TR EMERITUS

Today is big cycling day – so we will just have to do a hello, bang-bang and good bye – coming to think, wasn’t that how our parents use to make babies? What’s happened recently? Why is LKY smacking his head!   Why is it so difficult to just get down to the whole business of making babies? It should be the most natural thing in the world. What’s the fuss all about? Why does it have to be something like the Da Vinci code?   My pet theory is; it may have something to do with the sworn enemies of the brotherhood – yes, those erudite spinsters who reside in that self styled monastery known as SPH (the Sisters of Perpetual Hesitation); who often write toe curling accounts on the seven habits of highly effective wife beaters – to why I rather sleep with my dog than a man - in their cloistered enclave when their mother superior Sumiko exclaims: “I’ve missed the boat.” Her underlings cheer on, “Well done, our aim must be improving.” Leaving that all aside our baby blues remains a pithy summary of the sign of our times – it’s serious when you consider even Sengkang Sally these days seems to be hanging up her eggs.   In the early 80’s when the trend of forestalling the stork first surfaced it affected mainly the ranks of professional women - that was alright - besides all of them were batty and their abstinence probably saved most men from perpetual bitching.   But of late the trend of forestalling the stork seems to have reached pandemic levels and it's even scissoring right through the length and breadth of our society! So out comes the same unsavory characters making a bee line in rogue’s gallery: high cost of living, not enough time, an uncertain future and the impossible demands of juggling jobs and kids etc.   Are they the only suspects? Could there be another reason why our birth rates are so low? One clue that may explain why the baby figures are so shambolic may be found in the computer game called SimCity  - I happen to love the game. For one it’s a great way to take a holiday from my inferiority complex; as SimCity is really like playing god (though I don’t think he eats pot noodle or has to live in a room where clothes go to die) – now the thing that I learnt most about SimCity is: Build a lousy system and you are likely to get lousy results; there’s no mystery there, it's cut and dried; where the cost and penalty calculation become screwy is when you build a perfect system that’s so good that it even has reserves to gather momentum and when you pull on the brakes nothing happens! It’s a bit like the Titanic 30 seconds before it struck the iceberg - instead of you playing the game; the game plays you. That dystopian nightmarish landscape bears out only too clearly in the game SimCity  - even the most benign and innocuous actions can be amplified and have far reaching implications – build a multi storey car park and the next thing you know you’ve created the mother of all traffic jams and that leads to probably an eight lane highway and deppreciation of property - next thing you know your neighborhood has turned into down town Baghdad; if you really want to understand why our baby birth rates is so low –here it is! -  the answer believe it or not can be found in a computer game and just in case you think - I am kidding.   I am not, I worked it all out mathematically one evening on a napkin in McDonalds. The whole idea of playing the extinction game isn't really so different from one those environmental horror stories; we so often hear about; When someone thought it would just be a dainty idea to bring a pot of flowers from the old country to brighten up the porch and dress up their bonnet for Sunday church.   But what happens when that species of alien flower finds its way into the local ecology and proliferates only to overreach its territory very much like a super invader to wipe up the rest?   The analogy isn’t so different from what really accounts for our baby blues. The historical accounts are sketchy; but the story goes something like this; during the late 70’s a great social engineering experiment was launched; the ‘2 is enough and 3 is company’ population control program.   It made perfect sense then to mitigate the high birth rates and leveraging on the apparatus of assimilation to broadcast the message it worked admirably, the problem was everyone from the policymakers to the social scientist who conceived this idea became so fixated on the drive train and breaking the land speed record; none of them bothered with the emergency brakes. In short, they forgot about the reverse gear - fast forward today; when we talk about our lamentable birth rates, it's nothing more than a social Chernobyl experiment gone awry. Yes, some one fucked up. And they fucked it up big time.The lessons here are sobering – never ever fuck around with something you don’t completely understand – that’s the problem when government decides to play a round of I am-God-almighty. My point is simply this; it may have made pragmatic sense once upon a time to muck around with the lives of people, but even with the benefit of the best of intentions; the cost of doing so may simply be too horrendously high to contemplate in the long term; fact remains where the equation applies to people; the whole calculation may not even hold true as what we are dealing with here isn’t nuts and bolts – it’s not really a quantitative method as it remains a qualitative process; its more an art than a science; because you dealing with people and people don’t always behave rationally. Yes, small things can have big consequences. They can even come back a bite you like a multi headed hydra. Worst of all, some of the mistakes we make can't be reversed - once they go into the mind; they just stay there. It would be good; if government just kept that in the back of their minds when they next decide to muck around with the internet. Don’t say, I didn’t tell you; it’s doesn’t pay to play God. Pls do correct for grammar along with spelling. Got to go cycling now.   Darkness 2009   The Brotherhood Press 2009  Read More →

Photos by Michelle Pang These photos are taken from my neighborhood. It is quite well maintained actually. There are a few old men and women who made the park their homes. I have taken a snapshot of one of them. What I don't like about the place is  that the corridors are filled with junk which make navigation difficult and dangerous. What if the senior citizens trip and fall over?   [imagebrowser id=12]  Read More →

Three recent events prompted me to seek your confirmation/clarification if there is any link to the bonus system at GLCs/other government-related institutions like PAP-controlled Town Councils/CDCs, etc, and the recently revealed bonuses of the 2 town council/CDC staff and CapitaLand's CEO: 1. Some PAP-led Town Councils' revelation of million dollar investment losses in Lehman Minibond and other structured products; 2. Two PAP-led Town Council/CDC staff's (reportedly senior management?) bonus of some eight months; 3. CapitaLand CEO's $20 million bonus (refer Straits Times today - attached below) When I was previously working in a US MNC, the company had a bonus system that was structured quite like the EVA-based system popularly adopted by many US corporations since the 90s. Practices may vary and the exact formula used may be complex but in a nutshell, this system sets aside a pool of money to be distributed as bonus to its staff (senior management) after accounting for "opportunity cost" of capital deployment; the more senior the manager, the bigger the entitlement to the bonus pool - ie weighted entitlement. Let me illustrate by way of an example:- If the company makes good profits and after deducting expenses (like salaries etc), has some $1 million available for this EVA bonus pool, this bonus pool will be distributed to those entitled to share this pool (mainly senior management although some companies may include junior management but in any case, their entitlement will be weighted). Under what circumstances will the staff enjoy good EVA bonuses? These may include: 1. Good profits during good times; 2. EVA benchmark (or opportunity cost) is low - eg if EVA is pegged to banks' FD  or inflation rates during low interest rate/inflation environment, like in recent years in Singapore; 3. Cost reduction exercise like salary cuts, etc (in fact, salary cuts may end up benefiting senior management (the "Generals" in military lingo) at the expense of the rank-and-file (the "foot soldiers") as these foot soldiers in most cases are not entitled to the EVA bonus pool, assuming the company is profitable with money set aside for the EVA pool). I am not sure if any (or all) of the GLCs/CDCs/PA etc adopt the EVA-based bonus system, but if they did, could it be the reason why CapitaLand CEO's bonus amounted to some $20 million and the 2 CDC staff (if confirmed they are senior management) received 8 months of bonus when the rest of the "foot soldiers" suffer salary cuts? (I do note however such an EVA-based bonus system was (still is?) adopted at SFI (a GLC) - link MOM) Also, if these GLCs etc adopt EVA-based bonus system, then can we safely assume top management (eg CEOs of Temasek, GIC, etc) would have received superb bonuses during the bull run years (and even during the current crisis years as long as there is bonus for the EVA pool for distribution)? But I guess Singaporeans will never get to know how much such bonuses were as these are presumably secrets not for public consumption. (Note: I note the justification for the PAP town councils investing in "risky" Lehman Minibonds was in order to "beat inflation", but are there other reasons why these town councils (and other GLCs, etc if any) resort to taking such high risks (but with corresponding high returns)? Is there any link of this need to outperform to the EVA-based system?)   Regards, Jeffrey Ho  Read More →