TR EMERITUS

Earlier this year, on Jan. 24, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets its iconic Doomsday Clock 90 seconds to midnight, the closest since 1947. The specter of WWIII, especially a nuclear version, portends such utter catastrophe for all involved that it is easy to dismiss it as irrational and thus unlikely. Nevertheless, a large exchange of thermonuclear weapons could kill hundreds of millions of people in less than an hour. But that would be just the beginning. Widespread fires and radiation from these weapons would kill hundreds of millions more over a time period of days. Then there is the distinct possibility of nuclear winter, where soot lofted into the stratosphere would block out the sun for perhaps decades. The famine that would result could well lead to the extinction of the human race, not to mention the extinction of many other animal species. There was a time when many in the US political/military establishment truly believed a nuclear war was winnable. The idea that I find scariest is how much more likely it can become for people to repeat actions - and mistakes - when those with direct experience of the actions are gone. It's 77 years since the end of WW2 with the atomic bombing of Japan for example. There are still people alive with those memories, though few who were directly involved. Lacking that experience residing among ourselves, I fear we are likely to start those cycles again. At the very heart of nuclear deterrence theory is the need for the leaders of both nuclear adversaries to believe that, without question, any launch of a nuclear first strike would be met with, to coin a phrase, fire and fury in response. This issue is getting even more complicated by the radically expanding types of weapons of mass destruction, where deterrence may require the threat of a nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack. Compromising the ability of one leader to respond with a counter-attack of weapons of mass destruction would increase the temptation for the other adversary to strike first. However as technologies like CRISPR which edits genes by precisely cutting DNA and then letting natural DNA repair processes to take over. The effect of "off-target" can alter the function of a gene and may result in genomic instability, hindering its prospective and application in clinical procedure. With these systems, researchers can permanently modify genes in living cells and organisms and, in the future, we'll eventually be able to see people brewing 'designer viruses' in untrackable ways. Sounds familiar isn't it? The whole idea that "mankind is doomed" on its' face is simply ghastly. While the evidence is strong that we are systematically destroying our home planet, and there seems to be a rising potential for conflict and strife. It simply doesn't have to be so, we have choices and agency to create and live a different destiny. If you have people who just want to see destabilization as the goal, we're move deeper into a world where it will be easier and easier to just keep destabilizing, all with the hope of then being able to act out apocalyptic scenarios. Whilst this image has come to shape our politics — we do after all live in catastrophic times where the future looks like an endemic terrain of crisis. Will humans go extinct at some point? -- that's the fate of all species. But I seriously doubt that current environmental problems, bad as they are, will cause our complete demise. Even so, I don't believe that we should just give up. Clean air and water will matter so long as humans exist. Preserving species from extinction, whenever we can, is a good thing to do. However, any type of global regime to reign in climate change is definitely not in the cards. That would require a global revolution in thinking; a change of mind about economic growth and the accumulation of personal wealth. That revolution in thinking, if it ever comes, will be far too late. So the clock is “a frighteningly symbolic image for a world that continued to live within the shadow of annihilation — with this symbolic attempt to calculate the time that remains. Will the Apocalypse be nuclear, biological/chemical warfare, pandemics, climate, asteroid impact or unknown risks?   Sjorne Shen      Read More →

1. My friend made this statement - base on the best available data in the world on the autopsies done on sudden deaths cases which were carried out in Germany, 30% of such sudden Deaths are attributed to vaccines. 2. On my request, he sent me the link to the Germany study. 3. I read the study and said - There were 286 deaths among the people vaccinated (the actual number is not provided). 3 deaths out of 28 were found to be probably connected to the vaccine. These cases had severe underlying conditions. The report said that the causal relationship was not established. The report did not state that "30% of the sudden deaths are attributed to the vaccines". 4. He gave a few statements that did not addressed my point. He said - the answer is, there exists a possibility but we don't know. I replied - In case of doubt, we should take a sensible judgment. We should avoid taking a small possibility and assume that it is the most likely outcome. 5. He said - I am strictly data based. I replied - I do not agree with your interpretation and conclusion of the data. 6. I have seen many reports and videos from anti-vaccine advocates. Their interpretation and conclusions from the questionable data are often unreliable. 7. I do not believe that the vaccine is totally safe. The health experts also acknowledge that it has some adverse effects on certain people. But they say that the risk is small and the benefits outweigh the risk. I agree with the experts, based on the information that is available now.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

State media dutifully reported on Sim Ann’s Facebook post on Monday in which she supported the Government”s motion “asking Parliament to affirm the importance of keeping public housing affordable and accessible, while protecting the interests of both current and future generations of Singaporeans”. The PAP, like the colonial British administration who gifted Singapore to LKY and which it so closely resembles, dumbs things down for Singaporeans in paternalist fashion. The story they want Singaporeans to swallow is that despite land prices having risen enormously since independence as a result of economic and population growth (much of which is due to Government policy of importing low skilled labour and subsidising foreign PMETs over Singaporeans), a benevolent Government continues to provide high quality public housing priced affordably. Because land forms part of Past Reserves (that riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that like the PM’s wife’s salary must remain secret lest Singapore collapse and be swallowed up by the sea), the PAP maintain that it can never be spent as that would be unfair to future generations. So HDB must pay the full market price for the land even though they expropriated it fifty years ago from Singaporean landowners, many of whom were not wealthy, for a tiny fraction of its true market value even then. Never mind that it seems hypocritical for the PAP to claim to be worried about future generations when the support provided to families with children is derisory. As I will continue to say, “market” price is meaningless when the PAP Government has a monopoly of land and can restrict supply to extract the maximum revenue. This is exactly what the Government does by making HDB pay an excessive price for the land even though if HDB was not a Government statutory board but a private sector company it could use its position as a monopoly buyer, or monopsonist, to lower prices. No one should doubt that prices for land are artificially high since prices collapsed when the Government miscalculated and HDB built too many flats. To offset artificially high prices, the Government then goes through an elaborate charade of keeping housing “affordable” by providing a grant to HDB ($4.4 billion in 2022) from the Budget to cover the manufactured loss that HDB makes. HDB’s accounts do not provide a breakdown of its cost of sales between land and construction costs and this has always been a closely guarded secret but its cost of sales were about $5.5 billion in 2022. The Government also subsidises homeowners with CPF housing grants (though these have to be repaid with interest if the flat is sold) to make it possible for Singaporeans to pay these exorbitant monopoly prices. As I pointed out in my recent blog, “The Mystery of Why the Government Wants HDB To Make a Loss Solved” it would be far easier for the Government to price the land element at cost or at least at a level that meant that HDB would not make a loss. The PAP insists that not paying the “market price” would be unfair to future generations but it has used its monopoly to manipulate the price much higher than it should be in an open market. HDB resale prices keep going up despite the length of the average lease remaining decreasing which suggests that the Government closely watches the build-up of CPF balances and the maximum Singaporeans can be made to pay for smaller and smaller units as part of a coordinated strategy. The ever rising prices paid by HDB to the Government for land are met through the allocations to Ministry of National Development in the Budget out of current revenues. These allocations can then be channelled to GIC and Temasek. With no transparency on the returns achieved we cannot be sure that the performance figures given have not been goosed by regular injections of funds to cover losses despite the Government’s assurances that this is not the case. As I have pointed out the Budget is an exercise in diverting money away from current spending and from providing tangible easily affordable help to Singaporeans. Whether it is subsidising HDB into overpaying for land or mysteriously ever rising allocations to MOH, to the point where healthcare expenditures per Singaporean resident appear on a par or even greater than those per UK resident who receive most healthcare free, while concealing revenues collected from Singaporeans and foreign visitors in a private holding company, or Net Investment Return Contributions (NIRC) that disappear into long term funds and endowments, the whole Budget is an elaborate shell game designed to hide money from Singaporeans and make it appear as if the Government needs to raise taxes. Singaporeans need to wise up to what Sim Ann and other PAP Ministers really mean when they talk about the Government’s commitment to “affordable” housing. It has much less to do with giving you a good deal than it has in pulling the wool over your eyes and making more and more of your money disappear into secret and unaccountable entities where, like a Madoff fund, it will appear to be earning good or even excellent long term returns, as former Finance Minister Tharman memorably said, but no real money will ever come out.   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 →