TR EMERITUS

We are seeing rapid technological changes. it is difficult to keep up with the advances. It is easy to be carried away by the amazement. However, I like to suggest that we should hold on to our common sense. Do not let the amazement detract us from using our common sense. Let me quote some examples. For two years before the turn of the century, the experts were writing about the disaster to computer systems that will occur on the turn of the century. It was called the Y2K crisis. They said that many computer systems use only 2 characters for the year, so the year 2000 will become 0000. The computer would crash. My common sense tells me that this is rubbish. Most computer systems already had 4 characters for the year. Even for those that did not, it would be quite easy to check if it would produce any error or if the system would crash. In fact, it was possible to carry out a test by setting the computer to 1 minute before midnight of the turn of the century and see if anything happened one minute later. Many big organizations paid tens of million dollars for consultants to fix the problem. These consultants became very rich. Twenty years later, we have a strong interest in block chain. An expert explained the concept to me. My common sense told me that it was an inefficient way to handle processing. I refused to join the excitement. After a few years and a lot of money that poured into block chain projects, I have not seen any significant success. Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, that were operated on block chains, looked to me like a big ponzi scheme or speculative bubble. I saw a video showing a conversation between the PM of Malaysia and a social robot. The PM asked a few difficult questions and the robot used AI to give the answers. It was amazing. My common sense told me that it was not possible for any AI robot to be that smart. I suspect that the answers were actually provided by a human being and the robot spoke the answers. It is a common magician trick. Because of the elaborate setting, it looked real. I could be mistaken, but my common sense told me that that was the most logical outcome. I saw a video showing a duck that was able to dance the "Moonwalk" like Michael Jackson, played to his famous song. The video was supposed to be taken in a farm in Tibet and the duck was supposed to be the reincarnation of Michael Jackson. It was amazing and realistic. Apart from the reincarnation, there were other ducks in the video watching in amazement. My common sense told me that this is a computer animation, rather than an actual recording of a performing duck. I am aware that I could be wrong. The AI social robot could be real and very good. The block chain projects may produce amazing results in the future. Until they are proven otherwise, I prefer to trust my common sense and hold a degree of skepticism. Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

I saw this previous article about a taxi driver's son who was unable to find a good job in Singapore, and found myself agreeing with much of what was mentioned. Not every millennial is sufficiently ready to deal with the new economy, especially with disruptions and the advent of the gig economy. Furthermore, his son had already faced difficulty adapting to the army, and would probably need more help in adapting to his predicament. A friend of mine was also in a similar position a few years back. He also hailed from a local polytechnic and could not adjust well in army. He told me that "the army is not for everyone" and he could not fit in with his mates at a combat unit. He had requested to change his vocation to a clerk or storemen at a stay out unit as he felt it will be a better use of his skills, but the government did not attend to his request. In the end, he was found to be medically unfit for service and was exempted from NS. This really shows how inflexible the government is in dealing with its citizens. After graduating from his tertiary education, he was again unable to find a decent job that was linked with his field of study. He was deeply passionate in tech and finance, and hoped to secure a job in the fintech sector. Unfortunately, many local companies have been spoilt and hires foreigners all the time, without a care for local employment. After being jobless for months, he went to WSG for help and was referred to many jobs in retail and F&B. Due to the government's decades emphasis on higher education, many millennials, including him could not see themselves eking out a living doing these jobs. WSG went on to suggest he could become an hawker entrepreneur if the job market is bad, and offered several culinary courses he could use his skillsfuture credit on. Again, he did not want to be a hawker as he had no passion for cooking, and so he rejected that offer. When I heard about his story, I am timely reminded of the failure of the government to properly prepare our youths for the current job market. Even though it is a harsh reality that not all of us will find the jobs we want, many youths are unaccustomed to that fact and do not wish to work in jobs requiring menial labour. The values of this generation have been distorted to only worship money and chase degrees without preparing youths for the rigour of the job market. The generations before us were less skilled and educated, but they were not afraid to get their hands dirty, and took on all manners of trade to survive. They have built a prosperous nation founded on self-reliance, but the youth today are unready to take over. Cases like my friend's are not uncommon and he is already very dejected being unable to find a fulltime job for more than 2 years. His only income comes 3-month contract jobs that are more common than full-time position nowadays, and he worries for his future. I sincerely hope that the government will do something for our unemployment youths, instead of recommending easy things like PDVL for them, and take measures to ensure the coming generation will be more flexible in the job market.   A fellow concerned Singaporean      Read More →

GIC manages more than S$400 billion in CPF monies. Thanks to PAP’s constant tweaking of CPF rules, GIC receives about $15 billion in net contributions annually. Besides increase in CPF, GIC also manages additional billions in tax dollars set aside for Merdeka Generation and Pioneer Generation packages, etc. With additional tens of billions in ‘free money’ to invest annually – no need to raise capital like real fund managers, understandably, GIC has continued to mismanage state reserves and CPF monies. For eg, GIC has a number of investments, such as Paladin Energy, which are almost … worthless.  GIC, of course, has no exit plan. While GIC has doubled its stake in Paladin since 2013, prices have collapsed. Likely, GIC has lost more than 95% of the investment. Has a single investment Paladin Energy incurred hundreds of million$ in unrealised losses? How many Paladins are there?  Is this why CPF cannot be returned to members at 55?  Or even 65?   Phillip Ang * The author blogs at LikeDatOsoCanMeh.      Read More →