TR EMERITUS

IF A LION AND CHICKEN ENTER A BOXING RING – WE’LL PUMP THE LION WITH STEROIDS AND AMPUTATE THE CHICKEN TO ENSURE A FAIR FIGHT I’ve been accused of not having much sympathy with people with professional qualifications or a lot of wealth and money. To be fair, the people who have accused me of this, have generally been right. While I generally don’t go out of my way to offend people with power and money (I generally try not to offend people), I don’t give them much sympathy either. I think of this as a boxing match between a chicken and a lion. You end up giving emotional support to the chicken because no matter what it does, it’s going to end up as dinner. The lion on the other hand could fight blindfolded and with one paw tied behind its back and still emerge victorious. However, I’ve realized that this personal philosophy of mine doesn’t gel with what the rest of society, lead by the government thinks. Our system goes out of its way to cut off the chicken’s feet and pump the lion with steroids so as to ensure that the obvious outcome is just that. Our political, business and dare I say, legal culture is all about ensuring the proverbial lions get pumped with steroids and the chickens have their feet amputated before they even step into the boxing ring. This became very obvious to me when I supporting PN Balji during the Susan Lim affair. Say what you like about Dr. Lim’s undoubtedly hefty medical bill, but she did perform a service and was not compensated for it. The government went out of their way to ruin her practice and her distinguished medical career because she had the audacity to charge the one patient on the planet with the ability to pay any medical bill for work done. I think of people who felt morally outraged that by this dastardly action. One of the worst humbug statements being “Not even doctors in the US or UK charge so much.” However, while the government was out batting for the Sultan of Brunei to get free medical treatment, a government hospital was sending my aunt, a retired civil servant pink slips for my uncle’s medical bills. My Uncle died penniless. In his decade he had no income whatsoever to speak of because he was ill. As I’ve said, I’m probably not the only person to see something like this. The Singapore government went to battle for the Sultan of Brunei to get free medical treatment from a Singaporean doctor employing Singaporean medical staff but at the same time going after Singaporeans living on a government pension for the bills run up by their deceased relatives who didn’t have the means to pay for basic medical care. Fast forward a decade and we had another similar incident between Liew Mun Liong and his former maid, Ms. Parti Liyani. We had Mr. Liew, who has probably made something north of a few hundred million, going out of his way to use tax payer resources to frame his former maid, whose last drawn salary was probably not more than S$600. What did the powers that be do when the evidence of what can only be described as a clumsy attempt to frame Ms. Liyani came out? Well, we had our Minister of law promising to investigate what went wrong and you had the future head (assuming his predecessor is serious about retirement) going out of his way to remind the rest of us of Mr. Liew’s great achievements for the country – never mind the fact that he had been exposed as someone who was willing to screw up a maid for having the audacity of not wanting to work beyond what she was legally supposed to work. Well, to be fair, Mr. Liew retired and our Minister found out exactly what went wrong and duly corrected the “mistake,” by ensuring that the judge who had the audacity to acquit Ms. Liyani, to deny her obvious claim for compensation against the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC). Something is rather interesting here. Why do the powers that be feel obliged to rush to the defense of anyone with power, money or both whenever they’ve been caught doing something horrible but at the same time doing everything to ensure that those without money and power know their place? The next case that we should observe is that of Envy Holdings, which involves a massive fraud. What’s particularly interesting is the fact that among those defrauded are prominent members of the legal community like the former President of the Law Society and the general counsel for Temasek International as well as the head of a large investment company. Full details of the story can be found in the link. Alleged swindler Ng Yu Zhi (Photo: ST) All these highly intelligent people, with access to whatever information they needed, actually pumped in money into a investment firm that was NOT regulated or licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) promising very sexy returns. The question that should be asked is how was it possible that none of these very prominent and clever people smell a rat? However, why is there a need to admit to being stupid and greedy when someone else will clean up the mess? The Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) has been quick to act. Mr. Ng, was arrested in February of this year, charged in March and had further charges slapped against him. Sure, cheating people is wrong and it’s good to see CAD acting so quickly. However, CAD doesn’t always act so quickly. I can think of an instance where the investigation continues and the director is happily sitting behind the wall of bankruptcy protection (good luck to anyone trying to sue) and going about his usual business. In Singapore, government has shown time and time again that it can work brilliantly. I have people from Europe and America telling me they wish had a government like ours. However, my question is why does government only seem to work brilliantly for those who don’t it and so painfully for those who need it most.   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 →

What follows reminds me of a joke I heard in the mid-70s that the PAP removed the words “socialist” and “socialism” from its constitution. Credit Suisse reports that Belgium, Canada, S’pore and the UK suffered the most economically with an average contraction of 7.1%. But, they enjoyed unusually high wealth gains averaging 7.7% net of exchange rate movements.   Globally, household wealth held up despite the record economic contraction because of buoyant equity markets and housing prices. This “is testament to the success of government support programs and lower interest rates following central bank intervention,” says Credit Suisse. Some data and projections on rich people here. According to Credit Suisse’s estimates, in 2020, there were 270,000 millionaires in here. This is expected to rise 61.9% to around 437,000 millionaires in 2025. There were 1,361 ultra-high-net-worth adults with a net worth exceeding US$50 million in 2020, coming in 19th place globally. Total wealth in Singapore stood at US$1.6 trillion in 2020, up from US$1.5 trillion in 2019. Globally, Singapore ranked 10th highest in mean wealth per adult, with US$332,995 in 2020, up 8.3% increase over 2019 and working out to a 3.9% annual growth since 2010.   Cynical Investor Cynical Investor blogs at Thoughts of a Cynical Investor .  Read More →

Newspapers invariably slant news reports to support the agenda of their owners. In this case, they want to jab us, by hook or by crook. Click to enlarge The newsy part of yesterday’s update on the daily cases is the disproportionate number of vaccinated infections. Of the 15 cases, 5 were fully vaccinated and 3 have had one jab. That’s more vaccinated than unvaccinated infections. However, the article just kept going on and on about the ages of the infected, their symptoms, when they saw the doctor, where they work, when they last went to work, whether they had isolated themselves etc, but only mentioned that the food deliverer is vaccinated. Readers are left to assume that the other 14 are not vaccinated since there’s no mention. That’s its usual trick - be very upfront on an insignificant truth to give the impression of objectivity but omit the information that is most damaging to its owner. Read the ST article which I have attached and compare it with the data I have compiled based on data from MOH and you will realise why ST is 160th and that it’s owner is no saint. Btw, based on the fact that about half the population has been inoculated when the 15 cases caught the bug, and that more than half of the 15 cases are breakthrough infections, the effectiveness of the vaccine is worse than zero.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →