TR EMERITUS

Today state media announced that due to concerns about conflict of interest, Tin Pei Ling (TPL) would no longer be appointed as Director of Public Affairs and Policy but would instead become Director of Corporate Development. Readers of my blog will know that I was one of the earliest and most vocal in calling out the outrageous conflict of interest and cronyism in TPL’s original appointment (read my articles here and here. These articles were circulated widely and precipitated an avalanche of criticism from other quarters. The PAP have tried to put a positive spin on the latest announcement and tried to turn it into a triumph of “ownself check ownself” rather than TPL being forced to retreat after being caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “The Party noted this and did not object. It then became clear to the Party that she would be expected to engage regularly with government ministries and agencies on public policy issues on behalf of Grab, While she would make it clear that she was engaging in her private capacity and not as a PAP MP, there could still be challenges in carrying out these responsibilities, especially under the current circumstances.“ I do not believe this resolves anything because TPL will still be an MP and in a senior position at Grab on an undisclosed remuneration and incentive scheme. Of course she will be in a position to influence policy and to pass on what she learns. Will she be rewarded and donations made to the PAP if public policy is tweaked to favour Grab? Such Chinese walls do not fool anyone. As I have frequently said the barrier between the corporate sector in Singapore and the PAP Government is tenuous at best. This is inevitable when so many major companies are state-owned or affiliated and the Government uses its huge surpluses, extracted from lower and middle income Singaporeans, to take often invisible stakes in so many unlisted start-ups. The number of PAP MPs and Ministers’ spouses and relatives on the boards of public companies, even ones in which the Government only holds a partial stake, shows that like the Communist Party in China, the control of the PAP over the corporate sector is more or less complete. TPL’s movement to what is claimed to be a conflict-free role does not alter the fact that conflicts of interest, both blatant and disguised, are at the heart of the PAP’s totalitarian state, despite the almost unanimous chorus of foreign sycophants, most of whom either benefit directly or are worried about adverse consequences if they should swim against the consensus of their corporate or academic employers, who laud Singapore’s Government as a bastion of incorruptibility where Ministers work tirelessly for peanuts to make their people better off. There is no greater public conflict of interest (or example of corruption to call a spade a spade) than the PM’s appointment of his wife to run Temasek and her continuing as its head for eighteen years on a salary that he refuses to reveal. While LHL’s CPIB rightly comes down hard on even miniscule acts of corruption committed by small fry, which contributes to the high ratings given by Transparency International and other organisations in what can only be described as a robotic box-ticking exercise, Singaporeans are intimidated or brainwashed into not calling out infinitely greater acts of corruption which are anyway justified by the incessant bleating of those in the elite that these acts can be justified as merely the meritocratic principle working itself out. Buttressing this brainwashing and ensuring that dissenting voices are silenced is LHL’s corrupt contol of the state media monopoly, which, with other corrupt acts such as placing the Elections Department under his direct control and using his control of the judiciary and AG to harass and crush his opponents ensures his Government’s uninterrupted monopoly of power and his, his family’s and his MInisters’, MPs’ and cronies’ continued access to the best jobs on often secret remuneration. This is only what is publicly known but until. we have a new Government we can never know how deep the conflicts of interest go. Sixty years of access to the pipeline of state resources with those at the top controlling the bodies that are supposed to check them is bound to turn up some real nasties once we start lifting the rocks. One further point. The fact that the PAP have forced TPL and Grab to back down after I wrote about it provides further proof that the Government reads my blog even though I am sure that they speak to their friends at the social media companies to ensure that I am shadow banned as much as possible and have certainly given a directive to their employees at the state media monopoly to treat me as a non-person. Their silence in response to my questions about the reserves and the Budget should serve as confirmation to Singaporeans that most, if not all, of my conjectures are correct.   Kenneth Jeyaretnam   About the author: I’m a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That’s why I’ve never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I’m quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don’t work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I’m a liberal. I’m not sure what the middle think of me. I don’t think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I’m a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I’m not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean.      Read More →

A responsible government will do this... While the CDC has identified safety signals for stroke among individuals 65 and older following the bivalent booster administration, there is a need for additional assessments and research regarding safety of all mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. To support transparency, the State of Florida reminds health care providers to accurately communicate the risks and benefits of all clinical interventions to their patients, including those associated with the COVID-19 vaccine as additional risks continue to be identified and disclosed to the public. The State Surgeon General is notifying the health care sector and public of a substantial increase in Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports from Florida after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Link to the Health Alert here.   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →

In the parliamentary debate on affordability of HDB flats, Leong Mun Wai, a non-constituency MP from opposition party PSP, is taking a lot of flak from PAP IBs. Needless to say, the Critical Spectator rises to the occasion as the pre-eminent PAP apologetic. Although I do not share the views of CS more often than not, I do appreciate he puts forward his reasonings. Fair is fair. But very often, he lapses into histrionics and ad hominems as he showers his disdains on the opposition. This quote illustrates all. That a quote like this has 125 'likes' tells of the echo chamber he champions. But surely CS and his PAP IBs aren't also criticising other NCMPs such as Dr. Kanwaljit Soin, Gerard Ee, Calvin Cheng, Walter Woon and many other distinguished names who have served in the House. Are they considering both Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong to be Brobdingnagian dunes for advancing the institution of nincompoops in the land. Ideas do not sprout out of nowhere. Einstein or Newton did not go to sleep and in their Brahma Muhurta hour awoke and wrote down E=MC2 or the Laws of Gravity. Ideas build on one another till a bright spark has the eureka moment and eventually comes up with something brilliant. LMW's proposal can, and should be challenged. It is out of such robust debates that ideas develop. LMW himself did not lay claim to his proposal of deferred payment for land cost, having rightfully credited Dr Tan Meng Wah and Yeoh Lam Keong. I shall have my comments on this debate in a later blog. For now I just want to shine a ray of light on LMW's idea for which none could frame a term of reference for academic discussion. LMW's proposal is for decoupling the cost of land to HDB sales of BTO flats. In marketing, this is called unbundling the sales price. Here I just wish to dispel the torrent of ad hominem attacks on LMW and opposition in general that I see on the internet. One half of Singaporeans are living in a boiling pot of frustration that views the government as detached and uncaring, and who sees the other half as having blinders on, living in a Potemkin Village. For those who don't understand, Potemkin Village is a bad environment dressed up in an impressive facade for observers.. Those in early years of National Service will well remember how we dreaded the days when a Minister or Brigade Commander will visit the camp. We all had to spruce up the buildings and cut grass with our Swiss army knife. Potemkin Village took its name from a Russian governor who was responsible for a region in Crimea during the days of conflict between Russia and Ottoman Empire. During a visit by Empress Catherine II, Governor Potemkin had a special mobile village constructed. His men would dress up as villagers along a river. When the Queen's entourage set sail, Potemkin and his men would quickly dismantle and reassemble the mobile village at another location. This way, the Queen had a tour of some very fine villages. The likes of CS and PAP IBs condescend to contrarian PAP views as whinings. They view complainers as products of unschooled unmeritocratic non-achieving underclass, or simply, the opposition. Their side of the aisle sees Singapore as a superbly well-managed country and the PAP has sole monopoly on good ideas. Are complaints bad? All good corporations have a department to handle customer complaints. When Richard Branson started his Virgin Air, the first thing he attended to when in arrives in the office was to go through the register of complaints. Complaints gave him lots of insights that managers may be inclined to keep out of his view. I suspect Peoples Association grass roots have no complaints register, no leaders will pass any negative issues up the chain to the PAP leadership. Why do I suspect so? It answers to why the party is so out of touch with the public. As a car owner in the 80s/90s, I like to think I had a pretty good record as far as safe driving was concerned. But I was a sucker for taking high risks with illegal parking, betting against an army of diligent parking inspectors. There was a day when I had parking tickets from all three government agencies -- HDB, URA and Traffic Police. There were occasions when the summons could be challenged. Example twice my car was lifted aside by workmen, once to access a manhole, another time to paint parking lots. I was driving a small 2 seater Honda Civic, no problems to a couple of muscled workmen to lift it up. They did not return my car back properly in the parking, lot for which I was unceremoniously summoned. In those days, there were offices when one can go to appeal. One I remember well was in the old Market Street hawker center. Appellants were many each day. You take a number, sit down and wait for your turn. When called, you go into an office, pour your heart out. Everyone, everything, except yourself, was the cause for your parking indiscretion. At the end of which the officer will take your summon, scribble something, and you get $5, $10 discounts, something like 25-50% discount was common. I soon realised that however one bullshits, it never mattered. The officer will give a small discount. BUT they cannot dismiss a summon outright. The disinterested officers never really listened to your explanations. They knew chances are the appellants were telling tall tales. If your stories are more convincing, you get more discounts. It dawned on me it was simply a mechanism for drivers to vent their frustrations, walk across to the Cashier and pay the lowered fine. Everybody thought they were the winners, everybody walks away happy. I thought it was a jolly good idea. Complaints must be entertained. It should not be dismissed outright and be left to ferment. The first generation leaders understood we need an escape hatch for social frustrations. The state must not compress and suppress complaints, however stupid they may be. Even if the state policies are righteous, the people's frustrations must be addressed. Today, high tech has taken over. Appeals are made online. I don't drive now, so I do not know if online appeals are also granting discounts easily nowadays. It is human nature to complain. Complaining is a coping mechanism for some, mostly to relieve stress. Are Singaporeans any different from others. I do not agree to the distinction of Singaporeans as great complainers. I do however, make distinction of how Singaporeans complain. There are the uncompromising complainers, those who never consider their own short comings, those who can't see the trees for the forest, those who make mountains out of molehills, those who are unforgiving of honest mistakes or failings, those who feel entitlement is their birthright, those who feeds on anger, those who jumps to conclusions on bias cognizance. Then there are those who complains to right a wrong, those who speaks out for others who can't, those who thinks there are better ways of doing things, those with a high civic sense to raise public awareness to a problem, those who feel they have a solution or a suggestion. I think complaints are healthy human reactions. For the negative complainers, it needs an escape valve for the psychological bottled up pressure. For the positive complainers, they need the respectable handling of acknowledgement of either problems being brought to the fore and willingness to study suggestions volunteered. Those who say the parliamentary debate was much ado about nothing and LMW was simply a populist politician, interestingly do not see themselves as complainers. LMW was simply doing his job to get groundswell dissatisfaction over rising public complaints of non-affordability of HDB flats addressed in parliament. That the motion was debated in parliament was a good thing. The free-for-all session, knuckles bared, egos knocked, voices passionately raised, are all good when issues and ideas are attacked and defended, information revealed. This is as it should be in a parliamentary debate. In the handling of complaints and discontent, one classic example is that of Prosify, a software app. One dis-satisfied customer hounded the company for a very long time. The CEO Kyle Racki put an end to it with a final message to the customer that read: "I’d love to say Proposify is a great fit for everyone, but clearly we weren’t able to live up to that here. I’m really sorry about that. You may want to give Quoteroller, Nusii or Bidsketch a try, they might be more useful to you. Best of luck!" For a vendor to recommend a competitor, that's a class act. I am not suggesting the PAP should tell dis-satisfied Singaporeans to go vote Opposition. Now I have great respect for Lee Kuan Yew, but I was most disappointed for his infamous statement made derisively that his job was not to build the opposition but to destroy them. Of course one can agree as opposing parties, the PAP has to do all they can to be one-up against all other political parties. But as the ruling party, it is incumbent on them to ensure the foundation for the ring in which democracy thrives, and on which political parties do battle, must stand solidly. The PAP, and all their IBs, must understand none of us vote opposition, WE ALL VOTE SOMEONE TO REPRESENT US IN PARLIAMENT.   Patrick Low * Article first appeared on Down The Rabbit Hole.      Read More →