TR EMERITUS

TR Emeritus (TRE) has received a few requests from some of our readers to ask for the opposition parties stand on the CECA, as the readers have noted that most opposition parties have been extremely quiet while only the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) is concerned with CECA. Since the emails are several and in bits and pieces, we have compiled and merged the list of the common questions they would like to ask: Assuming that CECA is here to stay: 1. Why do you think the Government (SG) is keen for CECA? All things considered, exactly what is the net benefit for SG? e.g. increased economic/construction activities, stronger (IT) industrial base, etc? 2. What is the solution for unemployed PMET? Should ALL foreign company be regulated to employ at least 1 PMET? 3. Should dependents of ALL work/employment pass holders from any country pay a levy for enjoying the public facilities in SG (e.g. public transport, amenities, etc)? And if so, how much? Although TRE have responded to these readers that most opposition parties do not engage socio-political sites because of the "cowboy" town image and their fear of being associated with sites of ill-repute, they would still like TRE to proceed anyway. Interested opposition parties who would like to respond may submit their responses via our webform, email or by posting a follow-up in this thread. That having said, since it is our belief that the opposition parties are unlikely to respond, why not learned readers discuss this among ourselves?      Read More →

I know I shouldn’t indulge in stereotypes but I was considered an odd ball when I was growing up as an Asian kid in the Western world. The reasons were simple, my strengths were in the use of language rather than in numbers and I preferred going out with people rather than studying. Asian students were always assumed to be quiet, less social but always hardworking. The Americans describe their Asian communities as being the “model minority.” The kids are always at school and the parent are always at work. Singapore’s first non-Caucasian colonial administrator, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, made the most of that stereotype when seeking foreign investment from the Western world. He was the cheerleader of “Asian Values,” which a phrase he used to say that anyone setting up shop in Singapore would find a population of authority-respecting (the boss is God on earth) and hardworking people (happy to work whatever hours you set). Once again, there is some truth of that. Singapore’s school kids have to slog it out in one of the world’s more demanding education systems. Our old folks who carry the heaviest loads in fast-food outlets are probably amongst the hardest working people around. However, as with everything related to the public image of Singapore, that’s not quite accurate. Whilst our old folks are among the more hardworking people around, they are also among the least rewarded. Our system does not exactly encourage hard work. In fact, if you look our system, we actually encourage the opposite of hard work. If you look at what our Prime Minister calls “Natural Aristocracy,” you will notice that sloth, particularly intellectual sloth is a prerequisite of being part of the elite. Take the example of the regular debate on 377A, the section of the penal code that criminalises consensual sex among adult men. Evidence that this is a useless law that does not do anything for society is overwhelming. However, not a single one of our highly educated representatives have bothered to point out the obvious? Why is that? The answer is simple. The biggest proponent of keeping this law, is a legal professor who has spent a good portion of her life arguing that the removing the law will effectively make the increase the number of homosexuals. How does our natural aristocracy respond to this scientifically challenged claim? One elected representative I used to work alongside in his day job, commented that the professor just used a lot of big words. In hind sight this particular member of parliament was effectively saying that was too much hard work trying to understand big words and therefore too trying to understand if the message made sense. Another example of how sloth is celebrated by our natural aristocracy comes from another former nominated member of parliament, Mr. Calvin Cheng. Mr. Cheng is everything that I am not. He is brainy (Oxford University), he is rich and more importantly he has hair. Because he has the things that I don’t have, he gets to indulge in intellectual laziness. Take his celebration of the announcement that the Yale-NUS college would be shutting down, which he pasted on his Facebook page. His only explanation was that the Yale-NUS college was a bastion of evil American liberalism and his only evidence was the fact that there was a professor who happens to be a leading light among opposition voices thought that Singapore didn’t need an American college as a partner. Perhaps you could argue that I’m just being jealous because Mr. Cheng has hair. However, it seems to be that this is one of the biggest examples of celebrating intellectual sloth. Sure, Singapore can build a college of its own to suite its own cultural context. However, that would take time and effort that no one is prepared to invest. Yale on the other hand has a “brand” (merely ranks among the best in the world) and what could be the easiest way for our National University of Singapore (NUS) to put itself on the world map than to tie up with Yale. Then, when things don’t go as planned, close everything down and call it a bastion of values that incompatible with the rest of society. What else can you call this other than laziness? You don’t want to invest the time in building something on your own. Then, you decide to tie up with a foreign institution but don’t want to put in the time and effort to either see if there is cultural compatibility with the institutions or in trying to create said cultural compatibility. You merely close it down after millions of dollars spent without even including the person that you hired to make things happen in the discussion process. Mr. Cheng is a cheerleader of laziness. He’ll take a position and come up with a banal argument that fails to scratch the surface of the issue and expects to be treated as an intelligent person (which he actually is and there are times when he actually makes sense). Take his posting on the super majority of the ruling party, which can be found at: [LINK] The crux of his argument seems to be, if the ruling party isn’t going to have supermajority to change the constitution at will, the opposition can’t have one either. Besides, nobody cares so why bother. Let me repeat that this is coming from someone who graduated from Oxford (one of the world’s best) and not the ranting of senile person. Mr. Cheng is unfortunately not the only member of the natural aristocracy who takes pride in being lazy. He’s merely the most vocal in his celebration of laziness. Read through his rantings and you get a good of idea of why someone of our larger home-grown corporations have performed so underwhelmingly. The man on top comes up with an idea and expects people who worship the idea because it is his. Any challenge to the said idea is considered heresy and incompatible with local culture. When things go wrong, its everyone else’s fault and when a paltry solution to the surface problem is discovered, the man on top is a hero. Why are people surprised that nobody goes out of their way to build better things in such management cultures? I’ve argued that the problem is not that Singapore imports people from elsewhere. The problem here is that our people have been discouraged from the doing the hard work of actually thinking and people who try to think are slapped down as being Western liberals. As such, local talent leaves and goes elsewhere and we waste talent. Let’s remember why the teaching of liberal arts was discouraged in the first place. To do well in the liberal arts, one is required to challenge established ideas and liberal arts students spend their time debating all sorts of things. The liberal arts don’t qualify you for anything in particular but they train you to think of issues from a variety of angles. If you look at Mr. Cheng’s celebration of the closure of Yale-NUS, it would seem that training people to think is incompatible with Singapore culture. If Mr. Cheng and his fellow members of the natural aristocracy want Singapore to succeed, they should not celebrate this and do their best to make thinking part of the local culture.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

PM tells us we gotta pay more for goods and services to help the less-off S’poreans in the Pay and Pay’s version of Xi’s “common prosperity”: No mention of “common prosperity” last nite. Xi’s main thrust is to shake down the billionaires but then he’s a Communist and proud of it. PM’s parents were from rich families. Wholesale robusta bean prices have risen by about 50% so far this year. Vietnam is a major producer of robusta. The lockdown of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s commercial centre, because of the Indian variant of Covid-19, means Vietnam’s exporters are struggling to transport goods, including coffee beans, to ports for shipment around the world. So   Robusta coffee beans are used to make strong, bitter coffee. So it is used to make instant coffee and to blend with Arabica. Arabica coffee beans are used to make coffee for discerning taste buds. Our kopi o is made from robusta, with a dash of Arabica, perhaps. I personally like robusta coffee. But to get rid of the bitterness, I soak robusta coffee bags in room temperature water for at least 18 hours. The resulting concoction is sweet. No need to add sugar.   Cynical Investor Cynical Investor blogs at Thoughts of a Cynical Investor .  Read More →