive the full pension of half their last paycheck every month until death. Idle curiosity while making some other calculations on the good ole HP12c led me to work out the Net Present Value (NPV) of their pensions. I assumed 3.00% p.a. as the discount as this is approximately the historical long term inflation rate for Singapore and that this would apply for the future. I also assumed they would receive a monthly pension of $41,666.67, viz. $500,000.00 p.a. divided by 12 months. Here are the results:

If drawn over 25 years, the NPV is $8,786,518,89. This is the sum that, when invested for a return of 3.00%p.a. and drawn down at $41,666.67 monthly will last for 25 years.

Let's compare this with the salary paid over three terms of the great and the good. Since general elections are never called at the end of the statutory five-year limit, I'm going to use 13 years as the service period. I'm also assuming that the great and the good receive 80% of the full million over the 13 years as they may not be fully great and good for the first few years of service. Plus they get the 13th month Annual Wage Supplement (AWS). Other bonuses are excluded as these are secret. Using the same discount rate:

If serving for 13 years, the NPV of their salary is $9,319,946.11 Think about it. the NPV of their pension is more than 94% of their basic pay!

Of course, this astonishing reward comes working for only 13 years and drawing a pension for 25 years. How did I get the 25 years? Well, retire at about 60 and live till 85, which is reasonable since the great and the good know how to take care of themselves and have the means to do it. Plus they get free health care and checkups and tests and investigations, which BTW, I didn't calculate as part of their pension package.

No wonder that civil servants had to serve for more than 31 years before receiving the full pension of half the last-drawn pay! Ah, well, we must make exceptions for the great and the good, mustn't we?

The Credit Crunch

A trader: "This is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my net worth and I still have a wife."

President Bush said clients shouldn't be concerned by all these bank closings. If the bank is closed, you just use the ATM, he said.

George Bush said that he is saddened to hear about the demise of Lehman brothers. His thoughts at this time is to go out to their mother as losing one son is hard, but losing two is a tragedy.

The problem with investment bank balance sheets is that on the left side nothing is right and on the right side nothing is left.

In maths there are 30 billion prime numbers below 700 billion. The rest are all subprime.

How do you define optimism? A banker who irons 5 shirts on a Sunday.

What do you call 12 investment bankers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

Why are all MBAs going back to school? To ask for their money back.

For Geography students: What's the capital of Iceland? Answer: About Three Pounds Fifty...

If you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas. If you want to trade in derivatives, God bless you.

Whats the difference between a guy who just lost everything in Vegas and an investment banker? A tie.

Whats the difference between a bond and a bond trader? A bond matures.

Lehman have changed their recommendation on Lehman from hold to sell.

Forty years ago I sold fifty shares of my company stock and had enough money to purchase a brand-new 1967 Ford pickup. Last week, I checked it out, and if I sold another fifty shares, Id have enough money to buy a 1967 Ford pickup. So, the market has stabilized.

Theodore Kaczinski saw it all ...

(From the New York Times)

Making money, it seems, is all about the velocity of moving it around, so that it can exist in Hong Kong one moment and Wall Street a split second later. "The unlimited replication of information is generally a public good," George Dyson writes. "The problem starts, as the current crisis demonstrates, when unregulated replication is applied to money itself. Highly complex computer-generated financial instruments (known as derivatives) are being produced, not from natural factors of production or other goods, but purely from other financial instruments."

It was easy enough for us humans to understand a stick or a dollar bill when it was backed by something tangible somewhere, but only computers can understand and derive a correlation structure from observed collateralized debt obligation tranche spreads. Which leads us to the next question: Just how much of the world's financial stability now lies in the "hands" of computerized trading algorithms?

Here's a frightening party trick that I learned from the futurist Ray Kurzweil. Read this excerpt and then I'll tell you who wrote it:

But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. ... Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

Brace yourself. It comes from the Unabomber's manifesto.

Yes, Theodore Kaczinski was a homicidal psychopath and a paranoid kook, but he was also a bloodhound when it came to scenting all of the horrors technology holds in store for us. Hence his mission to kill technologists before machines commenced what he believed would be their inevitable reign of terror. (But I'm not suggesting that we do this, however appealing it might presently seem!)

Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy? Questioning the Premises of Democracy Promotion

Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy? Questioning the Premises of Democracy Promotion

Arthur A. Goldsmith is Professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Democracy promotion is a favored strategy to advance the cause of world peace, especially in the Greater Middle East, but undifferentiated democracy promotion has two faulty premises. First, all progress toward the establishment of democratic regimes does not necessarily make the global community safer. Second, regime change is not something external actors have the capacity to direct along desired pathways. The first assumption fails to consider the well-documented security problems caused by partial democracies. The second assumption overstates the ability of powerful outsiders to induce transitions to full democracy. These research findings are grounds for cautious and selective democracy promotion, not a blanket approach that is indifferent to the composition of the regimes designated to be reformed and democratized.

Nat King Cole

Please listen to my confession: I do enjoy Nat King Cole songs. No, he wouldn't appear on any krazy-kool list of my favourites (Weather Report, Steely Dan, Giberto Gil, Toumani Djabate, Ry Cooder, Santana, Zizi Possi, Pink Floyd, U2 ...) but Nat is pure dark chocolate, Irish coffee and a Panatella cigar. Music and lyrics that I can taste, smell and sing-along.

No, its not kool to like music that Dad used to play on his radiogram at 78rpm, but who can resist Nat King Cole's audible chocolate and cigars. You can pass me the Jameson whiskey too, and while you're at it, put on some Barry Manilow.

The 99 names of Allah.

Janadas Devan, son of former Singapore president, Devan Nair, makes his usual etymological exposition in the Singapore Sunday Times of January 13 2008; concluding that the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all called their God ela, ala or some variation of these.

Are the Malaysian religious officials confused about their claim for the exclusive use of Allah for Islamic texts and publications only, as Janadas Devan strongly implies. Maybe not. Some must surely have attended Al-Ahzar university in Cairo and understand quite well the origins of the name Allah.

Far from being confused, their objections to the use of Allah in the weekly newsletter of the Catholics in Malaysia, are meant to confuse malay-Malaysians. They know that the translation of "God" in English into "Allah" in Malay (or more accurately, Arabic) is sanctioned by all Malay language scholars and over 20 years of usage in this newsletter.

So are the malay Muslims of Malaysia so easily confused? Or are the religious officials confused about their ability to confuse them?

Confused by all this? Me, too.

Thinking about no-thing

I'm intrigued by the emergence of atheist thought as it is elegantly argued by the Dawkins-Harris-Hitchens trio and others. I dislike slogans but is this a "post 9/11" phenomenon? The Salafi jihadists that commit acts of violence against the innocent justify themselves with scripture. The American response in Afghanistan and then Iraq is, to some extent, justified, both by the President and his constituency, by another scripture. Fundamentalism is no longer a personal quirk that others laugh about but a political insanity expressed with lethal force.

Faith is now dangerous and its foundations must be critcally examined. Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, this will not be done by the faithful and hence the books from Dawkins et al.

Sam Harris' advise on ...

How to Believe in God
Six Easy Steps

1. First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.
4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of "faith."
6. Return to 2.

As should be clear, this is a kind of perpetual motion machine of wishful thinking—and it leads, of necessity, to reduced self-awareness and diminished contact with reality. But it is reputed to have many benefits, and once you get it up and running you will be in fine company. In fact, from the looks of it, you will never be lonely again.

[Boon: This might be the major reason for religion: membership of a community.]

Oil Qaeda

Why did the CEOs of Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell both say, just last month, that US$70 oil is not supported by industry fundamnetals?

This was reported by Ng Weng Hoong, editor of www.energyasia.com, in The Straits Times, Friday October 19 2007, on why: "High oil prices are here to stay."

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_168332.html

I'm going to assume that the two CEOs are well-informed on the oil industry's fundamentals, so today's US$88 oil prices must include a risk premium to cover uncertainties. To summarise, although the article is worth reading, Ng says that these uncertainties are

1. Supply/demand imbalances; especially predicting demand from China, India and Brazil.
   
2. Politics that prevents oil-producers from responding rapidly to higher prices.

The article does not expand on the second point and I'll take a stab at it here. American foreign policies, dominated by the "war on terror" makes it difficult for the American oil industry to participate in exploration and production-sharing opportunities arising from higher prices. This applies not just to purchasing concessions but the nitty-gritty engineering of exploration and production where American know-how and equipment is excellent.

The uncertainties are real but the premiums charged depend on perceptions of the power and influence of Al Qaeda, or, more accurately, Salafi Jihadists. Since power and influence are themselves perceptions, these premiums are perceptions of perceptions. No wonder I'm confused but at least I'm in good company.

Bottom line? Try to use less energy, especially when driving. It's boring but make lists of errends and shopping and try to combine them on each journey.

Who are the disadvantaged?

Affirmative action is well-intentioned; no one can easily argue against helping the disadvantaged. It's a plausible principle that just doesn't work out in practice. Here's what always happens:

The "disadvantaged" group is mobilised by leaders so as to gain legislative support for their aims. The argument is always a variation of the "historical forces" argument. Who will articulate this argument in a persuasive way? Who will organise the meetings and manage the media? In other words, who will lead? These will, almost always be well-educated and not "disadvantaged". Who will receive the bulk of the benefits once affirmative action is legalised? The leaders of course!

This has happened with African-Americans and, subsequently, with the Malays in Malaysia. At least in the USA, the affirmative action laws apply to a minority. Not so in Malaysia where the children of the aristocracy and civil servants have received premium scholarships and the inside track to business and political success, thus perpetuating the giant fraud on their own majority community which takes foolish pride in this national theft!

It is difficult but possible to define "disadvantage" in any society. The definition will not be the same in every society nor will it remain the same over time. Some of the more obvious criteria from moral philosophers and sociologists are:

1. Irregular income i.e. no permanent work.
2. Lack of education.
3. Physical or mental impairment.
4. No physical security e.g.violent family members, violent neighbourhoods and genocide.

There are others which aren't so obvious but can be revealed through better studies. My point? Correcting "historical disadvantage" is not about race. That was Adolph Hitler's thesis in "Mein Kampf." Malaysia NEP is more correctly understood as its Nazi Economic Policy and will have the same result.