THE MOST COMPLETE RUBBISHING OF LEEconomics EVER

19 June 2008

ICONOCLASSING SINGAPORE GDP MYTHS

RH:
1. An Iconoclass is an iconoclast who does it with class. This essay is an expanded version of a comment I penned in The Online Citizen 2 days ago on January 15, 2008 at 6:10 pm as Comment 22 in http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/01/15/mm-lee-lucky-indonesians/#comments in which I first publicly penned thoughts I had recently conceived. Thoughts that are a sudden realisation of something I had skimmed recently, probably a UN Report on Cities and its mention that many/most? people are now living in cities. The sudden realisation was that this fact, that many/most of humanity are now living in cities, must be because of the many advantages/efficiencies of city life versus suburban or countryside life. This instantly crystallised the thoughts that Singapore's -- and Hongkong's as well as other similar cities' -- economic progress owe much to the efficiencies of CITIFICATION and HIGH DENSITY LIVING. AS WELL AS TINYNESS. These latter thoughts are not new and I have had them for some time, maybe even a year or more, and have exampled them in the closeness of bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc -- where buses can come far more frequently than in Less Dense Cities. There, future historians can now trace these ideas that follow in this essay.

2. We all know vaguely that cities, especially very dense cities, offer higher efficiencies and therefore a higher quality of life. For example, to reprise my Bus Stop examples, bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc, can be sited less than 1 km apart and buses come frequently, even 5 minutes apart, and it can all be still profitable. Thus, high density = high efficiency = high quality of life. The 3 HIGHs Theory. Another example; in dense cities, you can find everything nearby, from cardiologists and toe transplant surgeons to shops selling pet chihuahuas. If you un-migrate from the city to the suburb or countryside, you will instantly suffer loss of or unreliable cellphone signal reception as well as a host of other inefficiencies and inconveniences from sparse petrol stations to lack of Chinese restaurants. Thus, I don't need to labour the point further.

3. Given that cities are automatically far more efficient than suburbs or countrysides, we can now examine Singapore, Hongkong and similars. Singapore and Hongkong are among the densest cities in the world and renowned for their efficiencies and high quality of life. The S$3.7++ million dollar question is then, "Are these the achievements of their govts or simply the inevitable effects of simple economic laws such as supply and demand, low costs of logistics, the efficiencies of tinyness where a deliveryman and his van/truck can do a dozen trade deliveries a day compared with say, having to drive 50-100 km to each delivery point and hence only making 2-3 deliveries a day. In shopping [very important for economics and quality of life, since life and economics revolve around buying and consuming], a Best Denki or Challenger electronics store can revenue even S$1 million a day and hence can afford to display lavish displays of laptops and flat panel TVs for shoppers to try and experience, etc. A Giant hypermarket need only be a km or 2 away and offer a vast cornucopia of products you can never try them all even in a lifetime.

4. Thus, the unending PAPaganda of Good News and Even More Triumphs of LIE KY LHL PAP and its controlled, fawning, worshipful, media must be countered with the understanding that almost all of Singapore's -- and for that matter, Hongkong's, etc, economic achievements ARE DUE TO CITIFICATION, TINYNESS AND ULTRA HIGH DENSITY OF POPULATION. In fact, I will proffer that even China's astounding economic progress over the last few decades, is largely due to Density. Of course, being Chinese, with all the usual, typical, Chinese characteristics and cultural values, etc, also help but it is probably Density that explains everything. Realising and proving this is important because it offers lessons for the rest of humanity and the world. An indication of my theory as expressed in China is the fact that almost all of China's economic juggernaut progress is in the Dense Cities and not the suburb or countryside. Point proven? Probably.

5. The fact that Hongkong never had a LIE KY -- or China, or Taiwan [among world's 20 biggest economies], for that matter, proves conclusively that LIE KY is not the reason for Singapore's progress. Singapore would have made similar progress under LIM Chin Siong, if he had not been treacherously supplanted by LIE KY in a secret deal with then British PM Harold MacMillan, to serve British interests in return for the arrest, jailing and political elimination of LIM without charge or trial under the ISA. LIE KY's treacherous nature also saw him collaborating with the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore in WW2, when other young Singaporeans were going into the jungles to fight and resist the Japanese.

6. However, although with some research, I could probably draw many other cities and countries as examples of my theory, I consider it proven, even with these limited, unacademic examples. I would like to finish by comparing Hongkong's progress with Singapore's, since they are almost as identical as twins. At first glance, Singapore and Hongkong's economies seem comparable, with Singapore slightly ahead [2006 estimates of Nominal Per Capita GDP puts Singapore slightly ahead at 21st spot with US$34,152 against Hongkong's 27th spot with US$29,149] but these figures OVERSTATE for Singapore due to LIE KY LHL PAP incessant manipulation and falsification of statistics so the Cabinet can pay themselves bigger million-dollar 'Performance Bonuses', since these bonuses are directly correlated to GDP! while the Hongkong Govt gains nothing from exaggerating GDP numbers and so doesn't lie about it like LIE KY LHL PAP.

7. In fact, I believe that Hongkong's GDP is grossly UNDERSTATED and exceeds by far that of Singapore's. For example, prior to around 1978, Hongkong was the biggest toy maker in the world and every kid in the world had at least 1 water pistol or model car Made In Hongkong. After Deng Xiao Ping opened the adjoining Shenzhen SEZ around 1978, Hongkong's toy industry disappeared. Relocated to nextdoor Shenzhen. Thus, although official statistics would seem that Hongkong today has little or no toy [and other] manufacturing industries, THESE STATISTICS ARE CAPTURED AS CHINA [SHENZHEN] PRODUCTION EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE OWNED AND DRIVEN BY HONGKONGERS. Hongkong has no manufacturing? Only services, mostly financial? That is erroneous. To correct this, economists should include most of Shenzhen's economic output to Hongkong, not China. Worse, Hongkongers, having conquered Shenzhen, went on to other parts of China, especially Shanghai and Beijing, not just in toy manufacturing but also a vast outpouring of goods and services industries. Hongkong businessmen are so brilliant they dance circles around the Singaporean, whose Chineseness and business acumen and native ingenuity have been distorted by LIE KY into obedient, even STUPID, fearful, cowed sheep who cannot think, let alone solve problems or start and run businesses. Every Dictator produces stupid people and since LIE KY is an Absolute Dictator, the most powerful in history over his people, naturally the Singaporean is now very, very stupid. The GLCs' dominance and deliberate elimination of small businesses so as to reduce the ranks of financially independent [and hence politically independent] Singaporeans to render all subservient to LIE KY also deleted the business genes from Singaporeans.

8. Thus, there are several lessons for humanity here. High density living = high efficiencies = high quality living. Town planners and architects, please note. Cities offer better lives than suburbs or countrysides. Hongkong is what a truly free and open society and economy can achieve in quality living as well as GDP, trumping Singapore by far in everything. LIE KY LHL PAP are stupid and cheats, not only cheating in elections but also true GDP figures and other statistics. Overpaid, incompetent, cheats. I rest my case.

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Recommended Reading :

RH:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130

Recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES.
Posted by Robert HO nric S0197974D at 10:11 AM

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19 June 2008

ICONOCLASSING Pt 2

RH:

1. I had, in this previous Comment in The Online Citizen [ http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/02/knowledge-based-economy-needs-more-uni-education-financing/#more-527 ] first tried to reason dispassionately about Foreigners and their effects on GDP, which have led to an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners that has swamped our islet. Today, I will try to fuller.

2. What makes a Singaporean? -- vs a foreigner? I had postulated that it is SCE [Shared Common Experience]. "Thus, a Chinese and a Malay Singaporean can have More Shared Experiences than with a Chinese from China. However, if that Chinaman has enough Commonalities when he arrives, and gains more with time, he can be as Singaporean as any local-born." [self quote].

3. Thus, while we become emotional and even angry at Foreigners many advantages over locals, we need to remember that our ancestors were once immigrants but became Singaporeans. Singaporeans vs Foreigners is not one or the other, not Black vs White, but a SCALE which we all, locals or not, are on, each at various points of being more or less Singaporean. Simply, it is how much SCE you have, I think. My maid has worked here ~15 years. She can MRT and commute about, speak, read and write fairly good English, speak Teochew and some Mandarin besides Indonesian, and in looks and behaviour, indistinguishable from Singaporeans. I think, on my basis, she deserves to be given PR instead of the 'Foreign Talent' [FT] who flies in with few Commonalities. This SCE principle may already be implicitly recognised by some countries. My wife's colleague took his maid to London for several years. When he returned, his maid did not — she had qualified for PR!

4. Thus, countries may look into granting PR also on the basis of SCE and not just 'economic value'. This will save much maladjustments to both the immigrant and the receiving society.

5. In PAPadise, it is purely economic value but as usual, stupidly and typically UNTHINKING, leading to great harm and tragic results.

6. For example, suppose you vacuum your floor and wash clothes and dishes. You are generating NO economic value or GDP activity. Thus, a housewife, according to current Economic theories, generates little or no 'economic activity' and thus no GDP. So Singapore housewives are encouraged to work outside home because earning a salary gets recorded as 'economic activity' or 'economic value' and thus gets into the GDP figures. So when she earns $1,000, she 'generates' far more than $1,000 because she commutes, eats outside, buys office clothes, etc. All these suddenly boost the GDP simply because that is how GDP is measured. Further, the maid she has to hire to look after her kids, for $350, also 'generates' far more than $350 because the maid also consumes some personal-use goods and services, etc, thus also boosting the GDP -- again, since this is how GDP is measured. This explains the Second Wave in my 3 Waves Of Labour theory in my essay on Leeconomics [ http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/search/label/RH%3A%20Robert%27s%20Complete%20Case%20against%20Leeconomics%20%5BMain%5D ].

7. Thus, we see the ATTRACTION of foreigners to the MinisterMoron, PrimeMoron, and their Cronies Morons. Even a lowly maid or other foreigner cheap labour generates far more 'GDP activities' than just their nominal salary. To crystallise it, suppose they import a foreigner cripple without arms or legs. This cripple will still 'generate' appreciable GDP activity because he will house, eat, buy diapers, medical care, etc. So more GDP activities. In short, like in the movie "Matrix", just Human Bodies are enough to generate GDP. So the Morons keep importing bodies, almost all cheap labour since they cannot lure betters. Thus, today, >1 in 4 of people in Singapore are foreigners! The most astounding rate in world history! Do LIE KY LHL PAP know something we don't? The contrary.

8. I don't think these Morons, or anybody else, have reasoned it all thus. What they do know is that every time they import foreigners, the GDP goes up and hence, their Performance Bonuses, so they keep importing foreigners even when these DISPLACE LOCALS. In fact, by not understanding all this, their importing policies have the effect of Displacing Locals because the GDP GROWS EVEN MORE THIS WAY. Let me explain : suppose a cheap labour foreigner is imported to displace a local low-wage labourer. This cheap foreigner generates far more than just his nominal salary in GDP activities, so good for the Morons Bonuses. But the unemployed local labourer does not become 0 upon being displaced and unemployed. He still needs to house, eat, utilities, etc, so he still consumes and thus generate GDP activities. So the NET GAIN is not just from the foreigner but also the captive local who still needs to consume and thus generate GDP. Thus, 2-WAY net gains from this Displacement policy. This explains the callous policies and insane tidal wave influx of foreigners, almost all cheap labour -- but never mind, they still generate big GDP. The so-called FT are only handfuls and mostly used to justify the real tidal wave influx of cheap foreigners. FTs have better options elsewhere so most don't come or stay.

9. The Morons are like lab rats in a cage. They have discovered that by pressing the Green Lever, more marbles drop into their cage and somehow, the lab scientists reward them more titbits as a result of the more marbles. So they furiously keep pressing the Green Lever, thinking they are "successful" [Performance Bonuses] even though there are so many marbles they have little living space left. But they still keep pressing as if addicted. This analogy explains the Morons unthinking addiction to foreigners and DELIBERATE DISPLACEMENT of locals -- nothing is NON-Deliberate in Singapore, except maybe the unique or extremely rare KASTARI escape from an ISD prison! Which is why it is so unbelievable and led to so many conspiracy theories.

10. Another example of this unthinking Green Lever Syndrome is the DELIBERATE [like Displacement of low-wage Singaporean workers -- IN MANY CASES, ALSO HIGHER WAGE ONES, TOO] policy to bias towards Manufacturing as against Services. Our Morons have always scorned Hongkong for its Service Economy and prided themselves on still having a big Manufacturing sector. The Green Lever Syndrome at work again.

11. In the first place, Hongkong DOES have manufacturing and very big, too, except that it is all captured as China statistics in Shenzhen and other centres. Second, it is Green Lever Syndrome again because manufacturing is mostly measurable in $ [as in widget parts costs and final selling prices] and so easily captured into final GDP figures whereas Services like a Hongkong clerk processing forms or answering calls in a Call Centre is difficult to value in $ and so only their nominal salaries get into the GDP. This doesn't mean that Manufacturing is superior to Services! as the Morons think. Only that one is more measurable than the other -- at least in $ and GDP terms. But, just like reading to a child or volunteer social work instructing elderlies in exercise, activities that are not capturable in GDP does not mean inferior or not worth doing, as the Morons believe in both thought and action.

12. Thus, Hongkong has a more 'normal', REAL economy as opposed to the LIEgime FALSE and distorted economy. For example, like all Real economies, Hongkong considers many factors besides GDP numbers, such as inflation, unemployment, jobs creation, consumer spending, social spending and welfare, govt spending and taxations, etc, and devises policies towards these [multiple] ends, whereas the False and distorted economy of the LIEgime is constructed and deliberately designed to produce high GDP numbers only. The US, probably the most intelligently monitored and managed economy, has a whole slew of economic indicators besides GDP numbers. US business media almost daily analyse dozens of indicators, from housing starts to PMI to Producer Price Indices, stock indices and prices, etc, and not just the final GDP numbers. Only the LIEgime stupidly constructs an economy solely to produce high GDP numbers. Thus, Hongkong's Real economy is probably many times bigger and better than the False economy of the LIEgime, which is more like a shop window display, artificial and FOR SHOW ONLY, like everything else about the LIEgime.

13. This False economy of the LIEgime is paralleled by its equally stupid education policies. In Education, there is also obsession with scoring high marks in exams, thus paralleling the construction of the False economy to score high GDP numbers. So, schools, principals, teachers and students are obsessed only with scoring high marks in exams. This means that non-exam subjects are hardly taught and studied. Worse, teachers and students choose subjects purely to score high marks, hence the decades-long bias to Math and Science subjects [far easier to score] than say, Lit and Lang. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Singaporeans and the way Math is taught from primary to university, this bias produces several generations of unintelligent 'scholars' [many become Cronies Ministers or Generals who later metamorphosise into GLC CEOs] who, other than high Math marks, cannot think, since Language is the Basis of Thought, not Math. Thus, when you teach [and learn] TO the test or exam, you do score high marks but learn little, in not much of an education.

14. Thus, the LIEgime has only 5 aims of govt. First, to entrench and further the LIE family stranglehold on power and to increase that power without limit so as to control every aspect of work and life in Singapore. Second, to LOOK GOOD always -- an obsession -- even if this is only surface or cosmetic. Third, as regards the economy, to produce high GDP numbers. Fourth, to produce huge budget surpluses. This means decades of unremitting, relentless, Overtax and Underspend policies, overtaxing exorbitantly on everything possible, especially HDB housing, car taxes [both giving many, many, multiples of profit or rather, profiteering], GST, etc, while underspending on everything else except the military, which always has the biggest budget allocations. Thus, Singaporeans are overtaxed in every way possible and imaginable while spending on heathcare, education, the poor, etc, are all shortchanged. The budget surpluses are not enough apparently, so in order to create even bigger and more impressive Reserves and SWF [Fifth goal], Singaporeans CPF are withheld to make the Reserves bigger. Thus, Singaporeans have little access to and cannot even withdraw their own monies because the LIEgime wants it in its own kitty. CPF was as much as 40% of every worker salary and bonus OVER HIS LIFETIME CAREER, now slightly less. Thus, 'managing by/for results', which is pretty legitimate, became bastardised, like everything else, to become 'managing by numbers', further bastardised to 'managing FOR [GDP] numbers'. Thus, the economy is constructed mainly to score high GDP numbers and the easiest way is to massively import foreigners -- preferably rich -- but practically, mostly cheap labour, since millionaires or FTs cannot be imported in numbers for various reasons. This explains why the LIEgime bends over backwards [this time] to play nice to all foreigners. It also explains why there is such an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners in Singapore, the Third Wave in my essay.

15. The >1 in 4 of us being foreigners has obviously [how can anyone NOT notice!] become 'sensitive', meaning actually 'explosive' -- as it would be in a democracy instead of the secretive, suppressive dictatorship here. So, being politicians, and a govt obsessed with looking good ["Every time LIE KY looks good, the Truth doesn't" -- self quote] they spin and rationalise. They also Reclassify. This Reclassification trick reclassifies foreigners as Residents, PRs and even citizens to reduce resentment when the 'official' figures are out. If we grant PRs and citizenship more on SCE, this Reclassification trick will be harder. As is now, they can, with a simple sleight of the hand, change the numbers of foreigners into Residents, PRs and citizens. There is here, the 'magic trick' of DOUBLE or 2-WAY 'gains', just like in Displacing local low wage and even HIGH WAGE workers with foreigners. When the LIEgime reclassifies a foreigner into a PR or citizen, 1 MORE is added to the PR or citizen group while 1 LESS is reduced in the foreigner group. So double-counting 'gains'! But foreigner or local or whatever, the buses, trains, food centres, roads, infrastructures, malls, etc, are all overcrowded [noticed the many big groups of dark-skinned young men watching the big tv displays or loitering near the money-changers or just loitering]? The problem is vaster than anyone, including the Morons, realise. They are just rats pressing levers and thinking they are doing a great job.

16. What can anyone do about it? Nothing. LIE KY LHL PAP are proven to have rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election, almost certainly also the 1963 General Elections in a suspicious 6-hour electricity blackout centred around the City Hall Vote Counting Centre, most probably also the Ong Teng Cheong Presidential election, plus the Malaysia Referendum that offered no, only rigged, choices. We can all do nothing because LIE KY LHL PAP need no mandate since they cheat massively ['winning' 82 out of 84 seats is mathematically, politically and electorally impossible without massive cheating -- like Saddam Hussein >90% votes every 'election'] so they do what they like, "never mind what the people think" -- LIE KY.

17. According to a 2008 report from the Asian Development Bank, "The Singapore govt estimates that foreign labour contributed 3.2% of its annual growth rate of 7.8% in the 1990's." Another factoid : >40% of Singapore total labour force are cheap foreign labourers and >170,000 of the nearly 1 million foreign labourers are maids.

18. In an official Report from the ManPower Ministry for 2006 : http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/others/mrsd/Publications/ReportonLabourForceinSingapore2006.html

The 2006 Total Labour Force was 2.59m; 'Residents' [note Reclassification Trick] were 1.80m. UNEMPLOYED 'Residents' [seasonally adjusted] were 70,000 or 3.6% but 84,000 or 4.5% non-seasonally adjusted.

19. The point to note is that the overwhelming PAPaganda which has overpowered all thinking and discussions about foreigners, is that firstly, "foreigners do the dirty and dangerous jobs we locals shun". Secondly, "FT do the kind of Talented Jobs that we locals don't have the Talent to do so shut up and don't dare complain when YOUR job goes to a foreigner". Thirdly, "foreigners average DOWN business costs so businesses can profit more" [this is actually done by rigidly tying foreigners to employers so they cannot jobhop to better, plus other draconian conditions to give employers great advantages to exploit them, which explains why no employer wants Singaporeans!]

20. To this, I can only ask, pointing to MOM statistics in Paragraph 18, are there really so many "dirty and dangerous" jobs in Singapore? Or so many Talent jobs we cannot do? To the extent 3.6%/4.5% of us are unemployed? Or is it the usual politicians scapegoating and 'blaming the victims'? After all, even garbage collection is highly mechanised, requiring few workers. Same for cleaners who even drive cleaning machines. Same for construction work, since there is a limit to how many workers can work at any time because concrete floors are laid and harden floor by floor. The Truth is, employers PREFER foreigners because they can be exploited far more easily due to LIEgime policies, entirely pro-business and anti-workers at the best of times, having jailed union leaders from the moment LIE KY seized power half a century ago, who then constructed and maintained by force, a fake NTUC 'union' body to further supppress workers, an NTUC whose main objective like every LIEgime org or institution, is to profit from its multiplicity of businesses from supermarket 'co-ops' to condos and even funeral parlours.

21. This is the tragedy for us -- not for the Morons. They just keep pressing levers and collecting marbles and Performance Bonuses. While the tidal wave of foreigners continue to swamp every aspect of life on this little islet.

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Recommended Reading :

RH:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130

A recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES.

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On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Robert HO wrote:

RH:
1. Since this is INFLATION Week in TOC, thought I would contribute the following snippets. Just short quotes and their urls :

http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from=home&id=10612

"...fixated on wholly meaningless govt data that managed to report the lowest inflation... However, the govt's ability to make 'economic growth' magically appear is based purely on statistical finesse."

"...govt [should] adjust nominal GDP gains using the GDP deflator, which represents the inflation rate. This is done to strip inflation out of the GDP calculation so that only real growth gets counted: not nominal gains that result purely from inflation."

"Similar illusions are created in other numbers, such as retail sales, corporate earnings, and stock prices, which are all rising merely as a result of actual inflation being higher than the official reports. For example, higher retail sales reflect consumers paying higher prices for the products that they buy. They may in fact be buying less stuff, but are paying more for it."

"Similarly, just as inflation causes prices to rise for goods and services, it causes stock prices to rise as well. Though such gains may be less than the actual increase in the cost of living, as long as the govt gets away with using bogus CPI numbers which fail to fully reflect inflation, ...takes credit for nominal gains as if they were real."

"However, as ridiculous as the phony GDP number was, yesterday's biggest joke was a report on global competitiveness put out by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ranked the [LIE KY LHL PAP] economy as [among] the world's most competitive. To arrive at this conclusion, the forum has obliterated the obvious under a mountain of theory. In determining country rankings, the WEF weighed strengths in their "12 Pillars of Competitiveness", including: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. It is as if the WEF decided to judge a weight loss contest without using a scale, by instead focusing only on mental attitude, dedication, perseverance, and nutritional education! As a result the prize is awarded to the fattest contestant. [Singapore] is clearly not [among] the most competitive economies in the world.

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2. http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/numbers-lie/2007/11/02/
"More Proof That Numbers Lie"

"Numbers don't lie, do they? Ha! Numbers are the biggest liars on the planet."

"...govt statisticians – and corporate ones too – typically "crunch" numbers into the shape they want. Numbers get punched, beaten, hammered, bullied, and bamboozled. When the torture session is over they'll admit to anything. That is how we get a "consumer price index" of only 3%...when everyone knows prices are rising a lot faster.

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3. http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/3/focus/19360112&sec=focus

"Increasing prices in just about everything has overshadowed the city state's prosperity in the last four years."

"The city-state has been hit by an unceasing bout of price increases that has overshadowed the city's prosperity in the past four years. Inflation is at its worst here in 12 years [now 26 years] and has become the people's biggest worry today. For many, the high costs are blurring the Singapore Dream."

"Worst affected is the broad middle class, ...a punishing [from] 5% to 7% rise in the Goods and Services Tax (GST)."

"There are two immediate effects. The value of money is dropping by the week, and savings are discouraged since consumer prices are rising faster than interest the banks pay on deposits."

"The govt appears unable to take action to stop the epidemic, a contrast to the first-generation govt during such crises."

"But so strong and persistent is inflation that many Singaporeans feel they are the poorer for it."

"...the govt ...priorities are economic growth and asset accumulation (for foreign investments) – even at the expense of a higher cost of living. To that end, it has increased GST from 5% to 7% and may eventually reach 10%. Fees for public services are being raised to ensure no drop in Treasury collection."

"Deficit budget, although not entirely unknown in Singapore, is a very rare happening."

"Many young professionals who just start off in life are worried that the sharp run-up in property prices has made it virtually impossible for them to buy a flat. Some are putting off marriage or raising children."

"Understandably inflation has become a hot debate subject. This is tough for the middle class and working class, which are just struggling for a living amidst the perceived wealth, unhappy and with few choices in life."

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4. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_173723.html
"Grocery bills increase as prices for foodstuffs go up."

"A Straits Times check on a random basket of basic goods sold at supermarkets here revealed price increases in almost every category, from fresh chicken to coffee and milk formula."

"Rising food prices have contributed to inflation here. September's [2007] overall Consumer Price Index showed that prices generally retreated by 0.3 per cent from the previous month, but the food component - the biggest item at 23% - rose 3.7% as the cost of fresh vegetables, fruit, seafood and milk powder, as well as hawker and restaurant food, went up."

"Consumers The Straits Times spoke to said that while increases for each item may seem like a token sum, together, they add up to a much bigger grocery bill."

"She said that rental on her stall, which is now S$4,500 a month, is set to rise to S$5,500 at the start of next year, and then to S$6,500 in 2009."

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5. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/inflation-low-because-oil-prices/story.aspx?guid=%7BF29A8D00-50E5-44D6-9981-0E54430C3A96%7D

"In GDP math, sometimes one plus one equals zero."

"If you don't understand that, welcome to the confusing world of national income accounting, where up sometimes is down, and where sometimes one plus one can equal zero."

"Because of the way govt counts and reports the numbers, real-life inflation was understated and growth was [therefore] overstated."

"The economy didn't really grow 3.9%, and inflation really wasn't 0.8%. The numbers aren't as good as they look."

"...it did produce quirky numbers that don't accurately reflect reality, even though they are correct from an accounting point of view. The accounting is right. But it's not reality."

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6. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/specialreport/news/269666_26/1/.html

"Why the GDP link?" "...the higher the gross domestic product (GDP), the bigger the bonus — even some ruling party MPs question the wisdom of such a link."

"If Monday's parliamentary debate on pay revisions for ministers and civil servants focused mainly on that "benchmark thing", yesterday's session saw the spotlight being trained on the GDP bonus."

"This bonus is a component which ministers, parliamentary secretaries, top civil servants and MPs are eligible for. Several of the 13 backbenchers who spoke yesterday had reservations about the GDP bonus. One common refrain heard in the House was whether it is a fair performance peg to use."

"We all know that a rise in GDP may not benefit all sectors of society equally. Some may even lag behind. I would suggest that the Govt consider using indicators that directly impact the livelihood of all Singaporeans," said Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC)."

"He proposed one other indicator to be considered: That of the total cost of running the Govt as a percentage of total revenue. After all, CEOs in the private sector have to ensure profits are not eroded by increasing [inflation] costs and expenses, Mr Loo said."

"Other suggestions of alternative benchmarks included: The consumer price index and the inflation rate, as a way to keep cost of living affordable and protect savings; citizens' feedback to major public services; the number of jobs created for Singaporeans; and even the number of Singaporeans who migrate."

"Based on the latest revisions, ministers will enjoy a GDP bonus of between 3 and 8 months if the economy grows between 5% and 10% or more. But they will not get any bonus if the economy grows by 2% or less. For example, the entry-level annual salary of a minister this year is expected to include a 5.9-month bonus based on Singapore's estimated GDP growth of between 4.5% and 6.5%."

"Another comparison, between the civil service pay increases and the S$30 monthly increase for those on Public Assistance, was raised in the House. Said NMP Kalyani Mehta: "If we are going to be [so] generous to civil servants, then let's be generous to the very poor." In response, Mr Teo Chee Hean, Defence Minister and Minister-in-Charge of the Civil Service, said: "The needs of these individuals are quite different and we need to find more holistic and flexible ways of looking after their needs.""

"One new issue that cropped up yesterday was the danger of concentrating too much power and money in the hands of top public officers. MP Denise Phua (Jalan Besar GRC) said: "As responsible leaders, we must be careful not to leave behind a system or structure that combines power and monetary rewards to such high levels that incumbents are so handcuffed by this lethal combination that they find it hard to let go." NMP Eunice Olsen argued that the coupling of political and financial power is more likely to lead to the creation of a rogue govt."

"On this issue, Mr Teo said that the checks are elections [RH: a lie since elections are routinely rigged] and the ruling party's selection process. "If (a person's) motivations are self-serving or to make money, we do not select him. And if we discover that's what he's about after he has come in, we drop him," he said.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////

7. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_172073.html

"But economists say one crucial aspect to watch out for is rising inflation. It hit 2.9% in August - the biggest monthly rise since 1994. MAS expects inflation of 1.5% to 2% this year, and up to 3.5% for the first half of 2008. But it expects this to ease in the second half of the year, with inflation at 2% to 3% for the whole of 2008."

//////////////////////////////////////////////

RH: Many, many, THANKS to Mr Kaye Poh, from whose brilliant email all the above articles are sourced and excerpted here. The thrust of all these articles prove convincingly enough, that GDP Numbers are faked Higher when Inflation is faked Lower than it really is. They prove why LIE KY LHL PAP kept reporting abnormally Low inflation numbers for decades, when the experience of every Singaporean is of rampant inflation. Also, by reporting falsely Low inflation numbers, LIE KY LHL PAP disguise the simple fact that our CPF monies are actually Reducing in value, eroded by Inflation because the miserable, exploitative, cheating, scam 'interest' they give us are far, far, below inflation -- "an implicit tax" as Prof Mukul Asher [ http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Mukul_Asher.aspx ] wrote. . Also, by reporting -- and convincing us through their PAPaganda media -- that inflation is 'low', the alleged GDP each year becomes automatically and fakedly Higher thereby giving the Ministers and top civil servants more millions in GDP 'Performance Bonuses'!!! Disgusting, dirty, cheats and scammers who routinely rig elections so as to be able to keep paying themselves more millions.
.
Posted by Robert HO nric S0197974D at 10:03 AM

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

09 December 2008
ICONOCLASSING Pt 3 or RH Zero Sum Game Theory
RH:

1. Today's essay is Iconoclassing Pt 3, which continues from "Iconoclassing Singapore GDP Myths" and "Iconoclassing Pt 2", whose urls are just below :

19 June 2008
ICONOCLASSING SINGAPORE GDP MYTHS

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/ICONOCLASSING%20SINGAPORE%20GDP%20MYTHS

19 June 2008
ICONOCLASSING Pt 2

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/Iconoclassing%20Pt%202

2. Today's essay takes off from a speech "The Puzzle That Never Was" given by Dr CHEE Soon Juan in 2001 to Stanford University, Institute of International Studies, url and complete text just below :

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw01/010129sj.htm


THE PUZZLE THAT NEVER WAS

January 29, 2001
Dr Chee Soon Juan
Secretary general, Singapore Democratic Party

Speech given at Stanford University, Institute for International Studies

Singapore society confounds the theory that wealth leads to an opening up of society. The Lion City is an affluent society unable, some say unwilling, to break out of its authoritarian mode. Therein lies the puzzle that the Singapore is.


A. THERE is a myth that goes something like this: Singapore's post-independence story has been one of a money-making miracle and the miracle-maker is, of course, the People's Action Party. We all know a myth, when repeated enough and left unexploded, gradually becomes fact. When you add to this another myth which is that Singaporeans, having become rich, seem not to mind living in an authoritarian state, a veritable puzzle develops.

B. Sieve out the hubris and scoop away the public relations puff, however, you have a reality that is very different and a politico-economic puzzle that is very explainable.

C. Singapore's economy has been designed to maximize GDP gains in the shortest time possible. The best way to go about doing this is to yell like crazy to foreign investors about the generous tax incentives that are on offer with cheap wages to boot. To make sure that the locals go along with the plan, the opposition, labour movement, and civil society in general is dismantled through laws such as the Internal Security Act which enables the ruling party to arrest anyone at pleasure and detain them at leisure. Workers must also be maintained on a strict diet of intellect-numbing presentation of government pronouncements sans critical analysis through a controlled mass media. Once these conditions are in place, one will be surprised how quickly multinational companies come in.

D. More than 7000 of these multinationals, involved in every type of business conceivable, have setup shop in Singapore. They account for more than 90 percent of investments in the manufacturing sector, 70 percent of the gross output in the manufacturing sector, over 50 percent of those employed, and 82 percent of direct exports.

The addiction to foreign capital

E. As foreign capital poured in and employment grew, the PAP started to get too comfortable in government and rationalized that continued discipline brought about by its austere measures was the way forward.

F. Of course with growth, cost has also risen. With its neighbours competing for foreign investments, the government has had to rethink its strategy. One solution would be to get Singapore out of direct competition with its neighbouring economies for low-end, labour intensive industries. Thus in 1979, the government embarked on a series of measures to encourage the influx of high-tech industries to replace low-tech ones. With typical authoritarian efficiency, the PAP raised the level of real estate prices and wages of the workers. Political economist Garry Rodan wrote: "Without any apology, the PAP tried to force lower-value-added, labor-intensive industries to upgrade operations or close operations in Singapore altogether."

G. The result was that unit labour costs rose by 40 per cent in six years.

H. But instead of responding to the PAP's call to upgrade their operations in Singapore, many of the low-tech companies simply moved to cheaper countries. Magaziner and Patinkin wrote: "The EDB [Economic Development Board] people explained that they'd misunderstood why companies had come to Singapore. Good infrastructure was important, but it wasn't the main driver. Cheap wages were."

I. In 1985, this policy resulted in a full-blown crisis. A combination of a 40 percent decline in investments and slothful international trade saw Singapore's economy plunge into a recession with the GDP registering a negative 2 percent down from its usual 8-10 percent.

J. Then, as it is now, it is the people who end up picking up the tab. With the same autocratic style that announced the switch to a high-wage, high-skilled economy, the government now decreed that wages of the workers be cut by 15 percent. Lee Hsien Loong, who was then the Minister for Trade and Industry, exhorted workers to increase their working hours to "44 hours a week...and to do third shifts and keep plants open 24 hours per day." In the meantime, the government declared that it no longer mattered whether the techs were high or low, "all forms of investment which can make profits were welcome."

K. And so with wages cut and dissent muffled, the government went about serenading foreign investments again and growth was subsequently restored. The question was for how long and how much do the people have to sacrifice again when difficulties revisit the economy?

L. By the early 1990s the economy was wheezing and puffing again. In 1994, nearly 8000 workers were laid off by more than 200 companies. This was an increase of 19 per cent of retrenched workers over 1993. In 1995, the number of retrenched rose to more than 14,000. By 1996 there were unmistakable signs of an imminent recession. Again the government pointed to the "restructuring" and "upgrading" of the economy. Then Minister for Trade and Industry, Yeo Cheow Tong - without a hint of knowledge of the problems that the triggered the 1985 recession - said: "In actual fact, such restructuring and upgrading are signs of a healthy manufacturing sector." Someone forgot to tell him that the companies that were moving out were high-tech electronic ones which the economy was supposed to be upgrading to.

M. As it turned out, the PAP was saved from an embarrassing situation by the Thai government which buckled under the weight of the baht and devalued it on July 2, 1997, sending Asia into its worst economic nightmare. Perhaps, we will never know the severity of that economic downturn because of the Asian crisis. It does, however, make the PAP's claim that Singapore's economy tumbled during the crisis only because of it was dragged down by its neighbours' financial misfortunes seem, at best, disingenuous.

N. As before, the workers end up having to make yet more sacrifices. In 1999, the Singapore government announced that it was cutting wages by 10 per cent. The retrenchments continue into the present and is set to get worse. The government's latest explanation for the loss of jobs is not very different from that in given in 1994, or for that matter, way back in 1979. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told Singaporeans that "economic restructuring also meant retrenchments will rise" and this was because "low-skilled jobs are being lost and high-skilled ones created." Here we go again.

O. The fact of the matter is that Singapore cannot, or doesn't know how to, get out of its dependence on foreign investment. Walden Bello and Stephanie Rosenfeld noted: Despite its seeming prosperity, Singapore in 1990 is trapped in the treadmill of the export-oriented economics that it once so enthusiastically embraced. Having so completely opened itself up to the world market and the multinationals with the illusion that it could influence the former and manipulate the latter, the PAP technocrats now see that their policies have reduced Singapore's economy to a mere service economy, the fate of which is totally dependent on the calculations and whims of the multinationals.

Economic growth for whom?

P. The reliance of Singapore's economy to foreign investment exacts a significant toll on the welfare of the people. The government's willingness to sacrifice workers' wages whenever economic conditions become unfavourable means that Singaporeans are consigned to having to work harder and harder just to maintain a standard of living that, contrary to government pronouncements, is not all that its made out to be. Let me give you a few indicators.

Q. In the Global Competitiveness Report 1999 which surveyed a total of 59 countries, Singaporean workers, especially those in manual jobs, were found to be relatively one of the worst paid in the world. The median wage of an office cleaner or driver, adjusted for productivity, "is among the lowest in 59 countries worldwide." Only Russia, Ukraine and Ecuador are paid less. Secretaries don't do much better, their wages rank 50 among the 59 countries.

R. During the Asia crisis, monthly wages for low-skilled workers fell up to 34 percent from $746 in 1998 to $492 in 1999. During that period, 16 percent of the work force earned below $1000 a month. Nearly 30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the minimum standard of life. But when the crisis was over, salary increases among 14 Asian economies was the lowest in Singapore. While Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan had rewarded their workers between five to eight percent in wage increments (after accounting for inflation), Singapore averaged only 3.6 percent with the number predicted to decrease to 2.9 percent this year. It was reported that between 1998 and 2000, the average monthly income of the lowest 10 percent of households fell further by half to $133. The subsistence level in Singapore is estimated to be $1000 for a household of four persons.

S. All this in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive in the world. In the mid 1990s the Union Bank of Switzerland ranked Singapore as the 7th most expensive city - even costlier that Paris, New York and London. Just last week, the London-based Economic Intelligence Unit rated Singapore as the ninth most expensive city in the world.

T. And yet Lee Kuan Yew, without batting an eye, recently boasted: "Foreigners have noted how the people of Singapore have responded, putting national interest first by taking CPF cuts that helped this rebound (from the Asian crisis)." With trade unionism rendered comatose by the government - the umbrella National Trades Union Congress' chief is a government minister - a significant question arises: How do the workers tell the Senior Minister that they are hurting? How do they tell him that they don't want to be the ones having to put 'national interest first by taking CPF cuts' when the ministers increase that own salaries, which is already the highest in the world? Under the new pay scheme Goh Chok Tong's annual salary will jump by 14 percent to S$1.94 million, five times that of the US President's. How do they let him know that they don't want their employers to cut their wages by 10 percent when in the same period, the average household income for the top 10 percent rose by more that 3 percent while the number of millionaires in the country increased by 40 percent to a record high 742?

U. Gerald O'Driscoll, Kim Holmes, and Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote in the Index of Economic Freedom report 2000 that in Singapore "the authorities strive to be first but at the cost of efficiency and the ultimate well-being of the people."

V. For all the hype about Singapore being a near-paradise, 20 percent of its citizens indicated that they want to leave the country predominantly because of the stressful lifestyle and high cost of living. In 1999, a consumer health survey found that among the various Asian societies, Singaporeans are more likely to have suffered depression, stress and fatigue.

W. But in spite of all this, the PAP apologia will point to the political stability in the country and the notable lack of strife, and tell you that this is due to the ruling party's sound economic record and the people's contentedness. If the lack of civil strife is taken as an index of a government's popular support, then the North Korean regime must be one of the most loved ones in the world; Saddam Hussein, still in power after the rest of his counterparts in the US and Europe have left office, must go down in history as one of the most endearing political figures; and Burma's military outfit must be doing everything right since the crackdown in 1989.

X. Just because the surface of the water is calm, don't always assume that there is nothing lurking beneath. In an authoritarian state, the seeming tranquility is more a reflection of fear and of the effectiveness of the tactics of repression, than it is an indication of the masses affection for the ruling elite.

Y. There is no question that economic growth can occur in authoritarian states under the guise of free market regimes. There is no puzzle here. However, for there to be economic development, one that genuinely benefits the masses and one that is sustainable, the people must be active participants rather than mere digits of the assembly line. For this to happen, democracy is vital. History has shown that how right wing, free-market authoritarian regimes were not able to hang on to power forever. Singapore is no exception. The reason why the regime is still firmly in place is that the founder of the authoritarian system is still alive and very much in the political equation. The second reason is that Singapore is a much smaller country both physically and in terms of its population and because of this control is that much more effectual. Put Lee Kuan Yew in charge of a bigger country like say Malaysia (let alone even bigger ones like Thailand and large ones like Indonesia) and the results could be very different.

Living with fear

Z. I have related how much of a myth the PAP's economic achievements have been and shown you how the picture of the rich, fat, and politically contented Singaporean is just as fictitious. Let me now tell you about the climate of fear that Singaporeans live under and how this fear is induced.

AA. On the eve of nomination in the last general elections in 1997, I received a phone call from a woman who was the wife of one of our candidates. She pleaded with me to persuade her husband not to stand for elections. She was in tears. When I tried to explain to her the situation, she grew increasing desperate and threatened to jump off from the flat and take their children with her. We quickly sent some of our women folk to see her to make sure that nothing tragic happened. In between sobs she said that they had a family to look after and joining the opposition would ruin everything. She didn't want to see her husband again unless he agreed not to stand as an SDP candidate. Our candidate later managed to return home and pacify his wife. He continued on with the elections but hardly campaigned as he stayed home most of the time to make sure nothing happened.

BB. On an earlier occasion, I met up with an academic to discuss the possibility of him standing as a candidate. He picked me up and we quickly drove to a field that was unlit. We sat in the dark and started talking. He was visibly nervous and suggested another spot. And so we found another darkened place, this time in a carpark to talk about the business of his candidacy. We were behaving as if we were planning something illegal when we were just making plans for the elections.

CC. Another instance involved a well-known Asian author who had come to Singapore to work as well as do some research for her book. She told her Singaporean housemate that she was going to have lunch with me, whereupon the housemate became so terrified that she immediately asked the author to move out.

DD. In 1998 I was in Perth, Australia, to give a talk. A professor there told me that some students confided in him that they were interested in attending my talk but were afraid they would be blacklisted. In a similar occasion in Sydney, I was walking to the toilet after giving my presentation when a few students came up to me and said they were very supportive of what I was doing, but didn't want to be seen in public talking with me.

EE. We presently have a few younger Singaporeans who started the youth wing of the SDP. It is called the Young Democrats. Each and every one of them has come under intense pressure from their families not to get involved with the opposition. I am very glad they were able to persuade their families otherwise and stand firm in their convictions. Needless to say, I'm very proud of them.

FF. In case you think that these are just anecdotes that may not be reflective of the political situation in Singapore, a recent survey found that 93 percent of Singaporeans are afraid to speak out against governmental issues.

Is such fear unfounded?

GG. Singapore still retains the Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows the government to detain citizens indefinitely. Scores of opposition leaders, trade unionists, and social activists were arrested under the ISA and detained for years. Chia Thye Poh was one of them. He was imprisoned for 23 years without given a trial.

HH. Then there are the lawsuits. J. B. Jeyaretnam has recently been bankrupted because he could not pay the costs and damages outstanding to his opponents some of whom are PAP MPs. He has been sued repeatedly by Lee Kuan Yew and other PAP leaders and has paid more than a million dollars to these people, selling all his possessions in the process.

II. Tang Liang Hong, a successful lawyer who stood as an opposition candidate in the last elections has also been sued. He was declared a bankrupt and charged with tax evasion. He now lives in Australia.

JJ. Francis Seow, the former solicitor-general, was also detained under the ISA. He later ran for elections with the Workers' Party. He now lives in exile in the US after he was charged and convicted in absentia while he was in this country receiving treatment for his heart condition.

KK. These are just some of the higher profile cases. There are many more which time does not permit me to relate. I tell you about them because you will not read them in political science books or journals. Nevertheless, they are very real cases involving real people. The next time you read or hear anyone telling you that Singaporeans live in the comfort zone under cheerful climes with relatively little to fear, you can at least carry on a discourse with some intelligence.

More obstacles

LL. Which brings me to my next point. Why is there such a mistaken impression of Singapore in the first place? The mass media has much to do with this. Singapore's local media has been comprehensively subjugated in the 1970s when editors and journalists who crossed the government with their reports were put in prison. Many of the newspapers were closed down. Today all of the country's newspapers are published by state-run companies, the biggest being the Singapore Press Holding which is run by a former cabinet minister and a former ISD director.

MM. What about the foreign media? Time, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, Asiaweek, Far Eastern Economic Review, and the Economist have all been either sued or have had their circulation restricted, or both. The foreign broadcast media also recently came under attack. These actions by the PAP has had a lasting impact on the way the foreign media tends to report about Singapore.

NN. In such a situation who are the losers? The PAP? Hardly. It was a resounding victory for the government over the international media. The owners of these foreign publications? Not when you consider that their bottom line is to keep up their sales. The real losers are the people who have been deprived of yet more independent and uncensored sources of information. The PAP may have won the battle this round. But it has not solved the problem of the people being denied the right to freedom of information. All it has done is to set Singapore up for a much bigger fall in the future.

OO. This is not the only way people are deprived of dissenting opinion. Books critical of the PAP system, cannot find their way onto shelves in bookstores. None of them would carry my books. When I sell them on the street, I am prosecuted for illegal hawking. When I call up the Ministry of Environment to apply for one, they say that no such licenses are given. None of the newsvendors dare sell newspapers published by opposition parties.

PP. I have not even begun to relate all the appalling tactics employed by the ruling party during elections. Because of time restrictions, I will instead refer you to a report entitled 'Elections in Singapore: How free and how fair?' published by the Open Singapore Centre, copies which are available for sale here.

QQ. Having heard all that I've just said, can you truthfully say that this sounds like a government that has the kind of support it claims? Does this sound like a people who are unafraid and willingly allow the PAP this continued control over them? Or is there some truth to the fact that the PAP knows that the people want democracy and the only way to deny them of this is to institute more controls and device more ways of intimidating them?

Conclusion

RR. It is important to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the PAP is this visionary architect of Singapore's economy and, worse, that Singaporeans are so comfortable that they will just roll over and play dead every time the PAP cracks its whip. Why should Singaporeans be any different from the rest of the world which has unreservedly embraced democracy. From Mexico to Mongolia, Soviet Union to South Africa, people want to live in freedom and dignity, and to be able to hold their governments accountable. The last time I checked Singaporeans are humans too. And because we are humans we have this one thing in common that cannot be crushed. It's called the human spirit.



3. Dr CHEE is the only person in Singapore who has spent his entire recent life, >a decade, fighting/understanding/critiquing/writing/exposing the crooked, corrupt, nepotic, murderous, torturous, election-rigging, greedy, venal, LIE KY LHL WKS Cronies PAP LIEgime. He is also the only one who has done this well, with courage, skill, talent that no one else has displayed in Singapore. That makes him uniquely qualified to not only know and identify what is wrong -- and the entire system is hopelessly wrong -- but also how to fix it, given the chance. His books are not mere rants but contain insights into the problems and solutions to the problems.

4. As a sometime essayist/blogger, I would today like to take off from his above Puzzle speech, that portion relating to cheap labour that I have paragraphed-named as F to J and L, N and O.

5. It is my contention that Singapore has all along been a cheap labour economy, despite the few showcase high-tech and service sectors that are always trotted out and boasted to foreigners, like when they are bussed to some spanking HDB township touted as evidence of success. Dr CHEE has done me the service of stating the facts and figures in the paras mentioned. However, as in my 2 previous Iconoclassing articles, my theme is how LIE KY's GDP is a Myth. In today's article, I would like to postulate that "Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy." Evidence of this is in Para O : "O. The fact of the matter is that Singapore cannot, or doesn't know how to, get out of its dependence on foreign investment. Walden Bello and Stephanie Rosenfeld noted: Despite its seeming prosperity, Singapore in 1990 is trapped in the treadmill of the export-oriented economics that it once so enthusiastically embraced. Having so completely opened itself up to the world market and the multinationals with the illusion that it could influence the former and manipulate the latter, the PAP technocrats now see that their policies have reduced Singapore's economy to a mere service economy, the fate of which is totally dependent on the calculations and whims of the multinationals."

6. If you allow my arguments in my first 2 Iconoclassing articles and allow Para O, then it is clear that LIE KY is far, far, from being the genius and miracle worker that he and his lapdog media have endlessly portrayed him to be, but a total failure whose overhyped image is due to faked statistics, the Green Lever Effect, and an economy driven to ruin through 'managing FOR numbers'. The collapse of the Singapore economy and country will be when the Housing Bubble and Foreign Cheap Labour Bubble burst, as burst they must, as is inevitable with all bubbles. If you allow that "Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy", then you understand why so many citizens are unemployed, their woeful statistics disguised by renaming citizens + PRs as "Residents" and why an astounding 35% of the people on this tiny 700 sq km islet are FOREIGNERS.

7. Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy, only that, in the early days, we Singaporeans were the cheap labour, nowadays, the foreign workers are. This is inevitable. Through the years, due to the moronic policies of OverTax & UnderSpend in order to amass huge surpluses and reserves, which are regarded as evidence of success, as all money wealth seems to indicate success, the LIEgime raised the prices of everything, especially HDB flats where a typical tiny 4-room flat that costs S$30,000 to build, as proven by successful contractors' published tender prices, are now selling for >S$640,000. This Bubble can only burst and it will make the US subprime crisis seem modest. So, with frequent price hikes in GST, HDB flat prices, transport, utilities, every single possible cost, Singaporeans cannot pay their mortgage and eat 3 meals without a salary of at least S$1,000, which would be subsistence level. So, in order to keep the cheap labour economy going, Singaporeans are deliberately undercut by importing cheap foreign workers, until now they comprise 35% of people on this islet. UnderSpend means that the housing, transport, whole infrastructure do not keep pace, hence overcrowded metros, buses, malls, even parks. So, high GDP growth is at the expense of or balanced by ruinous social policies and conditions of life for the vast majority.

8. The common thread running through my Iconoclass series is that the supposedly high GDP growth that LIE KY got is false and distorted. Today, I would like to postulate that "True GDP growth is almost impossible and growth in one sector is always offset by decline in another or in a future foregone." We can call this the Zero Sum Game Theory.

9. Let us look at this puzzle or paradox by briefly checking the GDP growths of the advanced economies, especially that of Europe. After all, they have many of the best economists, planners, experts, think tanks, economic data gathering and studies, in the world. So how is it that they can manage no better than the ~2.5% in the best of times, even less in the inevitable troughs and downturns? If you minus the bad times GDPs from the good times, you get No Growth. Even the ~2.5% in good times becomes 0 when inflation and other factors are factored in. So, it is entirely possible that my Theory is right, that GDP Growth is impossible.

10. What of China and Singapore and other seemingly high GDP growth countries? Remember my Theory about 'future foregone'? In the case of China, its laudable record of >10% GDP growth over 3 decades is probably due to its one-child policy in which 2 adult parents pay taxes and contribute to economic activities while producing only 1 child to use back some of those taxes, mostly in minor expenditures such as schooling and a little healthcare, etc. This gives the China govt a big surplus for every family of 2 adults taxes/economics - 1 child's spending. Further, when that child leaves school to work, all 3 contribute for many years thus giving the China govt all 3 surpluses in economics. Any wonder China developed so quickly in just 3 decades? This may seem to contradict my Zero Sum Game Theory that no true GDP growth is possible and any growth is just a rebalancing of different sectors in which some sectors' growth are balanced by others' declines OR balanced by a future foregone or decline. In China's case, when the demographics turns bad, when there are many more old non-working people than young working people, the Zero Sum Game will happen and all the years of positive growth will then be nett off by years of decline. 7 years fat followed by 7 years lean.

11. The US also has had better GDP growth than the advanced European countries but this is offset or balanced by poorer societal conditions and many poor sectors. There is also future foregone in the huge deficits that future generations will have to pay back for the current generation's enjoyment. Zero Sum Game again. Nothing is for free. There is no free lunch.

12. If my Theory is right, then govts and economists must be very, very, careful what they wish for. If they want Big Growth in some sectors, then they must be very careful to ameliorate the declines in other sectors, or society, which will be inevitable. Or costs to future generations. The one salutary effect of my gloomy Theory is that govts and economists may stop chasing the mirage of high GDP growth and ask themselves what it is they really want to do, what they want for their societies. They may then become more like the advanced but slow-growing European countries and try to better the lives of their people, not just feed the economy. Better childcare, better healthcare, better schools, better public transport, better and more rewarding careers and jobs, more fulfilling lives. In the end, isn't this what govt should be all about?


RH Zero Sum Game Theory : "True economic growth is impossible. Growth as measured by GDP and other accountings are possible in some sectors, but are always negated by declines in others, usually measured over-optimistically for the growth sectors and over-pessimistically for the decliners. True growth over a defined period is possible, but only at the expense of future declines, like booms are always followed by busts and bubbles eventually burst. All this is due to the finite natures of Man and his systems. An emphasis in one area/s of endeavour is negated by neglect in another/s. A gain now leads to a loss later. In the end, it all adds up to zero."

Related somewhat to :

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/search/label/RH%3A%20Robert%27s%20TorchLight%20Effect

and

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081021061251AASf7sU .

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

RH: Robert's Complete Case against Leeconomics [Main]
From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Robert's Complete Case Against Leeconomics (Main)
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2003-06-18 07:02:04 PST

RH:

ROBERT's COMPLETE CASE AGAINST LEECONOMICS

No discussion of LEECONOMICS can begin without a definition of GDP, so
I will offer one here, a fairly standard definition of GDP: "Gross
Domestic Product is the total market value of all the final goods and
services produced by labour and property in a country, regardless of
the nationality of the entities producing the output."

The last is key to understanding Leeconomics: "…regardless of the
nationality of the entities producing the output." Thus, in this one
definition can be understood why Leeconomics has failed the people of
Singapore and ultimately, Singapore itself. To quote from Dr Chee Soon
Juan's January 2001 speech to Stanford University, entitled The Puzzle
That Never Was, "More than 7000 of these multinationals, involved in
every type of business conceivable, have setup shop in Singapore. They
account for more than 90 percent of investments in the manufacturing
sector, 70 percent of the gross output in the manufacturing sector,
over 50 percent of those employed, and 82 percent of direct exports."

Meaning that, as in the arguments that follow, since most of the
entities producing the output in Singapore are foreign Multi National
Companies [MNCs], the people and economy of Singapore derive little
benefit from such unusually heavy reliance on Foreign Direct
Investment [FDI] except initially, in the profusion of jobs created,
but which are now, also very unusually, largely taken by foreign
workers deliberately mis-named "Foreign Talent" [FT]. But more of
these later. [As an aside, China today stands in danger of becoming
another ‘economic slave' with as little chance of upgrading out of
it].

When did GDP come about? After all, it wasn't even understood by
Governments a few decades ago, although now, every single Singaporean
seems to know the latest figures, thanks to a Government and a
Government-controlled media that has come to regard this Magic Number
as a kind of national scorecard and a kind of indicator of how well
Singapore is run as compared to other countries. It has been subtly
portrayed in Singapore by Lee's Regime as almost a kind of athletic
event race to the finish line, with Singapore, of course, usually
among the leaders, if not well in the lead.

This was not always so. In Singapore a few decades back, there might
have been some statistical measures of economic performance but it was
probably the GNP, and hardly made the news, since it was just a number
only the very few statisticians around understood, or knew how to
calculate, and even the collection of statistics was in its infancy
and wholly inadequate. In those days, probably even the Government of
Lee Kuan Yew and LKY himself did not fully understand the import of
GDP. Certainly, LKY then did not even think of measuring himself using
this, by now Magic, Number of GDP.

‘ADVANCED' AND ‘BACKWARD' COUNTRIES

In those days, countries did not compare with one another. And when
they did, they merely thought of themselves as 'advanced countries' or
'backward countries'.

An advanced country was one where the people had enough to eat, had
decent homes, a good public transport system, decent work with decent
working hours and adequate healthcare, etc. In other words, the basics
of good social and physical infrastructure. A backward country was the
opposite.

How much simpler things were then, and how much more relevant
comparisons were than today's over-emphasis on the GDP Number. Today
in Singapore (at least, until recently, when the Number began turning
ridiculously low and even negative), the GDP is used to justify the
$1-2 million salaries the Ministers pay themselves. It is also used in
other nefarious ways, for example, to change the entire workforce into
a GDP-enhancing system, without regard for whether this all-consuming
drive for high GDP actually translates into an 'advanced' country's
quality of life for the citizens.

As one example, the overriding desire to produce high GDP Numbers has
led to the influx of 1 million foreigners, deceptively labelled by the
PAP as 'Foreign Talent' so that locals would not baulk at the numbers,
the highest in the world for a small domestic population of 3.2
million. Also, it was a non-too-subtle putdown for the locals for, if
you are not a talent, would you dare oppose so many foreign 'Talents'
pouring in, and being treated even better than the locals, to boot?
Also, we are told by the Great Man himself, and repeated by his
faithful Heir and Court Eunuchs, 'that foreigners create jobs that
would otherwise not be created' and which has been disproved by me in:

RH: Why Foreign Talent policy cannot work:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306170359.51a0d094%40posting.google.com

Why is this incessant chasing after high GDP Numbers bad? Isn't this
how all countries are ranked and measured now, if not way back then
but very true now?

CHICKEN ENTRAIL READERS

True to some extent. Nowadays, with the Economist having become the
modern day Oracle and Soothsayer, [but reading the innards of
computers instead of chicken entrails], from whom even world leaders
have to seek advice and prognostications, the GDP Number is indeed
important. But it was not always so. I would put the Rise of the
Economist about 20 years back. (Different countries would have
different times for their Rise of the Economist until today, we are
all living in the Golden Age of Economics).

Around 20 years ago, the world and LKY began to adopt statistical
measures for everything. For everything, there was a number. Without a
number, you could be accused of generalities, of not being 'accurate'.
With numbers, everything seemed so scientific, so precise, so
unbiased. No longer did countries call themselves 'advanced' or
'backward'. Now the world had numbers and you stand either on a very
precise 6.3% GDP growth or a less impressive 5.9%. Instantly,
countries could be very precisely ranked, which is what numbers allow,
since numbers are created for that very purpose and by definition, are
ordered progressions.

Except that, numbers can lie and do lie, and lie very insidiously.

Why?

Let's take GDP Numbers. First, let me repeat my definition of GDP:
"Gross Domestic Product is the total market value of all the final
goods and services produced by labour and property in a country,
regardless of the nationality of the entities producing the output."

That is a short definition. No proper understanding of GDP can be had
in less than a thousand words embedding several technical
sub-definitions. Ah, we begin to sense that the GDP is actually woolly
and indistinct and not a sharp featured animal -- it is a Jabberwocky.
Worse, the compilations of the numbers that go into this final
so-accurate-looking Number, are actually even more woolly. Different
countries have vastly differently-sized or even wholly different
economy sectors and so we are not even comparing apples with apples.

Since different countries have differently-sized or different economy
sectors, this means that Country A's GDP growth of 4.1% [I have always
wondered how they can manage to get it so accurate to one decimal
place!] may actually be 'better' than Country B's 6.1%. By 'better', I
would have to use the old, English, non-Economics meaning of 'better
managed and better-performing'.

THE RUNNING TRACK ANALOGY

Now, I normally dislike using analogies because no analogy is 100%
accurate to the meaning it is supposed to illustrate and often
introduce inaccuracies and irrelevant sub-meanings that distort the
original meaning intended. But I will break my rule here to offer one.
Just one. Imagine countries to be runners all running around a 400
metre running track. Also imagine that all the runners started at
different times from different start points around the track. Further
imagine that some runners are running full marathons of 10 km, some
half marathons of 3 km, some 1,000 metres, some sprinting 400 metres
and others doing the dash of 100 metres. Now, comparing these
different countries (runners) at a moment in time by putting yourself
at the Finish Line or some other point, could you meaningfully say
that Country A is better than Country B or Country C or D, etc? It
just
doesn't make sense to even compare.

So, when LKY found that advanced countries measured themselves using
the GDP growth rates, and that Singapore happened to score high GDP
growth rates because of its unique size and economic features, GDP
Numbers became the prime justification for everything from his own
salary to deliberately lowering the salaries of workers, and for
policies benefiting the rich to become richer while the poor were
kept poor and even made poorer by deliberate Government policies --
justified on the premise that high GDP growth rates were the be-all
and end-all of Government!

Thus, his entire economics policy (singular, because he has had only
one) became one long drive to attract Foreign Direct Investment and
lately, to bring in vast hordes of Foreign Talents to work in the jobs
this FDI brought. Where, you might ask, do Singaporeans figure in all
this? We don't. Foreigners invest here, employ foreigners to work here
to produce the goods and services –- most for export, and both these
foreign parties make the money and probably repatriate much of it back
home. We look on as unemployed locals. And meanwhile, this
'foreignisation' of the economy seems to produce decent Numbers that
LKY and his Court Eunuchs can boast about and on the basis of which
they reward themselves with yet more pay rises!

THE 3 WAVES OF LABOUR

This last policy of bringing in vast hordes of FTs is what may be
termed the Third Wave of workers. In the early days of LKY's reign, he
faced the postwar baby boom, which produced big numbers of workers
seeking work and a life – the First Wave. So he went into overdrive to
create jobs, hence the drive to attract FDI. Due to the boom in the
region, and the rise of the Japanese Yen, which drove many Japanese
companies out of Japan and many to Singapore, he succeeded. So well,
in fact, that he also encouraged women to leave their womenly chores
at home to work in offices and factories – the Second Wave. Finally,
when yet more cheap labour was needed, FTs were brought in. Thus,
Leeconomics's seemingly impressive early GDP growth was largely due to
massively increasing labour participation, in 3 big Waves. However,
this Third Wave was also designed to lower overall wages, since the
local Singaporeans were becoming used to decent wages. This resulted
in the current deliberate lowering of all wages to restore the economy
back into a low-wage, cheap labour economy, from which we never really
upgraded. "If we did not have some foreign workers to average down the
wage cost for the employers, are you sure the employers can survive in
Singapore?" admitted DPM Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, Oct 29, 2001.

Thus, while the elite have their taxes cut so they can get richer, the
working classes are actually heading back to become the cheap labour
attraction of a generation ago. To quote again from Dr Chee's 'Puzzle'
Speech: "During the Asia crisis, monthly wages for low-skilled workers
fell up to 34 percent from $746 in 1998 to $492 in 1999. During that
period, 16 percent of the work force earned below $1000 a month.
Nearly 30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the
minimum standard of life," [while] "the average household income for
the top 10 percent rose by more than 3 percent while the number of
millionaires in the country increased by 40 percent to a record high
742."

Economists will recognise from these 3 Waves of labour that
Singapore's seemingly impressive GDP growth in the early years are all
due to increasing inputs of labour and not from increasing
productivity and as such, cannot be sustained. FTs now number 1.1
million, that is, work permit holders including maids, out of a native
population of 3.2 million. What this does to the social fabric is not
just a matter for sociologists, but a concern for economists as well
because on an island of 650 square kilometers without any resources,
this is clearly unsustainable. Unless, of course, a non-economics
solution is sought, such as the invasion of Johor State, for its land,
water and Chinese population, probably on some Hitler-Poland pretext.

Thus, Leeconomics is: ‘attract foreign capital into Singapore,
bringing in their foreign technology, employing foreign workers,
producing foreign goods for foreign exports'. The peoples' crisis at
the moment [the leaders never suffer any, for obvious reasons], is
that all this foreignisation of the economy nowadays doesn't even give
them the jobs or the salaries it used to some years back.

For a fuller discussion of why FTs are bad for Singapore's economy and
people, read my post in this newsgroup

[RH: Hiring Foreign Talent -- How Many Jobs Do We Lose?]:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306180209.225024b9%40posting.google.com

ROBERT's THEORY OF JOB CREATION

[This Robert's Theory of Job Creation explains how, across the whole
economy, 100,000 FTS –- and there are now 1.1 million work permit
holders -- may cause a loss of up to a million jobs. It also explains
why hiring one FT results in generating only ONE family's worth of
economic activities whereas hiring a local instead generates MANY
families worth of economic activities. Thus, from a sheer economics
standpoint, hiring locals for top-level jobs is far, far better for
the economy].

This Numbers Game Syndrome is a peculiarly Singaporean phenomenon for
several reasons. Firstly, the Singapore Technocrat or Bureaucrat or
Minister is not a real politician. He has no political skills in
communicating with or moving the people. At best, he is a manager and
indeed, most of them were former managers in Government Companies or
the Civil Service. Thus, these managers are predisposed to Numbers and
totally lack the instinctive empathy with the people that all true
politicians possess. Secondly, they are totally unaccountable to the
people because Singapore is not a democracy. This leads to a totally
top-down administration that can get very, very distant from the
people below.

Today, if you have lived long enough in Singapore, especially over the
last 15 years or so, and have been reading the local media, you would
know instinctively that what I have written above is all true. Except
that I am the first one to point out this truth in this way.

So, if comparisons of GDP growth rates between countries are
meaningless, are high Numbers also meaningless? The answer is Yes.
Coming back to my Running Track Analogy, it is useless and unhelpful
to compare a 100m dash runner to one doing the 10km marathon, even if
both are passing you by at the same time. They are running different
races! Thus even Absolute Numbers are meaningless. If LKY says that he
managed 8% GDP growth last year, so what? Does that mean that all the
people got better pay/profits by an average of 8% last year? Until
that is so, even high absolute numbers mean nothing. The most LKY can
say is that, under his rule, Singapore has become better in social and
physical infrastructure and that people have a better quality of life.
Which can also be said of Hongkong, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan,
Malaysia, Thailand, etc, etc, -- more than half the world if we bother
to count. Very few countries regress in such things.

Thus, GDP growth rates used to justify astronomical Ministers'
salaries and other unfair Government policies that benefit the rich
and disadvantage the poor is a Lie at best. At worst, it DISTORTS
Government policies away from a more equitable distribution of wealth
and important things like healthcare as well as 'Foreign Talents'
taking away jobs and meaningful lives from citizens. We can say that
the PAP Government, which prides itself on being the most intelligent
Ministers in the world, have made themselves the stupidest by not
having analysed the issue as I have done here. If they had, they would
have come to the same conclusions as I have and the people would all
have been better off. I am aware that I am doing the PAP a service by
pointing out this aspect of their policies of which they are totally
oblivious. And by so pointing out where they had gone wrong and
thought wrong, I am helping them to change tack, to dephasise GDP and
to emphasise people first, at a time when GDP growth is no longer
impressive and will remain that way for years, perhaps decades,
perhaps even forever, to come. So, this little treatise actually gives
them an excuse to drop the emphasis on GDP Numbers just when the
Numbers are no longer impressive.

‘AVERAGE', ‘GOOD', ‘EXCELLENT' GDP GROWTH

It would have been better for this stupid Government to express
economic growth annually by giving it a say, 'Good' score, or an
"Average' score or an 'Excellent', etc, and be done with it. By
getting seemingly impressive numbers in the earlier years, the PAP has
gone chasing after high GDP Numbers in a kind of 'competition to get
the highest Number' contest to the extent it has forgotten that the
ultimate end result of all Government polices is to improve the
citizens' lives and not to achieve some high GDP Number. Other
countries are not obsessed with high GDP numbers because firstly, they
don't have seemingly impressively high numbers, and secondly, they are
all hitting about the same numbers range, so they take it in their
stride and don't deliberately formulate Government policies for the
sole effect of high GDP Numbers. This is because most other countries
have a free press and a more democratic system that prevents this
particular abuse and distortion of Government policies. When people
are allowed to think and criticise, the Government cannot get away
with stupid practices like this of LKY and his PAP Govt. Precisely
because only Singaporeans are not allowed to think and criticise, this
Abuse and Lie of GDP Numbers is practised only in Singapore.

If the PAP does not deliberately formulate policies for high Numbers,
what should it do? Ah, here I may have to do some National Service
again, to offer alternatives that are better than the current Number
Chase, which has gone on for too long and distorted economic and
social, even welfare (practically non-existent) policies.

SOCIAL COMPACTS THE ANSWER

For example, instead of formulating Government economic policies for
high Numbers, the Government should set itself a series of Social
Compacts.

By that, I mean that the Government should sit down and think out a
series of desired objectives for the people, such as:

*That no Singaporean should go hungry;
*That no Singaporean should live without a roof over his head;
*That no young Singaporean should be without at least 10 years of
absolutely free schooling;
*That no Singaporean, able or handicapped, be without a job that
pays no less than $600 a month, this to be reviewed yearly;
*That no Singaporean worker be without a non-politically-affiliated
union;
*That no Singaporean should be without medical care when sick, even
if he cannot pay for it;
*That no working Singaporean be without sufficient leisure to rest
from work and to improve himself whether such improvement be
educational, in hobbies or community matters;

These are all easily achievable and only require a different focus and
a change in thinking from chasing High Numbers to Serving
Singaporeans. When that change in thinking is undertaken, the
Government economic policies can be adjusted accordingly, such as
reducing 'Foreign Talents' -- practically an 'instant' cure for many
of Singapore's current economic ills! These are all very achievable
and much of it requires no more than small changes in
policies. [However, change will be hard for a Regime that never admits
that any of its policies can be wrong or ill thought out -- saving
face is more important to it than saving the people].

Certainly, my Social Compacts make much more sense than the current
bullshit about 'Community Above the Individual' rubbish which is
nothing more than an excuse for continued dictatorship.

Other Social Compacts can include (although I am not hopeful):

*That every Singaporean above 18 have the right to elect his MP in a
Single-MP Constituency as conducted by an independent Elections
Commission; while every Singaporean below 18 have their vote exercised
by the mother, first, and the second child, the father, and so on
[thus achieving, for the first time in the world, truly universal
suffrage for every citizen without any arbitrary distinction due to age];
*That every Singaporean household be given a free permanent
subscription to a newspaper of his choice, which can be changed;
*That every Singaporean household be given a 14" CTV if it does not
already have a better one;
*That every Singaporean household be given a radio if it does not
already have a better one;
*That every Singaporean household be allowed to use their CPF for
the purchase of computers and peripherals;
*That there be a free-to-air Politics Channel on TV and Radio [with
related Internet websites] that broadcasts politics 24/7, including
registered Opposition political activities;

*Other Social Compacts can relate to the rights of citizens or their
legal rights, or human rights, or citizens' rights, etc.

If all these seem startling, it is only because of their novelty. I
have long thought out parts and pieces of these, so I can say that
with time, these are all very sensible, even obvious. They are not
pie-in-the-sky ideas at all. The first Social Compact is easily
achievable. The second requires a willingness to level the playing
field for the Opposition but still confers enormous advantages to the
PAP. It will actually be better for the PAP than the Opposition and
better overall for Singaporeans. All it requires is an acknowledgment
that Leeconomics has had its day and should be retired, which can also
be said of Lee himself. And about time, too. Too much damage has
already been wrought.

Robert Ho
18 Jun 03
UK 1500 Singapore 2200

RH: I would like to acknowledge an intellectual debt to Dr Chee Soon
Juan for the above article because he had long sounded this theme in
various speeches, books and publications in the Open Singapore Centre
and the Singapore Democratic Party.

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306180602.6ee2adb6%40posting.google.com

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Robert's Complete Case Against Leeconomics Appendix 2
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2003-06-17 04:59:10 PST

Appendix 2:

RH: Why Foreign Talent policy cannot work

RH:

1. My subject title is not some new discovery -- it is now an
accepted fact with the 'departures' of several top honchos in the last
12 months, including the top foreigners at DBS Bank, Chartered
SemiConductor, and probably a few more I don't rememeber. Another
note: there are 3 kinds of foreign workers in Singapore. Together,
they number 1.1 million or 1 in 4 of us. The highest-paid and regarded are the OFT or Overpaid Foreign Talent. Then there are the UFT or Underpaid Foreign Talent. Finally, there are the Foreign Workers or FW. Now, I can start my little thesis:

2. My few months in the UK have brought home to me one rueful fact:
Everything is very expensive here. And even more so in the US. And as
expensive in Europe and Japan. This across-the-board High Cost Living
is the central plank in my thesis.

3. What does High Costs of Operation mean to companies here? And how
does that connect to OFTs in Singapore being unable to do what they
were headhunted to do?

4. OK. Let's take DBS Bank as one example. Since Lee Kuan Yew began
his mantra about how FTs are necessary for Singapore companies,
especially his SGIC companies, the Board of DBS Bank began to
reshuffle its top management posts to create room for several FTs who
would prove that LKY is once again, a brilliant thinker who cannot be wrong, so steeped in wisdom is he.

5. So, DBS, like Chartered SemiConductors, and many others more about
which we do not know about, hired headhunters to lure proven and
tested top honchos with successful track records. The offer, like the
always generous offers to foreigners (and always stingy stipends to
locals who have no clout with the PAP)included a 'Name Your Price'
kind of salary, 'Name Your Conditions' kind of contract including
Golden Parachutes if the deal did not work, and finally, 'Name Your
Working Conditions' kind of contract that gave these OFTs a very free
hand to do anything they want. This last, because Talent
like these do not just switch jobs for money, they also want a free
hand to do what they think best.

6. Thus, these OFTs and there are at least a dozen of them, maybe
double or triple that number, had the best deals they could ask for.
Big money and the chance to shape or reshape their companies as they
see fit.

7. With a deal like that, especially the 'freedom to achieve' bit,
they simply could not refuse the deal nor fail. Yet, they failed. Some
had to jump, saved from humiliation by the Golden Parachutes. Others,
marking time, unable to achieve what LKY and the PAP and the SGIC and
the GLCs and the whole country expected them to achieve. Why?

8. It is not for lack of Talent. This is never an issue. All these
men were headhunted and had proven track records.

9. The reason they failed and why the existing ones are not achieving
much and why future OFTs will also fail, is simply this: ASIAN
COMPANIES ARE NO-FRILLS OPERATIONS WHEREAS WESTERN COMPANIES HAVE LOTS
OF FAT.

10. Remember my statement about how everything here in the UK is very
expensive? That is the key. Now, in the UK or US or Europe, bank (or
other company) operations are very expensive, which is why everything
to the consumer is very expensive -- the costs simply have to be
passed on.

11. For example, take legal work costs to the bank. In most Singapore
or Asian companies, the legal work costs are very minimal because
contract laws are probably not as onerous (meaning not as
sophisticated). Also, lawyers are cheaper in Singapore and other Asian
countries. Also, most Asian companies merely engage a small law firm
on retainer to do any legal work they need, which, as we have seen, is
far less and less onerous than in the West.

12. In the West, the legal requirements are a lot more sophisticated
and expensive and companies maintain a large in-house legal department
of expensive lawyers as well as retaining outside law firms for more
specialised work. This all adds to huge costs.

13. This legal department example is just one example. There are other
departments that bloat up costs in Western, more sophisticated
companies that are either non-existent in Asian companies or are very
small operations in Asian companies. Another example, in Western
companies, there would almost surely be a sizeable Marketing
Department. In Asian companies, the salesmen would be doing what in
Western companies would be split into Marketing Dept and the Sales
Dept functions. Again, in many Western companies, there would even be
a HSE (Health, Safety & Environment) Dept, which would be non-existent
in Asian companies. There are many more examples but I believe I have
made my point.

14. So when a OFT is lured from a big, reputable Western company to a
Singapore company, with the expectation and mandate to 'make that
Singapore company world-class, that is, Western, what can he do?

15. He fails. First, if he tries to graft all these Western high-cost
operations onto the Singapore company, he not only increases headcount
and payroll costs, he also has to create company structures that
ultimately are not needed!!! If they had been needed in the first
place, the company would already have them. So creating these new
depts and functions, while possible structurally and costs-wise, do
not add to the bottom line or even the efficiency of the company. So,
if he tries to reshape his DBS or Chartered Semiconductor or whatever
GLC into the kind of Western company operating environment he came
from, he will do more harm than good. So he fails.

16. Now, suppose the reverse happens. The Singapore company he is
lured to join is not doing well and he needs to cuts costs. He fails
again. Because, unlike the Western company, which is padded with much
fat, the Asian company is a no-frills operation. There is nothing to
cut. Any cut results in immediate reduction of operating efficiency
that will soon hit the bottom line -- here, he either gets out before
the bottom line exposes him or he hangs on and is eventually removed
when it is clear to all that he has done nothing good for the company.

17. Now, in the West, companies have so much fat that, like fat on the
body, accumulates with time so imperceptibly that no one notices, so
when the Western company is faltering, someone like the OFT can be
brought in and with ruthless cuts left and right, he can often restore
the bottom line and so gains fame as a miracle worker. Alas, even
miracle workers cannot work miracles on Singapore or Asian companies
(Japan is probably halfway between a Western and an Asian operation,
which may be interesting to speculate on whether a Japanese OFT may be
able to do what a Western OFT may fail to do).

18. Thus (I think I have given enough examples to illustrate my
argument), Lee Kuan Yew's Great Thought about how OFTs can create jobs
and wealth for the GLCs that hire them is sheer nonsense. This has
been proven by the failures and departures of so many.

19. Now, how about the UFTs?

20. These are talents and foreign but cheap. They are the ITs from
India and China that compete directly with our local ITs for jobs and
promotions. And because they can do almost the same jobs as our local
Singaporeans but cheaper, they get the jobs and thus depress the
salary levels of the profession they enter into in Singapore. The PAP
knows this. But they deliberately want to depress wages, which are
already the lowest among all the countries with comparable per capita
GDP, hoping that cheap labour will lure investors. They had only one
economic policy since 1965 and that is to lure investors. The only way
to lure investors is by being cheap. And since the PAP refuses to
reduce land costs, rent costs, statutory costs, etc, the only cost
they can easily reduce is wage costs. Thus, the UFTs.

21. Thus, the OFTs cannot create jobs and wealth, as claimed by LKY
and the UFTs steal jobs and depress wages for Singaporeans.

22. As for the FW, these are the labourers, construction workers and
maids. Singaporeans do not want to do what they do because there is no
minimum wage, as platformed by Dr Chee Soon Juan and his Singapore
Democratic Party in the last General Election. Since there is no
minimum wage, so the actual wages of these FWs are too low to attract
Singaporeans -- you cannot blame a Singaporean for refusing a job that
pays less than what he needs to pay for his transport, food,
utilities, etc, which is why FWs continue to be 'needed' for these
jobs in Singapore. If SDP's Minimum Wage solutions had been adopted,
much of the current unemployment of about 100,000 would have been
solved.

23. Thus, it is not a pretty picture. It is a grim discovery for
Singapore and Singaporeans to discover that OFTs, UFTs and FWs are all
stealing jobs and promotions and a meaningful life from Singaporeans.
All because one Old Man tried to impose his feeble solutions on a
Singapore that no longer had the right to challenge him.

24. The UK is also experiencing some of the same disappointing
non-performance of US OFTs. These US OFTs may have a 'proven' track
record in the US but when they come to the lower cost and less
sophisticated UK companies, they fail exactly like OFTs fail in
Singapore, and for the same
reason. Generally, Japanese companies do not give US OFTs so big a
welcome because they know that these US OFTs will not be able to do
any magic for Japanese companies because the corporate structures and
practices are so different. Similarly for European companies. Thus,
language barriers seem to prevent these US OFTs from cashing in on
companies in Europe and Japan. Or elsewhere in South America, Asia,
Africa, etc. Therefore,
only the UK and Singapore remain suckers to US OFTs.

25. The question now may be asked -- why is it that these OFTs can
perform so well in US companies and yet fail so miserably and
indisputably in the UK and especially in Singapore? The reason is, IT
IS MUCH EASIER TO SUCCEED IN THE U.S. THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
First, there is the scale of doing business. There are 280 million
Americans. If you have a business that just makes a dollar profit a
week from every American, you'd have a profit of $14.56 BILLIONS a
year. And Americans being Americans, it is easy to part them from
their money. In fact, the scale of business is much, much bigger than
just that $1 a week, for example, cars, houses, vacations, clothes,
etc. Thus, this scale of business creates giant companies with giant
operations that make billions and billions of annual profit, which
simply cannot be replicated anywhere else outside of the US. Thus fat
cat OFTs fail in the UK because the UK is 'only' 59 million people.

26. However, the UK does not suffer from this OFT phenomenon as badly
as Singapore, mostly because the UK has quite a lot of native talent,
who are often as good in the boardroom level management as US OFTs.
Singapore suffers badly because of another phenomenon -- Lee Kuan
Yew's calculated sucking up to the Americans. He has the country's
reserves to play with, with which to endear himself to Americans and
he does this in abundance. He hires US OFTs so that when these news
are reported in the American media, he is seen as a benefactor to
American companies, and word gets round that he is a good friend to Americans. He even paid $1.8 million to Michael Porter basically for a speech and some very general 'advice'.

27. As further proof to what I have writtten, let me point out that
Chartered Semiconductors is third largest -- behind the world's
largest contract chip makers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
Ltd and United Microelectronics Corp. Therefore, it would have made
sense to lure a Foreign Talent from these Taiwan companies instead of a Westerner, since the Taiwanese are Number 1 and 2 in that industry. But to LKY, Asians are low-class. Only Westerners are high class and Real Talents. So he never thought of hiring Taiwanese FTs. With the result we all know now.

28. Thus, American business operating and business environments are
very, very different from Singapore's -- or even the UK's. Therefore,
what works in America usually doesn't work in Singapore and hiring
American experts do nothing for Singapore except waste money and
prevent original thinking and solutions. The only benefit from hiring
American OFTs is that Lee Kuan Yew gets to talk to them to impress
them on how up to date he is on the latest American fads and
practices, especially in management and economics theories. This makes
LKY a Big Sucker, and 'there is a Lee Kuan Yew born every second'.

29. Some American companies do do very well outside of America. Some
may think that this fact 'proves' that American Talents are very good,
that is, superior American business acumen, superior American business
management, superior American business practices, etc. (And you cannot
find a more eager believer in American 'superiority' than Lee Kuan
Yew).

The truth is, all these American companies which do well outside
American ALL have their businesses succeed in America FIRST. As I have
pointed out, it is far easier to succeed in America than anywhere else
on earth because there are 280 million Americans who are easily parted
from their money. So, these American companies, in such an easy
business climate, grow big and therefore have the money to perfect
their business products and processes, from say, developing excellent
french fries fryers in MacDonalds, for example, to say, computer
chips, etc.

AFTER having developed these superior products in America and making
lots of money in America, it is therefore easy to propagate these
products and processess elswhere because say, the MacDonalds fryer is probably among the best in the world [although not always]. So, we see American products and businesses everywhere, not because they are inherently superior to locals but because they developed these better products and services in easy America first.

Thus, all the global successes are honed and perfected in the easy
business climate of America and therefore have better chances of
succeeding elsewhere. For example, take Research & Development. If a
Singapore company started out to develop something for the home market, it could only say, spend $1 per capita, so it spends $4 million on R&D. In the UK, the same approach would result in 59 million and in the US, it would be 280 million. So, which start up would have the better
product? Obviously the US start up of course. Thus the myth of
American business superiority and its OFTs are made this way and only
fools like Lee Kuan Yew think that it is able to reproduce such
business success in Singapore, or even Britain. To sum up, it is one
thing for a huge American company to establish a branch in the UK or
Singapore and put an American OFT to head it; and quite another for a
local company in the UK or Singapore to 'import' an American OFT and
hope he can work wonders.

Robert Ho
17 Jun 03
UK 1258 Singapore 1958

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From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Robert's Complete Case Against Leeconomics Appendix 1
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2003-06-18 03:09:43 PST

Appendix 1:

RH: Hiring Foreign Talent – How Many Jobs Do We Lose? [Also
known as Robert's Theory of Job Creation]

The foreign talent issue has been with us a long time and got an
almost complete airing at the General Election of Nov 3. At least,
that was the closest it ever got to a complete airing -- the
Opposition made such a good case against it that the PAP was forced to
defend, mostly by regurgitating all the old, standard clichés that its
leaders had thought out. Instead of (as usual) debating the Opposition
arguments point by point, many points went unanswered but this went
unnoticed because the media did such a good job of painting them as
rebuttals when they were not.

That Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong, and Lee Hsien Loong did not or could
not think is proven by this following very simple observation I am
about to make.

Many letters to the Straits Times Forum and to soc.culture.singapore
defend the hiring of foreign talent as being ultimately beneficial to
the economy. Indeed, during the heat of the debate in the GE, the PAP
trotted out purported figures to show that foreign talent accounted
for a significant part of the GDP. The (simplistic) assumption was
that without them, the GDP would be lower.

However, I can point out at least one aspect of all this charade of
statistics that anyone who has ever worked (including our present PAP
ministers and parliamentarians) can instantly identify as correct. And
which, to my utter surprise, nobody from the million dollar Ministers
to the bankrupt Opposition has yet picked upon.

The observation is this: Most people who have thought about the matter
assume that when a foreign talent takes a job in Singapore, he
deprives ONLY ONE Singaporean of a job. The amazing truth is that more
than one job is lost to Singaporeans. It may be as many as a dozen
jobs or even more, depending on the particulars.

How is this so?

Suppose that a company operating in Singapore needs a Accounting
Director. It hires a foreign talent. So, the conventional thinking is
that a Singaporean is deprived of a job as a Accounting Director. ONE
Singaporean.

However, consider what happens when a SINGAPOREAN is hired instead. He
or she will have to be almost qualified for that post, meaning that he
or she will be at least a Accounting Manager.

Now, the chain effect begins. He or she is hired to fill the
Accounting Director post THEREBY LEAVING VACANT HIS OR HER CURRENT
ACCOUNTING MANAGER POST. Another Singaporean gets the opportunity to
get promoted into that just-vacant Accounting Manager post. Since this
person is likely to be a Accounting Supervisor, he or she thereby
creates another vacancy that can be filled by another Singaporean,
probably currently a Accounting Executive. This post, in turn, becomes
a vacancy to be filled by a fresh accountancy graduate.

Thus, by hiring a Singaporean at the top, a whole chain of musical
chair vacancies is created benefiting everybody along the chain,
including the fresh accounting graduate who gets his or her first job.
Conversely, not hiring a Singaporean for that top post KEEPS EVERYBODY
STUCK IN HIS OR HER CURRENT JOB.

Thus, the nefarious effect of hiring foreign talent hits home AT EVERY
LEVEL, NOT JUST THE JOB TAKEN.

This is an observation everybody knows instantly when it is pointed
out, though few probably have reasoned it out thus.

Even our Cabinet Ministers know this sublime truth of moving up. For
example, if Lee Kuan Yew does not or cannot remove Goh Chok Tong from
the Premiership, his son, Lee Hsien Loong cannot move up to the top
job. And if Lee Hsien Loong cannot be promoted, George Yeo cannot be
promoted to be Deputy Prime Minister. And if George Yeo is not
promoted, a Minister of State cannot become full Minister. And if that
Minister of State cannot become full Minister, a Parliamentarian
cannot make it to that job. And so it goes on.

Anyone who has ever worked knows that whether you get that coveted
promotion to the next level depends not just on whether you are good
enough for that job but more on whether the current incumbent moves
out of it. No vacuum, no push to the top. Everybody stays stuck in his
or her current job, losing hope over the years at the stagnation in
career path.

Therefore, there is a great argument for promoting Singaporeans to
fill every top job available. If they don't have the skills, send them
for training or get them to understudy someone. This takes time and
effort but as I have demonstrated, the benefits far outweigh hiring
foreign talent. Hiring foreign talent is quick and easy, which is why
it is attractive to the PAP Government. Simply put out an
advertisement. Or hire a headhunter. Or poach someone from a
established corporation. But that is the shortest sighted policy in a
country with the highest myopia rate in the world, especially in a
country that has succeeded in crushing any decent debate or free
thinking.

This is not the only major issue on which Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong,
Lee Hsien Loong and the entire Cabinet and Parliament have blindsided
themselves through refusal to tolerate criticism and real debate. Dr
Chee Soon Juan has enumerated many other instances of poor and
thoroughly inept thinking resulting in bad policies in his brilliant
book, "Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom"
http://www.sfdonline.org/Link%20Pages/Link%20Folders/01Osc/PRChee_fff.html
. It is beyond my scope to attempt the careful analyses and arguments
he has made, so please buy a copy of this 2001 classic thesis.

There are many things wrong with Singapore today in 2001. Many of them
have been creeping upon us for decades and now that they are here,
they will not just go away or disappear, even with an upturn in the US
and world economy. Many of Lee Kuan Yew's simplistic thinking and
policies are coming home to roost and it will not be a pleasant time.
But perhaps the most damaging of all his bad policies is the
curtailment of real debate and criticism. In the complex world of the
late 20th and 21st centuries, no one mind, especially an old one mired
in the 60s and 70s, can come up with the policies to cope with faster
and faster change. Punishing criticism and eliminating real debate in
Parliament have created insoluble problems that no amount of behind
the doors discussion by an oligarchy can solve. Putting the media in a
straitjacket simply means that the Cabinet cuts off any ideas from the
ground and the people. Trying to strangle criticism only strangles
possible ideas and solutions. Bankrupting the Opposition simply means
the country is bankrupt of many of its leading thinkers and problem
solvers, like Dr Chee Soon Juan.

Singapore is now in a mess and it is a mess of its own making, with
the blame squarely laid at the door of the PAP and the people who
chose to believe in it. Perhaps, after Lee Kuan Yew dies, change may
be possible. There is also the frightening possibility that like all
dictators, he has so corrupted and bent every institution in the
country that these may not survive him, that without the strongman,
everything will spiral out of control.

The people have spoken on Nov 3. But do they really know what it is
that they have said?

Robert Ho

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306180209.225024b9%40posting.google.com

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

RH: As regards LIE KY LHL WKS biggest property Bubble of all time, I just heard that a 5-room resale flat in Queenstown just sold for S$850,000! The day of the million dollar HDB govt flat is near. When this property bubble bursts, it will make America's subprime seem like a little pop.

--
RH: MY ACQUAINTANCE, MR DAVID DUCLOS, A FORMER POLICE INSPECTOR, AND HIS LAWYER FRIEND, EYEWITNESSED LEE KUAN YEW RIGGING THE 1997 CHENG SAN GRC ELECTION. READ MORE AT MY BLOG ENTITLED "I CAME, I SAW, I SOLVED IT" :

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/

[ALSO AT THE ABOVE BLOG, LIE KUAN YEW's LIES, CORRUPTION, WRONGFUL JAILING, TORTURE AND BEATING TO DEATH OF INNOCENT POLITICAL PRISONERS LIKE MR CHAN HOCK HUA]

READ ALSO MARTYN SEE's INTERVIEW WITH ME AT:

http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/

ALSO AT:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/2007/03/filmmaker-martyn-see-interviews-robert.html

FOR QUICK, IRREVERENT REASONS WHY LIE KY DESERVES A NOBEL:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/Not%20nominated%20for%20a%20Nobel%20so%20LIE%20KY%20gives%20himself%20many%20others

MY ARCHIVE OF WORKS AT:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/

PHOTOS OF LIE KY SCRATCHING MY WIFE's NEW CAR:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/LIE%20KY%20scratched%20my%20car%20S%242800%20to%20repair

NOT GUILTY BUT TORTURED, DEGRADED 15 YEARS FOR PUBLICITY, FUN

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/2009/05/not-guilty-but-tortured-degraded-15.html

ICONOCLASSING Pt 3 or RH Zero Sum Game Theory

ICONOCLASSING Pt 3 or RH Zero Sum Game Theory

RH:

1. Today's essay is Iconoclassing Pt 3, which continues from "Iconoclassing Singapore GDP Myths" and "Iconoclassing Pt 2", whose urls are just below :

19 June 2008
ICONOCLASSING SINGAPORE GDP MYTHS

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/ICONOCLASSING%20SINGAPORE%20GDP%20MYTHS

19 June 2008
ICONOCLASSING Pt 2

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/Iconoclassing%20Pt%202

2. Today's essay takes off from a speech "The Puzzle That Never Was" given by Dr CHEE Soon Juan in 2001 to Stanford University, Institute of International Studies, url and complete text just below :

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw01/010129sj.htm


THE PUZZLE THAT NEVER WAS

January 29, 2001
Dr Chee Soon Juan
Secretary general, Singapore Democratic Party

Speech given at Stanford University, Institute for International Studies

Singapore society confounds the theory that wealth leads to an opening up of society. The Lion City is an affluent society unable, some say unwilling, to break out of its authoritarian mode. Therein lies the puzzle that the Singapore is.


A. THERE is a myth that goes something like this: Singapore's post-independence story has been one of a money-making miracle and the miracle-maker is, of course, the People's Action Party. We all know a myth, when repeated enough and left unexploded, gradually becomes fact. When you add to this another myth which is that Singaporeans, having become rich, seem not to mind living in an authoritarian state, a veritable puzzle develops.

B. Sieve out the hubris and scoop away the public relations puff, however, you have a reality that is very different and a politico-economic puzzle that is very explainable.

C. Singapore's economy has been designed to maximize GDP gains in the shortest time possible. The best way to go about doing this is to yell like crazy to foreign investors about the generous tax incentives that are on offer with cheap wages to boot. To make sure that the locals go along with the plan, the opposition, labour movement, and civil society in general is dismantled through laws such as the Internal Security Act which enables the ruling party to arrest anyone at pleasure and detain them at leisure. Workers must also be maintained on a strict diet of intellect-numbing presentation of government pronouncements sans critical analysis through a controlled mass media. Once these conditions are in place, one will be surprised how quickly multinational companies come in.

D. More than 7000 of these multinationals, involved in every type of business conceivable, have setup shop in Singapore. They account for more than 90 percent of investments in the manufacturing sector, 70 percent of the gross output in the manufacturing sector, over 50 percent of those employed, and 82 percent of direct exports.

The addiction to foreign capital

E. As foreign capital poured in and employment grew, the PAP started to get too comfortable in government and rationalized that continued discipline brought about by its austere measures was the way forward.

F. Of course with growth, cost has also risen. With its neighbours competing for foreign investments, the government has had to rethink its strategy. One solution would be to get Singapore out of direct competition with its neighbouring economies for low-end, labour intensive industries. Thus in 1979, the government embarked on a series of measures to encourage the influx of high-tech industries to replace low-tech ones. With typical authoritarian efficiency, the PAP raised the level of real estate prices and wages of the workers. Political economist Garry Rodan wrote: "Without any apology, the PAP tried to force lower-value-added, labor-intensive industries to upgrade operations or close operations in Singapore altogether."

G. The result was that unit labour costs rose by 40 per cent in six years.

H. But instead of responding to the PAP's call to upgrade their operations in Singapore, many of the low-tech companies simply moved to cheaper countries. Magaziner and Patinkin wrote: "The EDB [Economic Development Board] people explained that they'd misunderstood why companies had come to Singapore. Good infrastructure was important, but it wasn't the main driver. Cheap wages were."

I. In 1985, this policy resulted in a full-blown crisis. A combination of a 40 percent decline in investments and slothful international trade saw Singapore's economy plunge into a recession with the GDP registering a negative 2 percent down from its usual 8-10 percent.

J. Then, as it is now, it is the people who end up picking up the tab. With the same autocratic style that announced the switch to a high-wage, high-skilled economy, the government now decreed that wages of the workers be cut by 15 percent. Lee Hsien Loong, who was then the Minister for Trade and Industry, exhorted workers to increase their working hours to "44 hours a week...and to do third shifts and keep plants open 24 hours per day." In the meantime, the government declared that it no longer mattered whether the techs were high or low, "all forms of investment which can make profits were welcome."

K. And so with wages cut and dissent muffled, the government went about serenading foreign investments again and growth was subsequently restored. The question was for how long and how much do the people have to sacrifice again when difficulties revisit the economy?

L. By the early 1990s the economy was wheezing and puffing again. In 1994, nearly 8000 workers were laid off by more than 200 companies. This was an increase of 19 per cent of retrenched workers over 1993. In 1995, the number of retrenched rose to more than 14,000. By 1996 there were unmistakable signs of an imminent recession. Again the government pointed to the "restructuring" and "upgrading" of the economy. Then Minister for Trade and Industry, Yeo Cheow Tong - without a hint of knowledge of the problems that the triggered the 1985 recession - said: "In actual fact, such restructuring and upgrading are signs of a healthy manufacturing sector." Someone forgot to tell him that the companies that were moving out were high-tech electronic ones which the economy was supposed to be upgrading to.

M. As it turned out, the PAP was saved from an embarrassing situation by the Thai government which buckled under the weight of the baht and devalued it on July 2, 1997, sending Asia into its worst economic nightmare. Perhaps, we will never know the severity of that economic downturn because of the Asian crisis. It does, however, make the PAP's claim that Singapore's economy tumbled during the crisis only because of it was dragged down by its neighbours' financial misfortunes seem, at best, disingenuous.

N. As before, the workers end up having to make yet more sacrifices. In 1999, the Singapore government announced that it was cutting wages by 10 per cent. The retrenchments continue into the present and is set to get worse. The government's latest explanation for the loss of jobs is not very different from that in given in 1994, or for that matter, way back in 1979. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told Singaporeans that "economic restructuring also meant retrenchments will rise" and this was because "low-skilled jobs are being lost and high-skilled ones created." Here we go again.

O. The fact of the matter is that Singapore cannot, or doesn't know how to, get out of its dependence on foreign investment. Walden Bello and Stephanie Rosenfeld noted: Despite its seeming prosperity, Singapore in 1990 is trapped in the treadmill of the export-oriented economics that it once so enthusiastically embraced. Having so completely opened itself up to the world market and the multinationals with the illusion that it could influence the former and manipulate the latter, the PAP technocrats now see that their policies have reduced Singapore's economy to a mere service economy, the fate of which is totally dependent on the calculations and whims of the multinationals.

Economic growth for whom?

P. The reliance of Singapore's economy to foreign investment exacts a significant toll on the welfare of the people. The government's willingness to sacrifice workers' wages whenever economic conditions become unfavourable means that Singaporeans are consigned to having to work harder and harder just to maintain a standard of living that, contrary to government pronouncements, is not all that its made out to be. Let me give you a few indicators.

Q. In the Global Competitiveness Report 1999 which surveyed a total of 59 countries, Singaporean workers, especially those in manual jobs, were found to be relatively one of the worst paid in the world. The median wage of an office cleaner or driver, adjusted for productivity, "is among the lowest in 59 countries worldwide." Only Russia, Ukraine and Ecuador are paid less. Secretaries don't do much better, their wages rank 50 among the 59 countries.

R. During the Asia crisis, monthly wages for low-skilled workers fell up to 34 percent from $746 in 1998 to $492 in 1999. During that period, 16 percent of the work force earned below $1000 a month. Nearly 30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the minimum standard of life. But when the crisis was over, salary increases among 14 Asian economies was the lowest in Singapore. While Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan had rewarded their workers between five to eight percent in wage increments (after accounting for inflation), Singapore averaged only 3.6 percent with the number predicted to decrease to 2.9 percent this year. It was reported that between 1998 and 2000, the average monthly income of the lowest 10 percent of households fell further by half to $133. The subsistence level in Singapore is estimated to be $1000 for a household of four persons.

S. All this in a city that is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive in the world. In the mid 1990s the Union Bank of Switzerland ranked Singapore as the 7th most expensive city - even costlier that Paris, New York and London. Just last week, the London-based Economic Intelligence Unit rated Singapore as the ninth most expensive city in the world.

T. And yet Lee Kuan Yew, without batting an eye, recently boasted: "Foreigners have noted how the people of Singapore have responded, putting national interest first by taking CPF cuts that helped this rebound (from the Asian crisis)." With trade unionism rendered comatose by the government - the umbrella National Trades Union Congress' chief is a government minister - a significant question arises: How do the workers tell the Senior Minister that they are hurting? How do they tell him that they don't want to be the ones having to put 'national interest first by taking CPF cuts' when the ministers increase that own salaries, which is already the highest in the world? Under the new pay scheme Goh Chok Tong's annual salary will jump by 14 percent to S$1.94 million, five times that of the US President's. How do they let him know that they don't want their employers to cut their wages by 10 percent when in the same period, the average household income for the top 10 percent rose by more that 3 percent while the number of millionaires in the country increased by 40 percent to a record high 742?

U. Gerald O'Driscoll, Kim Holmes, and Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote in the Index of Economic Freedom report 2000 that in Singapore "the authorities strive to be first but at the cost of efficiency and the ultimate well-being of the people."

V. For all the hype about Singapore being a near-paradise, 20 percent of its citizens indicated that they want to leave the country predominantly because of the stressful lifestyle and high cost of living. In 1999, a consumer health survey found that among the various Asian societies, Singaporeans are more likely to have suffered depression, stress and fatigue.

W. But in spite of all this, the PAP apologia will point to the political stability in the country and the notable lack of strife, and tell you that this is due to the ruling party's sound economic record and the people's contentedness. If the lack of civil strife is taken as an index of a government's popular support, then the North Korean regime must be one of the most loved ones in the world; Saddam Hussein, still in power after the rest of his counterparts in the US and Europe have left office, must go down in history as one of the most endearing political figures; and Burma's military outfit must be doing everything right since the crackdown in 1989.

X. Just because the surface of the water is calm, don't always assume that there is nothing lurking beneath. In an authoritarian state, the seeming tranquility is more a reflection of fear and of the effectiveness of the tactics of repression, than it is an indication of the masses affection for the ruling elite.

Y. There is no question that economic growth can occur in authoritarian states under the guise of free market regimes. There is no puzzle here. However, for there to be economic development, one that genuinely benefits the masses and one that is sustainable, the people must be active participants rather than mere digits of the assembly line. For this to happen, democracy is vital. History has shown that how right wing, free-market authoritarian regimes were not able to hang on to power forever. Singapore is no exception. The reason why the regime is still firmly in place is that the founder of the authoritarian system is still alive and very much in the political equation. The second reason is that Singapore is a much smaller country both physically and in terms of its population and because of this control is that much more effectual. Put Lee Kuan Yew in charge of a bigger country like say Malaysia (let alone even bigger ones like Thailand and large ones like Indonesia) and the results could be very different.

Living with fear

Z. I have related how much of a myth the PAP's economic achievements have been and shown you how the picture of the rich, fat, and politically contented Singaporean is just as fictitious. Let me now tell you about the climate of fear that Singaporeans live under and how this fear is induced.

AA. On the eve of nomination in the last general elections in 1997, I received a phone call from a woman who was the wife of one of our candidates. She pleaded with me to persuade her husband not to stand for elections. She was in tears. When I tried to explain to her the situation, she grew increasing desperate and threatened to jump off from the flat and take their children with her. We quickly sent some of our women folk to see her to make sure that nothing tragic happened. In between sobs she said that they had a family to look after and joining the opposition would ruin everything. She didn't want to see her husband again unless he agreed not to stand as an SDP candidate. Our candidate later managed to return home and pacify his wife. He continued on with the elections but hardly campaigned as he stayed home most of the time to make sure nothing happened.

BB. On an earlier occasion, I met up with an academic to discuss the possibility of him standing as a candidate. He picked me up and we quickly drove to a field that was unlit. We sat in the dark and started talking. He was visibly nervous and suggested another spot. And so we found another darkened place, this time in a carpark to talk about the business of his candidacy. We were behaving as if we were planning something illegal when we were just making plans for the elections.

CC. Another instance involved a well-known Asian author who had come to Singapore to work as well as do some research for her book. She told her Singaporean housemate that she was going to have lunch with me, whereupon the housemate became so terrified that she immediately asked the author to move out.

DD. In 1998 I was in Perth, Australia, to give a talk. A professor there told me that some students confided in him that they were interested in attending my talk but were afraid they would be blacklisted. In a similar occasion in Sydney, I was walking to the toilet after giving my presentation when a few students came up to me and said they were very supportive of what I was doing, but didn't want to be seen in public talking with me.

EE. We presently have a few younger Singaporeans who started the youth wing of the SDP. It is called the Young Democrats. Each and every one of them has come under intense pressure from their families not to get involved with the opposition. I am very glad they were able to persuade their families otherwise and stand firm in their convictions. Needless to say, I'm very proud of them.

FF. In case you think that these are just anecdotes that may not be reflective of the political situation in Singapore, a recent survey found that 93 percent of Singaporeans are afraid to speak out against governmental issues.

Is such fear unfounded?

GG. Singapore still retains the Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows the government to detain citizens indefinitely. Scores of opposition leaders, trade unionists, and social activists were arrested under the ISA and detained for years. Chia Thye Poh was one of them. He was imprisoned for 23 years without given a trial.

HH. Then there are the lawsuits. J. B. Jeyaretnam has recently been bankrupted because he could not pay the costs and damages outstanding to his opponents some of whom are PAP MPs. He has been sued repeatedly by Lee Kuan Yew and other PAP leaders and has paid more than a million dollars to these people, selling all his possessions in the process.

II. Tang Liang Hong, a successful lawyer who stood as an opposition candidate in the last elections has also been sued. He was declared a bankrupt and charged with tax evasion. He now lives in Australia.

JJ. Francis Seow, the former solicitor-general, was also detained under the ISA. He later ran for elections with the Workers' Party. He now lives in exile in the US after he was charged and convicted in absentia while he was in this country receiving treatment for his heart condition.

KK. These are just some of the higher profile cases. There are many more which time does not permit me to relate. I tell you about them because you will not read them in political science books or journals. Nevertheless, they are very real cases involving real people. The next time you read or hear anyone telling you that Singaporeans live in the comfort zone under cheerful climes with relatively little to fear, you can at least carry on a discourse with some intelligence.

More obstacles

LL. Which brings me to my next point. Why is there such a mistaken impression of Singapore in the first place? The mass media has much to do with this. Singapore's local media has been comprehensively subjugated in the 1970s when editors and journalists who crossed the government with their reports were put in prison. Many of the newspapers were closed down. Today all of the country's newspapers are published by state-run companies, the biggest being the Singapore Press Holding which is run by a former cabinet minister and a former ISD director.

MM. What about the foreign media? Time, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, Asiaweek, Far Eastern Economic Review, and the Economist have all been either sued or have had their circulation restricted, or both. The foreign broadcast media also recently came under attack. These actions by the PAP has had a lasting impact on the way the foreign media tends to report about Singapore.

NN. In such a situation who are the losers? The PAP? Hardly. It was a resounding victory for the government over the international media. The owners of these foreign publications? Not when you consider that their bottom line is to keep up their sales. The real losers are the people who have been deprived of yet more independent and uncensored sources of information. The PAP may have won the battle this round. But it has not solved the problem of the people being denied the right to freedom of information. All it has done is to set Singapore up for a much bigger fall in the future.

OO. This is not the only way people are deprived of dissenting opinion. Books critical of the PAP system, cannot find their way onto shelves in bookstores. None of them would carry my books. When I sell them on the street, I am prosecuted for illegal hawking. When I call up the Ministry of Environment to apply for one, they say that no such licenses are given. None of the newsvendors dare sell newspapers published by opposition parties.

PP. I have not even begun to relate all the appalling tactics employed by the ruling party during elections. Because of time restrictions, I will instead refer you to a report entitled 'Elections in Singapore: How free and how fair?' published by the Open Singapore Centre, copies which are available for sale here.

QQ. Having heard all that I've just said, can you truthfully say that this sounds like a government that has the kind of support it claims? Does this sound like a people who are unafraid and willingly allow the PAP this continued control over them? Or is there some truth to the fact that the PAP knows that the people want democracy and the only way to deny them of this is to institute more controls and device more ways of intimidating them?

Conclusion

RR. It is important to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the PAP is this visionary architect of Singapore's economy and, worse, that Singaporeans are so comfortable that they will just roll over and play dead every time the PAP cracks its whip. Why should Singaporeans be any different from the rest of the world which has unreservedly embraced democracy. From Mexico to Mongolia, Soviet Union to South Africa, people want to live in freedom and dignity, and to be able to hold their governments accountable. The last time I checked Singaporeans are humans too. And because we are humans we have this one thing in common that cannot be crushed. It's called the human spirit.



3. Dr CHEE is the only person in Singapore who has spent his entire recent life, >a decade, fighting/understanding/critiquing/writing/exposing the crooked, corrupt, nepotic, murderous, torturous, election-rigging, greedy, venal, LIE KY LHL WKS Cronies PAP LIEgime. He is also the only one who has done this well, with courage, skill, talent that no one else has displayed in Singapore. That makes him uniquely qualified to not only know and identify what is wrong -- and the entire system is hopelessly wrong -- but also how to fix it, given the chance. His books are not mere rants but contain insights into the problems and solutions to the problems.

4. As a sometime essayist/blogger, I would today like to take off from his above Puzzle speech, that portion relating to cheap labour that I have paragraphed-named as F to J and L, N and O.

5. It is my contention that Singapore has all along been a cheap labour economy, despite the few showcase high-tech and service sectors that are always trotted out and boasted to foreigners, like when they are bussed to some spanking HDB township touted as evidence of success. Dr CHEE has done me the service of stating the facts and figures in the paras mentioned. However, as in my 2 previous Iconoclassing articles, my theme is how LIE KY's GDP is a Myth. In today's article, I would like to postulate that "Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy." Evidence of this is in Para O : "O. The fact of the matter is that Singapore cannot, or doesn't know how to, get out of its dependence on foreign investment. Walden Bello and Stephanie Rosenfeld noted: Despite its seeming prosperity, Singapore in 1990 is trapped in the treadmill of the export-oriented economics that it once so enthusiastically embraced. Having so completely opened itself up to the world market and the multinationals with the illusion that it could influence the former and manipulate the latter, the PAP technocrats now see that their policies have reduced Singapore's economy to a mere service economy, the fate of which is totally dependent on the calculations and whims of the multinationals."

6. If you allow my arguments in my first 2 Iconoclassing articles and allow Para O, then it is clear that LIE KY is far, far, from being the genius and miracle worker that he and his lapdog media have endlessly portrayed him to be, but a total failure whose overhyped image is due to faked statistics, the Green Lever Effect, and an economy driven to ruin through 'managing FOR numbers'. The collapse of the Singapore economy and country will be when the Housing Bubble and Foreign Cheap Labour Bubble burst, as burst they must, as is inevitable with all bubbles. If you allow that "Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy", then you understand why so many citizens are unemployed, their woeful statistics disguised by renaming citizens + PRs as "Residents" and why an astounding 35% of the people on this tiny 700 sq km islet are FOREIGNERS.

7. Singapore has always been a cheap labour economy, only that, in the early days, we Singaporeans were the cheap labour, nowadays, the foreign workers are. This is inevitable. Through the years, due to the moronic policies of OverTax & UnderSpend in order to amass huge surpluses and reserves, which are regarded as evidence of success, as all money wealth seems to indicate success, the LIEgime raised the prices of everything, especially HDB flats where a typical tiny 4-room flat that costs S$30,000 to build, as proven by successful contractors' published tender prices, are now selling for >S$640,000. This Bubble can only burst and it will make the US subprime crisis seem modest. So, with frequent price hikes in GST, HDB flat prices, transport, utilities, every single possible cost, Singaporeans cannot pay their mortgage and eat 3 meals without a salary of at least S$1,000, which would be subsistence level. So, in order to keep the cheap labour economy going, Singaporeans are deliberately undercut by importing cheap foreign workers, until now they comprise 35% of people on this islet. UnderSpend means that the housing, transport, whole infrastructure do not keep pace, hence overcrowded metros, buses, malls, even parks. So, high GDP growth is at the expense of or balanced by ruinous social policies and conditions of life for the vast majority.

8. The common thread running through my Iconoclass series is that the supposedly high GDP growth that LIE KY got is false and distorted. Today, I would like to postulate that "True GDP growth is almost impossible and growth in one sector is always offset by decline in another or in a future foregone." We can call this the Zero Sum Game Theory.

9. Let us look at this puzzle or paradox by briefly checking the GDP growths of the advanced economies, especially that of Europe. After all, they have many of the best economists, planners, experts, think tanks, economic data gathering and studies, in the world. So how is it that they can manage no better than the ~2.5% in the best of times, even less in the inevitable troughs and downturns? If you minus the bad times GDPs from the good times, you get No Growth. Even the ~2.5% in good times becomes 0 when inflation and other factors are factored in. So, it is entirely possible that my Theory is right, that GDP Growth is impossible.

10. What of China and Singapore and other seemingly high GDP growth countries? Remember my Theory about 'future foregone'? In the case of China, its laudable record of >10% GDP growth over 3 decades is probably due to its one-child policy in which 2 adult parents pay taxes and contribute to economic activities while producing only 1 child to use back some of those taxes, mostly in minor expenditures such as schooling and a little healthcare, etc. This gives the China govt a big surplus for every family of 2 adults taxes/economics - 1 child's spending. Further, when that child leaves school to work, all 3 contribute for many years thus giving the China govt all 3 surpluses in economics. Any wonder China developed so quickly in just 3 decades? This may seem to contradict my Zero Sum Game Theory that no true GDP growth is possible and any growth is just a rebalancing of different sectors in which some sectors' growth are balanced by others' declines OR balanced by a future foregone or decline. In China's case, when the demographics turns bad, when there are many more old non-working people than young working people, the Zero Sum Game will happen and all the years of positive growth will then be nett off by years of decline. 7 years fat followed by 7 years lean.

11. The US also has had better GDP growth than the advanced European countries but this is offset or balanced by poorer societal conditions and many poor sectors. There is also future foregone in the huge deficits that future generations will have to pay back for the current generation's enjoyment. Zero Sum Game again. Nothing is for free. There is no free lunch.

12. If my Theory is right, then govts and economists must be very, very, careful what they wish for. If they want Big Growth in some sectors, then they must be very careful to ameliorate the declines in other sectors, or society, which will be inevitable. Or costs to future generations. The one salutary effect of my gloomy Theory is that govts and economists may stop chasing the mirage of high GDP growth and ask themselves what it is they really want to do, what they want for their societies. They may then become more like the advanced but slow-growing European countries and try to better the lives of their people, not just feed the economy. Better childcare, better healthcare, better schools, better public transport, better and more rewarding careers and jobs, more fulfilling lives. In the end, isn't this what govt should be all about?


RH Zero Sum Game Theory : "True economic growth is impossible. Growth as measured by GDP and other accountings are possible in some sectors, but are always negated by declines in others, usually measured over-optimistically for the growth sectors and over-pessimistically for the decliners. True growth over a defined period is possible, but only at the expense of future declines, like booms are always followed by busts and bubbles eventually burst. All this is due to the finite natures of Man and his systems. An emphasis in one area/s of endeavour is negated by neglect in another/s. A gain now leads to a loss later. In the end, it all adds up to zero."

Related somewhat to :

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/search/label/RH%3A%20Robert%27s%20TorchLight%20Effect

and

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081021061251AASf7sU .


--
RH: MY ACQUAINTANCE, MR DAVID DUCLOS, A FORMER POLICE INSPECTOR, AND HIS LAWYER FRIEND, EYEWITNESSED LEE KUAN YEW RIGGING THE 1997 CHENG SAN GRC ELECTION. READ MORE AT MY BLOG ENTITLED "I CAME, I SAW, I SOLVED IT" :

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/

[ALSO AT THE ABOVE BLOG, LIE KUAN YEW's LIES, CORRUPTION, WRONGFUL JAILING, TORTURE AND BEATING TO DEATH OF INNOCENT POLITICAL PRISONERS LIKE MR CHAN HOCK HUA]

READ ALSO MARTYN SEE's INTERVIEW WITH ME AT:

http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/

ALSO AT:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/2007/03/filmmaker-martyn-see-interviews-robert.html

FOR QUICK, IRREVERENT REASONS WHY LIE KY DESERVES A NOBEL:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-solved-it.blogspot.com/search/label/Not%20nominated%20for%20a%20Nobel%20so%20LIE%20KY%20gives%20himself%20many%20others

MY ARCHIVE OF WORKS AT:

http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/
.

ICONOCLASSING Pt 2

RH:

1. I had, in this previous Comment in The Online Citizen [ http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/02/knowledge-based-economy-needs-more-uni-education-financing/#more-527 ] first tried to reason dispassionately about Foreigners and their effects on GDP, which have led to an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners that has swamped our islet. Today, I will try to fuller.

2. What makes a Singaporean? -- vs a foreigner? I had postulated that it is SCE [Shared Common Experience]. "Thus, a Chinese and a Malay Singaporean can have More Shared Experiences than with a Chinese from China. However, if that Chinaman has enough Commonalities when he arrives, and gains more with time, he can be as Singaporean as any local-born." [self quote].

3. Thus, while we become emotional and even angry at Foreigners many advantages over locals, we need to remember that our ancestors were once immigrants but became Singaporeans. Singaporeans vs Foreigners is not one or the other, not Black vs White, but a SCALE which we all, locals or not, are on, each at various points of being more or less Singaporean. Simply, it is how much SCE you have, I think. My maid has worked here ~15 years. She can MRT and commute about, speak, read and write fairly good English, speak Teochew and some Mandarin besides Indonesian, and in looks and behaviour, indistinguishable from Singaporeans. I think, on my basis, she deserves to be given PR instead of the 'Foreign Talent' [FT] who flies in with few Commonalities. This SCE principle may already be implicitly recognised by some countries. My wife's colleague took his maid to London for several years. When he returned, his maid did not — she had qualified for PR!

4. Thus, countries may look into granting PR also on the basis of SCE and not just 'economic value'. This will save much maladjustments to both the immigrant and the receiving society.

5. In PAPadise, it is purely economic value but as usual, stupidly and typically UNTHINKING, leading to great harm and tragic results.

6. For example, suppose you vacuum your floor and wash clothes and dishes. You are generating NO economic value or GDP activity. Thus, a housewife, according to current Economic theories, generates little or no 'economic activity' and thus no GDP. So Singapore housewives are encouraged to work outside home because earning a salary gets recorded as 'economic activity' or 'economic value' and thus gets into the GDP figures. So when she earns $1,000, she 'generates' far more than $1,000 because she commutes, eats outside, buys office clothes, etc. All these suddenly boost the GDP simply because that is how GDP is measured. Further, the maid she has to hire to look after her kids, for $350, also 'generates' far more than $350 because the maid also consumes some personal-use goods and services, etc, thus also boosting the GDP -- again, since this is how GDP is measured. This explains the Second Wave in my 3 Waves Of Labour theory in my essay on Leeconomics [ http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/search/label/RH%3A%20Robert%27s%20Complete%20Case%20against%20Leeconomics%20%5BMain%5D ].

7. Thus, we see the ATTRACTION of foreigners to the MinisterMoron, PrimeMoron, and their Cronies Morons. Even a lowly maid or other foreigner cheap labour generates far more 'GDP activities' than just their nominal salary. To crystallise it, suppose they import a foreigner cripple without arms or legs. This cripple will still 'generate' appreciable GDP activity because he will house, eat, buy diapers, medical care, etc. So more GDP activities. In short, like in the movie "Matrix", just Human Bodies are enough to generate GDP. So the Morons keep importing bodies, almost all cheap labour since they cannot lure betters. Thus, today, >1 in 4 of people in Singapore are foreigners! The most astounding rate in world history! Do LIE KY LHL PAP know something we don't? The contrary.

8. I don't think these Morons, or anybody else, have reasoned it all thus. What they do know is that every time they import foreigners, the GDP goes up and hence, their Performance Bonuses, so they keep importing foreigners even when these DISPLACE LOCALS. In fact, by not understanding all this, their importing policies have the effect of Displacing Locals because the GDP GROWS EVEN MORE THIS WAY. Let me explain : suppose a cheap labour foreigner is imported to displace a local low-wage labourer. This cheap foreigner generates far more than just his nominal salary in GDP activities, so good for the Morons Bonuses. But the unemployed local labourer does not become 0 upon being displaced and unemployed. He still needs to house, eat, utilities, etc, so he still consumes and thus generate GDP activities. So the NET GAIN is not just from the foreigner but also the captive local who still needs to consume and thus generate GDP. Thus, 2-WAY net gains from this Displacement policy. This explains the callous policies and insane tidal wave influx of foreigners, almost all cheap labour -- but never mind, they still generate big GDP. The so-called FT are only handfuls and mostly used to justify the real tidal wave influx of cheap foreigners. FTs have better options elsewhere so most don't come or stay.

9. The Morons are like lab rats in a cage. They have discovered that by pressing the Green Lever, more marbles drop into their cage and somehow, the lab scientists reward them more titbits as a result of the more marbles. So they furiously keep pressing the Green Lever, thinking they are "successful" [Performance Bonuses] even though there are so many marbles they have little living space left. But they still keep pressing as if addicted. This analogy explains the Morons unthinking addiction to foreigners and DELIBERATE DISPLACEMENT of locals -- nothing is NON-Deliberate in Singapore, except maybe the unique or extremely rare KASTARI escape from an ISD prison! Which is why it is so unbelievable and led to so many conspiracy theories.

10. Another example of this unthinking Green Lever Syndrome is the DELIBERATE [like Displacement of low-wage Singaporean workers -- IN MANY CASES, ALSO HIGHER WAGE ONES, TOO] policy to bias towards Manufacturing as against Services. Our Morons have always scorned Hongkong for its Service Economy and prided themselves on still having a big Manufacturing sector. The Green Lever Syndrome at work again.

11. In the first place, Hongkong DOES have manufacturing and very big, too, except that it is all captured as China statistics in Shenzhen and other centres. Second, it is Green Lever Syndrome again because manufacturing is mostly measurable in $ [as in widget parts costs and final selling prices] and so easily captured into final GDP figures whereas Services like a Hongkong clerk processing forms or answering calls in a Call Centre is difficult to value in $ and so only their nominal salaries get into the GDP. This doesn't mean that Manufacturing is superior to Services! as the Morons think. Only that one is more measurable than the other -- at least in $ and GDP terms. But, just like reading to a child or volunteer social work instructing elderlies in exercise, activities that are not capturable in GDP does not mean inferior or not worth doing, as the Morons believe in both thought and action.

12. Thus, Hongkong has a more 'normal', REAL economy as opposed to the LIEgime FALSE and distorted economy. For example, like all Real economies, Hongkong considers many factors besides GDP numbers, such as inflation, unemployment, jobs creation, consumer spending, social spending and welfare, govt spending and taxations, etc, and devises policies towards these [multiple] ends, whereas the False and distorted economy of the LIEgime is constructed and deliberately designed to produce high GDP numbers only. The US, probably the most intelligently monitored and managed economy, has a whole slew of economic indicators besides GDP numbers. US business media almost daily analyse dozens of indicators, from housing starts to PMI to Producer Price Indices, stock indices and prices, etc, and not just the final GDP numbers. Only the LIEgime stupidly constructs an economy solely to produce high GDP numbers. Thus, Hongkong's Real economy is probably many times bigger and better than the False economy of the LIEgime, which is more like a shop window display, artificial and FOR SHOW ONLY, like everything else about the LIEgime.

13. This False economy of the LIEgime is paralleled by its equally stupid education policies. In Education, there is also obsession with scoring high marks in exams, thus paralleling the construction of the False economy to score high GDP numbers. So, schools, principals, teachers and students are obsessed only with scoring high marks in exams. This means that non-exam subjects are hardly taught and studied. Worse, teachers and students choose subjects purely to score high marks, hence the decades-long bias to Math and Science subjects [far easier to score] than say, Lit and Lang. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Singaporeans and the way Math is taught from primary to university, this bias produces several generations of unintelligent 'scholars' [many become Cronies Ministers or Generals who later metamorphosise into GLC CEOs] who, other than high Math marks, cannot think, since Language is the Basis of Thought, not Math. Thus, when you teach [and learn] TO the test or exam, you do score high marks but learn little, in not much of an education.

14. Thus, the LIEgime has only 5 aims of govt. First, to entrench and further the LIE family stranglehold on power and to increase that power without limit so as to control every aspect of work and life in Singapore. Second, to LOOK GOOD always -- an obsession -- even if this is only surface or cosmetic. Third, as regards the economy, to produce high GDP numbers. Fourth, to produce huge budget surpluses. This means decades of unremitting, relentless, Overtax and Underspend policies, overtaxing exorbitantly on everything possible, especially HDB housing, car taxes [both giving many, many, multiples of profit or rather, profiteering], GST, etc, while underspending on everything else except the military, which always has the biggest budget allocations. Thus, Singaporeans are overtaxed in every way possible and imaginable while spending on heathcare, education, the poor, etc, are all shortchanged. The budget surpluses are not enough apparently, so in order to create even bigger and more impressive Reserves and SWF [Fifth goal], Singaporeans CPF are withheld to make the Reserves bigger. Thus, Singaporeans have little access to and cannot even withdraw their own monies because the LIEgime wants it in its own kitty. CPF was as much as 40% of every worker salary and bonus OVER HIS LIFETIME CAREER, now slightly less. Thus, 'managing by/for results', which is pretty legitimate, became bastardised, like everything else, to become 'managing by numbers', further bastardised to 'managing FOR [GDP] numbers'. Thus, the economy is constructed mainly to score high GDP numbers and the easiest way is to massively import foreigners -- preferably rich -- but practically, mostly cheap labour, since millionaires or FTs cannot be imported in numbers for various reasons. This explains why the LIEgime bends over backwards [this time] to play nice to all foreigners. It also explains why there is such an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners in Singapore, the Third Wave in my essay.

15. The >1 in 4 of us being foreigners has obviously [how can anyone NOT notice!] become 'sensitive', meaning actually 'explosive' -- as it would be in a democracy instead of the secretive, suppressive dictatorship here. So, being politicians, and a govt obsessed with looking good ["Every time LIE KY looks good, the Truth doesn't" -- self quote] they spin and rationalise. They also Reclassify. This Reclassification trick reclassifies foreigners as Residents, PRs and even citizens to reduce resentment when the 'official' figures are out. If we grant PRs and citizenship more on SCE, this Reclassification trick will be harder. As is now, they can, with a simple sleight of the hand, change the numbers of foreigners into Residents, PRs and citizens. There is here, the 'magic trick' of DOUBLE or 2-WAY 'gains', just like in Displacing local low wage and even HIGH WAGE workers with foreigners. When the LIEgime reclassifies a foreigner into a PR or citizen, 1 MORE is added to the PR or citizen group while 1 LESS is reduced in the foreigner group. So double-counting 'gains'! But foreigner or local or whatever, the buses, trains, food centres, roads, infrastructures, malls, etc, are all overcrowded [noticed the many big groups of dark-skinned young men watching the big tv displays or loitering near the money-changers or just loitering]? The problem is vaster than anyone, including the Morons, realise. They are just rats pressing levers and thinking they are doing a great job.

16. What can anyone do about it? Nothing. LIE KY LHL PAP are proven to have rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election, almost certainly also the 1963 General Elections in a suspicious 6-hour electricity blackout centred around the City Hall Vote Counting Centre, most probably also the Ong Teng Cheong Presidential election, plus the Malaysia Referendum that offered no, only rigged, choices. We can all do nothing because LIE KY LHL PAP need no mandate since they cheat massively ['winning' 82 out of 84 seats is mathematically, politically and electorally impossible without massive cheating -- like Saddam Hussein >90% votes every 'election'] so they do what they like, "never mind what the people think" -- LIE KY.

17. According to a 2008 report from the Asian Development Bank, "The Singapore govt estimates that foreign labour contributed 3.2% of its annual growth rate of 7.8% in the 1990's." Another factoid : >40% of Singapore total labour force are cheap foreign labourers and >170,000 of the nearly 1 million foreign labourers are maids.

18. In an official Report from the ManPower Ministry for 2006 : http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/others/mrsd/Publications/ReportonLabourForceinSingapore2006.html

The 2006 Total Labour Force was 2.59m; 'Residents' [note Reclassification Trick] were 1.80m. UNEMPLOYED 'Residents' [seasonally adjusted] were 70,000 or 3.6% but 84,000 or 4.5% non-seasonally adjusted.

19. The point to note is that the overwhelming PAPaganda which has overpowered all thinking and discussions about foreigners, is that firstly, "foreigners do the dirty and dangerous jobs we locals shun". Secondly, "FT do the kind of Talented Jobs that we locals don't have the Talent to do so shut up and don't dare complain when YOUR job goes to a foreigner". Thirdly, "foreigners average DOWN business costs so businesses can profit more" [this is actually done by rigidly tying foreigners to employers so they cannot jobhop to better, plus other draconian conditions to give employers great advantages to exploit them, which explains why no employer wants Singaporeans!]

20. To this, I can only ask, pointing to MOM statistics in Paragraph 18, are there really so many "dirty and dangerous" jobs in Singapore? Or so many Talent jobs we cannot do? To the extent 3.6%/4.5% of us are unemployed? Or is it the usual politicians scapegoating and 'blaming the victims'? After all, even garbage collection is highly mechanised, requiring few workers. Same for cleaners who even drive cleaning machines. Same for construction work, since there is a limit to how many workers can work at any time because concrete floors are laid and harden floor by floor. The Truth is, employers PREFER foreigners because they can be exploited far more easily due to LIEgime policies, entirely pro-business and anti-workers at the best of times, having jailed union leaders from the moment LIE KY seized power half a century ago, who then constructed and maintained by force, a fake NTUC 'union' body to further supppress workers, an NTUC whose main objective like every LIEgime org or institution, is to profit from its multiplicity of businesses from supermarket 'co-ops' to condos and even funeral parlours.

21. This is the tragedy for us -- not for the Morons. They just keep pressing levers and collecting marbles and Performance Bonuses. While the tidal wave of foreigners continue to swamp every aspect of life on this little islet.

////////////////////

Recommended Reading :

RH:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130

A recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES.

/////////////////////////////

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Robert HO wrote:

RH:
1. Since this is INFLATION Week in TOC, thought I would contribute the following snippets. Just short quotes and their urls :

http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from=home&id=10612

"...fixated on wholly meaningless govt data that managed to report the lowest inflation... However, the govt's ability to make 'economic growth' magically appear is based purely on statistical finesse."

"...govt [should] adjust nominal GDP gains using the GDP deflator, which represents the inflation rate. This is done to strip inflation out of the GDP calculation so that only real growth gets counted: not nominal gains that result purely from inflation."

"Similar illusions are created in other numbers, such as retail sales, corporate earnings, and stock prices, which are all rising merely as a result of actual inflation being higher than the official reports. For example, higher retail sales reflect consumers paying higher prices for the products that they buy. They may in fact be buying less stuff, but are paying more for it."

"Similarly, just as inflation causes prices to rise for goods and services, it causes stock prices to rise as well. Though such gains may be less than the actual increase in the cost of living, as long as the govt gets away with using bogus CPI numbers which fail to fully reflect inflation, ...takes credit for nominal gains as if they were real."

"However, as ridiculous as the phony GDP number was, yesterday's biggest joke was a report on global competitiveness put out by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ranked the [LIE KY LHL PAP] economy as [among] the world's most competitive. To arrive at this conclusion, the forum has obliterated the obvious under a mountain of theory. In determining country rankings, the WEF weighed strengths in their "12 Pillars of Competitiveness", including: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. It is as if the WEF decided to judge a weight loss contest without using a scale, by instead focusing only on mental attitude, dedication, perseverance, and nutritional education! As a result the prize is awarded to the fattest contestant. [Singapore] is clearly not [among] the most competitive economies in the world.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2. http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/numbers-lie/2007/11/02/
"More Proof That Numbers Lie"

"Numbers don't lie, do they? Ha! Numbers are the biggest liars on the planet."

"...govt statisticians – and corporate ones too – typically "crunch" numbers into the shape they want. Numbers get punched, beaten, hammered, bullied, and bamboozled. When the torture session is over they'll admit to anything. That is how we get a "consumer price index" of only 3%...when everyone knows prices are rising a lot faster.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

3. http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/3/focus/19360112&sec=focus

"Increasing prices in just about everything has overshadowed the city state's prosperity in the last four years."

"The city-state has been hit by an unceasing bout of price increases that has overshadowed the city's prosperity in the past four years. Inflation is at its worst here in 12 years [now 26 years] and has become the people's biggest worry today. For many, the high costs are blurring the Singapore Dream."

"Worst affected is the broad middle class, ...a punishing [from] 5% to 7% rise in the Goods and Services Tax (GST)."

"There are two immediate effects. The value of money is dropping by the week, and savings are discouraged since consumer prices are rising faster than interest the banks pay on deposits."

"The govt appears unable to take action to stop the epidemic, a contrast to the first-generation govt during such crises."

"But so strong and persistent is inflation that many Singaporeans feel they are the poorer for it."

"...the govt ...priorities are economic growth and asset accumulation (for foreign investments) – even at the expense of a higher cost of living. To that end, it has increased GST from 5% to 7% and may eventually reach 10%. Fees for public services are being raised to ensure no drop in Treasury collection."

"Deficit budget, although not entirely unknown in Singapore, is a very rare happening."

"Many young professionals who just start off in life are worried that the sharp run-up in property prices has made it virtually impossible for them to buy a flat. Some are putting off marriage or raising children."

"Understandably inflation has become a hot debate subject. This is tough for the middle class and working class, which are just struggling for a living amidst the perceived wealth, unhappy and with few choices in life."

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

4. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_173723.html
"Grocery bills increase as prices for foodstuffs go up."

"A Straits Times check on a random basket of basic goods sold at supermarkets here revealed price increases in almost every category, from fresh chicken to coffee and milk formula."

"Rising food prices have contributed to inflation here. September's [2007] overall Consumer Price Index showed that prices generally retreated by 0.3 per cent from the previous month, but the food component - the biggest item at 23% - rose 3.7% as the cost of fresh vegetables, fruit, seafood and milk powder, as well as hawker and restaurant food, went up."

"Consumers The Straits Times spoke to said that while increases for each item may seem like a token sum, together, they add up to a much bigger grocery bill."

"She said that rental on her stall, which is now S$4,500 a month, is set to rise to S$5,500 at the start of next year, and then to S$6,500 in 2009."

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

5. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/inflation-low-because-oil-prices/story.aspx?guid=%7BF29A8D00-50E5-44D6-9981-0E54430C3A96%7D

"In GDP math, sometimes one plus one equals zero."

"If you don't understand that, welcome to the confusing world of national income accounting, where up sometimes is down, and where sometimes one plus one can equal zero."

"Because of the way govt counts and reports the numbers, real-life inflation was understated and growth was [therefore] overstated."

"The economy didn't really grow 3.9%, and inflation really wasn't 0.8%. The numbers aren't as good as they look."

"...it did produce quirky numbers that don't accurately reflect reality, even though they are correct from an accounting point of view. The accounting is right. But it's not reality."

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6. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/specialreport/news/269666_26/1/.html

"Why the GDP link?" "...the higher the gross domestic product (GDP), the bigger the bonus — even some ruling party MPs question the wisdom of such a link."

"If Monday's parliamentary debate on pay revisions for ministers and civil servants focused mainly on that "benchmark thing", yesterday's session saw the spotlight being trained on the GDP bonus."

"This bonus is a component which ministers, parliamentary secretaries, top civil servants and MPs are eligible for. Several of the 13 backbenchers who spoke yesterday had reservations about the GDP bonus. One common refrain heard in the House was whether it is a fair performance peg to use."

"We all know that a rise in GDP may not benefit all sectors of society equally. Some may even lag behind. I would suggest that the Govt consider using indicators that directly impact the livelihood of all Singaporeans," said Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC)."

"He proposed one other indicator to be considered: That of the total cost of running the Govt as a percentage of total revenue. After all, CEOs in the private sector have to ensure profits are not eroded by increasing [inflation] costs and expenses, Mr Loo said."

"Other suggestions of alternative benchmarks included: The consumer price index and the inflation rate, as a way to keep cost of living affordable and protect savings; citizens' feedback to major public services; the number of jobs created for Singaporeans; and even the number of Singaporeans who migrate."

"Based on the latest revisions, ministers will enjoy a GDP bonus of between 3 and 8 months if the economy grows between 5% and 10% or more. But they will not get any bonus if the economy grows by 2% or less. For example, the entry-level annual salary of a minister this year is expected to include a 5.9-month bonus based on Singapore's estimated GDP growth of between 4.5% and 6.5%."

"Another comparison, between the civil service pay increases and the S$30 monthly increase for those on Public Assistance, was raised in the House. Said NMP Kalyani Mehta: "If we are going to be [so] generous to civil servants, then let's be generous to the very poor." In response, Mr Teo Chee Hean, Defence Minister and Minister-in-Charge of the Civil Service, said: "The needs of these individuals are quite different and we need to find more holistic and flexible ways of looking after their needs.""

"One new issue that cropped up yesterday was the danger of concentrating too much power and money in the hands of top public officers. MP Denise Phua (Jalan Besar GRC) said: "As responsible leaders, we must be careful not to leave behind a system or structure that combines power and monetary rewards to such high levels that incumbents are so handcuffed by this lethal combination that they find it hard to let go." NMP Eunice Olsen argued that the coupling of political and financial power is more likely to lead to the creation of a rogue govt."

"On this issue, Mr Teo said that the checks are elections [RH: a lie since elections are routinely rigged] and the ruling party's selection process. "If (a person's) motivations are self-serving or to make money, we do not select him. And if we discover that's what he's about after he has come in, we drop him," he said.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////

7. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_172073.html

"But economists say one crucial aspect to watch out for is rising inflation. It hit 2.9% in August - the biggest monthly rise since 1994. MAS expects inflation of 1.5% to 2% this year, and up to 3.5% for the first half of 2008. But it expects this to ease in the second half of the year, with inflation at 2% to 3% for the whole of 2008."

//////////////////////////////////////////////

RH: Many, many, THANKS to Mr Kaye Poh, from whose brilliant email all the above articles are sourced and excerpted here. The thrust of all these articles prove convincingly enough, that GDP Numbers are faked Higher when Inflation is faked Lower than it really is. They prove why LIE KY LHL PAP kept reporting abnormally Low inflation numbers for decades, when the experience of every Singaporean is of rampant inflation. Also, by reporting falsely Low inflation numbers, LIE KY LHL PAP disguise the simple fact that our CPF monies are actually Reducing in value, eroded by Inflation because the miserable, exploitative, cheating, scam 'interest' they give us are far, far, below inflation -- "an implicit tax" as Prof Mukul Asher [ http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Mukul_Asher.aspx ] wrote. . Also, by reporting -- and convincing us through their PAPaganda media -- that inflation is 'low', the alleged GDP each year becomes automatically and fakedly Higher thereby giving the Ministers and top civil servants more millions in GDP 'Performance Bonuses'!!! Disgusting, dirty, cheats and scammers who routinely rig elections so as to be able to keep paying themselves more millions.
.

ICONOCLASSING SINGAPORE GDP MYTHS

RH:
1. An Iconoclass is an iconoclast who does it with class. This essay is an expanded version of a comment I penned in The Online Citizen 2 days ago on January 15, 2008 at 6:10 pm as Comment 22 in http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/01/15/mm-lee-lucky-indonesians/#comments in which I first publicly penned thoughts I had recently conceived. Thoughts that are a sudden realisation of something I had skimmed recently, probably a UN Report on Cities and its mention that many/most? people are now living in cities. The sudden realisation was that this fact, that many/most of humanity are now living in cities, must be because of the many advantages/efficiencies of city life versus suburban or countryside life. This instantly crystallised the thoughts that Singapore's -- and Hongkong's as well as other similar cities' -- economic progress owe much to the efficiencies of CITIFICATION and HIGH DENSITY LIVING. AS WELL AS TINYNESS. These latter thoughts are not new and I have had them for some time, maybe even a year or more, and have exampled them in the closeness of bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc -- where buses can come far more frequently than in Less Dense Cities. There, future historians can now trace these ideas that follow in this essay.

2. We all know vaguely that cities, especially very dense cities, offer higher efficiencies and therefore a higher quality of life. For example, to reprise my Bus Stop examples, bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc, can be sited less than 1 km apart and buses come frequently, even 5 minutes apart, and it can all be still profitable. Thus, high density = high efficiency = high quality of life. The 3 HIGHs Theory. Another example; in dense cities, you can find everything nearby, from cardiologists and toe transplant surgeons to shops selling pet chihuahuas. If you un-migrate from the city to the suburb or countryside, you will instantly suffer loss of or unreliable cellphone signal reception as well as a host of other inefficiencies and inconveniences from sparse petrol stations to lack of Chinese restaurants. Thus, I don't need to labour the point further.

3. Given that cities are automatically far more efficient than suburbs or countrysides, we can now examine Singapore, Hongkong and similars. Singapore and Hongkong are among the densest cities in the world and renowned for their efficiencies and high quality of life. The S$3.7++ million dollar question is then, "Are these the achievements of their govts or simply the inevitable effects of simple economic laws such as supply and demand, low costs of logistics, the efficiencies of tinyness where a deliveryman and his van/truck can do a dozen trade deliveries a day compared with say, having to drive 50-100 km to each delivery point and hence only making 2-3 deliveries a day. In shopping [very important for economics and quality of life, since life and economics revolve around buying and consuming], a Best Denki or Challenger electronics store can revenue even S$1 million a day and hence can afford to display lavish displays of laptops and flat panel TVs for shoppers to try and experience, etc. A Giant hypermarket need only be a km or 2 away and offer a vast cornucopia of products you can never try them all even in a lifetime.

4. Thus, the unending PAPaganda of Good News and Even More Triumphs of LIE KY LHL PAP and its controlled, fawning, worshipful, media must be countered with the understanding that almost all of Singapore's -- and for that matter, Hongkong's, etc, economic achievements ARE DUE TO CITIFICATION, TINYNESS AND ULTRA HIGH DENSITY OF POPULATION. In fact, I will proffer that even China's astounding economic progress over the last few decades, is largely due to Density. Of course, being Chinese, with all the usual, typical, Chinese characteristics and cultural values, etc, also help but it is probably Density that explains everything. Realising and proving this is important because it offers lessons for the rest of humanity and the world. An indication of my theory as expressed in China is the fact that almost all of China's economic juggernaut progress is in the Dense Cities and not the suburb or countryside. Point proven? Probably.

5. The fact that Hongkong never had a LIE KY -- or China, or Taiwan [among world's 20 biggest economies], for that matter, proves conclusively that LIE KY is not the reason for Singapore's progress. Singapore would have made similar progress under LIM Chin Siong, if he had not been treacherously supplanted by LIE KY in a secret deal with then British PM Harold MacMillan, to serve British interests in return for the arrest, jailing and political elimination of LIM without charge or trial under the ISA. LIE KY's treacherous nature also saw him collaborating with the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore in WW2, when other young Singaporeans were going into the jungles to fight and resist the Japanese.

6. However, although with some research, I could probably draw many other cities and countries as examples of my theory, I consider it proven, even with these limited, unacademic examples. I would like to finish by comparing Hongkong's progress with Singapore's, since they are almost as identical as twins. At first glance, Singapore and Hongkong's economies seem comparable, with Singapore slightly ahead [2006 estimates of Nominal Per Capita GDP puts Singapore slightly ahead at 21st spot with US$34,152 against Hongkong's 27th spot with US$29,149] but these figures OVERSTATE for Singapore due to LIE KY LHL PAP incessant manipulation and falsification of statistics so the Cabinet can pay themselves bigger million-dollar 'Performance Bonuses', since these bonuses are directly correlated to GDP! while the Hongkong Govt gains nothing from exaggerating GDP numbers and so doesn't lie about it like LIE KY LHL PAP.

7. In fact, I believe that Hongkong's GDP is grossly UNDERSTATED and exceeds by far that of Singapore's. For example, prior to around 1978, Hongkong was the biggest toy maker in the world and every kid in the world had at least 1 water pistol or model car Made In Hongkong. After Deng Xiao Ping opened the adjoining Shenzhen SEZ around 1978, Hongkong's toy industry disappeared. Relocated to nextdoor Shenzhen. Thus, although official statistics would seem that Hongkong today has little or no toy [and other] manufacturing industries, THESE STATISTICS ARE CAPTURED AS CHINA [SHENZHEN] PRODUCTION EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE OWNED AND DRIVEN BY HONGKONGERS. Hongkong has no manufacturing? Only services, mostly financial? That is erroneous. To correct this, economists should include most of Shenzhen's economic output to Hongkong, not China. Worse, Hongkongers, having conquered Shenzhen, went on to other parts of China, especially Shanghai and Beijing, not just in toy manufacturing but also a vast outpouring of goods and services industries. Hongkong businessmen are so brilliant they dance circles around the Singaporean, whose Chineseness and business acumen and native ingenuity have been distorted by LIE KY into obedient, even STUPID, fearful, cowed sheep who cannot think, let alone solve problems or start and run businesses. Every Dictator produces stupid people and since LIE KY is an Absolute Dictator, the most powerful in history over his people, naturally the Singaporean is now very, very stupid. The GLCs' dominance and deliberate elimination of small businesses so as to reduce the ranks of financially independent [and hence politically independent] Singaporeans to render all subservient to LIE KY also deleted the business genes from Singaporeans.

8. Thus, there are several lessons for humanity here. High density living = high efficiencies = high quality living. Town planners and architects, please note. Cities offer better lives than suburbs or countrysides. Hongkong is what a truly free and open society and economy can achieve in quality living as well as GDP, trumping Singapore by far in everything. LIE KY LHL PAP are stupid and cheats, not only cheating in elections but also true GDP figures and other statistics. Overpaid, incompetent, cheats. I rest my case.

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Recommended Reading :

RH:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130

Recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES.

Filmmaker Martyn SEE interviews Robert HO

http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/

Filmmaker Martyn SEE interviews Cyber Dissident Robert HO. For interview, please click above. Or read it in full below, reproduced with grateful thanks to Martyn:

Sunday, January 07, 2007
Singapore's cyber dissident speaks out

"You can express any view that you want, you can form a political party, you can contest the elections, you can have rallies, make speeches, no trouble whatsoever."
- PM Lee Hsien Loong, CNN TalkAsia, Dec 2006


Robert HO is Singapore's leading cyber dissident.

In late 2001, marking the first-ever case of its kind, HO was arrested in his home for allegedly posting "inflammatory" articles online during the General Elections. In 2002, following an as-yet-unspecified article(s) posted on soc.culture.singapore, police entered his home to serve him a summons to attend an investigation. Again, his computer was seized. Three weeks later, according to HO, he was forcibly taken to the police station by officers who entered his home without a warrant or a charge. In 2005, upon returning from a shopping mall where he had been distributing flyers alleging election fraud, he was again apprehended. His computer, purchased after the police failed to return the one seized in 2002, was confiscated. In all, he has been arrested another three times since 2001, and thrice the authorities had remanded him at a mental institution. Oddly enough, he has yet to be prosecuted for these alleged offences, although the criminal defamation case from 2002 may still be pending.

While critics, including international publications, have yielded to defamation threats issued by Singapore's leaders, Robert HO has instead emerged from his arrests and detention an even more recalcitrant heretic of the establishment. In Singapore's political cyberspace where fear of surveillance and libel suits have compelled dissenting netizens and bloggers to post articles under pseudonyms, HO sticks his neck out by brazenly disclosing his real identity online. He is now a regular contributor to the Singapore Review news group and is also a blogger.

Martyn See interviews Robert HO via email and phone in December 2006.

Have you always been a critic of the PAP Government?

Ha, ha. Nobody is born a PAP critic so I must have become one along the way. It would be true to say that LEE Kuan Yew creates his own enemies, through arrogance and unbridled power. I have written that LEE Kuan Yew is the 'most powerful man in the world or even in history' because he has so much total control over his entire population. You know as much, having been hauled up by his police, for essentially nothing. Doesn't that make you even more determined? Or changed you from pro-PAP to anti-PAP? Every time LEE Kuan Yew wrongs one person, he creates 100 critics or even oppositionists. If Dr CHEE Soon Juan had not been unfairly sacked from his university job, he would be there today, still teaching; and not a dedicated oppositionist. Power and abuse of power always create its own resistance which may one day succeed in toppling that power. Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

When did I turn anti-PAP? Let me see. I lost my last job in advertising as a copywriter on 10 Jul 92. I was still pro-PAP then and still thought LEE Kuan Yew a 'great man' and all that, thanks to the Straits Times' unending propaganda. Shortly after that, I discovered that LEE Kuan Yew had been keeping me under audio-visual surveillance since I was a teen or even earlier and was releasing all this information to his entire crony system from Straits Times journalists and editors to even foreign journalists and politicos in order to embarrass me and as a publicity stunt [a kind of reality show before there were reality shows] purely to make himself famous, to self-aggrandise and to put on a command performance for the edification of his international audience, especially the Americans. Then I got angry, rightly so, and started to hit back. The whole story is more convoluted than this but this is the essence in summary.

In fact, before 1992, I had sent a few suggestions through snail mail [no pc then and the Internet was new] to then Prime Minister LEE Kuan Yew, suggestions ranging from redoing the National Anthem [which was slightly reworked subsequently] to a proposal for Block Managers to manage every HDB block much like a condo manager manages a condo; to developing Dirty Bombs [I coined this term and came up with the concept of radioactive bombs for Singapore's defence -- now it is a worldwide concern and probably only a matter of time before one goes off somewhere]. I also suggested to him that voting age be reduced to 18 like in some countries but that those below 18 also be given a vote, such that their vote be exercised by the mother, first, and for the second child, exercised by the father, and so on in the world's first truly universal suffrage. This idea was bastardised by LEE Kuan Yew years later [he never acknowledged any of my letters] as giving some privileged class of Singaporeans TWO votes instead of one, that is, the class most likely to vote PAP!

So from pro-PAP, I reacted to LEE Kuan Yew's shameless, self-serving puiblicity stunt telecasting me and my family live 24 hours a day, to anti-PAP. Then, I cast about for ways to react to LEE Kuan Yew's 24 hour a day live telecast of me and my family. I soon found a way. Mr LING How Doong of the opposition SDP had won the Bukit Gombak Consituency in 1991 and Dr CHEE, SDP Secretary-General, was serving as a manager in the Gombak Town Council. I started faxing suggestions to him. One suggestion was to do a political (actually, more a corporate) video, which he subsequently did but which drew a blanket ban on political videos from the kiasu PAP government.

I not only faxed suggestions to Dr CHEE but also to Mr J B JEYARETNAM who was NCMP from 1997 to 2001. Those were years of faxed suggestions. These suggestions could not and did not hurt LEE Kuan Yew nor diminish his power in the least but he and his ISD henchmen took the exaggerationism or kiasuism to the extreme and hit back at me.

Around 2001, I also started writing articles published on the Internet. I had bought a pc by then. The website is Singaporeans For Democracy, now no longer online. I wrote some 61 articles published in SFD. [In my"RH: Robert's Almost-Complete Archive of Works" Book of Essays 1 to 61]. There were no blogs then, although there were Home Pages.

One of those essays was to lead to the police arriving at my door.

In 2001, you became the first person in Singapore to be arrested for posting an article on the internet. What happened?

On 16 Nov 01, about 1115am, 8 serious, stern men rang my doorbell and came into my flat. They were ASP SOH Kien Peng, SI Jeffrey KUEK, SSS Simon LEE, SSS SEOW Chong Teck, SS TAN Soon Teck, SGT Eddie TOH, SS Leslie LEONG and SGT IRWAN. They quickly searched my entire flat, asked for my computer and took it as well as every single computer-related device from printer, floppy disks, CD-Rs, modem to cables. They then took me away to the CID Police Cantonment Complex. Being arrested and having all my entire computer system confiscated was quite unnerving and disconcerting. The handcuffs were locked on so tight I suffered a pinched nerve in my left wrist for weeks after.

At the CID, I was questioned for hours during which I dictated my statement/s to ASP SOH Kien Peng. In my statement/s, I described the years of radiation attacks from the flat above mine, from the time I lived in a 5-room HDB flat in Block 203 Bukit Batok, to my current Guilin View flat. I finished the statement/s around 1405pm, pleading Not Guilty in summation to the charge of posting in soc.culture.singapore my article entitled "Break the Law and get away with it, like PAP", posted 19 Oct 01.

Link to article

This article is also posted in Singaporeans For Democracy.

After my statement/s were recorded, edited and signed, I was taken to a cell where I was to spend the night on the bare floor. The next morning, I was driven to the Subordinate Courts where I awaited my turn for the judge to deal with me. The long queue was made up of many foreigners. Obviously, many foreigners run afoul of the law in Singapore and this could be one reason why the judicial system is so harsh -- they are mostly foreigners anyway and most could not even speak English. We accused were processed like an assembly line, with each one getting very limited time or attention. Singapore efficiency, if you like.

When my turn came to plead, I tried to tell the judge that I wanted to claim trial and ask for release on bail, since my offence is probably bailable, being merely a posting in a newsgroup. She was impatient, there being about 100 accused to process that morning before her lunch. I spoke into the microphone that she should not treat me on the basis of "once a madman always a madman" but was sent to IMH for observation anyway.

In IMH, the doctors see us about once a week, so it took about 3 weeks before the doctor assigned to me could finalise his report, which is "Fit for Trial", which is another way of saying that I was not mentally ill, that I could stand trial.

The charge against me was "incitement to violence" for asking voters to enter the polling stations without authorisation, just like PM GOH Chok Tong, Deputy PMs LEE Hsien Loong and Tony TAN and MP VASOO had done in the 1997 General Election and which the Attorney General CHAN Sek Keong [now Chief Justice] had refused to prosecute and who had written an unbelievable explanation that these 4 PAP men were not committing an offence, in his opinion, see

Unauthorised persons inside polling stations: Attorney General's letter

That this was a trumped-up charge, with very serious jail terms, is evident to all: if the AG deems unauthorised entry into polling stations by the 4 men legal, then my asking people to also do the same should also be legal, so where's my crime?

In any event, the Long Statement I made to ASP SOH, describing the years of radiation attacks on me, plus the biological attacks of putting virulent flu germs into our food/drink thus causing us [myself, my son and my little niece] to be very sick to the point of pneumonia, deterred LEE Kuan Yew from proceeding with the trial. So, at trial after I was released from IMH, LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen put on an elaborate wayang show in which the prosecutor DPP HAN Ming Kuang read the psychiatrist's report on me, but only the old historical parts and not the conclusion which is that I am fit for trial, to show that I was unfit for trial! Who would you believe the truth of my mental state? A DPP and the Straits Times or the psychiatrist who saw me? [I was told beforehand by ASP SOH that the charge would be dropped and that once released from court, I was to avoid reporters and leave the courthouse]. So I left the Subordinate Courts, collected my entire computer system back from the CID and went home without giving any interviews to reporters].

DPP HAN took so long to read all the old historical parts that the judge told him testily to stop, saying, "You can take it that I have read the report." but DPP HAN continued anyway. The next day, I knew why. He was reading, not for the court, but for the Straits Times reporters present. The next day's Straits Times carried a large report of DPP HAN's readings to give the impression that I was mad and that was why the charge was dropped. At that time, HAN Fook Kwang was Editor [now Chief Editor I believe] of the Straits Times. Note the similarity in names as in the Chinese custom of naming siblings or close relations. They are probably related and LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen, out to destroy my credibility, one reading copiously in court while the other took care to publish the read parts prominently. More attempts to destroy my credibility, and their modus operandi, are captured in this soc.culture.singapore newsgroup posting.

Barely eight months later, following two other online postings, the police twice visited you in your home.

As the above post shows, I was arrested twice more after that. One was on Wed 3 Jul 02 when ASP GOH Tat Boon, SI Kamaruzaman GAFFAR, Sgt IRWAN Abdul Rahman and S/SGT LEE Lioh Ying came to my flat to seize my computer again. Sgt IRWAN was the same man who came with ASP SOH the last time, so he went straight to my pc. I persuaded ASP GOH not to take everything, since everything had been seized and examined before and still carried the police sticker labels. So he seized only the pc tower. This has still not been returned today probably because the case is still not closed, I believe. This is the case of "criminal defamation" which carries a considerable jail term.

However, LEE Kuan Yew's enthusiasm for court cases against me had considerably chilled, since he realised that once in court and sworn to tell the truth, on pains of perjury, which is a serious offence, I would tell all about his publicity stunt light-torture of me, which many, including judges, would already know about and know to be true. Of course, he can still find judges to do his will and bidding but it would mean very personal interference from him and this could open him to complications since judges may talk, migrate, give an interview or even write a book or even a blog!. You never know. So kiasuism won again and LEE Kuan Yew never took me to court nor gave me a chance to testify in court for posterity.

ASP GOH simply stopped calling me or investigating my case and ignored my phone calls and faxes to him to return my pc tower. But LEE Kuan Yew was not one to leave critics alone. He had to tit for every tat. It's all kiasuism again. So, on 26 Jul 02, 2 non-ASP policemen came to my flat just as I was sitting down to dinner and arrested me yet again. They were Sergeant SEOW Chow Chin and Corporal Wandi. The entire police procedures book was ignored and I was handcuffed, driven to Jurong Police HQ and locked in a cell. Then, without even an interview with an Investigating Officer, I was driven to IMH where the doctor, despite strenuous objections from me, admitted me. Since doctors there see patients only about once a week, it took me 8 days to get out. I append a handwritten note I faxed to Dr CHEE Soon Juan of the SDP:


To: Dr CHEE Soon Juan, Mr LING How Doong
From: Robert HO

Recap: On Wed 3 July 2002, ASP GOH Tat Boon and 3 others came to my apartment to seize my computer and to serve upon me an Order to attend an investigation. Which I duly attended at the CID, the next day 4 Jul 2002 from about 10am to about 12.30pm.

It was a 'proper' seizure and Order served.

An 'improper' arrest:

However, on 26 Jul 2002, 2 policemen of low rank came to my apartment just as I was sitting down to dinner at about 8pm and arrested me.

I asked them "On what charge?" They did not say. I asked them for an arrest warrant. They did not have one. This is most 'improper'.

I had no choice but to follow them. They said they were from the Bukit Batok NPP.

I was taken to a cell in Jurong Police HQ and spent several hours there, locked up.

Then, without even a meeting with an IO [Investigation Officer], I was taken away to Woodbridge Hospital [IMH] at about 5am 27 July 2002.

There, I stayed for 8 days till my discharge on Sat 3 August 2002.

I know that under Section 32 of the Mental Disorders and Treatment Act; and under Section 43 [1] [b] of the Prisons Act, I may be detained in a mental hospital provided I am a threat to the safety of others or myself.

This is clearly not the case in my case.

So who ordered my arrest and incarceration in IMH? And on what charge? There is no basis whatsoever. I still do not know now.

Worse still, it seems that in future, this unlawful confinement may be enacted again and again. All it takes is for some anonymous order from somebody and I will find myself locked up and incommunicado.

It is a frightening power that has no safeguards or checks.

5 Aug '02
Robert HO


And more recently, in a case that I believe has gone unreported, you were arrested and detained for distributing flyers at a shopping mall.

On 27 Feb 05, I went to WestMall Shopping Centre to photocopy and distribute copies of a document alleging that LEE Kuan Yew rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election. I was arrested, locked in a police station cell [Clementi Police Division HQ] and then driven to IMH where it took me about a dozen days to get out, again because the doctors see patients only once a week mainly. This case closed with a formal written Warning on 20 Feb 06. My entire computer system, a new one from the pc tower ASP GOH seized, which is still with him, was returned to me.

Why do I keep getting entangled with the law? To understand this, you have to know, as many Singaporeans and foreigners already know, that LEE Kuan Yew had been lightly torturing me since shortly since around 1992. This consists of mostly [still ongoing and happening even now] sleep deprivation lasting from minutes [thereby leading to unrestful sleep on being awakened up to several times a night], to hours-long sleep deprivation. This is done with the CIA TWS [Through Wall Surveillance] devices, from the flat above. Why? Because, as one ISD man said to his colleague years ago at the NUSS swimming pool where I was with my family, "It's a power play". Sleep deprivation is a dangerously serious form of aggression. Lab mice denied sleep die after just two and a half weeks. Bodily organs and the immunity systems are also weakened, increasing the likelihood of cancers and other diseases.

Were you an ex-journalist? Where?

Hardly. I was a night sub-editor from late 1975 to early 1976 in The Straits Times. I went mentally ill around that time and didn't recover until 1979, the illness most proably due to the stress of doing 2 jobs at the same time [teaching by day] and not sleeping regularly or enough so the present dozen years of sleep deprivation light torture is potentially havoc to my health. None of my ancestors or family have been mentally ill so this reinforces the possibility that irregular and insufficient sleep is the cause. Once I was discharged from IMH in 1979, I went straight back to work and a normal life and have only had to eat medicine on an outpatient basis after that. Note that all the incarceration episodes of the police arresting me and putting me in IMH didn't last more than about a dozen days or so, except for the 3-week episode of court-ordered observation around 16 Nov 01. If I were really mentally ill, I wouldn't have been released in about a dozen days each time! The doctors would be too kiasu to dare risk their reputation in releasing a patient who is not fit to be released or who is still unstable.

In the Straits Times, I occasionally witnessed the 'Upstairs' control of news and I have written this in my "Letter to Blair" article, in my Archive. We all know that the Straits Times practises what they euphemistically call "nation building" but the main quarrel many of us have with this rigid and total control of the media is not whether nation building should be done or not or whether it is right for media to do this. There is a deeper issue and this is about Truth and Falsehood. Truth and Falsehood are often separated only by a thin line and that is why we talk about Half-Truths. In one of my quotes in my Archive, I wrote that "LEE Kuan Yew is adept at turning half-truths into whole lies" and it is not just a neat aphorism, it captures the fact that sometimes, very little separate a Truth from an UnTruth or Lie. So, the Straits Times should, like a court witness, always tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth. As an eyewitness to history. It is not about nation building but about Truth.

There is also the insidious effect of Time. If a newspaper suppresses a fact or a piece of news one day, it is not too bad. But when it consistently suppresses similar facts, over time, this becomes a total manipulation of the readers' mind. So, over time, even innocuous news suppression, or a slight 'slant' to the news, or a slight 'spin' take on huge dimensions in an unforgiveable attempt at nothing less than brainwashing.

How do you rate the performance of PM Lee Hsien Loong so far?

To understand LEE Hsien Loong's performance, you have to consider the advantages he inherited from his father and GOH Chok Tong and the challenges facing him. In a way, it is unfair to expect too much from LEE Hsien Loong because the challenges he faces today are the left over unsolved problems that his father and GOH did not or more likely, could not solve. It stands to reason that if his father and GOH could solve those problems, they would have done so already. So, many of the problems that remain for LEE Hsien Loong are intractable ones. However, every new leader faces the same situation, in every country, so LEE Hsien Loong cannot excuse himself for not solving them.

He faces another obstacle. His father. LEE Kuan Yew is even more active now than say, during GOH's time. There is a sense that he wants to set everything in stone, to so cast Singapore with rigid policies that long after he has become non-sentient, Singapore will still continue as though he is still in control, shaping events. Every person in power wants to shape his state according to what he thinks fit and LEE Kuan Yew is no exception. But the only way is to shape institutions, not direct policies.

If you shape an institution, that institution can go on to evolve policies to fit any new circumstances. If you cast policies in stone, policies are quickly outdated and become irrelevant or counterproductive especially so with the modern speed of change. The faster things change, the more you need institutions and not direct policies. So it is always best to leave behind strong institutions. What are some of these? Free and fair elections for example. An independent judiciary. A critical press unafraid to investigate and spotlight governmental wrongdoings. A Parliament of independent-thinking MPs that is not today's rubberstamp Yes Men. Cabinet colleagues of diverse backgrounds who follow very different Muses. An Opposition that is free to challenge the government's ideas and policies.

On all of these, LEE Kuan Yew has failed, failed, failed. He has corrupted every single institution in the land. This is his greatest failure. He did not have the wisdom to see where corrupted institutions will lead. He has created a system that needs him at the top to continue running. Once he becomes non-sentient, LEE Hsien Loong either becomes another LEE Kuan Yew, or he will find that One Man Rule or Top Down Rule cannot function. So, either LEE Kuan Yew reverses his entire life's doings or else he better hope that LEE Hsien Loong turns out to be close enough like him. But then, remember that LEE Kuan Yew has already solved all the easy problems and only the hard ones remain. Thus, LEE Hsien Loong will not have an easy time.

LEE Kuan Yew once boasted to a foreign journalist, "If people don't fear me, then I am meaningless." This has led other sharp observers to note that LEE Kuan Yew's rule is "...only thinly disguised Rule By Decree" and that he has imposed a "Fearocracy". Make no mistake, LEE enjoys flaunting his power and abusing his power to force 'solutions' on people, like the recent publicly administered 'breaking the head' of pilot Captain Ryan GOH by LEE who pointedly revealed some highlights of GOH's private family life.

LEE Kuan Yew ruled during a time when the world was simple and straightforward. LEE Hsien Loong now faces a far different world than the one his father lived through. My prediction: LEE Hsien Loong will falter once his father is no longer around. The elder LEE left not a single viable institution intact in his haste to dismantle everything that got in his way. Simply put, if you create a system where you must have a LEE Kuan Yew in charge to function, then the moment a non-LEE Kuan Yew comes along, even if he is a son, things unravel. That is why I say, leave behind strong institutions, not a strongman.

To answer your question directly, I think LEE Hsien Loong won't last long either through disease relapse of cancer or some such. God loves playing games, too, and has already given him an albino and an autistic son, such odds being many millions to one unless you prefer to take the simplest explanation that God, too, loves games! Take it as divine retribution for LEE Kuan Yew's unashamedly eugenics policies!

In this year's 2006 General Election, the PAP averaged 66.6% of the votes but in LEE Hsien Loong's very own GRC, he despite his cachet and his Father's dominating presence, got only 66.14%. This despite running against 6 neophyte no-hopers nobody has ever heard of and who the PAP boasted "will lose their deposits"! LEE Hsien Loong won't last loong!

You seem to display a particular affinity in delving into the psyche of Lee Kuan Yew. What is your fascination with the Minister Mentor?

I fought him for a dozen years. In those dozen years, I have come to fear him, ridicule him, expose his failings and wrongdoings, all of which are now in written form in thousands of postings in soc.culture.singapore and elsewhere on the wonderful thing called the Internet.

When I first began writing anti-PAP articles, I was careful about defamation lawsuits, now, I couldn't care less. LEE Kuan Yew, by committing crimes against me and my family members for a dozen years, has lost the moral right to apply the law to me since he has broken the law himself every day, sometimes even dozens of times a day, for a dozen years, against me and my family.

Nowadays, I have the luxury of ranting and raving against LEE Kuan Yew, restrained only by the facts and the Truth and my credibility.

Most still have to be careful but the Internet is spawning a freedom to think, associate and opine. For example, you can read a blog and leave an anonymous comment. That comment may be a sentence or a whole essay. Can LEE Kuan Yew clamp down on commenters? I think not. Can LEE Kuan Yew even take bloggers to court? Maybe today but it gets less and less likely as the Internet Age progresses. Already, there are proxies and encrypted communications that allow anonymous postings. If the PAP tries to wipe out blogs and Internet postings, all these will simply go underground. Then, there is email. The PAP cannot look into every email account to stamp out criticisms. For persistent emailers like me, it can quickly establish my identity and charge me but it cannot do this to the occasional critic. It is so easy to write and forward an email that it is ridiculous to treat it as equivalent to an essay meant for publication. That essay may be more formal but emails are often rough and thoughtless -- can you take the same stance on both? The law courts will not be able to handle the load!

Do you think that Singapore will become a more open society with the passing of LKY?

Definitely. I cannot wait for LEE Kuan Yew to die. He has committed and still committing so many crimes against me and my family and property that I will cheer his death. LEE Kuan Yew is from a different era. That man cannot even type, which primary schoolkids today all can. He still reads only printed paper documents, not a computer monitor. That is how backward he is. Can such a man run a 21st century country? No way! Besides, there are more university graduates today than there were people in Singapore when LEE Kuan Yew became PM. He is a relic, a kind of fossil from the past, alive long past his time. The sooner he goes the better.

You have been alleging on numerous postings that the PAP had rigged the Cheng San GRC results in GE 1997. Yet, you have not been sued. How do you get away with this?

Because it is true and I can prove it. My eyewitness is Mr David DUCLOS, a Singaporean eurasian and a Catholic. He has emailed me, then confirmed in person to my wife and I what he had seen and subsequently, confirmed on the phone to Dr CHEE Soon Juan what he wrote. Note that the police arrested me several times but never for my allegations of LEE Kuan Yew criminal attacks using TWS equipment from the flat above. Neither has he arrested or sued me for my allegations of his election rigging. Instead, he chose 2 other charges, the first for 'incitement to violence' and the second for 'criminal defamation'. Never for my allegations of his criminal attacks from the flat above or my allegations of his election rigging. He is afraid the truth will out and it is slowly outing. I have said before that if a criminal stops after a few crimes, he will usually get away with it but when he keeps committing the same crimes again and again, sooner or later he will luck out. LEE Kuan Yew's luck ran out long ago, in fact, the moment Mr DUCLOS emailed me. DUCLOS is heaven's way of evening out right and wrong.

With the view that the Government is finding it increasingly difficult to stifle, or even manage, political expression on the internet, what are your thoughts on Singapore for 2007 and beyond?

2007. A new year with all the promises of another year. Man is probably the only animal with a deep sense of time. Animals probably live out their entire lives triggered by the seasons or their hormones. Man alone have a sense of time, to plot and plan for the future, reminisce the past and recognise that the future can be moulded by his own efforts. That what we do today can shape tomorrow.

What will 2007 bring? Of this, we can be certain: 2007 will bring exciting new technologies that will entrench blogs like this and free Singaporeans even more as they start their own blogs. Many will discover that they need not even write much or anything at all. For example, aggregator blogs like Intelligent Singaporean are doing a good job of collating excellent blogs and important news articles and putting them all in one convenient click of the mouse.

I once wrote in one of my articles that 'historians of the future will probably divide human history into pre-Internet and Internet Ages, much like we currently divide history into BC and AD'; so important is the advent of the Internet, transforming human society, shaping lives and creating communities of the mind. Every morning, when I switch on my pc, I have a delicious sense of anticipation, that the day will bring forth some remarkable poetry from Xenoboy or sharp insights from Yawning Bread. Or that some news article will prove that the PAP is only human and very fallible, ha, ha, despite the unrelentingly one-sided portrayal by its controlled media [I once wrote an article entitled "The (PAP) Cult of Infallibility"]. Rarely do I swtich off disappointed.

For me, and for probably a million other Singaporeans, we are building a Singapore Community of the Mind. It is a true community by any definition. We share news, information, views, opinions; and argue, debate and dissect events of the day or issues of tomorrow. In other words, we interact, like any true community, Yet this community is still fragile and threatened by proposed new laws that tighten the already tight noose around online free thought and free speech, proposed by people who cannot understand the value of debate and discussion and who see in every criticism, an attempt to dethrone them.

One of the reasons why LKY and his PAP fear blogs is because of their very quality. The best Singaporean bloggers are astute, perceptive and highly intelligent, which is more than you can say for LEE Kuan Yew, LEE Hsien Loong and their PAP Ministers. The best of us can analyse and articulate far better than Them. That is the main reason why They want to shut us down. The best Singaporean bloggers are real Thought Leaders and Political Analysts and incisive Social Commentators. Do you have any Ministers who are as intelligent? Not a single one. George Yeo tries to write a blog but his efforts are pitiful. So are the efforts of the other PAPs.

On the Internet, it is not your position or job title that matters, it is what you write, which means what you think or can think. The Internet is a level playing field for all, PAPs and Others alike. If you can write and analyse intelligently, you will have an audience, if you can't, nobody reads you or are convinced or impressed by you. Thus, LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong fear blogs, not because they are rubbish or lies as alleged but because they are brilliantly argued and extremely well thought out. Some bloggers will actually make better Ministers than the present Cabinet. So LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong's fear of blogs is the primary fear of superior minds, a fear that has dogged power holders from ancient history. A fear that they cannot lead Thought as well as the best bloggers can. A fear of better solutions, better thinking and better ideas better expressed. LEE Kuan Yew fears blogs and the Internet, rightly because they allow free Speech and free Thoughts.

He also fears blogs because although they are fleeting and ephemeral, often only superficially written and read, often taking off from facts and articles in mainstream media, blogs can also be lasting and permanent, and therefore a record that future historians can mine for valuable clues to a society and state's preoccupations. LEE Kuan Yew would of course, prefer that historians only read his lying memoirs and his equally lying PAP media so blogs present a challenge to his always trying to have the last word in everything. Blogs present an alternative version of reality which challenges the artificial reality of PAP mainstream media. Additionally, if there is such a thing as a National IQ, blogs promise to raise that IQ, so LEE would rather that we remain stupid and therefore docile, fed lies and propaganda and swallowing it all. It is not surprising that, as one PAP MP was shocked to discover, "more than 80% of blogs are against the PAP government". That is nothing strange. It is just a natural reaction from the mainstream media's daily lies and spins and the total disservice they commit upon us. A new generation has discovered the power of the written word, the artful video and the sublime podcast. The National IQ is rising and fast. LEE would rather that we return to the old status quo in which no change is possible or tolerated. He is desperately tryng to drag us all back into the past, to an era where he always had the last word in everything and no dissent or criticism is possible, no alternative views are allowed. He always had a fear of free thinking, preferring that we instead think along lines he sets. Having said that, it is also an exaggerated fear.

Do you think this "exaggerated fear" permeates the PAP Government and its policies?

LEE Kuan Yew is the master exaggerator. All his life, he has exaggerated his achievements and the difficulties he faced. This exaggerationism is now entrenched into PAP methodology and so every online critic has to be silenced, by hook or by crook. His entire government applies this exaggerationism as its primary philosophy. When you exaggerate, you make yourself more heroic in proportion, the molehills you encounter become mountains, and your adversary or critic far more dangerous to you than they really are or were. You also overkill, which is either trying to be over successful or trying so hard that ultimately, the result may not even be worth the effort or the sacrifice -- or things and people sacrificed -- and much of the peoples' legitimate interests have been sacrificed unnecessarily due to this need to overtry, overkill and overdo.

In policying, exaggerationism means that you must always save a huge, vast sum for a rainy day that will never come. It means that you must create a fearful population forever afraid that tomorrow may never arrive and the sun may not rise. It means keeping a huge army for an invasion that will never happen. It means a perpetual prostituting to the Americans because they have the biggest army and economy. It means you must obsessively and relentlessly destroy every political opponent, no matter how insignificant. It means you must destroy this burgeoning online community because a populace is easier to control and manipulate if it is fragmented and divided [Divide and Conquer] and the online community promises to gel too many into a community not led by the PAP.

The thinking behind dictators is that communities of any kind are bad for their power and exercise of power. They would prefer their populace to be atomised into lone individuals or families because without a united front, they cannot be dethroned. Thus, all religious groups are closely watched because they are also true communities with leaders and many followers who listen to these leaders, meaning that they may not also listen to the PAP. This is one reason why the Catholic Church in Singapore was targetted in 1987-88 in the infamous so-called "Marxist Conspiracy" in which 22 totally innocent people were arrested and jailed without trial, accused of subversion to bring down the government.

Churches are communities and they are often rich, often owning multi-million dollar churches and they are pretty big communities sometimes. This exaggerated fear of groups or communities has led to the deliberate prevention and control of all societies in Singapore. The rules for registering any society of any kind, even a chess club, are strict and allow for the control of that society by the PAP. Thus, nothing is left to chance. LEE Kuan Yew prefers his entire population to be atomised into tiny individuals or families who do not communicate with one another or form a community. He would rather they simply go to work, come home to a tiny atomised family life and never interact with others. And he has succeeded in this. This is another aspect of his exaggerationism.

There is a more familiar word than exaggerationism: kiasuism. I have merely coined a new word so that you see it better when I reveal the local, very familiar, very understandable equivalent. In this, LEE Kuan Yew is once again, uninventive and uncreative as usual. He merely applied kiasuism, of which we Singaporeans are all guilty to differing degrees, to new heights and new lows.

So no true understanding of LEE Kuan Yew, his PAP or the government can be achieved without understanding kiasuism. The success and failure of LEE Kuan Yew and his PAP is kiasuism.

Kiasuism explains everything. From why the social welfare benefits are so meagre to why the state reserves are so huge to why the need for a huge army and defence spending to why the obsession with destroying even small oppositionists to shutting down Mr Brown to jailing bloggers to forever trying to increase government profits in every way imaginable to cheating in the 1997 Cheng San GRC elections to deny the tiny Workers Party a small electoral success of 5 parliamentary seats. Read my blog, "I came, I saw, I solved it".

In 2007, if LEE Kuan Yew is still sentient, this kiasuism will be even more evident as he tries to stamp-mould this kiasuism permanently into the entire Singapore state before he becomes non-sentient. He will lose because he is on the wrong side of technology, history and the progress of the the human race.

[End]

Robert HO's Almost-Complete Archive of Works

Posted by Martyn See at 12:00 PM 1 comments Sunday, January 07, 2007

RH MicroStories

Story 1, titling right to Debbie.
Title by Debbie :


My former classmate has more letters after his name than anybody I know or heard of. He is a brain surgeon at Singapore General Hospital. We met recently in the KopiTiam foodcourt at SGH.

“Good to see you, man,” I cried, “Big Time Brain Surgeon!”

We then sat down after the greetings, me to my laksa, and he, to his wonton mee. I watched his hands that hold the power of life and death in surgeries go through the motions of eating wonton mee. They remind me of a concert pianist’s hands. Strong, yet supple. After swallowing the first few very satisfying mouthfuls of my laksa, I popped a question that has sometimes tugged in my mind.

“When you were an intern doing night shifts, did you ever see any supernatural things?” I asked.

“Like ghosts, you mean?” he smiled.

“Yah, after all, lots of people die in hospitals and all that…”

“No, I must confess. Never saw any ghosts. But I did come across a fairly recent case that has never faded from my mind.

“Her name was Grace. She had a walloping big brain tumour, the biggest I had ever come across in my 20 years as a brain surgeon.”

“You operated?” I asked, my attention drawn.

“Not at first,” Prof Ben Kwek said, spooning another wonton. “First, I tried shrinking the tumour with Lucran injections. And that was when I discovered how strange the case was.”

“What do you mean?”

“That tumour in her brain, I am now convinced, was a form of sentient life!”
I stared at him, suddenly oblivious to the chatter and hum of a busy foodcourt.
“You mean the tumour was a kind of intelligence?” I was incredulous.

“Hey, don’t quote me or I will lose my job or be referred to the Institute of Mental Health,” Prof Kwek laughed.

Continuing, he said, “But I have thought about it a great deal and that seems the most scientific explanation.”

My jaw had dropped with the first bombshell and now remained wide open. My tau pok, poised between my chopsticks, forgotten.

“Well, to begin at the beginning, Grace was referred to me by a GP. She had been complaining of headaches and a feeling that there was someone, I repeat, not something but someone, in her brain!”

I kept quiet, not knowing what to say.

“Well, as I was saying,” Prof Kwek said, looking decidedly sheepish and even apologetic, “she came to me with this headache and I sent her for MRI scans…”
“Magnetic Resonance Imaging?” I tried to sound knowledgeable.

“Yes, gives an accurate computerised image, even in slices and sections.

“So the MRI showed this humongous tumour, occupying a big chunk of her brain, near where the Old Brain stalk is.

“Besides the headaches, Grace claimed that sometimes, she could feel the tumour communicating with her.”

“Like talking to her?” I asked sheepishly.

“Not so much that. Grace said that it only communicated ‘Wants’ and ‘Don’t Wants’. By that, she meant that if she wanted a drink of wine, for example, her tumour would strongly say, “Don’t Want!”

“So it was alive?” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Maybe. What is life? We are all composed of carbon molecules, with sprinklings of sodium, chlorine, hydrogen and oxygen molecules, etc, but if you take the same amounts of these elements and mix them up, no matter how you mix them up or try to catalyse them, you don’t get a living person.”

“So what is life?” I asked.

Ignoring the question as though he did not hear it, he thoughtfully continued, with a faraway look in his eyes, “Or, to put it another way, a body can be on life support system and the body is breathing, heart beating, lungs oxygenating, but the brain could be dead and therefore the life, is not there.”

I remembered the poised tau pok and now lifted it into my mouth.

“Did the Lucran injections work?” I enquired.

“That was what convinced me the tumour was a separate living thing. Grace told me her tumour had been trying to prevent her from drinking wine, of which she was fond, and each time she even thought about drinking wine, her tumour protested with powerful thoughts of “No, no, no!” But I didn’t really believe her until I tried to give her her first Lucran injection.

“I am now convinced that when the tumour realised that the Lucran injection would shrink it, by narrowing the blood vessels feeding it, it would die and therefore fought against being given the Lucran.

“I had had the syringe all ready with the Lucran inside when Grace swung her right hand and knocked it flying out of my hand across the room. She immediately used her left hand to restrain her right hand, as though one hand was controlled by the tumour and the other still by her.

“It happened twice more before I could inject her. It was damned strange.
“Later, I decided to try a small experiment. I asked her to draw a circle with her left hand while simultaneously drawing a square with her right hand and guess what?
“She could draw a perfect circle with one hand while simultaneously drawing a perfect square with the other. Damned strange. I don’t think any ordinary or normal person can do this.”

“Did the Lucran injections work?” I asked, not knowing what else to ask.
“No, each time the Lucran shrank the blood vessels to the tumour, new ones grew almost immediately. The MRI scans showed that. Damned strange again. This had never happened before to all my other patients on Lucran.

“So I operated. I took out the tumour. Sent it for biopsy and the results came back. It was composed of a kind of brain cells I had never seen before and neither had any of the other doctors. I sent samples to research hospitals all over the world and nobody there has a clue what kind of brain cells this tumour was.”

I digested this information even as I was digesting my laksa.

“Where’s Grace now?” I asked.

“Oh, sad case. The operation was a success but shortly after that, she was found dead with a stab wound in her heart, self-inflicted apparently. Inflicted with her right hand.”


3 Mar 06, edited 5 Mar 06, edited 6 Mar 06

………………………………………………………..

Story 2, titling right to Yan Ting.
Title by Yan Ting :


The expansive Singapore Botanical Gardens is greened by lush tropical trees, shrubs and flowers everyday and peopled by joggers and relaxed crowds especially on Sundays, where many maids picnic on their hard-earned day-off. I often wander there with my digital camera, snapping shot after shot of the landscapes mostly.
Then, once home, I would upload the images into my computer and file away the good takes while deleting the bad ones.

My favourite spot of all is a stretch of beautifully landscaped woods near the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid garden. [Vanda Miss Joaquim, an orchid, was picked as Singapore’s national flower years back. A joke goes that when the Director of the Singapore Tourism Board wanted to pick a national flower, he went to a flower vendor and chose a beautiful orchid. The vendor wanted $10 for a stalk, which is daylight robbery, if you ask me. The Director refused to pay, telling his aide that, “The Vendor Must Be Joking!” He later found out that that was pretty close to the real name of the orchid and that was how Vanda Miss Joaquim became the National Flower of Singapore].

Although this had never happened to me, I have heard a strange story about this corner of the Gardens. Apparently, it first happened to a Chinese-Singaporean man there with his family. He was happily snapping pictures of his two children and then uploading them to his laptop computer when he saw in 4 of his photos, a young Indian woman caught in the photos together with his 2 children.

There was nobody else besides his 2 children when he took the photos.

Certainly not an Indian woman. It was a ghost.

He emailed the 4 photos to the Botanical Gardens, together with a short description that said that he was very sure that there was no Indian woman in his camera frame when he took the shots and that therefore it must be a ghost.

The Botanical Gardens emailed back and said that there was no Indian woman in the 4 photos. What Indian woman was he talking about?

He then emailed them again and asked them to email back the 4 photos he had sent.

They did. He looked at the 4 jpegs and saw that, indeed, only his 2 children were in the photos. No Indian woman.

Then he checked his folder for the original 4 photos. The Indian woman was clearly there.

Thinking that there was some inexplicable computer glitch, he re-sent the 4 photos with the Indian woman.

Again, the Botanical Gardens replied that there was no Indian woman in the new set of 4 photos he sent.

Angry by now that he was beginning to seem like a nut case, he brought his entire laptop to the Botanical Gardens staff he had been emailing and proved that indeed, there was an Indian woman in his computer photos.

The staff, a youngish man, was a little cynical, probably thinking that this persistent man had been digitally removing and pasting the Indian woman back and forth and so on.

But his older colleague had been overhearing the conversation between the man and the staff and, with a strange look on her face, asked to look at the photos of the Indian woman.

“There was,” she said, “a robbery-murder some years back in which an Indian woman was killed, right in the area where the photos were taken.” That could have been her ghost captured in the photos.

The man was delighted at being proved right and to have caught a ghost on camera and showed it to all his friends.

The story did not end there. When the rumours circulated, many superstitious gamblers made their way to that corner of the Gardens to pray to the ‘powerful’ Indian woman ghost to ask for lucky numbers to punt in the lotteries.

I don’t know if her ghost was so obliging as to give winning lottery numbers but I myself did try to capture her on my digital camera.

Every time I visit the Botanical Gardens, I would make my way to that Vanda Miss Joaquim corner and snap away. Each time, I would immediately review my shot in the tiny LCD display to see if I had captured the ghost. Invariably, I would be disappointed. No Indian woman. The closest I got were some bright blotches in the photos. No Indian woman.

I sometimes pray to her and ask for lucky numbers to punt in the next draw. I haven’t won yet.

Maybe the next draw.


5 Mar 06
………………………………………………………..

Story 3, titling right to Kai Seng.
Title by Kai Seng :

Ticktockticktockticktock

There was an old man with no less than 16 clocks in his 4-room flat. I jest not. There are such people who would acquire 16 clocks and keep them all in one flat. And keep adjusting them regularly for accurate time, as clocks are wont to be a little off, either too fast or too slow.

Maybe he has a lot of time.

Maybe he has hit the big time.

And maybe it is time I tell you more about his clocks.

There are the big battery-operated analogue clocks hung high in his living room and kitchen.

There are the small battery analogue ones he has in every one of his bathrooms.
There are digital clocks in his bedrooms and study. These tell world-times, the calendar and even the temperature.

He has time on his hand, too, in the form of a digital watch, with even more functions, including stopwatch, countdown timer and data memory for dozens of names and telephone numbers.

But there is one clock he never displays, an old mechanical winding clock. This one, he keeps in a locked cupboard drawer. An antique clock he sometimes shows to friends, he having no wife or children.

It is rumoured that he winds up the clock unfailingly every day and that if he ever forgets to wind it and it stops, his life would also stop.

I know the son of one of his friends. He would sometimes tell me about this old man. One conversation with him I will never forget.

We were in camp for reservist training, being national servicemen, and we got to talking.

“Did you say that if his antique clock stops, he will die?” I asked.
“That’s what people say.”

“How old is this clock? If we know, then we will know when he was born or got the clock,” I asked.

“He never says.”

“But then, did he ever mention any event or people that will give a clue to how old he is?” I persisted.

“I don’t know. I remember once that he told my dad he experienced a big volcanic eruption that happened nearby in Indonesia,” my friend replied.

“There are so many. Which one?”

“My dad says he said the ‘Kaki Tua’ one,” he replied.

So I went to my computer and Googled “kaki tua volcanic eruption” obtaining this result :

Results 1 - 10 of about 206 for kaki tua volcanic eruption. (0.64 seconds)

I looked through the pages of results with some excitement, which faded as none of the results gave any exact indication of a “Kaki Tua volcanic erupton” or when it occurred.

Our reservist training over, we both left camp and went our separate ways to separate lives. Back to the workaday life that is the lot of us mortals who have to work to eat.

Then one day, I happened to be at the National Library, the old one since torn down, at Stamford Road. I had spent more time there during my schooldays than I spent on schoolwork. I suddenly remembered that once when I was there after school, I had trawled through some old micro-films of the old newspapers in Singapore and came across a report about the violent eruption of a volcano in Indonesia that darkened the skies over Singapore for days.

Krakatoa!

The name exploded into my mind with the impact of a bomb in a church.
I literally ran to my computer and, with trembling fingers, typed into Google: “krakatoa” and obtained :

Results 1 - 10 of about 959,000 for krakatoa [definition]. (0.25 seconds)

Krakatoa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Krakatoa (Indonesian name: Krakatau) is a volcano near the Indonesian island of Rakata in the Sunda Strait. It has erupted repeatedly, massively and with disastrous consequences throughout recorded history. The best known of these events occurred in late August, 1883.

The 1883 eruption ejected more than six cubic miles (25 cubic kilometres) of rock, ash, and pumice [1], and generated the loudest sound ever historically recorded by human beings — the cataclysmic explosion was distinctly heard as far away as Perth in Australia, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius. Atmospheric shock waves reverberated around the world. Near Krakatoa, according to official records, 165 villages and towns were destroyed and 132 seriously damaged, 36,419 people died, and many thousands were injured by the eruption, mostly in the tsunami which followed the explosion.

Was that the 1883 eruption the old man mentioned?

That would make him something like possibly even up to 200 years old!

From what my friend told me, the old man could go about his flat, even going out to buy groceries, cook, etc, in other words, seemed no more than about 70 years old!
A few years later, again in reservist camp, I met my friend again. I excitedly told him about my discovery. He was nonplussed. He said that the old man had died and that his father was one of those who went to his flat to see off all his belongings and effects, etc.

“Did he see the clock?” I asked breathlessly.

“Yes, my dad said it was quite an ordinary clock except that it had an hour hand, a minute hand, a second hand and what seemed like an alarm-set hand except that the clock had no alarm!

“The clock was still running except for that strange fourth hand, which had stopped. I don’t know to make of it.”

I have never since looked at clocks quite the same way after that.



5 Mar 06

………………………………………………………….

Story 4, titling right to Debbie.
Title by Debbie :


“BABY FACE”, a synopsis for a possible movie script

My friend’s brother was a retired Physics teacher formerly at Anglo-Chinese School [Independent]. He liked to tell the story of his former Physics Lecturer in the National University of Singapore Faculty of Mathematical Sciences.

That lecturer, whom his students nicknamed Baby Face, was apparently a most brilliant mind. He had graduated from Beijing University at the age of 15 with a First Class Honours in Mathematics and then went on to write, or rather, re-write some aspects of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, challenging, expanding and even controverting Einstein’s theses on Time. His Papers,

Beyond Einstein 1: Continuations to the Continuum;
Beyond Einstein 2: A Light Possibility to A New Gravity; and
Beyond Einstein 3: Time to Relook Time

were so far ahead of their time when first published, the entire academic world remained silent of comment for a full year before the first tentative accolades began, then swell, as if finding conviction and strength in numbers, until it was generally acknowledged that here, indeed, were true extensions of Einstein’s concepts.

Anyway, Einstein told us that time is not absolute, like a river of time flowing at constant speed only one way. He told us that time is relative and depends on the observer, where he is and how fast he is travelling relative to the object he is measuring against and its speed and position. For example, if a space ship can travel close to the speed of light, then its inhabitants will age far slower than people travelling at slow speeds. In other words, Time slows as you travel faster. And the closer you travel to the speed of light, the slower Time is for you and thus, you age far slower. That’s why even Time is relative.

But, brilliant as he was, Baby Face was not well liked by his students. He was often abstracted and did not look his students in the face or even at them. He would talk in a monotone, and his English was accented with a strong Northern Chinese accent. Thus, he could not really explain clearly to his students at NUS. He also gave the impression that he was not really interested in his students. Also, he was clearly hopeless in the academic politics that suffuse all universities. Thus, his career there would be short.

I once asked my friend about his brother’s lecturer, “If he could not politick, then why didn’t he ask for a post in research? That would be less political. After all, politics is inevitable. Put one man in a room and there is no politics. Put another one and politicking begins. It’s almost second nature.”

“He did,” replied my friend, “after he was heavily complained against by his own students, both in feedback forms and privately to Admin.”

“So what did he do?”

“He was given a project to commission an atomic clock for the varsity.”

“Sounds simple enough,” I said, “was he happy there?”

“Ah, this is where the plot thickens. Baby Face researched all the caesium clocks available then and concluded that there was an inherent defect in all of them that prevented true or what he called, Absolute Time Fidelity.

“I do not understand the math and neither did my Physics brother but apparently, he wrote to all the companies producing caesium clocks and asked them for their underlying concepts and, in an exchange of letters over 6 months, proved that all the concepts they used had an anomaly. Something he termed a One-Off Anomaly that prevented truly accurate timekeeping. In other words, there was a flaw in the mathematics of the caesium atomic behaviour. It was brilliant.”

“So we never bought an atomic clock?” I asked.

“Ah, this is where it gets interesting. Since nothing was good enough, Baby Face decided to build his own. After much justification and waiting, he got the research grants and spent a year struggling – even he had to struggle sometimes. I say this to avoid any misunderstanding that a genius finds everything easy. Sometimes, even a genius struggle and explore wrong paths before hitting upon the right solutions.

”He worked mostly alone. At first, he had several graduate students to help out but they dropped out one by one. He was not easy to work with. He was painfully shy with people and was intimidated in company. He also did not explain enough. Either that, or the things he was doing were so difficult and groundbreaking that his students were left far behind and lost. So, in the end, he worked alone.

“The last student to leave him mentioned to others that Baby Face was mad. He said that Baby Face once told him that it was possible to reverse Time, to make Time go backwards. A Field Effect that derived from his Paper Beyond Einstein 3: Time to Relook Time.

“Baby Face had said that Einstein had already proved that Time is relative and depends on position and speed. Therefore, if a special condition in the continuum can be created, a Null Point, he called it, within that Null Point, Time could actually go backwards when viewed from all the other points. And that Null Point could exist for a mathematical infinity.”

“Hmm,” I could only say, as all this was way beyond me, having only a Certificate In Education, Technical [Woodwork] from the then Teachers Training College. “Did he make his atomic clock finally?”

“No,” my friend said, “He worked so hard and with such intensity that he fell ill often during the project. He often worked weeks in a row without sleep, catching only the odd nap in his armchair. He became increasingly oblivious to his appearance, didn’t even bother to comb his hair, shave, change his clothes or, I believe, even bathe daily. He often ate Burger King burgers every day for months, the exact same takeaway orders brought back by his personal assistant. He was weird.

“Then, one day, he vomited over his assembly of wires, circuits and gas chamber. His Director had to order him to see a doctor and take a week off and to get some sleep.”
“Was he all right after that?”

“No, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, terminal stage, and the prognosis was he had only 6 months to live. Such are the vicissitudes of genius. Even nature, let alone Man, conspire to stifle it. Ah, jealous Man and even jealous Nature, that would not allow genius alone.

“But he outlived his prognosis by a long time, actually. From what I heard.

“For example, my brother bumped into him, literally, in a KTV lounge a year or so after he was diagnosed with the cancer and he was singing away lustily an Andy Lau song, “Defiant Laughter At The Sea” I think it was. No sign of throat cancer.”

“What was he doing in a KTV lounge?” I asked, “That doesn’t sound like Baby Face at all. After all, KTV is for the younger set.”

“Right. NUS had released him on full pay on compassionate grounds basically for him to live out his last months. But my brother did bump into him at that KTV lounge more than a year after that. He seemed well. No sign of throat cancer at all. Even singing “Defiant Laughter!”

“Where is he now?”

“Don’t know. The last time my brother saw him was years later, this time in Beijing. That would be well over 6 years since he left NUS and his atomic clock project. I believe the meeting was not accidental. That Baby Face deliberately chose to meet my brother. Anyway, my brother was part of a Physics Teachers Group Tour of Beijing University and when the Group came to the Physics Lab, he came face to face with Baby Face. My brother was struck by how well Baby Face looked. He looked younger and full of health. In fact, my brother said he looked 10 years younger.”

Then, my friend paused, as if struck by a thought. He was silent for a moment and then shook his head ever so slightly, as though dismissing the thought.

I did not see my friend again for some years. When we met again, as is inevitable in such a tiny city as Singapore, it was in Ngee Ann Shopping Centre in Orchard Road.

After the exchange of pleasantries, he suddenly remembered something and drew me aside and spoke excitedly, “You remember we talked about my brother and his former lecturer, Baby Face?”

“Yes,” I replied. How could one forget a story of a true life genius?

“My brother saw a picture of him on the Internet a few months ago. He looked about 10 years younger than when they met at Beijing University! Almost a teenager, in fact. My brother swore he could see acne on his face!

I almost recoiled physically from this revelation. Suddenly, everything my friend had told me about Baby Face sprang into my mind and I could almost remember word for word everything he had told me.

Continuing, my friend said, “You remember that Baby Face had told his last student once that Time could go backwards? What if he found a way to do it? During his experiments into his atomic clock. Maybe he diverted some of his project into creating his Field Effect, or whatever he called it? Maybe he succeeded and created his Null Point and with it, grew younger and younger every day? So, instead of dying from his throat cancer, he will now be about the age of a teenager, but with the mind of a 40 year old!”

Now, that is a lot of maybes for a former Woodwork teacher. I kept silent. Finally, I brought myself to say, “If that is so, wouldn’t he become a baby one day? Wouldn’t that be horrible?”

“I thought so, too. But my brother said maybe not. Baby Face is so brilliant that he may well have solved that problem, too! For example, he could have engineered Time so that he could live in a loop, so to speak, so that once he reached his boyhood again, he could jump back into his 20s and again begin living backwards!”

I must confess all this was getting a bit heady and I was feeling that I had had a glass too many of potent maotai. I kept silent.

“See,” he persisted excitedly, “it makes sense. All of us would live only once, forwards but Baby Face, with his genius, would live backwards but not only that, every time he reaches back to boyhood, he would, before he gets too young, get to his Null Point or whatever, and jump back into the future, as a young man – before he had throat cancer! See? It makes sense!”

I wasn’t so sure about what sense is any more. After that meeting, I lay on my bed thinking. That would indeed, as my friend said, make sense. Some sense. For example, it would explain why Baby Face is so brilliant – it’s because he is living and reliving all over again and like everything in life, you get better with practice. It’s what makes tennis champions like Sharapova. It would explain why he can graduate from Beijing University with a First Class Honours in Mathematics at 15. It would even explain why he has a youthful baby face. It would also explain why he had to keep near an advanced Physics lab so that he can do his Time jumps. Those were my last thoughts as sleep claimed me. When I woke the next day, I went about my mundane life as ever, living forwards as we mere mortals must do.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Author : Robert HO
Address: 28 Bukit Batok Street 52
#20-03 Guilin View
Singapore 659248
REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

Email : robert.ic019@gmail.com

Telephone : (65) 68989553
Handphone: (65) 90127417

This Draft completed 5 March 2006

If you like this story, or want to see others like it, please drop me an email. Please also forward this to Mr Steven Spielberg for his consideration. Thanks.


Story 5, titling right to Yan Ting.
Title by Yan Ting :



The Nobel Awards Committee had never seen such heated exchanges. Usually, it is a staid gathering of distinguished old men going through the mundane task of sieving through nominee papers and finally selecting the final ones for the awards. Not unlike a Human Resource Department of a large corporation choosing between job applicants.

Today was unusual.

At issue was the question whether a non-human entity can be bestowed a Nobel Prize.
“We cannot do things the usual old way any more,” said Olaf. “Ever since IBM’s computer, Deep Blue, beat Kasparov in chess, the human race had had to face the fact that a computer can be better at thinking, even if only a limited form of chess thinking.

“And today’s computers are thousands of times more powerful than Deep Blue. With the development of neuro-coding, computer programs can practically think like Man. Except better! There is no reason why we cannot give the Nobel Prize to Darwin 21.”

Darwin 21 is the latest computer program running on the new Hypercomputer Series, the successor to the 20th Century’s supercomputers. The 21 in “Darwin 21” refers to the 21st Century. Darwin 21 employs a new kind of computer program, termed “neuro-coding”. Neuro-coding was developed, paradoxically, not from computer science advances but from the field of biology.

Advances in biology had been rapid in the early years of the 21st Century, again paradoxically, in turn, thanks to computer science. The more complete understanding, access and manipulations of human genetic code, for example, owed a great deal to computers.

When the great supercomputers of the older era, the final years of the 20th Century, were used to understand, manipulate and study complex biological processes and human DNA, the science of biology, especially neuro-biology, made giant strides. This understanding, in turn, allowed great progress to be made in computer science. Thus, computer science advanced neuro-biology and neuro-biology advanced computer science, leading to a virtuous cycle that reinforced each other’s advances extremely rapidly until, in the early years of the 21st Century, the first hypercomputers were developed and the parallel advances in computer programming allowed for the development of neuro-coding.

Neuro-coding was a new computer programming language that mimicked the way the human brain works. Unlike the previous computer era of the 20th Century, neuro-coding used intuition, much like human intuition.

Where the old era’s computers and computer programmes were essentially stupid, having to be programmed in such a way that human programmers had to anticipate every step and process, failing which the computer would glitch or hang, or worse, produce totally incomprehensible rubbish, neuro-coding running on the new hypercomputers, mimicked the human brain in intuitively seeking out the desired results and then calculating the answers.

This is close to how our brains work. Our brains do not calculate every possibility because then, it would be overwhelmed with possibilities, and if every possibility is equally likely or desired, then there would be simply too many possibilities to calculate that we would not be able to complete even the simplest task, even a task as simple as pouring a cup of Newater.

Thus, the human brain intuitively rejects the thousands of possibilities and focuses only on the few that we would really want. It is essentially this ability to focus and concentrate on the most desired outcomes that makes our very lives possible. In short, it is what makes us human.

Neuro-coding works the same way. Unlike the old era’s programs, it does not have to have every possibility anticipated by the programmer and told which to choose under which set of conditions. Like the brain, neuro-coding eliminates the less desired actions and possibilities and only focuses on the most desired outcomes. Thus, this makes the computer thousands of times more powerful because much of the useless or not so useful processing time and operations are eliminated. Hence the term, “hypercompters” – because they are so much more powerful than the supercomputers of old. Not because of hardware but because of the new neuro-coding software.

Neuro-coding cannot create human intuition, which is still the best. But it gets pretty close by a process termed “intelligent prioritising”. Google in the 20th Century had already done the basic work in the field of prioritising such that Google search engines usually produce search results uncannily like what a human mind would. Thus, neuro-coding can be said to be an extreme version of the science of prioritising.

Olaf leaned backwards as his chief antagonist spoke to counter him.

“We just cannot give a Nobel Prize to a computer,” he wheezed asthmatically, his 83 years of age showing in his halting speech. “We have always used the Nobel Prize to honour men and women who have advanced our knowledge and understanding of the world, or who have achieved great feats of the human mind, or sometimes, when we want to make a political point or stand, we give the Peace Prize. But we cannot give a Nobel Prize to a computer!”

Olaf smiled. His opponent was a very powerful and influential man and he had to be careful. “OK, but can we give a Nobel Prize for Biology to this nominee, then?” He pushed a document to his adversary who took it, put on his reading glasses, and pored over it. [The document follows].

BEYOND DARWIN, OUTLINE FOR A STATISTICAL PROOF OF A NEW DARWINISM:

1. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is one of the biggest ideas in the
history of mankind. It explains, in one elegant [the best ideas are
always elegant] stroke, how the world came to be and how we came to
be.

2. Today, I would like to append a small idea to his big idea.

3. I read decades ago, that the bat's sonar navigation is so advanced that when scientists strung a wire across the path of flying bats, not a single bat flew into that thin wire, proving that their sonar could indeed detect even the thin wire.

4. The big question is, how did the bat develop such an amazing
faculty?

5. Think about it. For this advanced bat sonar navigation to be so
perfect, several things had to happen simultaneously, the absence of
even one of which would prevent this marvellous faculty from being
developed.

6. For example, bats do have eyes, but probably very inferior ones,
so the first requirement for a bat to develop sonar is to have a
reduced use for 'normal' eyes. This is quite plausible by assuming
that sometime back, bats started living in dark caves where there is
little light to see by with normal eyes, and so, bats needed to
develop an alternative 'sight'. However, the question remains, why
couldn't the bat develop better eyes that can see in the dark, even in dark caves? We know that many animals can see in the almost dark, such as hunter animals like the big cat predators, that have highly developed night vision. So, why did the bat develop sonar instead of night vision eyes like some of the big cats? Thus, Mr Darwin fails here. [It is possible that sonar is better than eyes for catching flying insects in the almost dark].

7. For the second requirement, the bat has to develop an ultrasonic
squeak that could effectively 'bounce' back from objects [like the
thin wire], the echoes being then received by the bat's highly
sensitive ears, which must be responsive to the sound frequencies of
the bat's squeak -- these ears being the third requirement. Meaning
that the bat's ears had to develop or evolve in tandem to its sonar
squeaks, so both together function like a radar or sonar location
finder.

8. The fourth requirement is for the bat to develop a brain function
that could process the echoed squeaks and create a picture of the
terrain highlighting the obstacles [like the wire] to avoid and
probably even prey flying insects to catch for food.

9. Here comes the punchline : all 4 faculties must be
developed/evolved SIMULTANEOUSLY for the sonar navigation to work.
Even if 1 of the requirements is missing or developed/evolved later,
the bat's sonar navigation will not work.

10. Now, that seems almost impossible if you assume that natural
selection is a hit or miss affair, that is, there are many genetic
changes in every creature and that some of these genetic changes then
prove to be useful for survival and so are preserved by the creature
passing onto to offspring, thus keeping the favourable genes in the
gene pool while unfavourable genetic changes doom the creature that
has it thus leading to an early death or inability to mate and pass on this gene or set of genes.

11. If I remember my Darwin correctly, it does seem that Darwin
postulates that evolution is a hit or miss affair, with favourable
genes being passed on and unfavourable genes dying out, both
naturally, that is, by hit or miss.

12. Could mere chance result in the bat's sonar navigation? Remember
that for the bat to evolve this faculty, at least 4 requirements have
to be developed SIMULTANEOUSLY. Even if 1 of the 4 evolve later than
the others, the faculty would not work and thus, according to Darwin,
the bat/s possessing this would die out and not produce progeny that
would further pass on or refine such a faculty.

13. I now come to my little idea. Which is that evolution is not a
hit or miss affair or due to blind chance but guided by an active
impulse. What I am postulating is that, evolution is not just mere
accidental genetic changes that result in survival advantages to the
bearer and are thus passed on, into the gene pool, but that every time a creature develops a set of skills good for survival, this set of skills or abilities get passed on, even if in a general way.

14. To give an example, perhaps a poor one, what I am saying is that, if David Beckham develops a fine set of footballing skills, and this happens to be good for his survival, these footballing skills get passed onto his progeny. It does not mean that his children will be talented footballers like him, but will possess better than ordinary physical attributes such as hand-eye coordination, physical reaction times, balance, excellent leg skills, etc.

15. I would go further than just physical skills like learned and
mastered football skills. I would even postulate that even cultural
skills such as singing or dancing or PhD research skills also result
in changes to the set of characteristics in the bearer of such skills, and thus get passed on to progeny.

16. There is one simple way to test this hypothesis. If a simple
survey is done, and I am right, it would show that a man who fathered
children when young [meaning that he has not mastered any important
skills important for survival] would have pretty ordinary children
compared to say, a PhD scholar who had children long after he had
learned and mastered his faculty/faculties. To use Beckham again, if
Beckham had fathered children when in his teens, say, and again
fathered children after he became a top footballer, then his children
from AFTER his mastery of footballing would be better physical
specimens than his children fathered when Beckham was young and had
not achieved his peak, all other things being equal.

17. A quick survey comparing the children of old fathers to the
children of young fathers would show, if I am right, that old fathers, who would have had more time to master a physical or intellectual or even a cultural skill like music, etc, produce children more gifted in the same general area than young dads.

18. Note that I use the example of fathers. Not mothers. There is a
reason. A woman, even from the day of birth, already has all the eggs
that she would ever produce. This means that her egg-carried genes are fixed already from the time of her birth and therefore cannot carry 'learned' skills like footballing [in Beckham's case], even if the woman egg-carrier were to learn to kick footballs as well as Beckham.

19. On the other hand, males keep producing and expending millions of sperm all the time. This means that, according to my hypothesis, males are responsible for the rapid evolution of the human race, and not females. When a male masters a skill or learns to use his brain in a new way, his sperm changes to carry that new skill or brain achievement. Perhaps not by way of genetic changes in the sperm but in some as yet undiscovered X-Factor, maybe even in the proteins that seem to hold much of a person's character and even physical development. If I am right, males hold the key to evolution and not females.

20. From Cave Man to Modern Man is just about 10,000 years, or about
200 generations, if we take a generation to be 50 years. 200 generations is very, very short to develop from Cave Man to Modern Man. Yet it has been done. Could hit or miss blind chance evolution depending on accidental changes to genes accomplish this feat? I don't think so. If I am right, each time a Cave Man learns something new, like, initially, a better way to hunt animals, or later, a better way of using his brain, etc, this even cultural skill gets passed on to his progeny to become part of the gene pool.

21. If I am right, there is not only hope for mankind but also some
suggestions of some important policies for governments. For example,
if learned attributes like say, a talent for music composition, or
mathematical skills, etc, can all be passed on to future generations
in a general way, it does seem good to encourage all individuals to
excel in some areas, whatever it may be.

22. Incidentally, my theory does explain why many skills are seen in
the children of exceptional parents, usually the fathers. Again,
another simple survey could help prove my point, which is that many
cultural skills tend to be passed on from fathers, not mothers. A
survey could show whether children of gifted fathers tend to be more
gifted than children from gifted mothers.

23. One aspect of Darwin's theory is that of survival of the species, not just the individual. We have come very far in just 200 generations. Imagine where we would be in another 200 generations. My theory suggests that such active impulse in improving the species is what brought us here so fast. My theory is different from Darwin's in that Darwin suggests blind chance as the key to our development while I suggest that an individual's active impulse is the key to the individual's as well as his species' survival and triumphant development. Ultimately, my theory is a theory of hope. It says that the fate of mankind is in our hands, not blind chance, not hit or
miss. And if you think about it, isn't this the most important development in our species' survival and triumph, that this 'active impulse' is exactly what the human race has developed as the ultimate survival mechanism? And what brought us here so far so fast?

Watson Crick
27 Sep 04 1320

Olaf’s adversary read and re-read it very, very slowly while the distinguished gathering waited patiently for him to finish, which he did after an inordinate interval. Few would dare to hurry, let alone contradict this Old Man.

Finally, he raised his head from the document and said thoughtfully, “I have read it 3 times and I think that certainly, this Watson Crick, if he is proved correct by the surveys he outlines, could certainly be worthy of a Nobel Prize.

Olaf then distributed copies of the document to all the gentlemen at the table and they all read it. “Do you all agree?” he asked.

There were murmurs of agreement all round. Few would dare to contradict the Old Man.
“Well, then,” smiled Olaf, “Darwin 21 gets the Nobel Prize, then!”

There were gasps of astonishment, first, then followed by murmurs of understanding as the truth sank in, then some titters of laughter as the assembly realized that the Old Man had been outwitted.

Watson Crick was a pseudonym. The document said to be written by him was actually written or rather, generated, by the computer program named Darwin 21, running on a hypercomputer. The Old Man couldn’t even tell apart a document written by a human and one generated by a computer program.

It was a testament to how far computers had advanced.


7 Mar 06


……………………………………………..

Story 6, titling right to Kai Seng.
Title by Kai Seng :

Chimp's communication


The lights went out and the projector sprang into life, displaying a projection video of what looked like a typical scene from the monkey enclosure of a zoo.

“As you can see,” said Debbie Lam, “this is the chimpanzee enclosure in the Singapore Zoo. And these are the 24-hour video cameras that capture every move and sound within this chimpanzee enclosure. Every chimp there is coded with a name and an identity. Indeed, we have gone further and are able to distinguish each chimp’s voice from all the others. Each is uniquely identified so that when one speaks, our computers are able to identify the voice and link it to the chimp speaking. Thus, all the chimp conversations are recorded, tracked and traced to the individual chimp, and we can then analyse what each chimp is saying or said.”

Debbie is a philologist. Years ago, she embarked on the unusual path of analysing language and linguistics through primate speech. She studied many primates but eventually, for a concomitance of reasons, settled on the chimps in the Singapore Zoo.

“You used the words ‘conversations’ and ‘speak’ when talking about the chimps,” said one member of her audience, “Do chimps really talk, like us, I mean?”

Debbie smiled. It was a common question and one she had answered many times. “Let me ask my colleague, Kai Seng, to answer you.”

Kou Kai Seng stood up. “First, let me say that I am not a philologist like Debbie here. I worked in machine speech translation for many years and I have only joined the research here in the last 5 years. Previously, I worked in the popular machine translations in Babel Fish and WorldLingo companies.

“Let me give a bit of background. In Babel Fish and WorldLingo, we do not programme computer translations between pairs of languages, like say, English and Chinese. Or French and Spanish. Or Korean and German, for instance. Actually, that was what we did when we started. We would pair all the words in English with all their equivalents in Chinese and then code in all the rules for translating from one to the other and back, such as the rules for each language’s grammar and syntax, etc. But that was far too much work and inflexible. Because then, we had to code the computers individually to translate from each pair of language and back and then repeat all that over again for a new language. For example, in the old days, we would code for say, French to English and when we wanted a new language such as French to Korean, we would have to code all over again. We used to do that, at first, coding translations for each new language into each new language pair.

“Then we discovered that all languages had an inner core that was very much the same in all languages. For example, the English sentence, “I love you” has exactly the same format in Chinese – “Wo ai ni” and “Saya cinta awak”in Malay. That is, noun, verb, noun. So we began to translate all languages into this core language, from which we could then draw forth any new language we want. Thus, we would, say, translate English into this core, and when we want a translation of that language segment from English to French, we simply use that core to derive the French translation. Or Italian translation. Or Japanese translation. This discovery made our translations so much easier. Today, our Babel Fish or WorldLingo websites can translate over a dozen languages, from any one into any of the others. All through first translating any chunk of one language into this core language.

Debbie broke in, “And because Babel Fish and WorldLingo discovered that all languages have this similar core, our study of the origin of language and speech made great strides. For example, one Paper by my colleague, Yan Ting, pointed out that languages are very easy to invent and practically every group of humans in history had its own language, even if geographically only a short distance away from other tribes. For example, in the sub-continent of India alone, there are well over 100 different languages. Similarly, in the longest continuous civilization of China, there are many dozens of dialects even though Emperors of old had tried to standardise the language.
“Then where do the chimps come in,” asked another of the audience.

“Ah,” smiled Debbie. “We figured that if all languages were based on a core structure, this reflected not so much on the individual tribe speaking that language, it reflected more on something more basic. Such as our very humanity. Languages must be something very basic and common to all Mankind. It must be the very way our brains are wired, that we all invent the same approach to language, the core language, although in different sounds and slightly different rules. If there are aliens from another civilization in space, they may well and probably have, a totally different approach resulting in grammar and syntax totally different from our. Basically, since we cannot recreate this invention of language in a laboratory, we thought we could study how primates speak and from there, glean insights into human language inventions.”

Kai Seng then added, “We thought of videoing the chimps and trying to ascertain how they communicated. At first, it was too much work to track each chimp ‘speaker’ and then trying to decipher what it said by the context of its behaviour and situation. Then, we had a former NSA programmer who had experience with the Echelon program. The Echelon program, as we all know, is a stupendous program that captures almost every single electronic communication in the whole world, from telephone conversations to email to faxes, etc, in every language in the world, and analyses these for specific leads, such as terrorists planning an attack.

“Thus, Echelon would filter every communication captured, through key words, which were then narrowed down for human analysts to read and turn into actionable information. For example, Echelon did not prevent the 9/11 airplane attacks on the World Trade Centers but after a few of the conspirators were captured, Echelon very quickly traced all the others who had communicated with these capturees and tracked them down as well.

“Thus, using the principles of Echelon, we can now pinpoint each chimp, identify it and record its speech. Then, we can analyse its speech for the core language that we have spoken about earlier.”

A member of the audience spoke up, “So, do chimps also use a core language like humans?”

Debbie went to her laptop computer and fiddled with the buttons for a minute and the projector began to play a loop of a close up of a chimp shrieking to another, “eeee yorrrrr goooocheee norrrr, eeee wupp, wupp, heeee, norrr!”

“What does that mean?” asked an audience.

Solemnly, Debbie translated, “When is that idiot zookeeper coming with my lunch?”
At that, the audience broke up in laughter. Then, the chimp in the video could be seen holding up its middle finger to the camera. It was the crowning moment of over a decade of research.


12 Mar 06

…………………………………………..

Story 7, titling right to Debbie.
Title by Debbie :

No-bel

For a moment that could transform the world, the lab experiment setup was exceedingly simple : just a soundbox producing sounds of variable frequencies, a tube of water or, in this case, acetone, a light detection box and a few other very simple detectors. Indeed, this experimental setup for sonoluminescence had changed only a little from the time it was first discovered at the University of Cologne in 1934. Indeed, even the tiny Pistol Shrimp, or Snapping Shrimp can produce sonoluminescence simply by snapping its pincer sharply in water.

Dr Ramanujuan and his graduate student assistant, Morris, were the only 2 in the lab when it happened. They had done this experiment so many times over the last 3 years, with differing results and success rates that today’s readings were just another set of numbers.

Only, this time, the numbers were unusual.

Dr Ramanujuan looked at the readouts and entered these into the computer. Then excitedly motioned Morris over to look at the results. For the first time, the results were positive. They had achieved nuclear fusion, practically nuclear fusion in a jar.

“What do you think?” asked Ramanujuan. Morris felt only slightly elated. After all, they had had so many false positives in the last 3 years that this could just be another.

“I will double-check the numbers later,” replied Morris. “We could have achieved fusion.”

Dr Ramanujuan was to be away for the next 2 weeks but much was to happen during his absence.

Unknown to him, his assistant Morris was an NSA agent. This is not in itself unknown or surprising. The NSA kept most university academics under surveillance, especially those engaged in research that may have an impact on weapons development or even straight science that may have an impact on energy security.

Days after the last experiment, Morris contacted his NSA handler. “I think this is it,” he told 007, Morris’ nickname for his handler. “I think Ramanujuan has achieved fusion.”

The NSA man was silent for a moment. “You know what to do?” he asked.

“Sure,” replied Morris.

If fusion in a jar could really be achieved, the ramifications were profound and would transform the world. It would mean unlimited, clean energy and freedom from oil, which was one Achilles heel troubling the US and many other governments. It would be safe and clean energy and probably cheap, since it is achievable with just simple lab equipment scaled up. It would transform the entire geopolitical balance of the world, a world in which energy from oil is fast depleting and in which wars would be fought over the remaining reserves.

Shortly after, 007 put his gameplan into operation. Several professors in Physics were to try to replicate Dr Ramanujuan’s successful experiment and fail. They would then denounce Dr Ramanujuan as either a charlatan out to falsify research results for personal vainglory or a simpleton who couldn’t even do simple experiments properly leading to misleading results.

In the next few weeks, Dr Ramanjuan came under academic attack from his professorial colleagues. They could simply not duplicate his experiments to achieve his results, thanks to Morris doctoring some of the experimental conditions and procedures.

Morris even swapped 2 critical detectors used in the original, successful experiment. Even Dr Ramanujuan himself, could not now duplicate his own results, thanks to the swapped flawed equipment. He was to be roundly denounced by his peers. After a while, Dr Ramanujuan himself would begin to doubt whether his results were genuine and could withstand scrutiny as well as being duplicable.

“Well done, 007,” said the President. “We have thoroughly suppressed the experimental results, haven’t we?”

007 nodded, “Affirmative, Mr President. And as you wanted, I told no one, not even my superiors in the NSA. And I have brought the only copy of the successful experiment. No other copy exists and not even Dr Ramanujuan can duplicate it now.”

The President smiled expansively. “Good, now if you will excuse me…”

The President then walked down the hall to the Vice President’s Office. The VP was in. He then put the entire stack of papers from 007 into the shredding machine. He then smiled at the VP, “That ends fusion in a jar, I think.” The only copy of the experiment was now shredded beyond retrieval. Morris would have ensured that no ‘correct’ digital copy exists either.

The VP smiled back, “Do you think we could get a couple more millions from Oakhill Energy for our re-election campaign? After all, if fusion in a jar becomes a reality, they’d go bust in no time. And they are our biggest contributor every election.”

It was not for nothing that the P and VP comprised what is often joked about as the ‘Oil Presidency’. A Presidency of Oil interests, by Oil interests, for Oil interests.
Dr Ramanujuan walked up the stairs past his bedroom to his study. It was a spring day but still quite cold compared to the sunny New Delhi he had just vacationed back from.

He took out a very small notebook computer from his safe and switched it on. He opened it to his sonoluminescence research program. Once loaded, he looked through the program steps to scan whether his data was intact. He then moved his cursor to a key field and added a zero to the field. Then sat back to see how his extra zero replicated across the entire program until the final figures appeared. No mistake here, he thought. This is fusion in a bottle, proved beyond doubt.

He then inserted his thumb drive into the USB port of the computer and copied over the entire program and results. He had just finished when his doorbell rang. It was the courier, come to collect his thumb drive, now sealed in a courier bag, addressed to his contact in New Delhi. The contact will very quickly hand over the thumb drive to the Indian government and fusion research would quickly result in working large-scale energy plants, first in India, then shortly in the rest of the world.
Ramanujuan reflected on how he had had to do some hard bargaining with the Indian government. Eventually, they agreed on his terms. What was more, they had agreed to add another zero to his paycheque.

He will not get a Nobel. That would go to some Indian scientist. But Dr Ramanujuan did not care. He was set for life.


14 Mar 06


…………………………………………….


Story 8, titling right to Yan Ting.
Title by Yan Ting :


From: Jorge Orwell
To: bernadine.shaw@randommouse.com
Date: Mar 15 2006 2.55pm
Subject: Robert HO book submission

Bernardine,

I have read the manuscript you have recommended for publication and I have decided not to publish it. It’s simply no good. Random Mouse is in the publishing business to make money, not support aspiring authors, especially authors with absolutely no talent. So, on behalf of RM, please send Robert HO the usual rejection slip.


From: Bernadine Shaw
To: jorge.orwell@randommouse.com
Date: Mar 15 2006 3.67pm
Subject: Robert HO book submission

Dear Jorge,

Please reconsider. I think Robert HO is worth publishing and will turn us a profit, although it will probably be small beans. I know that his writing style is unusual and I here paste some paras from his email to me :

>Dear Bernadine,
>I agree with you that my writing style is unusual but that is because
>I am inventing a whole new genre, what I call “MicroStories” or >“synopsistic stories”. From the word “synopsis”. In other words, I >write extremely SHORT stories, without characters, without >atmosphere, without exotic settings, etc. My stories are bare bones >outlines. In the hands of a more capable author, my stories could well >be expanded into full novels or the usual long short story. But I believe >that with the modern and hectic pace of life, there is a market for >stories that can be read in a minute or two. On a train or bus. While >waiting in queue for a seat at a restaurant, etc.

>In other words, when a reader reads my stories, it is almost like
>reading a synopsis, only fairly nicely strung along, so it is not as
>crude as a real synopsis. Call it Minute Stories, if you like, just like
>thick reports nowadays have at the beginning a One Minute Summary
>to help busy executives grasp the essence of the whole report in a
>minute. I believe there is a market for these “synopsistic stories” of >mine.

>Robert HO



From: Jorge Orwell
To: bernadine.shaw@randommouse.com
Date: Mar 15 2006 4.16pm
Subject: Robert HO book submission



Bernardine,

Balderdash! This Robert HO simply is no writer. He simply cannot write, period. All this excuse about “synopsistic” stories is because he CAN’T write the usual stories, short or long. So he invents this new term, “MicroStories“ or “synopsistic stories” to cover up for his shortcomings as a writer. We don’t need Minute Stories because only people with time to read will buy our books. If they have no time, they won’t read, period, whether the stories are short or not. They won’t buy our books. By the way, what is his background? Which university and which courses, etc?



From: Bernadine Shaw
To: jorge.orwell@randommouse.com
Date: Mar 15 2006 4.51pm
Subject: Robert HO book submission


Dear Jorge,

I believe he didn’t go to university so he probably never attended any writing course. But I like his ideas. In fact, his stories are all chock full of ideas from beginning to rollicking end. Sometimes, quite riveting, even. I believe that he spent a dozen years or so as a copywriter in Singapore. He even suggested that we could subtitle the book, “A Book of Story Ideas”.



From: Jorge Orwell
To: bernadine.shaw@randommouse.com
Date: Mar 15 2006 5.23pm
Subject: Robert HO book submission


Bernardine,

That’s what we don’t need! An advertising writer who wrote crap for 12 years trying to write literature! No wonder he cannot write like our normal authors, he wrote only short texts to fill up the advertising art director’s designs! From Singapore, you say? No wonder he uses odd sentence constructions and odd terms and phraseology! Sometimes, he doesn’t use proper grammar and syntax at all! When he writes conversations, he has only ONE voice! No matter who is supposed to be speaking, it all comes out from HIS one voice. There is no attempt at all to differentiate the voices according to the characters! Besides, he cannot write love and sex, which are essential to sell books. Probably because he cannot handle romance and sex well. Without a love interest, who will read his book? His story titles are weird, too! They must have been written by elementary school kids! OK, this has taken enough of my time – and yours. Send him the Rejection Slip. MicroStories, indeed!


From: Bernadine Shaw
To: robert.ho@gmail.com
Date: Mar 22 2006 10.57am
Subject: Your manuscript unsuitable for Random Mouse



Dear Robert,

I am sorry that your manuscript is found unsuitable for Random Mouse to publish. However, I have taken the liberty of sending it to Steven Spielberg, whom I approached through a mutual friend. My friend said that Steven liked some of the ideas in some of your stories and is considering buying the rights to your entire book. He particularly likes the brevity of your stories and their powerful ideas. When transformed into a blockbuster movie, Steven’s contribution will be as great as yours, unlike some of his blockbusters like, for example, “I Robot”, where many filmgoers wonder if the movie is great only because all of it is from a great book. The brevity of your stories means there is room, plenty of room, for Steven’s directorial and scripting skills. If he buys your book, you can expect a big payday, with many zeroes – before the decimal point. I take this opportunity to wish you and your family good luck with this possible movie rights, and good health. With my regrets from Random Mouse,

Bernardine.



15 Mar 06


…………………………………………

Story 9, titling right to Kai Seng.
Title by Kai Seng :

“FRIDAY 13TH CURSE KILLS ANOTHER 6” screamed the Daily Mail frontpage headline. “6 DIE IN UNLUCKY FRI CAR CRASHES” moaned the more stately Independent newspaper. “M1 ‘BERMUDA TRIANGLE’ KILLS 6 IN 3 CRASHES” intoned the Guardian newspaper.

Traffic Supt Lewis Caroll looked up as London Mayor Ken Livingstone walked in. “This is the 3rd year of Friday the 13th car accidents. And how many killed? Something like 23, I think. I want you to get to the bottom of this and stop it. This cannot go on, obviously.”

Supt Caroll sighed. “We have investigated every single car crash scene very, very thoroughly. The reports are a foot high. But it is still happening. Almost without fail every Friday 13th. On the very same stretch of straight road, almost. The M1 highway near Shrewsbury. Many drivers are now avoiding that stretch of road whenever it is Friday 13th. But still, car crashes are happening. And not a single crash is due to drink driving or doing drugs. All good drivers with unblemished records.”

It began 3 or 4 years ago. The first spectacular car crash, a BMW, went off the road on the M1 Highway near Shrewsbury on a Friday 13th, killing all 4 people. Subsequent Unlucky Fridays also saw cars veering off the road to crash spectacularly, usually killing all in the cars. The road in question is extremely straight, without any dangerous bends or curves at all that could explain the crashes. Hence the press’s imaginative terms for that stretch of highway.

It always happened near midnight, give or take an hour either way. So much so that that stretch of M1 road was now termed by some newspapers as the “Bermuda Triangle of M1”. The real Bermuda Triangle is, of course, that stretch of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale [Florida], in which many ships have been mysteriously lost and even a fleet of airplanes which wandered into it during a storm.

Supt Caroll picked up the phone to call his lead accident investigator, M. Hatter. “Hatter, sorry to trouble you on your day off. Livingstone’s just popped in and he wants the M1 Curse solved and solved quickly. I need answers pretty soon or we’ll all be the Curse’s next victims.”

Hatter put down the phone and sighed. He looked over to his 5 year old daughter, Alice, watching a Japanese anime cartoon.

Then, it happened.

One moment, Alice was happily on her little throne, idly kicking at the coffee table and clutching her teddy bear and the next moment, she was on the floor, eyes closed and little body shuddering in a fit or seizure.

Hatter leapt to her side and clutched her. But it was over in seconds. Alice opened her eyes to see the alarmed face of her dad and asked, “Daddy, what happened?”
“You had a fit, honey,” he said. She never had fits before.

To be safe, Hatter took Alice to the doctor’s.

Only to find that there were several cases exactly like Alice’s.

Clearly, it was a mass phenomenon. Being a trained investigator, Hatter soon found the answer. That TV programme that Alice had been watching was also watched by all the other children. A few phone calls and questioning of the children, and Hatter had the answer. All the children who had the seizures had been watching the same Japanese anime cartoon programme.

Then what in the programme triggered the seizures? Apparently, it was the continuous flashing of light during part of the programme. The flashing lights, not unusual in a cartoon, had triggered off a brain auto reaction that led to the seizures. When the brain is stimulated by a certain frequency of say, light flashes, it triggers off an auto brain response that results in seizures.

The next moment, Hatter himself almost had a seizure when the solution to the M1 Curse flashed into his mind. He took out his handphone and called Supt Caroll.

“Caroll,” Hatter said excitedly, “I know what caused those M1 car crashes. It is the same light flashes at a certain frequency that triggered my daughter’s fit.”

“But there are no flashing lights at that stretch of road,” replied Caroll.

“True, but don’t forget that there are street lamps, all at the same height, equally spaced apart and all equally bright. If you drive past these lights at a certain speed, you will go past the bright lights, then past the dim spots, then the next bright lights and so on. Exactly as though the lights were flashing in your field of vision.”

Caroll was quiet for a moment, digesting all this. “But why only on Friday the 13th?”
“The same reasons why many believe in the Bermuda Triangle,” replied Hatter.

“Whenever there are no scientific evidence, or even sometimes, when there is, people prefer to believe in the fantastic rather than a simple scientific answer.

“When you drive along the M1 highway at night, you see an endless stretch of straight road alternating in bright lights and between them, darkness. These lights then appear to you as bright then dark flashes. At a certain speed, these ‘flashes’ will reach a certain frequency that triggers off your auto brain response, which is seizure. When you get a fit while driving, you lose control and crash. That’s why so many car crash fatalities.

“When the Friday 13th stories appeared in the press, many drivers avoided that stretch of road so with less traffic, more cars could speed at the limit and at a certain speed, the flashes will trigger the brain reaction. The cars don’t crash at other times and in crowded traffic conditions because only at night on uncrowded straight roads can you speed at the right speed so as to get the flashing lights effect.”

So the speed limit on that stretch of M1 was reduced, permanent speed cameras installed, warning signs put up and the phenomenon widely reported in the media. The crashes stopped and Ken Livingstone was a happy man.


16 Mar 06


……………………………………………

Story 10, titling right to Debbie.
Title by Debbie :


Dr Chee, Professor of Neuro-Psychology at the University of Georgia, smiled at the Republican political strategist. “It’s ready. Would you like to watch it?”
Kove nodded.

Dr Chee played the political ad on his computer. It looked straightforward enough. And innocuous enough. A 30 second commercial that showed the Democrat Presidential candidate talking and meeting with ordinary voters. With a Republican voice over that basically said that the opponent Democrat Presidential candidate was ‘weak on national security’.

Then Dr Chee, smiling knowingly at Kove, hit some keys on his laptop and the transformation began. The commercial was the same as before, except that now, whenever the Democrat candidate appeared, a superimposed picture appeared on top of his image, a picture of what can only be described as a vile, evil-looking face. A visage of utter evil. Simultaneously, the music and voice over layer was superimposed by a powerful voice shrieking, “EVIL, EVIL, EVIL…”

“I’m impressed,” Kove said, “But will it work?”

Dr Chee nodded. “I have tested this out secretly and surreptitiously in focus group tests. We took groups of 12 men and women who are strong Democrat supporters and by the 4th showing of the ad, about 11 of the 12 voted Republican instead of their original intention of voting Democrat. Believe me, it works. This is the most advanced subliminal advertising anybody has ever created.

“Subliminal advertising was invented decades ago but today, yours truly here is the world’s foremost expert. I have found, for example, that the success rate for positive messages is pretty low but negative messages like the one you just saw, is pretty effective. That is why you should use only negative ads in your Presidential campaign. And when you add in my little black magic, your candidate will most likely win. I can almost guarantee it.”

Kove handed over the briefcase he had brought and opened it. It was filled with stacks and stacks of dollar bills. “This is your payment. All cash. Untraceable. But a warning here. Even if you were to go public about this, I will deny I ever met you or even knew you. I already have an alibi for our meeting today. I am officially in Las Vegas, meeting some friends for a game of poker.”

Dr Chee winced. Obviously, Kove had had him under surveillance goodness knows for how long and knew his very Chinese weakness for gambling. Probably knew he had run up $600,000 in gambling debt in Las Vegas. The $300,000 in the briefcase would be very gratefully received and would pay off half his gambling debts.

At first, he had reservations in putting his academic skills to such ‘practical’ use. But the gambling debts kept mounting and there was no relief in sight. Until a phone call from Kove. Kove had assured him, that “Cheating is a habit that grows. It is like making love -- it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the act.”

Kove was right. He had had his scruples at first but soon felt as comfortable with this election cheating as though wearing his favourite T. But Kove’s payment met only half of his debts. So how?

He had an idea.

++++++++++++++++

It was the most astounding election upset in the entire history of America. At first, fewer than 20% of the households in the country tuned in to the election result news. Then, as state after state results were declared, and the same astounding result was confirmed, the rumours and news broke through to most households. Every ordinary programme was interrupted frequently by the breaking news of the election upset.

People called each other to tune in to watch the election results, so much so that telephone lines and cellular phone networks were jammed. News commentators, normally composed, started shouting into their microphones. All over the world, those watching the results on satellite news channels watched the drama unfolding with total disbelief.

Why?

Dr Chee’s magic worked only too well. The commercials he prepared for Kove worked as planned. They turned voters against the Democrat candidate as intended.

But unknown to Kove, Dr Chee needed another $300,000 to fully pay off his debts and so did exactly the same for the Democrats. For $300,000.

So his magic also worked on voters, who were subliminally led to vote against the Republicans. Just as his earlier work for Kove led voters to vote against the Democrats.

That was why, of the 3 Presidential candidates, the Republican and the Democrat cancelled each other out, leaving only the independent candidate, Nalph Rader, as the winner. The greatest unpredicted election upset in the history of the world.

The election could not be nullified even though both the Republicans and the Democrats knew what had happened. They would be foolish to admit cheating in the elections. It would have been the end of their entire party’s chances in all future elections. Indeed, it would be the end of their party. So both the Republicans and the Democrats kept quiet and promised to work with President Nalph Rader.

It was an election night that would be talked about for years to come. And Dr Chee, by equalising his misdeed, had thereby undone the harm that would otherwise have happened. It was quite a Confucian outcome, well balanced and fair.


17 Mar 06


……………………………………………

Story 11, titling right to Yan Ting.
Title by Yan Ting :


I am a secretary in the White House and below are the notes which I have taken over the years. For this record, I have omitted all that are not strictly relevant to the Bird Flu pandemic. Below, my diary entries :

2006 Mar 18 : Meeting today on possible bird flu arriving in US. The Secretary for Health briefed President Shrubs. Apparently, the first recorded instance of the H5N1 bird flu was in 1959 in a Scottish chicken at a Aberdeen farm. Since that outbreak in 1959, there had been 21 outbreaks that affected the world. The current outbreak probably began in April 2003 and this latest outbreak, unlike the early ones, has proven to be quite fatal to humans and can infect humans.

2006 Apr 2 : President Shrubs met with his neocons and decided that the bird flu could be a positive factor in helping the US maintain its hegemony over the rest of the world. If a bird flu pandemic broke out, countries with poor medical, health and social infrastructure could collapse. Although a bird flu pandemic will kill hundreds of thousands in the US, it would wipe out China and India, the 2 biggest rivals to US hegemony in the world. The neocons decided that firstly, the excellent medical, health and social infrastructure in place in the US could probably prevent the bird flu from arriving. And even if it did arrive, the health services could contain it and there will be minimum disruption to the rest of the country while in China and India, the pandemic could wipe out a huge percentage of their populations and thus reduce their rise to challenge American hegemony.

2006 Apr 15 : Homeland Security Secretary briefed President Shrubs. He said that the US is now practically airtight at air and sea ports and the advanced screeners in air and sea ports can catch anyone with a raised temperature, an important indicator of bird flu viral infection. He said it was unlikely that any person suffering from bird flu could enter the US and infect Americans. All meat animals arriving by sea or air would also be screened at the ports of entry. America is airtight, he said. Even if a few cases happened, the doctors have the medicines and the facilities to treat and contain it.

2006 Apr 28 : President met with the neocons again. The neocons suggested that the US produce the vaccines to vaccinate every single American, after which the US would no longer be vulnerable to a bird flu pandemic and could ‘sit it out’ while China and India collapsed. This means legislating that this American vaccine be produced and used only in the US and there will be no sales or technology offered to the rest of the world. This would ensure America’s continued dominance of the world after China and India collapsed.

2006 Jul 3 : The vaccines are ready. In 6 months, almost every American will be vaccinated against the H5N1 bird flu. No vaccine may be sold or exported outside the US. This is to ensure the survival of the US alone while China and India collapse.

2007 Feb 13 : Bird flu pandemic is now raging across the world. Almost every country except the US is stricken. Total deaths now passed 2 million in 38 countries. It is spreading faster and faster and soon, no country will be left untouched. We are safe. Thanks to our vaccinations.

2007 Apr 4 : In the rest of the world, the death toll has exceeded 3 million, mostly in the poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. China and India have each lost well over a million and it is continuing unabated. The pandemic is growing faster and faster exponentially.

2007 Jun 25 : So many millions have died from the pandemic that nobody’s counting any more. China and India have lost millions. But the pandemic there seems to be tapering off. It seems to be slowing.

2007 Sep 4 : Something strange has happened. The pandemic is tapering off and fewer are dying. Many infected people are actually recovering, often without any treatment at all. The fatalities in China and India are slowing to a crawl. The worst is over, it seems. Same thing in the rest of the world. Could the deadly strain have mutated? The immediate isolation of infected people seems to have helped China and India to arrest the pandemic. Maybe, as one theory goes, “A living thing that kills its host before it has a chance to propagate isn’t good for survival” and so the mutation into something less vicious? Symbiosis is a more practical arrangement than a fatal flu that kills the host before it can spread to other hosts.

2007 Dec 25 : This is one Christmas no American will ever forget. Yes, the H5N1 deadly strain has mutated. It is now less virulent except that it has arrived in America, through migratory birds or deliberately spread by Osama’s suicide carriers passing through our airports and seaports, nobody knows. It seems that our prior vaccination is useless against this new mutated strain. It is now spreading like wildfire across America. Our hospitals and medical staff can’t cope. Hundreds of thousands have already died. The country is collapsing. Doctors are now saying that the vaccinations have caused a particular antibody to develop, which hinders the body’s development of the correct antibody to fight the new mutation of bird flu. Thus, every vaccinated American cannot now develop the antibody to fight the new mutated strain. Doctors estimate that almost everybody who had been vaccinated is particularly at risk. Many millions of Americans will die and there is nothing we can do about it. This is the end of America as we know it. In China and India, millions have died but there are over a billion of them each, so they can overcome this and continue. In America, almost everyone will die, due to the combination of the vaccination and the new mutation.

2007 Dec 31 : I am now feverish. I must have caught the flu. All the hospitals are full and cannot accept anyone any more. The White House is strangely quiet. Maybe many others got it, too. I feel lousy. I am going to die. Every American is going to die. This is the end of America. So much for the neocons’ Project For A New American Century.



18 Mar 06 ; edited 19 Mar 06



……………………………………..

Story 12

THEORY OF GOD

1. Dedicated to Deborah LAM Ka Hei, a little girl who believes in God.

**********************************

2. Gord sighed, if sigh could describe the ennui of an interminable life, for Gord's race had long conquered death and the rejuvenation of bodies and so, technically, nobody ever dies on the planet of Hareven, located in what we would call the region of Andromeda Galaxy. Gord's planet of Hareven has 3 suns, hence sometimes called The Trinity.

3. Although nobody ever dies on Hareven, since bodies could be rejuvenated by the sciences of Gord's advanced race, some minds do go blank, a kind of mental death, which Hareven's best mentalists studied and confirmed was due to a lack of purpose in life, for just existing forever was a kind of torture. So everyone was encouraged to find fulfilling purposes in life, if only to keep mentally heathy and avoid the early era deaths of sheer boredom.

4. Gord sighed again. His grand experiment was going well and success was at hand. He could rest after 6 cycles, having created a little world of his own. But what would he do then? Eternity is a long time of uncountable cycles. He would need to create other worlds, maybe.

5. Gord consulted himself [for his race had mastered the fusion of several or many into one and so there was no such thing as "I" and "you", "us" or "them". Each could be one or a plural and Gord was a fusion of three beings.

6. This was going better than his last creation. In that one, Gord had also made beings after his own image but they degenerated after many cycles and became extinct. With this world of creatures he created, he would build in a flexibility that would allow his creations to evolve according to its environment and thus assure lasting success. Thus, having learned his lesson, he would both create his creatures as well as allow them to evolve.

7. Like him, his creatures would have a moral sense, a sense of right and wrong, and much of the better natures of his race, for his race had long evolved into superior moral creatures, away from its early development of endless wars and brutal methods. A race as highly developed as his could not have been without the wisdom of aeons of development. This wisdom would be in every one of his creations although with the ability to evolve, it could change.

8. And so, on the seventh cycle, Gord rested. He surveyed his creations and found it good. With that, Gord went on his way, satisfied, perhaps to create other worlds in other times.

The End.

RH: Are God/s developed from Ghosts?

Robert HO Feb 9, 9:57 pm show options

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
From: Robert HO - Find messages by this author

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 13:57:28 +0800
Local: Wed, Feb 9 2005 9:57 pm
Subject: RH: Are God/s developed from Ghosts?
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse

RH:
1. My late mother used to tell us her children about her ghost
experiences. She worked as a nurse after the Second World War. One
night, on night shift, she was walking along a corridor when she saw, in
front of her, an apparition. She immediately knew that that was an
apparition because although it was dressed as an Ayah [Indian or Malay
woman cleaner/general help, whose dressing was a top with a sarong, it
had no feet and moved or glided along smoothly without footfalls.
My mother decided to follow it to see which ward or room it would enter.
It did not duck into any room/ward until it came to a staircase
whereupon it turned the corner and promptly disappeared. My mother went
up and down the staircase to see where it had gone but it had disappeared.

2. Another time, a big sized Sikh died on a hospital bed. My mother and
the other nurses had the body removed and soon, a new patient, a Chinese
man, was assigned the bed. In the middle of the night, the man started
screaming in fright. When asked by my mother and the other nurses why,
he said that he had seen a ghost standing by his bed and looking down at
him. When asked by the nurses what the ghost looked like, he described
the big sized Sikh who had died on that bed earlier and whom he had
never seen nor knew about. The nurses looked at each other and knew he
had seen a ghost.

3. My father, too, had a possible experience with ghosts. He was once
in Malaya and slept out in the open in a plantation where during the
Second World War, the Japanese had killed many locals. In the middle of
the night, he heard voices saying, "Lift him up!" and felt himself
lifted up. But the next morning, he was still on his bunk and it was
probably just a dream.

4. I, too, had a ghostly experience in Pattaya in Jun 1997. I was
holidaying with my inlaws and our families, so quite a big group. We
stayed in a nondescript hotel, whose name I do not remember. My young
son was already asleep. My wife was unpacking the bags into the
wardrobes. I laid on the bed and fell asleep. No sooner had I fell
asleep than an ugly old hag appeared and started to strangle me. I could
not move my arms or body and started gagging and panicking, silently
screaming in fright. Then I woke up and my wife asked why I was moaning
in my sleep. I told her. We both thought it was a dream. Except that it
happened exactly 2 more times the moment I fell asleep. We asked to
change rooms and had no more such experiences.

5. Sightings and experiences of ghosts occur in all cultures and
peoples. So I am prepared to believe that there are such things as
ghosts. The phenomena is far too common to be dismissed as mere dreams
or overworked imaginations.

6. But if ghosts exist, then wouldn't it be as logical to believe that
God/s exists, too? After all, if there are ghosts, then there could
equally well be God/s.

7. To go a step further, couldn't God/s develop from ghosts?

8. In other words, if ghosts exist, and I am prepared to accept this,
based on the experiences I have cited, then couldn't some, at least, of
these ghosts linger around for ages, maybe eternity? After all, it is as
logical to assume that some, at least, of the ghosts stay around for
long ages as it is to assume that they disappear after a while. Both are
equally plausible. Mankind through the ages have lots of stories of ghosts.

9. So, couldn't ghosts develop into god/s? We know that even among us
humans, there are some people who are more spiritually inclined, who are
ascetic, who prefer to cultivate a spiritual life as opposed to the
rigidly materialistic and pragmatic people who only live for the here
and now. So, couldn't these spiritually inclined people, after dying,
continue to cultivate their spiritual beings and thereby develop powers
that we would call godlike? Especially if they have all of eternity to
develop these powers?

10. This theory may explain why God/s is oftentimes wilful and
capricious, exactly like humans rather than a Supreme Wise One? In fact,
in Greek mythology, the Gods are just beings living on Mount Olympus
and have their fair share of very human weaknesses, from jealosy to envy
to love and even vanities. Other cultures, too, often depict their Gods
as just 'humanlike' except that they have some powers humans don't have.
This could be mere anthropomorphism but it could equally well be true
observations and accurate depiction of the Gods.

11. If we accept all these, then perhaps governments and we ourselves
should rethink our approach to life and death. If we do survive death,
then would it not make sense to begin to cultivate a more spiritual
approach to life, and death? For example, shouldn't religion be taught
in school? Not in a proselytising manner but in a 'scientific' manner
much like we would learn tai chi or yoga? Perhaps we could even fuse the
main teachings of all the great religions to draw forth in our students
a more spiritual approach to life? Or encourage all students to take a
religion as a ballast in a totally materialistic world? It could be the
best preparation for life, and death and the beyond.

12. And that, is my Chinese New Year thought for 2005.

Robert HO
10 Feb 05
Singapore 1355

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RH: Inflight Immigration and Other Clearances for Airbus A380

soc.culture.singapore > RH: INFLIGHT IMMIGRATION AND OTHER CLEARANCES FOR AIRBUS 380
Robert HO Jan 18, 8:03 pm show options

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
From: Robert HO - Find messages by this author

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:03:29 +0800
Local: Tues, Jan 18 2005 8:03 pm
Subject: RH: INFLIGHT IMMIGRATION AND OTHER CLEARANCES FOR AIRBUS 380
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RH: Inflight Immigration and other clearances for Airbus 380

1. Now that the Airbus A380 will soon be taking to the skies in
commercial flights, carrying 550 to as many as 800 passengers, it is
time to revise aircraft and immigration procedures to cater to this
larger number of passengers descending on already busy airports.

2. To begin with, there is no reason why some immigration clearance
procedures cannot be done inflight, where there is lots of time, with
passengers usually sitting idly waiting for arrival at airports. For
example, suppose a flight takes off from New York to land at Heathrow.
There is no reason why this flight cannot carry a British Immigration
Officer or two, or three, on board. These Officers can then very
leisurely [which means more effectively] examine the passports and
travel papers of the passengers intending to land at Heathrow. [Those
going on to elsewhere can then be cleared by the other airports'
Immigration Officers who board [replacing the British Officers] at
Heathrow to check their arrival at, say, Berlin.

3. And because there is so much time, [compared with the few minutes a
passenger can only be detained for at busy airports], this inflight
immigration checking can be vastly more effective than the usual
clearance at airports after passengers land. Passports and other travel
papers can be examined at leisure and stamped. If there is any suspicion
of impropriety, the Officers can, at leisure, question or interrogate
the passenger to their hearts' content.

4. After checking the passengers' passports and travel papers, and
stamping them [or, the stamping can be done at the ground airport], the
passport and travel papers can then be scanned into a computer and
emailed or faxed from the plane to the arrival airport's customs and
immigration officers who would then have a ready list of passengers to
clear long before the plane arrives. These ground officers can then
simply double-check [thus even more secure and faster] the passports
against their scanned copies and thus clear the passengers much more
quickly, since the more rigorous checks have already been conducted
inflight. Those who have the highest clearances say, Category A out of
say, 3-5 grades, would then proceed through a Pre-Cleared or express
lane through and out of, the airport, thus making clearance even faster
than today. Those with uncertain or dubious passports or papers would
then have to clear immigration in the usual queues.

5. Since these British Officers would also depart the plane at
Heathrow, they are also in a good position to accompany and explain or
help to clear the passengers they travelled with on the plane.

6. This idea of inflight clearance is now feasible since, with the
sheer size of the A380, carrying a few more Customs and Immigration
Officers at nominal or even no cost, becomes cheap and even practical,
with the bigger numbers of passengers carried.

7. However, even if the Category A Clearance passengers pass quickly
through the Pre-Cleared express lanes, they may still be stuck waiting
for their baggage to arrive onto the conveyor belts. With 550-800
passengers, this could still be a long wait. Hence, my second idea : ALL
BAGGAGE TO BE CARRY ON INTO THE PASSENGER CABINS BY THE PASSENGERS THEMSELVES.

8. This is not that revolutionary an idea. It does not mean that the
passengers have to struggle with their baggage themselves. There are
always porters and other security baggage handlers to do that. What it
means is that the PASSENGER AND HIS BAGGAGE ARE IN THE SAME CABIN, NEAR EACH OTHER. This has many advantages, including the possibility of the
passenger retrieving some article from his baggage in mid flight. Of
course, all baggage must be security checked as usual. The only
difference is that after the checking in of the baggage, and after the
security x-rays, etc, the passenger then has to accompany his baggage
onto the plane and both stay in the same cabin, near to each other.
Currently, the baggage are handled by baggage handlers who often damage
the baggages due to rough handling, usually throwing the baggage around
from plane to truck. This idea avoids damage to baggages, too.

9. This means that in the passenger cabins itself, there must be
lockers or shelving for the baggages. Again, thanks to the huge space of
the A380 interior, this is easy and ultimately better, if not also
cheaper, than the old way of dumping all the baggages into the luggage
hold. Those who have travelled by train would understand all this. It is
exactly like travelling on a train with lots of baggage. You get a
porter who places all your baggage onto the train, usually with special
shelves just for this purpose. And you sit in the same cabin as your
baggage.

10. This idea then allows another idea : inflight clearance of baggage.
Since the Immigration Officers would take only an hour or two to check
the arriving passengers' travel papers, they also have time to security
check and customs check all the baggage that passengers have brought
with them into their cabin. This can be on an option basis. Those who
prefer to have their baggage checked and cleared inflight can offer them
for checking and the Officers can leisurely check these, putting a
special seal to signify that these baggage have been checked inflight.
Those who prefer to have them checked and cleared at the ground airport
can also do so, joining the queues. Checking can be by manual
inspection. It is also possible to use an x-ray machine, which are now
quite safe and cheap, as well as lightweight.

11. To facilitate all this, it is probably more practical to set up a
Customs and Immigration Booth INSIDE THE A380. Again, thanks to the vast
space of the A380, this is possible now when it was not so before.

12. With the vastly bigger number of passengers, 550-800, it may be
necessary to relook at the basic assumptions of air travel. For example,
with several hundred people, would it not need a policeman or two to
keep order, with the right to handcuff drunks and other disorderly
people? Would it not need a qualified medic or even a doctor, to look
after the medical needs or even emergency needs of the passengers? Think
of the A380 as a small village community. Would there not need some
clearly thought out and established legal procedures to deal with
drunkards or riotous behaviour, including fistfights? Medical
emergencies? All these are now possible or even required due to the
almost village-sized community that each A380 carries. And if these
'extras' are provided for, it may make this superjumbo an even better
way to fly. And the first choice of all airlines.

Robert HO
19 Jan 05 1202
Singapore
..................................................

RH: "Flexible Interiors Concept" for Airbus A380
Robert Ho Oct 4 2004, 10:40 pm
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
From: h...@pacific.net.sg (Robert Ho)
Date: 4 Oct 2004 22:40:23 -0700
Local: Mon, Oct 4 2004 10:40 pm
Subject: RH: "Flexible Interiors Concept" for Airbus A380
RH:
1. The Airbus A380 can carry up to 550 passengers, in the biggest
fuselage in aviation history. However, this capacious capacity may
mean that in some seasonal variations of low passenger bookings, or
sudden low passenger bookings due to say, a terrorist scare or another
SARS scare, the plane may carry below capacity leading to waste of
space and opportunity cost.

2. By employing a judo tactic, this waste of space may be converted
into a huge advantage. Introducing my Flexible Interiors Concept.

3. This concept is simply, to put the waste of empty seats to other
uses than seating passengers to give the remaining passengers more
benefits.

4. For example, rows of empty seats, or even whole sections,
depending on the number of empty seats, may be removed and replaced
with say, single or even double beds to offer passengers a true Hotel
Bed experience, at some extra cost, of course. Passengers can either
sign up for these Hotel Beds beforehand or on the spot after
inspecting the facilities.

5. While real beds will probably be the most desired service, other
possible variations can include Massage Cubicles with trained
masseurs.

6. Hotel Beds and Massage Cubicles can be quickly partitioned by
heavy curtains, etc, for light weight and quick installation. Hospital
bed curtain systems are a guide to possibilities.

7. Other flexible interior ideas can include a Reading Room, Lounge,
Children's Playground, Video Game Arcade, Casino, even a small band or
string quartet in attendance in a soundproofed Concert Chamber.

8. For those who fear deep vein thrombosis, there could be an
exercise or Gym area for light exercise. This could be very important
to reassure passengers they can combat DVT and thus fly safer. As
important commercially as Hotel Beds. There need not be many gym
equipment, just some light equipment but mostly space to stretch out
and relieve the cramped positions of sitting for hours in a plane
seat. A trained air steward/ess can be in part time attendance,
together with helpful videos and posters to suggest quick and useful
exercises. Thus, you literally fly safer on an Airbus A380.

9. This Flexible Interiors Concept also allows alternate rows of
seats to be removed to become instant premium seating with much more
leg space. Alternatively, only 1 or 2 rows in a section need be
removed and all the rest of the seats may be slid forward or backward
to produce more even extra leg space for all in the section. This
would involve slight modification to the current seats, which are
permanently bolted down. My idea would be to remove 1 or 2 rows and
the resulting space be distributed to all the rest simply by sliding
the remaining seats forward or backward, exactly like we slide our
front car seats to adjust to our preference. The difference is that
maybe, the passengers should not be able to slide their seats, this
adjustment of seats being done by the plane's mechanics ground staff
before the plane takes off.

10. For accurate weight calculations, which is important for safety,
all the possible configurations must be calculated beforehand. For
example, say, Row 1 may be removeable and the entire Section A then
share the increased leg space. All this can be pre-configured and
pre-calculated beforehand. Or, say, a Gym Area with say, half a dozen
Walking Treadmills all bolted down in exactly calculated positions. Or
a Casino with pre-calculated parts all known to the last kilogram, etc.

11. There will need to be a new system of bolting down the seats and
any change to interiors, say, the installation of Hotel Beds. A new
system of bolts and under-floor bolt-taking beams with pre-configured
bolt holes need to be developed. Once developed, all that needs to be
done is to quickly unbolt and remove unwanted seats and bolt on the
new feature, such as Hotel Beds. Or, say, unbolting 1 or 2 rows of
unwanted seats and redistributing the freed up space for all the rest
of the remaining seats by simply unbolting a locking bolt to slide the
entire remaining rows for more leg space. Expansion bolts are a
possible way to do all these.

12. Airlines ordering the A380 or plane interior designers can start
to design such Instant Parts, etc, that can be safely bolted down
within an hour or so, using Knock Down parts much like Ikea furniture,
etc. These should be easily transported and assembled into the plane interior and bolted down within an hour or so. This is not at all difficult. Modular furniture
has existed for decades.

13. Transportation of the parts is dead easy because airports already
have all the trucks, trolleys, container loaders, etc, to load parts onto
planes. The only snag may be that currently, planes are designed to
load even big containers, into the cargo bay area and not directly
into the passenger areas. This is not a huge problem because a little
modification to the door and entry areas and maybe the installation of
a lift or lifting platform from the cargo deck to the passenger deck
is all that is needed. In fact, if there is spare cargo space in the
cargo hold, the plane itself can carry the Instant Parts needed for
deployment.

14. So, with this Flexible Interiors idea, big planes that find
themselves with many untaken seats can quickly, within an hour or so, outfit the
spare and unused space with generous facilities from Instant Lounges,
to Instant Pubs, to Instant Gyms, to Instant Hotels, to Instant
Library or Reading Rooms, to Instant Playgrounds for children, if say,
the airline is carrying many children like on a school excursion, say,
or even Instant Golf Putting Green, etc, etc. The potential is limited
only by the imagination.

15. Imagine the kind of advertising and marketing that this Flexible
Interiors idea can generate! Most airline marketing and advertising
suck because airlines and planes are practically identical. With this
Flexible Interior idea, instantly, marketing and advertising will be,
of course, FLEXIBLE! Airlines can now pitch their services with all
kinds of offers. Some can offer Golf In The Air, others Hotel In The
Air, others Playground In The Air, others Video Games In The Air,
others Internet In The Air, etc.

16. If this idea works, this could be the biggest idea in air travel
since passenger travel was invented.

Robert HO
5 Oct 04 1340
Singapore

17. If the slider seats concept proves feasible, then it may be
worthwhile to have powered seats for all seats on the plane, like
powered slider seats in cars. It could all be controlled from the
pilots' cockpits or control panels in the cabin, protected by password
or special keys or even some other security features to prevent any
adjustments from unauthorised people. Then, all that the pilot or
technician need to do is to input the new parameters, say 2 rows
removed, and all the motorised seats will move into their new positions
automatically. This powered seats idea will automate the sliding of
seats and take only minutes to reconfigure the seating arrangements.

Robert HO
19 Jan 05 1023
Singapore
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RH: Business Opportunity for Radio Stations in Johor & Batam/Bintan

RH: BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR RADIO STATIONS IN JOHOR & BATAM/BINTAN
Robert HO Jan 11, 1:21 am show options

Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.malaysia,soc.culture.indonesia
From: Robert HO - Find messages by this author

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:21:29 +0800
Local: Tues, Jan 11 2005 1:21 am
Subject: RH: BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR RADIO STATIONS IN JOHOR & BATAM/BINTAN
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RH:
1. In the onetime so-called Growth Triangle of Singapore, JB and Batam/Bintan, all the 3 parts of the Triangle have radio stations.

2. There are several JB radio stations, a couple on Batam/Bintan and about a dozen or two in Singapore. This sets the stage for some healthy competiton. The operating costs are highest in Singapore, much, much, lower in JB and very, very low cost in Batam/Bintan. This sets the stage for my ideas.

3. Until now, the JB stations have tended to cater ONLY to JB listeners, mostly by acting as relay stations from Kuala Lumpur main branches, with occasional 'local' news and programmes produced specially for JB listeners. On Batam, the few radio stations cater ONLY to Batam residents. Until now, there has been no attempt to crossover except for the phenomenally successful Zoo 101.6FM in Sep 88 which drew so many SINGAPORE listeners that even PAP government departments and
organisations were playing it over their public address systems. Then, the PAP realised the loss of mind to Zoo and responded by starting and revamping their radio stations to copy and fight off the 'invasion' from Batam. It was largely successful and now, all 3 parts of the Triangle only cater to their own 'local' listeners. So I now intend to shake things up.

4. If you think about it, there is no reason why a radio station in JB cannot become the MOST LISTENED RADIO STATION IN SINGAPORE. Or, for that matter, there is also no reason why a radio station in Batam cannot be the MOST LISTENED RADIO STATION IN SINGAPORE, too. [Remember Zoo proved it entirely possible?]. I have tested on my handphone FM radio, the reception of some FM radio stations from JB and Batam and have found them good enough. [With the increasing spread of cheap handphones with FM radios and also MP3 Players also with FM radios, more people can and are listening to radio]. Also, if a radio station in JB or Batam is serious in capturing a large SINGAPOREAN listenership, there is no
technical reason why it cannot start or switch to a frequency and power that all SINGAPORE can listen to. Thus, there are no technical difficulties why JB or Batam radio stations cannot compete directly in the SINGAPORE radio listening market. But why would a JB or Batam radio station want to do so? In short, advertising revenues.

5. There are many, many Malaysian companies that are even now ADVERTISING IN SINGAPORE TO SINGAPORE CUSTOMERS OF THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES. This is because many Singaporeans pop over across the Causeway very often, some even weekly. There are many JB businesses which depend on SINGAPOREAN CUSTOMERS; in fact, for much of their business, without which, they would find business unprofitable. Name some?

6. For example, Genting Highlands Resorts are a popular holiday destination for Singaporeans and do advertise in Singapore to Singaporeans. There is also the Malaysian Tourism Board, which is also a heavy advertiser in Singapore to Singaporeans. Then, there are the Sunway Lagoons, Palace of the Golden Horses, Club Meditarranee, many hotels and beach resorts, JB shopping malls and restaurants and supermarkets, etc. I have not read a single Singapore newspaper or listen to a Singapore radio station or watched Singapore TV for years, so I may have missed out a great many others, so I am obviously not the best person to be writing this business proposal. These are just the top of my mind obvious examples of Malaysian advertisers who need to reach SINGAPORE LISTENERS.

7. For more examples, you only need to watch Singapore TV and flip some Singapore newspapers. Doing this will tell you which Malaysian advertisers need to reach Singaporeans and will switch to your radio station when you have proven your large Singaporean listenership coupled with low costs. Even if you only reach a small segment of Singaporeans but your advertising costs are low, which is indeed the case now, many Malaysian advertisers will want to throw a couple of tens of thousands
of dollars into your radio station advertising since the most important consideration is Cost Per Thousand, meaning how many Thousand SINGAPOREANS can a Malaysian advertiser reach with how much Cost? Say, your radio station regularly reaches 50,000 SINGAPOREANS but your advertising rate for a 30 second radio commercial is only HALF of a Singapore radio station's rate, then the Malaysian advertiser will naturally prefer to advertise on YOUR radio station instead of the
doubly expensive Singapore radio station.

8. Then, there are the ADDITIONAL NEW ADVERTISERS who would advertise
if the opportunity presents itself, that is, if there is a cheap and effective media to reach their Singaporean customers. THESE ADDITIONAL NEW ADVERTISERS WILL BE A BIG SOURCE OF ADVERTISING REVENUE TO JB OR BATAM RADIO STATIONS TARGETTING SINGAPOREANS. These new advertisers
include the many JB businesses who cater to Singaporeans but who only need to reach them specifically for short, intense, periods of SALES PROMOTIONS, SPECIAL OFFERS, etc.

9. Thus, the EXISTING MALAYSIAN ADVERTISERS IN SINGAPORE, PLUS THE ADDITIONAL NEW ADVERTISERS MAKE UP, AT LEAST, SEVERAL S$ MILLIONS OF ADVERTISING REVENUES TO BE CAPTURED BY ANY STATION/S HAVING THE RIGHT STRATEGIES. To arrive at some concrete numbers, simply phone or write to the advertising survey research companies in Singapore to ask how much do Malaysian companies advertise in Singapore annually. When I was last in advertising, some 12 years ago, there was a company which did that, called, if I remember, Survey Research Singapore. [Damned, I am blocked
again now from Google Search Engine]. Don't forget, this/these survey research company/ies can only tell you what Malaysian companies are spending NOW and NOT WHAT THEY WILL SPEND IF A GOOD RADIO STATION IN JB OR BATAM PROVES ITSELF.

10. Strategy A : First, compile a list of the big Malaysian advertisers in Singapore. You can do this the easy way, by buying copies of the main Singapore newspapers and watching Singapore local TV channels to write down which Malaysian advertisers are currently advertising in Singapore. Don't forget Bus Panel advertising, too. Or you can pay a bit of money and buy the information, usually precisely presented in numbers and tables, from survey research companies in Singapore. Either way is fine. THEN GET YOUR RADIO STATION SALES REPRESENTATIVES TO CONTACT AND VISIT THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENTS OF THESE BIG MALAYSIAN ADVERTISERS WHO ADVERTISE IN SINGAPORE AND TELL THEM OF YOUR FUTURE PLANS TO CAPTURE A LARGE SINGAPOREAN LISTENERSHIP. Don't forget to also visit the big ADVERTISING AGENCIES in Malaysia, who recommend and spend their clients' advertising budgets.

Stragegy B : Then, of course, you HAVE to capture a reasonably large SINGAPOREAN listenership. How? All the usual ways would work to some
extent, such as lots of good music and talk shows, etc. But then, there is nothing UNIQUE that the Singaporean radio stations cannot COPY and thus flatter you like they flattered Zoo. There is only ONE hugely popular thing that a JB or Batam radio station can do but which NO Singapore radio station will do, and that is Phone-In Interviews with Singapore Opposition Politicians. Ah!

To digress a little, ever since Lee Kuan Yew captured power, mostly due to his selling out his PAP members by giving all their details to the British Special Branch, who then conveniently arrested all his challengers to the PAP party's top post, leaving him the top dog, he clamped down so hard on all media that today, after 45 years, he has a
total and absolute stranglehold of every single media in Singapore.

This total desert of Opposition voices means that when 'allowed' to speak, there is such overwhelming desire to hear them that Opposition rallies, during the limited Election time they may be held, are always packed in the many thousands on the football fields they are held in. I have always been astonished to see the overwhelming crowds who brave even rain to hear Opposition speakers, and having to make their own way to the rallies unlike the PAP 'supporters' who have to be bribed with vouchers and bussed to PAP rallies.

There is such an overwhelming desire to hear the Opposition during Election time that a regular programme of Phone-In Interviews on JB or Batam radio stations will be met with great response. If done regularly at a set time, this "From Singapore" [or some other better name] segment will get a huge listenership. Even if lowkey and noncontroversial, the very fact that a Singapore Opposition leader is speaking will be enough, by itself, to create a huge Singaporean listenership. In order not to sound too much like a Singapore radio station, instead of remaining a JB or Batam radio station, this From Singapore segment can start off as a regular hour every day and increase if the response is good. The local listeners in JB or Batam wouldn't mind, especially if the time slot is say, 9-10pm every night, when most Singaporeans would listen but which many Johoreans and Batamites may not mind sharing their radio station with Singaporeans. If the programme proves popular, it can be repeated
or rebroadcast at other times in the day, say at lunchtime, when many office workers may listen.

Strategy C : The Phone-In Interview. Most Singaporeans revere Mr J B Jeyaretnam for his brave, lone struggle against the PAP machine. So it would be strategic to begin our Phone-In Interviews with Mr Jeyaretnam. Besides being a household name, won and admired over decades, Mr Jeyaretnam was an accomplished judge and lawyer until dirty tactics forced him out of Parliament. So, begin your Phone-In Interviews with a "Week With Jeyaretnam". You only have to ensure that Mr Jeyaretnam is
comfortably seated in a quiet room with a telephone at the right time, say, 9-10pm for the week. Give him the questions in advance for him to prepare. These questions can be worked out from his books, of which I believe he has written two. Then, everything should work fine. You can either do this live on-air or taped and delayed broadcast.

Strategy D : Choose Opposition Politicians who have written books. This is to make your work easier. You only have to buy the books, which are usually available from Select Books at Tanglin Shopping Centre, Singapore. Then read them to get a feel of the author and their ideas. Then, you should be able to draft a list of questions, enough to run a week of interviews. Other authors include Dr Chee Soon Juan, who has
written half a dozen great books [he is a PhD neuropsychologist by training, so will make fascinating interviewing especially on his specialty]. And Mr James Gomez. Get your questions agreed with the interviewees because politics is a minefield in Singapore and Opposition Politicians are routinely sued and bankrupted in Singapore in a rigged judicial system, which is a reflection of the rigged elections in Singapore. For those Opposition Politicians who have not written books, their essays on their websites are also good enough. If they have neither written books or essays, like Low Thia Khiang, so-called Secretary General of the Workers Party, forget him because he will dull your entire programme like the Kiss of Death. My favourite is Dr Chee
because he speaks much better than Lee Kuan Yew.

Strategy E : Making money. It would be better if you start your series with pre-recorded interviews instead of live. This will give both you and the interviewees some valuable experience just in case there are some fumbles you need to edit out. This will also give you easy options to air some advertising commercials BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER the interviews. A half hour interview can make you a huge pile of money, because of the expensive Singapore listenership. Also, your rates would be
very competitive compared with the Singapore radio stations so the Malaysian advertisers will be getting much, much more for the same dollar. There is no reason why a Batam radio station cannot capture Singapore listeners and then use them to draw MALAYSIAN ADVERTISERS. It is just as easy for Malaysian advertisers to send their radio commercials, in the usual one-quarter inch tapes I believe, at the usual 15 inches per second, to Batam Island as to a JB radio station, SO MY
IDEAS WORK FOR BOTH BATAM AS WELL AS JB RADIO STATIONS.

Strategy F : Eventually, after the first months of pre-recorded interviews, you may want to do live on-air phone-in interviews with almost live callers from Singapore asking the interviewees questions for them to answer. This will be quite an ambitious undertaking but very, very high in listenership. When Singaporeans find that they can phone your JB or Batam radio station and ask Dr Chee questions almost live [maybe better to buffer for a minute or so to weed out fake PAP disrupters], your share of Singaporean listenership will skyrocket.

Strategy G : Handphone SMS Text Message Questions. Now, almost every adult Singaporean has a handphone. Some may even be listening now to you on it! So it would be easy for a Singaporean to listen to your radio station on his/her handphone and then to SMS Text you a question or comment for your announcers to read on air. This would be a great feature to further increase the interactivity and listenership of your radio stations. Handphone SMS Text messages to JB or Batam are very cheap so no listener will be put off by the cost.

11. I have been prevented from sleeping yet again but have put the sleep deprivation time to good use. Please forward this email/posting to any JB or Batam/Bintan radio station that may find it useful and profitable. To reach me for further discussion, post your reply or comments on soc.culture.singapore. My email address there [ho3] is not
functional because it is always filled with spam and I never use it.

Robert HO
10 Jan 05
Singapore 0417

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RH: How China can Deter a US Attack [Proxy Target Strategy] 2

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: HOW CHINA CAN DETER A U.S. ATTACK [PROXY TARGET STRATEGY] 2
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2004-11-07 09:48:53 PST

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: HOW CHINA CAN DETER A U.S. ATTACK [PROXY TARGET STRATEGY]
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Date: 2004-11-05 09:56:37 PST

RH:

1. Now that Bush has won a second term, the Republicans will probably consolidate their position not only in the Presidency but also both houses of Congress. America is likely to remain Republican for many more Presidential terms. Hillary hasn't a chance. America will, as in most countries, become a one party state, with an ever smaller Democrat party in opposition. This is my "3 Strikes Theory" which says that if a party wins 3 or more elections in a row, it becomes so powerful after consolidating its power, that the country will become a one party state with ever dwindling minority opposition.

2. Under neo-conservative Republicans, America will invade countries
and use overwhelming military force to get its way. Eventually, it
will clash with China.

3. Bush is already developing an anti-ballistic missile shield to
protect the American mainland, leaving only Alaska and Hawaii exposed
to ICBM retaliation. These 2 States will be unprotected because with
wars ongoing, there is no money to protect them. Besides, they are not white Christian fundamentalists States, so don't matter to
Republicans. Since protecting Alaska or Hawaii costs as much as
protecting the mainland, the US govt will probably choose not to spend such a huge sum of money protecting just 2 small populations. China can, if it chooses, destroy these 2 States with its small number of ICBMs.

4. However, a necon President can never be sure that his anti
ballistic missile shield will work properly in a real war, against
incoming ICBMs from China. It is one thing to work in a test but quite another to work as intended without fault, in a real war, as Iraq has proven to so many of the US so-called high-tech weapons. Many don't work as planned or supposed to or designed to. There are many unexpected outright failures.

5. Suppose that a neocon President spends enough money to develop a
foolproof anti ballistic missile defence shield. So, he is now
confident that China or even Russia, cannot hit him with ICBMs. What
then?

6. China, or Russia, will have no choice but to hit PROXY TARGETS. By Proxy Targets, I mean targets whose destruction will lead to severe moral and ethical loss, especially that of a proven ally.

7. Who are US allies? Before the Iraq war, most of the world could be considered US allies. But now, only Britain and Australia are proven US allies, having sent troops to help the US invade Iraq. At this point in time, and for at least a few more decades, Britain and
Australia are so close to the US that they become Proxy Targets whose
destruction will cause great anguish in America, if not in the White
House. The fact that all 3 countries share a common culture and a
White heritage and language, makes it almost as effective to destroy
Britain and Australia as it is to destroy the US. Thus, if the US is
totally protected from incoming ICBMs, then these may be routed to
Britain and Australia instead.

8. Russia and China should make this Proxy Target Strategy clear to
all well in advance of any hostilities by the US. It should be a
publicly declared policy to influence the electorate in all 3
countries of the consequences of any attack by the US on Russia or
China. By publicly announcing this Proxy Target Policy, the peoples
and governments of Britain and Australia will quickly distance
themselves from the US, the exact opposite of now in the Iraq war.
Britain and Australia will quickly discover that instead of gaining
fame and fortune by prostituting to the Americans, that it is instead
an invitation to be attacked with ICBMs. Even if the US tries to
protect Britain and Australia with its anti ballistic missile shield,
the cost to all 3 countries will be so huge that their economies will
buckle under the effort. Besides, Britain and Australia will likely
get only the old and even obsolete models, as is US practice, and thus will never be sure that their protection is foolproof. Furthermore, they will never be sure that the Russians and the Chinese have not improved their ICBMs to the point where their shields will be ineffective. Thus, Britain and Australia will never truly trust the US for their defence and so will quickly distance themselves from the US. A happy outcome.

9. [To be continued]

Robert HO
6 Nov 04 0156 [Have been prevented from sleeping but will now try to
sleep after this retaliation by idea].
Singapore

RH: Since I have again been kept awake, I now continue, at 0128 in
the wee morning of Mon 8 Nov 04.

9. Suppose the US and Britain and Australia do spend the huge sums of money to install foolproof anti ballistic missile systems to protect all USA including Hawaii and Alaska plus Britain and Australia, what then?

The answer is for Russia or China to atom bomb the polar ice caps.
This will melt all the entire ice caps and trigger humongous freak
weather changes that nobody, at this moment, can predict, except that
it will be catastrophic, as a reading of the article below will
suggest.

If the ice caps are atom bombed, it will, in the short term, vaporise
all the ice caps and thus immediately raise the sea levels all round
the world thus drowning many cities. Every coastal city or area will
be inundated. Much damage will be caused by tsunami-type waves that
will be far bigger than any seen before. But that's not all.

In the middle term, the world's weather will suffer freak storms that
make the recent hurricanes in Florida seem puny, with corresponding
destructive power. In short, mother nature will be unleashed in all
her fury.

In the slightly longer term, the atom bombing of the ice caps may even trigger off a new Ice Age, with horrendous consequences for the entire planet.

I would be lying if I say I can predict all these, but my assumptions
are indeed very reasonable, if readers will do some searching using
words such as Ice Age, Ice Caps Melting, Greenhouse Effect, Solar
Radiation Effects, Global Warming, Global Cooling, etc. It would take
a good deal of supercomputer modelling to begin to see the consequences of atom bombing the ice caps, but I can assure you, what
I have briefly outlined above is the least of the horrors that will be unleashed. Some possibilities could be the turning of the planet to sizzlingly hot surface that cannot sustain any life like Venus. Or the earth becomes a frozen wasteland like some other lifeless planets. Life on earth is extremely fragile, perched on a knife's edge of countless variables that must be just right. A few ICBMs nuking the ice caps will change all that.

As the article below suggests. JUMP TO...
.......................................

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Warning to Bush and LKY
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2004-11-04 09:57:49 PST

RH:

You have radiated my brain to keep me up till now, early Fri morning
0150 am. You have disabled my computer to prevent me from posting
anything, until I took out my wife's company notebook computer and
successfully accessed soc.culture.singapore and shook my finger
warningly at the ceiling to indicate that I will post meaning hit back with ideas, in my usual way, if my computer is not 'unblocked', after which I now regain all its functions and am posting this now.

Unless you are also able to block my wife's computer, I shall use it
to hit back with ideas. So, you had better not block my computer next
time.

Also, if I am unable to sleep from now on, I shall hit back with
ideas.

You have been warned.

I will not give any second warning next time.

I shall now go to sleep.

If I cannot, I shall hit back.

I also want all my websites back, Singapore-Window, CNN, etc. Or I
will put the blocking of these as 'credit' and when you have
accumulated enough credit, I shall also hit back.

I shall now go back to sleep and I trust you will not dare to keep me
awake.

You have been warned.

There will be no further warnings.

Robert Ho
Fri 5 Nov 04 0157
Singapore


..................

JUMP TO...HERE [THIS ARTICLE].

Greenhouse - Green Planet

Of all the planets in our solar system, the Earth is the only one that -- as far as we know -- supports life. So why is our planet alone so hospitable?

In part, we owe our existence to a process called the greenhouse
effect. Inside an artificial greenhouse filled with plants, the
surrounding glass traps the sun's energy, making it warm inside, even
while outside the temperature may be much colder. This same effect
happens every day on the Earth. Gases within the atmosphere act like
glass, trapping the sun's heat. These gases include water vapor,
carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Just like any other planet, the Earth absorbs the sun's heat and
radiates it back towards space. But greenhouse gases counteract that
heat loss, trapping heat, and reflecting it back towards the Earth.
The more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more heat that is
trapped. The less the amount of greenhouse gases, the less heat that
is trapped. Earth has just the right amount to help life flourish. Too many of these gases, as is the case on Venus, would create a runaway greenhouse and a sizzling hot surface. On the other hand, without any greenhouse gases, much of the sun's heat would be lost, and the Earth would become a frozen wasteland with an average temperature of 0 degrees fahrenheit (-18 degrees celsius).

Each greenhouse gas has its own important role in trapping the sun's
heat, the most significant of which is water vapor. On a clear day,
water vapor can comprise 60 to 70 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Next in line, carbon dioxide contributes an additional 25 percent.
Some gases trap solar radiation from the sun better than others. For
example, while man-made CFCs are one of the least plentiful gases,
they actually have a greater relative impact than many others.

The changes in the balance and concentration of all these gases can
affect the Earth's temperature, and these temperature changes are
often referred to as "global warming" or "global cooling." Greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere have been naturally rising and
falling for billions of years, creating cold and warm periods in the
Earth's history. For example, as the Ice Age progressed, scientists
believe the amount of natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dropped over thousands of years, reducing the greenhouse effect, and making the Earth cooler. But many disagree on how that change in carbon dioxide occurred (see "Big Chill" by Kirk Maasch). Today, scientists are looking at effects of global warming as they debate the long-term impact of man-made carbon dioxide and CFCs entering the atmosphere. Many climatologists argue that we are artificially increasing the greenhouse effect, warming the Earth faster than would occur naturally, which could cause problems for the Earth in the future.

But even as scientist debate the impact of changes to the greenhouse
gases, there is still one fact with which they all can agree – without the greenhouse effect, life on this planet would not be the same. In fact, we would not be here at all.

......................

10. [To be continued if I am not allowed to sleep]


http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?q=rh:&start=300&hl=en&lr=&group=soc.culture.singapore.*&scoring=d&selm=c443dfe.0411070948.77f31924%40posting.google.com&rnum=308

RH: Demographics-based Economics

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Demographics-based Economics
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore
Date: 2004-10-10 21:37:18 PST

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Robert's Complete Case Against Leeconomics (Main)
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Date: 2003-06-18 07:02:04 PST

RH:

ROBERT's COMPLETE CASE AGAINST LEECONOMICS

No discussion of LEECONOMICS can begin without a definition of GDP, so I will offer one here, a fairly standard definition of GDP: "Gross
Domestic Product is the total market value of all the final goods and
services produced by labour and property in a country, regardless of
the nationality of the entities producing the output."

The last is key to understanding Leeconomics: "…regardless of the
nationality of the entities producing the output." Thus, in this one
definition can be understood why Leeconomics has failed the people of
Singapore and ultimately, Singapore itself. To quote from Dr Chee Soon Juan's January 2001 speech to Stanford University, entitled The Puzzle That Never Was, "More than 7000 of these multinationals, involved in every type of business conceivable, have setup shop in Singapore. They account for more than 90 percent of investments in the manufacturing sector, 70 percent of the gross output in the manufacturing sector, over 50 percent of those employed, and 82 percent of direct exports."

Meaning that, as in the arguments that follow, since most of the
entities producing the output in Singapore are foreign Multi National
Companies [MNCs], the people and economy of Singapore derive little
benefit from such unusually heavy reliance on Foreign Direct
Investment [FDI] except initially, in the profusion of jobs created,
but which are now, also very unusually, largely taken by foreign
workers deliberately mis-named "Foreign Talent" [FT]. But more of
these later. [As an aside, China today stands in danger of becoming
another ‘economic slave' with as little chance of upgrading out of
it].

When did GDP come about? After all, it wasn't even understood by
Governments a few decades ago, although now, every single Singaporean
seems to know the latest figures, thanks to a Government and a
Government-controlled media that has come to regard this Magic Number
as a kind of national scorecard and a kind of indicator of how well
Singapore is run as compared to other countries. It has been subtly
portrayed in Singapore by Lee's Regime as almost a kind of athletic
event race to the finish line, with Singapore, of course, usually
among the leaders, if not well in the lead.

This was not always so. In Singapore a few decades back, there might
have been some statistical measures of economic performance but it was probably the GNP, and hardly made the news, since it was just a number only the very few statisticians around understood, or knew how to calculate, and even the collection of statistics was in its infancy and wholly inadequate. In those days, probably even the Government of Lee Kuan Yew and LKY himself did not fully understand the import of GDP. Certainly, LKY then did not even think of measuring himself using this, by now Magic, Number of GDP.

‘ADVANCED' AND ‘BACKWARD' COUNTRIES

In those days, countries did not compare with one another. And when
they did, they merely thought of themselves as 'advanced countries' or 'backward countries'.

An advanced country was one where the people had enough to eat, had
decent homes, a good public transport system, decent work with decent
working hours and adequate healthcare, etc. In other words, the basics of good social and physical infrastructure. A backward country was the opposite.

How much simpler things were then, and how much more relevant
comparisons were than today's over-emphasis on the GDP Number. Today
in Singapore (at least, until recently, when the Number began turning
ridiculously low and even negative), the GDP is used to justify the
$1-2 million salaries the Ministers pay themselves. It is also used in other nefarious ways, for example, to change the entire workforce into a GDP-enhancing system, without regard for whether this all-consuming drive for high GDP actually translates into an 'advanced' country's quality of life for the citizens.

As one example, the overriding desire to produce high GDP Numbers has
led to the influx of 1 million foreigners, deceptively labelled by the PAP as 'Foreign Talent' so that locals would not baulk at the numbers, the highest in the world for a small domestic population of 3.2 million. Also, it was a non-too-subtle putdown for the locals for, if you are not a talent, would you dare oppose so many foreign 'Talents' pouring in, and being treated even better than the locals, to boot? Also, we are told by the Great Man himself, and repeated by his faithful Heir and Court Eunuchs, 'that foreigners create jobs that would otherwise not be created' and which has been disproved by me in:

RH: Why Foreign Talent policy cannot work:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306170359.51a0d094%40posting.google.com

Why is this incessant chasing after high GDP Numbers bad? Isn't this
how all countries are ranked and measured now, if not way back then
but very true now?

CHICKEN ENTRAIL READERS

True to some extent. Nowadays, with the Economist having become the
modern day Oracle and Soothsayer, [but reading the innards of
computers instead of chicken entrails], from whom even world leaders
have to seek advice and prognostications, the GDP Number is indeed
important. But it was not always so. I would put the Rise of the
Economist about 20 years back. (Different countries would have
different times for their Rise of the Economist until today, we are
all living in the Golden Age of Economics).

Around 20 years ago, the world and LKY began to adopt statistical
measures for everything. For everything, there was a number. Without a number, you could be accused of generalities, of not being 'accurate'. With numbers, everything seemed so scientific, so precise, so unbiased. No longer did countries call themselves advanced' or 'backward'. Now the world had numbers and you stand either on a very precise 6.3% GDP growth or a less impressive 5.9%. Instantly, countries could be very precisely ranked, which is what numbers allow, since numbers are created for that very purpose and by definition, are ordered progressions.

Except that, numbers can lie and do lie, and lie very insidiously.

Why?

Let's take GDP Numbers. First, let me repeat my definition of GDP:
"Gross Domestic Product is the total market value of all the final
goods and services produced by labour and property in a country,
regardless of the nationality of the entities producing the output."

That is a short definition. No proper understanding of GDP can be had
in less than a thousand words embedding several technical
sub-definitions. Ah, we begin to sense that the GDP is actually woolly and indistinct and not a sharp featured animal -- it is a Jabberwocky. Worse, the compilations of the numbers that go into this final so-accurate-looking Number, are actually even more woolly. Different countries have vastly differently-sized or even wholly different economy sectors and so we are not even comparing apples with apples.

Since different countries have differently-sized or different economy
sectors, this means that Country A's GDP growth of 4.1% [I have always wondered how they can manage to get it so accurate to one decimal place!] may actually be 'better' than Country B's 6.1%. By 'better', I would have to use the old, English, non-Economics meaning of 'better managed and better-performing'.

THE RUNNING TRACK ANALOGY

Now, I normally dislike using analogies because no analogy is 100%
accurate to the meaning it is supposed to illustrate and often
introduce inaccuracies and irrelevant sub-meanings that distort the
original meaning intended. But I will break my rule here to offer one. Just one. Imagine countries to be runners all running around a 400 metre running track. Also imagine that all the runners started at
different times from different start points around the track. Further
imagine that some runners are running full marathons of 10 km, some
half marathons of 3 km, some 1,000 metres, some sprinting 400 metres
and others doing the dash of 100 metres. Now, comparing these
different countries (runners) at a moment in time by putting yourself
at the Finish Line or some other point, could you meaningfully say
that Country A is better than Country B or Country C or D, etc? It
just doesn't make sense to even compare.

So, when LKY found that advanced countries measured themselves using
the GDP growth rates, and that Singapore happened to score high GDP
growth rates because of its unique size and economic features, GDP
Numbers became the prime justification for everything from his own
salary to deliberately lowering the salaries of workers, and for
policies benefiting the rich to become richer while the poor were
kept poor and even made poorer by deliberate Government policies --
justified on the premise that high GDP growth rates were the be-all
and end-all of Government!

Thus, his entire economics policy (singular, because he has had only
one) became one long drive to attract Foreign Direct Investment and
lately, to bring in vast hordes of Foreign Talents to work in the jobs this FDI brought. Where, you might ask, do Singaporeans figure in all this? We don't. Foreigners invest here, employ foreigners to work here to produce the goods and services –- most for export, and both these foreign parties make the money and probably repatriate much of it back home. We look on as unemployed locals. And meanwhile, this 'foreignisation' of the economy seems to produce decent Numbers that LKY and his Court Eunuchs can boast about and on the basis of which they reward themselves with yet more pay rises!

THE 3 WAVES OF LABOUR

This last policy of bringing in vast hordes of FTs is what may be
termed the Third Wave of workers. In the early days of LKY's reign, he faced the postwar baby boom, which produced big numbers of workers
seeking work and a life – the First Wave. So he went into overdrive to create jobs, hence the drive to attract FDI. Due to the boom in the region, and the rise of the Japanese Yen, which drove many Japanese companies out of Japan and many to Singapore, he succeeded. So well, in fact, that he also encouraged women to leave their womenly chores at home to work in offices and factories – the Second Wave. Finally, when yet more cheap labour was needed, FTs were brought in. Thus, Leeconomics's seemingly impressive early GDP growth was largely due to massively increasing labour participation, in 3 big Waves. However, this Third Wave was also designed to lower overall wages, since the local Singaporeans were becoming used to decent wages. This resulted in the current deliberate lowering of all wages to restore the economy back into a low-wage, cheap labour economy, from which we never really upgraded. "If we did not have some foreign workers to average down the wage cost for the employers, are you sure the employers can survive in Singapore?" admitted DPM Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, Oct 29, 2001.

Thus, while the elite have their taxes cut so they can get richer, the working classes are actually heading back to become the cheap labour attraction of a generation ago. To quote again from Dr Chee's 'Puzzle' Speech: "During the Asia crisis, monthly wages for low-skilled workers fell up to 34 percent from $746 in 1998 to $492 in 1999. During that period, 16 percent of the work force earned below $1000 a month. Nearly 30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the minimum standard of life," [while] "the average household income for the top 10 percent rose by more than 3 percent while the number of millionaires in the country increased by 40 percent to a record high 742."

Economists will recognise from these 3 Waves of labour that
Singapore's seemingly impressive GDP growth in the early years are all due to increasing inputs of labour and not from increasing
productivity and as such, cannot be sustained. FTs now number 1.1
million, that is, work permit holders including maids, out of a native population of 3.2 million. What this does to the social fabric is not just a matter for sociologists, but a concern for economists as well because on an island of 650 square kilometres without any resources, this is clearly unsustainable. Unless, of course, a non-economics solution is sought, such as the invasion of Johor State, for its land, water and Chinese population, probably on some Hitler-Poland pretext.

Thus, Leeconomics is: ‘attract foreign capital into Singapore,
bringing in their foreign technology, employing foreign workers,
producing foreign goods for foreign exports'. The peoples' crisis at
the moment [the leaders never suffer any, for obvious reasons], is
that all this foreignisation of the economy nowadays doesn't even give them the jobs or the salaries it used to some years back.

For a fuller discussion of why FTs are bad for Singapore's economy and people, read my post in this newsgroup

[RH: Hiring Foreign Talent -- How Many Jobs Do We Lose?]:

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0306180209.225024b9%40posting.google.com

ROBERT's THEORY OF JOB CREATION

[This Robert's Theory of Job Creation explains how, across the whole
economy, 100,000 FTS –- and there are now 1.1 million work permit
holders -- may cause a loss of up to a million jobs. It also explains
why hiring one FT results in generating only ONE family's worth of
economic activities whereas hiring a local instead generates MANY
families worth of economic activities. Thus, from a sheer economics
standpoint, hiring locals for top-level jobs is far, far better for
the economy].

This Numbers Game Syndrome is a peculiarly Singaporean phenomenon for
several reasons. Firstly, the Singapore Technocrat or Bureaucrat or
Minister is not a real politician. He has no political skills in
communicating with or moving the people. At best, he is a manager and
indeed, most of them were former managers in Government Companies or
the Civil Service. Thus, these managers are predisposed to Numbers and totally lack the instinctive empathy with the people that all true politicians possess. Secondly, they are totally unaccountable to the people because Singapore is not a democracy. This leads to a totally top-down administration that can get very, very distant from the people below.

Today, if you have lived long enough in Singapore, especially over the last 15 years or so, and have been reading the local media, you would know instinctively that what I have written above is all true. Except that I am the first one to point out this truth in this way.

So, if comparisons of GDP growth rates between countries are
meaningless, are high Numbers also meaningless? The answer is Yes.
Coming back to my Running Track Analogy, it is useless and unhelpful
to compare a 100m dash runner to one doing the 10km marathon, even if
both are passing you by at the same time. They are running different
races! Thus even Absolute Numbers are meaningless. If LKY says that he managed 8% GDP growth last year, so what? Does that mean that all the people got better pay/profits by an average of 8% last year? Until that is so, even high absolute numbers mean nothing. The most LKY can say is that, under his rule, Singapore has become better in social and physical infrastructure and that people have a better quality of life. Which can also be said of Hongkong, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, etc, etc, -- more than half the world if we bother to count. Very few countries regress in such things.

Thus, GDP growth rates used to justify astronomical Ministers'
salaries and other unfair Government policies that benefit the rich
and disadvantage the poor is a Lie at best. At worst, it DISTORTS
Government policies away from a more equitable distribution of wealth
and important things like healthcare as well as 'Foreign Talents'
taking away jobs and meaningful lives from citizens. We can say that
the PAP Government, which prides itself on being the most intelligent
Ministers in the world, have made themselves the stupidest by not
having analysed the issue as I have done here. If they had, they would have come to the same conclusions as I have and the people would all have been better off. I am aware that I am doing the PAP a service by pointing out this aspect of their policies of which they are totally oblivious. And by so pointing out where they had gone wrong and thought wrong, I am helping them to change tack, to dephasise GDP and to emphasise people first, at a time when GDP growth is no longer impressive and will remain that way for years, perhaps decades, perhaps even forever, to come. So, this little treatise actually gives them an excuse to drop the emphasis on GDP Numbers just when the Numbers are no longer impressive.

‘AVERAGE', ‘GOOD', ‘EXCELLENT' GDP GROWTH

It would have been better for this stupid Government to express
economic growth annually by giving it a say, 'Good' score, or an
"Average' score or an 'Excellent', etc, and be done with it. By
getting seemingly impressive numbers in the earlier years, the PAP has gone chasing after high GDP Numbers in a kind of 'competition to get the highest Number' contest to the extent it has forgotten that the ultimate end result of all Government polices is to improve the
citizens' lives and not to achieve some high GDP Number. Other
countries are not obsessed with high GDP numbers because firstly, they don't have seemingly impressively high numbers, and secondly, they are all hitting about the same numbers range, so they take it in their stride and don't deliberately formulate Government policies for the sole effect of high GDP Numbers. This is because most other countries have a free press and a more democratic system that prevents this particular abuse and distortion of Government policies. When people are allowed to think and criticise, the Government cannot get away with stupid practices like this of LKY and his PAP Govt. Precisely because only Singaporeans are not allowed to think and criticise, this Abuse and Lie of GDP Numbers is practised only in Singapore.

If the PAP does not deliberately formulate policies for high Numbers,
what should it do? Ah, here I may have to do some National Service
again, to offer alternatives that are better than the current Number
Chase, which has gone on for too long and distorted economic and
social, even welfare (practically non-existent) policies.

SOCIAL COMPACTS THE ANSWER

For example, instead of formulating Government economic policies for
high Numbers, the Government should set itself a series of Social
Compacts.

By that, I mean that the Government should sit down and think out a
series of desired objectives for the people, such as:

*That no Singaporean should go hungry;
*That no Singaporean should live without a roof over his head;
*That no young Singaporean should be without at least 10 years of
absolutely free schooling;
*That no Singaporean, able or handicapped, be without a job that
pays no less than $600 a month, this to be reviewed yearly;
*That no Singaporean worker be without a non-politically-affiliated
union;
*That no Singaporean should be without medical care when sick, even
if he cannot pay for it;
*That no working Singaporean be without sufficient leisure to rest
from work and to improve himself whether such improvement be
educational, in hobbies or community matters;

These are all easily achievable and only require a different focus and a change in thinking from chasing High Numbers to Serving
Singaporeans. When that change in thinking is undertaken, the Government economic policies can be adjusted accordingly, such as
reducing 'Foreign Talents' -- practically an 'instant' cure for many
of Singapore's current economic ills! These are all very achievable
and much of it requires no more than small changes in policies. [However, change will be hard for a Regime that never admits that any of its policies can be wrong or ill thought out – saving face is more important to it than saving the people].

Certainly, my Social Compacts make much more sense than the current
bullshit about 'Community Above the Individual' rubbish which is
nothing more than an excuse for continued dictatorship.

Other Social Compacts can include (although I am not hopeful):

*That every Singaporean above 18 have the right to elect his MP in a Single-MP Constituency as conducted by an independent Elections
Commission; while every Singaporean below 18 have their vote exercised by the mother, first, and the second child, the father, and so on [thus achieving, for the first time in the world, truly universal suffrage for every citizen without any arbitrary distinction due to age];
*That every Singaporean household be given a free permanent
subscription to a newspaper of his choice, which can be changed;
*That every Singaporean household be given a 14" CTV if it does not
already have a better one;
*That every Singaporean household be given a radio if it does not
already have a better one;
*That every Singaporean household be allowed to use their CPF for
the purchase of computers and peripherals;
*That there be a free-to-air Politics Channel on TV and Radio [with
related Internet websites] that broadcasts politics 24/7, including
registered Opposition political activities;

*Other Social Compacts can relate to the rights of citizens or their legal rights, or human rights, or citizens' rights, etc.

If all these seem startling, it is only because of their novelty. I
have long thought out parts and pieces of these, so I can say that
with time, these are all very sensible, even obvious. They are not
pie-in-the-sky ideas at all. The first Social Compact is easily
achievable. The second requires a willingness to level the playing
field for the Opposition but still confers enormous advantages to the
PAP. It will actually be better for the PAP than the Opposition and
better overall for Singaporeans. All it requires is an acknowledgment
that Leeconomics has had its day and should be retired, which can also be said of Lee himself. And about time, too. Too much damage has
already been wrought.

Robert Ho
18 Jun 03
UK 1500 Singapore 2200

RH: I would like to acknowledge an intellectual debt to Dr Chee Soon
Juan for the above article because he had long sounded this theme in
various speeches, books and publications in the Open Singapore Centre
and the Singapore Democratic Party.

.................................................

RH:

1. Since the above was written, I have recently come across some
statistics that may buttress my argument as described in the above "3
Waves of Labour". Which theorises that at least in Singapore, the GDP
is much more a function of labour than perhaps, anything else. Today,
I would like to expand this a little.

2. If I am right, not only Singapore but other countries, too, depend on demographics for GDP far more than is realised or orthodox
economists allow for.

3. For example, if we take a strictly demographic approach to
explaining GDP, as I have done in the above "3 Waves of Labour", then
old and ageing societies may be expected to produce lower numbers than new and growing populations. Is this so?

4. Let us take a look at the EU, comprising much of Europe and having big, greying populations. The average GDP growth in the EU in the past few years is an anaemic 1%. This seems to fit my theory, which is that demographics play a far bigger role in GDP than most economists will allow.

5. In the US, the average of the past few years is 2.5%, somewhat
better than the EU. Does this slightly better performance disprove my
theory? Not at all. In fact, it confirms it. Remember that my thesis
is that demographics is a major determinant of GDP? The US did better
than the EU largely because of its big continuing influx of
immigrants, almost all of economically productive age. To an extent
not seen in the low-immigration societies of Old Europe. Also, the UK
has done better than the rest of the EU and here again, the bigger
influx of immigrants probably explains why, although Gordon Brown will be loath to admit so.

6. Another example. Japan was/is the most ageing of all large, modern populations and sure enough, Japan has been mired in a dozen years of almost no-growth. If I am right, Japan will continue to stagnate in low GDP growth forever, since immigration is almost non-existent and the population will not become any younger anytime soon.

7. It is also no surprise that all the so-called Tiger economies were comprised of mostly young populations, namely, postwar Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore, and nowadays, Malaysia and
Thailand.

8. Even China seems to prove my theory. China for the last decade or
so, is a young society and it is booming along GDP-wise. This is both
good news and bad news. For if I am right, and economies depend more
on demographics than is allowed by orthodox economists, then all the
Tiger economies, including China, will soon falter and lapse into a
Japan-like malaise when their societies age, which is inevitable. My
theory may also explain India's rise. If I am right, and India's
population is young, India should experience the same booming economy
as China, which, I believe, is actually happening.

9. However, societies that need to continue high GDP may have to
artificially import huge numbers of immigrants, or at least, foreign
workers, and this is exactly what Singapore has done, with almost a
quarter of its population foreigners. But no other country can do this with impunity, due to political and social considerations. Only a true dictatorship like Singapore's can do it with impunity.

10. There are many more examples out there, I believe. I know nothing about the South Americas, or Africa or even the rest of Asia, Europe and Canada. But I can think of a simple test to determine if I am right. Suppose you look at a country first in terms of its
demographics, namely whether it is a growing or a greying population,
then see if it has significant immigration or foreign workers, then
you should be able to tell if that country has good GDP or not – then check the actuals to see if it all pans out as I predicted. Any
economist willing to do this? You could be on the brink of a new
paradigm.

Robert HO
11 Oct 04 1235
Singapore

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RH: "Flexible Interiors Concept" for Airbus A380

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: "Flexible Interiors Concept" for Airbus A380
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Date: 2004-10-04 22:40:24 PST

RH:

1. The Airbus A380 can carry up to 550 passengers, in the biggest
fuselage in aviation history. However, this capacious capacity may
mean that in some seasonal variations of low passenger bookings, or
sudden low passenger bookings due to say, a terrorist scare or another SARS scare, the plane may carry below capacity leading to waste of space and opportunity cost.

2. By employing a judo tactic, this waste of space may be converted
into a huge advantage. Introducing my Flexible Interiors Concept.

3. This concept is simply, to put the waste of empty seats to other
uses than seating passengers to give the remaining passengers more
benefits.

4. For example, rows of empty seats, or even whole sections,
depending on the number of empty seats, may be removed and replaced
with say, single or even double beds to offer passengers a true Hotel
Bed experience, at some extra cost, of course. Passengers can either
sign up for these Hotel Beds beforehand or on the spot after
inspecting the facilities.

5. While real beds will probably be the most desired service, other
possible variations can include Massage Cubicles with trained
masseurs.

6. Hotel Beds and Massage Cubicles can be quickly partitioned by
heavy curtains, etc, for light weight and quick installation. Hospital bed curtain systems are a guide to possibilities.

7. Other flexible interior ideas can include a Reading Room, Lounge,
Children's Playground, Video Game Arcade, Casino, even a small band or string quartet in attendance in a soundproofed Concert Chamber.

8. For those who fear deep vein thrombosis, there could be an
exercise or Gym area for light exercise. This could be very important
to reassure passengers they can combat DVT and thus fly safer. As
important commercially as Hotel Beds. There need not be many gym
equipment, just some light equipment but mostly space to stretch out
and relieve the cramped positions of sitting for hours in a plane
seat. A trained air steward/ess can be in part time attendance,
together with helpful videos and posters to suggest quick and useful
exercises. Thus, you literally fly safer on an Airbus A380.

9. This Flexible Interiors Concept also allows alternate rows of
seats to be removed to become instant premium seating with much more
leg space. Alternatively, only 1 or 2 rows in a section need be
removed and all the rest of the seats may be slid forward or backward
to produce more even extra leg space for all in the section. This
would involve slight modification to the current seats, which are
permanently bolted down. My idea would be to remove 1 or 2 rows and
the resulting space be distributed to all the rest simply by sliding
the remaining seats forward or backward, exactly like we slide our
front car seats to adjust to our preference. The difference is that
maybe, the passengers should not be able to slide their seats, this
adjustment of seats being done by the plane's mechanics ground staff
before the plane takes off.

10. For accurate weight calculations, which is important for safety,
all the possible configurations must be calculated beforehand. For
example, say, Row 1 may be removable and the entire Section A then
share the increased leg space. All this can be pre-configured and
pre-calculated beforehand. Or, say, a Gym Area with say, half a dozen
Walking Treadmills all bolted down in exactly calculated positions. Or a Casino with pre-calculated parts all known to the last kilogram,
etc.

11. There will need to be a new system of bolting down the seats and
any change to interiors, say, the installation of Hotel Beds. A new
system of bolts and under-floor bolt-taking beams with pre-configured
bolt holes need to be developed. Once developed, all that needs to be
done is to quickly unbolt and remove unwanted seats and bolt on the
new feature, such as Hotel Beds. Or, say, unbolting 1 or 2 rows of
unwanted seats and redistributing the freed up space for all the rest
of the remaining seats by simply unbolting a locking bolt to slide the entire remaining rows for more leg space. Expansion bolts are a
possible way to do all these.

12. Airlines ordering the A380 or plane interior designers can start
to design such Instant Parts, etc, that can be safely bolted down
within an hour or so, using Knock Down parts much like Ikea furniture, etc. These should be easily transported and assembled into the plane interior and bolted down within an hour or so. This is not at all difficult. Modular furniture has existed for decades.

13. Transportation of the parts is dead easy because airports already have all the trucks, trolleys, container loaders, etc, to load parts onto planes. The only snag may be that currently, planes are designed to load even big containers, into the cargo bay area and not directly into the passenger areas. This is not a huge problem because a little modification to the door and entry areas and maybe the installation of a lift or lifting platform from the cargo deck to the passenger deck is all that is needed. In fact, if there is spare cargo space in the cargo hold, the plane itself can carry the Instant Parts needed for deployment.

14. So, with this Flexible Interiors idea, big planes that find
themselves with many untaken seats can quickly, within an hour or so, outfit the spare and unused space with generous facilities from Instant Lounges, to Instant Pubs, to Instant Gyms, to Instant Hotels, to Instant Library or Reading Rooms, to Instant Playgrounds for children, if say, the airline is carrying many children like on a school excursion, say, or even Instant Golf Putting Green, etc, etc. The potential is limited only by the imagination.

15. Imagine the kind of advertising and marketing that this Flexible
Interiors idea can generate! Most airline marketing and advertising
suck because airlines and planes are practically identical. With this
Flexible Interior idea, instantly, marketing and advertising will be,
of course, FLEXIBLE! Airlines can now pitch their services with all
kinds of offers. Some can offer Golf In The Air, others Hotel In The
Air, others Playground In The Air, others Video Games In The Air,
others Internet In The Air, etc.

16. If this idea works, this could be the biggest idea in air travel
since passenger travel was invented.

Robert HO
5 Oct 04 1340
Singapore

http://groups.google.com/groups?start=75&hl=en&lr=&group=soc.culture.singapore&selm=c443dfe.0410042140.21b1b95c%40posting.google.com

RH: The Unchanging Nature of Dictatorships

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: The unchanging nature of dictatorships
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Date: 2004-09-27 20:50:59 PST

RH:

1. From mankind's earliest days, dictators are a pretty common lot.
They act and behave in almost identical fashion. First, they get into
power, some by the gun, others by trickery, yet others by legitimate
vote. However, once in power, they set about jailing opponents,
stifling dissent, muzzling the media and converting them into
mouthpieces for his adulation and worship, also subverting and
corrupting every major institution of the state in the process, then
these dictators become very, very rich by converting their influence
into affluence, enriching their family and relatives by the way, after which they ease their family, children and some necessary cronies into top jobs and finally pass on their dictatorships onto their children.

2. If that seems a description of Lee Kuan Yew, then you are right.
He falls into this description of dictators and therefore, is a
dictator and Singapore, a dictatorship. He is, in short, a common
dictator, no different from Kim Jong Il or some other common despot.

3. Dictators also rig elections, LKY no exception. For example,
Saddam held regular elections in which he won over 90% of the votes.
The question is, why should dictators bother to hold elections at all, since they rig it anyway? The reason is legitimacy. Even dictators need to give an impression of legitimate rule and not rule by fiat although one writer wrote that LKY's reign is "thinly disguised rule by decree".

4. To understand why even dictators with absolute power need
legitimacy, consider what happens when a dictator has no legitimacy.
The moment he has no legitimacy, his rule instantly becomes subject to overthrow by either the people, or more likely, those close to him and also wielding some power, since no dictator, no matter how closely he holds the reigns of power, can govern alone without assistants. If a dictator has no legitimacy, those close to him also become imbued with the right to rule, as much [or as little] as the dictator himself.

Thus, there will be much jockeying and plots to remove him and take
over power for themselves. Thus, some semblance of legitimacy or a
rubber stamp parliament such as in Singapore, is necessary for
legitimacy. The dictator thus holds elections, not so much for show or a need to fool the people and the world, but to forestall any attempts to remove him and take over themselves. Thus, legitimacy means less challenges to his rule and therefore a longer and less disturbed rule.

5. If legitimacy is the first requirement for a dictator, then
stability is the first value in a dictatorship. Almost everything is
subordinated to this need for stability. Again, there is self-interest in this for the dictator. Most societies want stability, even democracies, although in democracies, there is always the dynamic of controlled change including a total change in government. In a dictatorship, where legitimacy is the first requirement and stability the first value, the first virtue would be loyalty. Thus, dictators always hold themselves up as the embodiment of the state, and of course, everyone is expected to be loyal to the state, defending it to the death if called on. Thus, the PAP, by blurring the line between itself [the Party], and the State, thus by sleight of hand, confuses the citizens of Singapore into being loyal to it [the PAP party] by insisting on the age-old virtue of being loyal to the State.

6. If legitimacy is the first requirement of a dictatorship,
stability the first value, and loyalty the first virtue, what is the
first evil of a dictatorship? That would be change.

7. In the Singapore dictatorship, change is frowned upon. Especially
in the corridors of power. That is why all the 3 Prime Ministers
Singapore ever had are all 3 still in the Cabinet. That is why when
Goh Chok Tong took over, ostensibly and nominally, as PM, his Cabinet
was almost exactly the same as LKY's and why now, Lee Hsien Loong's
Cabinet is much the same as GCT's! Again, the reason why change is bad is that, if there is no change, there can be no dynamic that could force a change in leadership, or even policies. Thus, no-change means that all the old policies can continue, all the strictures LKY
promulgated remain in place and why there cannot even be questioning
of LKY's policies and beliefs.

8. I once read some philosophy that explained why "tradition is how
the dead control the living". Meaning that through the strictures of
tradition, all the old policies promulgated by the previous chiefs
continue to 'guide' or rather, control the living, who, by obeying
these traditions, thereby continue to be controlled by those who had
promulgated them but have passed on. Until the living breaks free of
these traditions can they then hope to redefine their lives. In
Singapore, we are all held captive to LKY's strictures and even his
son and heir, LHL, cannot break free to redefine or reshape policies.

9. Thus, change is one way to spot a dictatorship from a democracy.
This does not mean that change is necessarily and always good. It
simply means that change is a good indicator of whether a society is
free to rethink and reshape policies or whether it is rigidly bound by an old man or even one who has passed on. To conclude, you can spot a democracy from a dictatorship by whether it has the capability for change. Singapore has not and does not. So, it falls into the category of the unchanging nature of dictatorships.

Robert HO
28 Sep 04 1146
Singapore

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RH: Darwinism Revised

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Darwinism Revised
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Date: 2004-09-26 22:24:00 PST

RH:

1. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is one of the biggest ideas in the
history of mankind. It explains, in one elegant [the best ideas are
always elegant] stroke, how the world came to be and how we came to
be.

2. Today, I would like to append a small idea to his big idea.

3. I read decades ago, that the bat's sonar navigation is so advanced that when scientists strung a wire across the path of flying bats, not a single bat flew into that thin wire, proving that their sonar could indeed detect even the thin wire.

4. The big question is, how did the bat develop such an amazing
faculty?

5. Think about it. For this advanced bat sonar navigation to be so
perfect, several things had to happen simultaneously, the absence of
even one of which would prevent this marvellous faculty from being
developed.

6. For example, bats do have eyes, but probably very inferior ones,
so the first requirement for a bat to develop sonar is to have a
reduced use for 'normal' eyes. This is quite plausible by assuming
that sometime back, bats started living in dark caves where there is
little light to see by with normal eyes, and so, bats needed to
develop an alternative 'sight'. However, the question remains, why
couldn't the bat develop better eyes that can see in the dark, even in dark caves? We know that many animals can see in the almost dark, such as hunter animals like the big cat predators, that have highly
developed night vision. So, why did the bat develop sonar instead of
night vision eyes like some of the big cats? Thus, Mr Darwin fails
here. [It is possible that sonar is better than eyes for catching
flying insects in the almost dark].

7. For the second requirement, the bat has to develop an ultrasonic
squeak that could effectively 'bounce' back from objects [like the
thin wire], the echoes being then received by the bat's highly
sensitive ears, which must be responsive to the sound frequencies of
the bat's squeak -- these ears being the third requirement. Meaning
that the bat's ears had to develop or evolve in tandem to its sonar
squeaks, so both together function like a radar or sonar location
finder.

8. The fourth requirement is for the bat to develop a brain function
that could process the echoed squeaks and create a picture of the
terrain highlighting the obstacles [like the wire] to avoid and
probably even prey flying insects to catch for food.

9. Here comes the punchline : all 4 faculties must be
developed/evolved SIMULTANEOUSLY for the sonar navigation to work.
Even if 1 of the requirements is missing or developed/evolved later,
the bat's sonar navigation will not work.

10. Now, that seems almost impossible if you assume that natural
selection is a hit or miss affair, that is, there are many genetic
changes in every creature and that some of these genetic changes then
prove to be useful for survival and so are preserved by the creature
passing onto to offspring, thus keeping the favourable genes in the
gene pool while unfavourable genetic changes doom the creature that
has it thus leading to an early death or inability to mate and pass on this gene or set of genes.

11. If I remember my Darwin correctly, it does seem that Darwin
postulates that evolution is a hit or miss affair, with favourable
genes being passed on and unfavourable genes dying out, both
naturally, that is, by hit or miss.

12. Could mere chance result in the bat's sonar navigation? Remember
that for the bat to evolve this faculty, at least 4 requirements have
to be developed SIMULTANEOUSLY. Even if 1 of the 4 evolve later than
the others, the faculty would not work and thus, according to Darwin,
the bat/s possessing this would die out and not produce progeny that
would further pass on or refine such a faculty.

13. I now come to my little idea. Which is that evolution is not a
hit or miss affair or due to blind chance but guided by an active
impulse. What I am postulating is that, evolution is not just mere
accidental genetic changes that result in survival advantages to the
bearer and are thus passed on, into the gene pool, but that every time a creature develops a set of skills good for survival, this set of skills or abilities get passed on, even if in a general way.

14. To give an example, perhaps a poor one, what I am saying is that, if David Beckham develops a fine set of footballing skills, and this happens to be good for his survival, these footballing skills get passed onto his progeny. It does not mean that his children will be talented footballers like him, but will possess better than ordinary physical attributes such as hand-eye coordination, physical reaction times, balance, excellent leg skills, etc.

15. I would go further than just physical skills like learned and
mastered football skills. I would even postulate that even cultural
skills such as singing or dancing or PhD research skills also result
in changes to the set of characteristics in the bearer of such skills, and thus get passed on to progeny.

16. There is one simple way to test this hypothesis. If a simple
survey is done, and I am right, it would show that a man who fathered
children when young [meaning that he has not mastered any important
skills important for survival] would have pretty ordinary children
compared to say, a PhD scholar who had children long after he had
learned and mastered his faculty/faculties. To use Beckham again, if
Beckham had fathered children when in his teens, say, and again
fathered children after he became a top footballer, then his children
from AFTER his mastery of footballing would be better physical
specimens than his children fathered when Beckham was young and had
not achieved his peak, all other things being equal.

17. A quick survey comparing the children of old fathers to the
children of young fathers would show, if I am right, that old fathers, who would have had more time to master a physical or intellectual or even a cultural skill like music, etc, produce children more gifted in the same general area than young dads.

18. Note that I use the example of fathers. Not mothers. There is a
reason. A woman, even from the day of birth, already has all the eggs
that she would ever produce. This means that her egg-carried genes are fixed already from the time of her birth and therefore cannot carry 'learned' skills like footballing [in Beckham's case], even if the woman egg-carrier were to learn to kick footballs as well as Beckham.

19. On the other hand, males keep producing and expending millions of sperm all the time. This means that, according to my hypothesis, males are responsible for the rapid evolution of the human race, and not females. When a male masters a skill or learns to use his brain in a new way, his sperm changes to carry that new skill or brain
achievement. Perhaps not by way of genetic changes in the sperm but in some as yet undiscovered X-Factor, maybe even in the proteins that
seem to hold much of a person's character and even physical
development. If I am right, males hold the key to evolution and not
females.

20. From Cave Man to Robert HO is just about 10,000 years, or about
200 generations, if we take a generation to be 50 years. 200
generations is very, very short to develop from Cave Man to Robert HO. Yet it has been done. Could hit or miss blind chance evolution
depending on accidental changes to genes accomplish this feat? I don't think so. If I am right, each time a Cave Man learns something new, like, initially, a better way to hunt animals, or later, a better way of using his brain, etc, this even cultural skill gets passed on to his progeny to become part of the gene pool.

21. If I am right, there is not only hope for mankind but also some
suggestions of some important policies for governments. For example,
if learned attributes like say, a talent for music composition, or
mathematical skills, etc, can all be passed on to future generations
in a general way, it does seem good to encourage all individuals to
excel in some areas, whatever it may be.

22. Incidentally, my theory does explain why many skills are seen in
the children of exceptional parents, usually the fathers. Again,
another simple survey could help prove my point, which is that many
cultural skills tend to be passed on from fathers, not mothers. A
survey could show whether children of gifted fathers tend to be more
gifted than children from gifted mothers.

23. One aspect of Darwin's theory is that of survival of the species, not just the individual. We have come very far in just 200
generations. Imagine where we would be in another 200 generations. My
theory suggests that such active impulse in improving the species is
what brought us here so fast. My theory is different from Darwin's in
that Darwin suggests blind chance as the key to our development while
I suggest that an individual's active impulse is the key to the
individual's as well as his species' survival and triumphant
development. Ultimately, my theory is a theory of hope. It says that
the fate of mankind is in our hands, not blind chance, not hit or
miss. And if you think about it, isn't this the most important
development in our species' survival and triumph, that this 'active
impulse' is exactly what the human race has developed as the ultimate
survival mechanism? And what brought us here so far so fast?

Robert HO
27 Sep 04 1320
Singapore
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RH: Idea for a China "Atoms for Peace" Programme

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Idea for a China "Atoms for Peace' programme
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Date: 2004-09-25 02:20:47 PST

From: Robert Ho (ho3@pacific.net.sg)
Subject: RH: Cheap, safe, clean nuclear energy from China

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Date: 2004-08-29 09:14:29 PST


Issue 12.09 - September 2004 Wired Magazine

Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom

Explosive growth has made the People's Republic of China the most
power-hungry nation on earth. Get ready for the mass-produced,
meltdown-proof future of nuclear energy.

By Spencer Reiss

China is staring at the dark side of double-digit growth. Blackouts
roll and factory lights flicker, the grid sucked dry by a decade of
breakneck industrialization. Oil and natural gas are running low, and
belching power plants are burning through coal faster than creaky old
railroads can deliver it. Global warming? The most populous nation on
earth ranks number two in the world - at least the Kyoto treaty isn't
binding in developing countries. Air pollution? The World Bank says
the People's Republic is home to 16 of the planet's 20 worst cities.
Wind, solar, biomass - the country is grasping at every energy
alternative within reach, even flooding a million people out of their
ancestral homes with the world's biggest hydroelectric project.
Meanwhile, the government's plan for holding onto power boils down to
a car for every bicycle and air-conditioning for a billion-odd
potential dissidents.

What's an energy-starved autocracy to do?

Go nuclear.

While the West frets about how to keep its sushi cool, hot tubs warm,
and Hummers humming without poisoning the planet, the cold-eyed
bureaucrats running the People's Republic of China have launched a
nuclear binge right out of That '70s Show. Late last year, China
announced plans to build 30 new reactors - enough to generate twice
the capacity of the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam - by 2020. And even
that won't be enough. The Future of Nuclear Power, a 2003 study by a
blue-ribbon commission headed by former CIA director John Deutch,
concludes that by 2050 the PRC could require the equivalent of 200
full-scale nuke plants. A team of Chinese scientists advising the
Beijing leadership puts the figure even higher: 300 gigawatts of
nuclear output, not much less than the 350 gigawatts produced
worldwide today.

To meet that growing demand, China's leaders are pursuing two
strategies. They're turning to established nuke plant makers like
AECL, Framatome, Mitsubishi, and Westinghouse, which supplied key
technology for China's nine existing atomic power facilities. But
they're also pursuing a second, more audacious course. Physicists and
engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great
leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power
facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a
pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from
mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without
billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of
physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona
fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is
labeled hydrogen.

A soft-spoken scientist named Qian Jihui has no doubt about what the
smaller, safer, hydrogen-friendly design means for the future of
nuclear power, in China and elsewhere. Qian is a former deputy
director general with the International Atomic Energy Agency and an
honorary president of the Nuclear Power Institute of China. He's a
67-year-old survivor of more than one revolution, which means he
doesn't take the notion of upheaval lightly.

"Nobody in the mainstream likes novel ideas," Qian says. "But in the
international nuclear community, a lot of people believe this is the
future. Eventually, these new reactors will compete strategically, and in the end they will win. When that happens, it will leave traditional nuclear power in ruins."

Now we're talking revolution, comrade.

Known as China's MIT, Tsinghua University sprawls across a
Qing-dynasty imperial garden, just outside the rampart of mirrored
Blade Runner towers that line Beijing's North Fourth Ring Road. Wang
Dazhong came here in the mid-1950s as a member of China's first-ever
class of homegrown nuclear engineers. Now he's director emeritus of
Tsinghua's Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, aka INET,
and a key member of Beijing's energy policy team. On a bright morning
dimmed by Beijing's ever-present photochemical haze, Wang sits in a
spartan conference room lit by energy-efficient compact fluorescent
bulbs.

"If you're going to have 300 gigawatts of nuclear power in China - 50
times what we have today - you can't afford a Three Mile Island or
Chernobyl," Wang says. "You need a new kind of reactor."

That's exactly what you can see 40 minutes away, behind a
glass-enclosed guardhouse flanked by military police. Nestled against
a brown mountainside stands a five-story white cube whose spare design screams, "Here be engineers!" Beneath its cavernous main room are the 100 tons of steel, graphite, and hydraulic gear known as HTR-10 (i.e., high-temperature reactor, 10 megawatt). The plant's output is underwhelming; at full power - first achieved in January - it would barely fulfill the needs of a town of 4,000 people. But what's inside HTR-10, which until now has never been visited by a Western
journalist, makes it the most interesting reactor in the world.

In the air-conditioned chill of the visitors' area, a grad student
runs through the basics. Instead of the white-hot fuel rods that fire
the heart of a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000
billiards-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium.
Instead of superhot water - intensely corrosive and highly radioactive - the core is bathed in inert helium. The gas can reach much higher temperatures without bursting pipes, which means a third more energy pushing the turbine. No water means no nasty steam, and no billion-dollar pressure dome to contain it in the event of a leak. And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide - designed to last 1 million years - there's no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.

Wearing disposable blue paper gowns and booties, the grad student
leads the way to a windowless control room that houses three
industry-standard PC workstations and the inevitable electronic
schematic, all valves, pressure lines, and color-coded readouts. In a
conventional reactor's control room, there would be far more to look
at - control panels for emergency core cooling, containment-area
sprinklers, pressurized water tanks. None of that is here. The usual
layers of what the industry calls engineered safety are superfluous.
Suppose a coolant pipe blows, a pressure valve sticks, terrorists
knock the top off the reactor vessel, an operator goes postal and
yanks the control rods that regulate the nuclear chain reaction - no
radioactive nightmare. This reactor is meltdown-proof.

Zhang Zuoyi, the project's 42-year-old director, explains why. The key trick is a phenomenon known as Doppler broadening - the hotter atoms get, the more they spread apart, making it harder for an incoming neutron to strike a nucleus. In the dense core of a conventional reactor, the effect is marginal. But HTR-10's carefully designed geometry, low fuel density, and small size make for a very different story. In the event of a catastrophic cooling-system failure, instead of skyrocketing into a bad movie plot, the core temperature climbs to only about 1,600 degrees Celsius - comfortably below the balls' 2,000-plus-degree melting point - and then falls. This temperature ceiling makes HTR-10 what engineers privately call walk-away safe. As in, you can walk away from any situation and go have a pizza.

"In a conventional reactor emergency, you have only seconds to make
the right decision," Zhang notes. "With HTR-10, it's days, even weeks
- as much time as we could ever need to fix a problem."

This unusual margin of safety isn't merely theoretical. INET's
engineers have already done what would be unthinkable in a
conventional reactor: switched off HTR-10's helium coolant and let the reactor cool down all by itself. Indeed, Zhang plans a show-stopping repeat performance at an international conference of reactor
physicists in Beijing in September. "We think our kind of test may be
required in the market someday," he adds.

Today's nuclear power plants are the fruits of a decision tree rooted
in the earliest days of the atomic age. In 1943, a Manhattan Project
team led by Enrico Fermi sustained the first man-made nuclear chain
reaction in a pile of uranium blocks at the University of Chicago's
Metallurgical Lab. A chemist named Farrington Daniels joined the
effort a short time later. But Daniels wasn't interested in bombs. His focus was on a notion that had been circulating among physicists since the late 1930s: harnessing atomic power for cheap, clean electricity. He proposed a reactor containing enriched uranium "pebbles" - a term borrowed from chemistry - and using gaseous helium to transfer energy to a generator.

The Daniels pile, as the concept was called, was taken seriously
enough that Oak Ridge National Laboratory commissioned Monsanto to
design a working version in 1945. Before it could be built, though, a
bright Annapolis graduate named Hyman Rickover "sailed in with the
Navy," as Daniels later put it, and the competing idea of building a
rod-fueled, water-cooled reactor to power submarines. With US Navy
money backing the new design, the pebble bed fell by the wayside, and
Daniels returned to the University of Wisconsin. By the time of his
death in 1972, he was known as a pioneer of - irony alert - solar
power. Indeed, the International Solar Energy Society's biennial award bears his name.

By the mid-1950s, with President Eisenhower preaching "atoms for
peace" before the United Nations, civilian nuclear power was squarely
on the table. The newly created General Atomics division of General
Dynamics assembled 40 top nuclear scientists to spend the summer of
1956 brainstorming reactor designs. The leading light was Edward
Teller, godfather of the H-bomb, and his message to the group was
prophetic. For people to accept nuclear power, he argued, reactors
must be "inherently safe." He even proposed a practical test: If you
couldn't pull out every control rod without causing a meltdown, the
design was inadequate.

But Teller's advice was ignored in the rush to beat the Russians to
meter-free electricity. Instead of pursuing inherent safety, the
nascent civilian nuclear industry followed Rickover into fuel rods,
water cooling, and ever more layers of protection against the hazards
of radioactive steam emissions and runaway chain reaction. To try to
amortize the cost of all that backup, plants ballooned, tripling in
average size in less than a decade and contributing to a crippling
financial crunch in the mid-'70s. Finally, partial meltdowns at Three
Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 pulled the plug on reactor
construction in most of the world.

Even where the pebble-bed concept took root, the industry's woes
conspired against it. In Germany, a charismatic physicist named Rudolf Schulten picked up the idea and by 1985 a full-scale prototype was online - too large, in fact, to meet Teller's inherent safety test. Barely a year later, with Chernobyl's fallout raining over Europe, a minor malfunction at the German reactor set off nightmare headlines. Before long, the plant was mothballed.

The twin disasters in Pennsylvania and Ukraine proved Teller's point
and inverted his hopeful formulation: The Union of Concerned
Scientists pronounced nuclear power "inherently dangerous." The
industry, already staggered by overbuilding and runaway budgets,
ground to a halt. The newest of the 104 reactors operating in the US
today was greenlighted in 1979. And there our story might have ended,
except

Even as the nuclear establishment was putting all its efforts into
avoiding the klieg lights, scientists in two faraway places were
carrying the torch for a better reactor. One was South Africa, where
in the mid-1990s the national utility company quietly licensed
Germany's cast-off pebble-bed design and set about trying to raise the necessary funds. The other was China, where the Tsinghua team pursued a Nike strategy: Just do it.

Frank Wu's glass-walled ninth-floor office at Innovation Plaza offers
a commanding view of Tsinghua University's leafy campus. That's no
accident: The university co-owns this complex of gleaming silver
towers, designed as a magnet for high tech startups. Likewise Wu's
company, Chinergy, is a 50-50 joi